''So much had happened that would have caused lesser men to give up. As Ulloa wrote, theirs had been a mission marked by a 'series of labors and hardships, by which the health and vigor of all were in some measure impaired.' But they never had, and the fact that they had kept on until they achieved these results spoke volumes about their character. La Condamine and the others may have been deeply flawed human beings---often vain, fractious, and petty---but they had proven themselves to be men of resolve and courage, Enlightenment scientists through and through.