37o POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The increase in eminent men as we approach our own day may be 

 partly a matter of perspective. Still the numbers should normally 

 increase with larger population and multiplication of opportunity and 

 interests. It is unfortunately very difficult to compare the number of 

 great men with the total population from which they arose. Were a 

 curve of this sort drawn, however, it would be very dfferent from that 

 here exhibited. The rise in modern times would be much less ; and the 

 Greek and Koman periods would surpass that of the end of the eigh- 

 teenth century. 



In our curve there are three noticeable breaks. Perhaps nothing 

 could serve better than such a curve to impress on the minds of school 

 children, or even on our own, the eddies in the stream. It must be 

 remembered that the curves give the numbers of men born in each half 

 century, while the period in which they nourished is about fifty years 

 later. Thus in the fourteenth century there was a pause followed by a 

 gradual improvement and an extraordinary fruition at the end of the 

 fifteenth century. Painting is represented in Italy by Eaphael, Angelo, 

 Leonardo, Titian, Correggio and Sarto, in Germany by Holbein and 

 Durer. Savonarola failed, while Luther led a reformation. Columbus 

 discovered a new world and Copernicus discovered innumerable worlds. 

 There was then a pause in progress, until a century later England 

 and France took the lead. Spenser was quickly followed by Shakes- 

 peare, who did not stand alone among English dramatists. A little 

 later Moliere, Kacine and Corneille represented the drama in a group 

 of eminent French men of letters. Descartes and Bacon revived phi- 

 losophy and science; while Italy, failing in art, produced Galileo. 



The latter part of the seventeenth century was a sterile period, fol- 

 lowed by a revival culminating in the French revolution. Here, as in 

 other periods, it is difficult to decide how far men were made eminent 

 by circumstance and how far great men were leaders in new movements. 

 The social upheaval in France gave eminence to political and military 

 leaders who otherwise would have remained in obscurity, and given a 

 Napoleon his complement is a Wellington. The progress of science may 

 in part be an answer to the demands of increasing population. But 

 philosophy and art also witnessed a renaissance. In Germany we have 

 Kant, Goethe and the development of music, in England, poets speaking 

 a new language. Here great men seem not so much the creatures as the 

 creators of their environment. 



As we come nearer to our own times it becomes increasingly difficult 

 to measure tendencies by the methods we are using. The positions of 

 men on the list are subject to larger probable and constant errors. 

 Byron may be a household word on the continent and Shelley unknown, 

 while the best criticism may place Shelley above Byron. Our list 

 places Mendelssohn above Bach and ignores Schumann altogether 



