From Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay *Self-Reliance* (1841). Select the word that fits the blank. "It may be safely trusted as proportionate and of good issues, so it be faithfully imparted, but God will not have his work made manifest by ______."

Emerson is exhorting the reader to *faithfully impart* their own *divine idea*. The closing clause warns that this work will not be done by those who shrink from speaking — i.e. those who lack the courage to declare their thought. "Cowards" — those who flee from the demand of speaking what they perceive — is the precise antagonist of *faithfully imparted*. - "Heroes" reverses the contrast. - "Children" introduces age, irrelevant. - "Scholars" introduces a different vocational target. The sentence's structure is *will not have X done by Y*, where *Y* must name those who would fail at *X*. Cowards are the natural failure case.