A STATISTICAL STUDY OF EMINENT MEN. 369 



These curves which of course give only a graphic representation 

 of quantitative relations whose general character we all know indicate 

 that heredity, including under the term both stability and variability 

 of the stock, is more potent than social tradition or physical environ- 

 ment. We have these races forming by their own inherent genius a 

 social environment far beyond anything the world had ever witnessed, 

 but when this was at its maximum it had not power to counteract the 

 weakening influence of race admixture and exhaustion of the stock. 

 The physical environment also remained the same, and those who 

 would account for Greek and Eoman culture by the favorable position 

 of the two Mediterranean peninsulas their climate, soil, coast line 



loo too 10c (to sco iioo 300 100 100 -0 0+ 100. loo 300 ido $00 

 The Curves Show the Distribution of Eminent Men in the Greco-Roman Period. 



and the like should tell us why these could not maintain what they 

 had formed. Why should the Greeks then have resisted the countless 

 hordes of Persia, while recently on the same ground they fled before a 

 few thousand Turks? Physical environment and social tradition may 

 be conditions of development, but they are not its efficient causes. 



Following the extraordinary development of the two nations of 

 classical antiquity we have a decline, not sudden, for Rome still pro- 

 duced soldiers and writers, the Christian Church had its leaders and 

 theologians, and the Greeks witnessed their Indian summer in Alex- 

 andria. But the light fails toward the fifth century never, however, 

 to be quenched, for there were always one or two to pass on the torch 

 until the fire was rekindled in newer races. In Britain, in Germany 

 and in France there developed centers of civilization. The mixed races 

 of Italy gave birth to an art and a literature rivaling that of Greece. 

 The Roman Catholic Church fairly established its authority by the 

 great men it produced. It was a strange time, all Europe was in tur- 

 moil, but universities were established and the arts of peace flourished 

 in the midst of wars. 



The curve shows a rise from the tenth century increasing in rapidity 

 as it proceeds. As the list includes only men no longer living, and as 

 many of those born during the first half of the nineteenth century were 

 still living and had not even attained eminence when the books of refer- 

 ence on which the list is based were compiled, the absolute numbers of 

 those born since 1800 have no value, but they serve for comparison 



VOL. LXII. 24. 



