6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



This being true, is it not remarkable that such unanimity of agree- 

 ment should have resulted from its application ? It appears to predi- 

 cate the existence of a racial concept of greatness. Undoubtedly this 

 racial idea exists. Philosophers of esthetics have troubled themselves 

 not a little to account for its origination. While considering this 

 elusory problem, the following solution has occurred to me. I offer it 

 as an hypothesis. 



An investigation of the specific works accomplished by men ranked 

 great reveals a curious fundamental similarity: They all relate to the 

 heroic. That is to say they are either actual deeds which relieved an 

 individual, a community or a nation from danger, or they commemorate 

 such deeds in a masterly way. The favorite theme of poets has always 

 been " arms, and the man." And painters and sculptors have immor- 

 talized men whose acts furnish the implied answer to the query of brave 

 Horatius, the keeper of the gate : 



How can a man die better than by facing fearful odds, 

 For the ashes of his fathers and the altars of his gods? 



By this analysis, the statesman is but the warrior who, with intellect 

 as weapon, defends his nation. 



If we consider the evolution of human society, it is not difficult to 

 understand how this conception of greatness has grown up and estab- 

 lished itself in the subconscious racial mind. 



Back yonder in the gray and murky dawn of time, man was not that 

 we see him to-day. Then, indeed, the conditions were exactly reversed ; 

 and man — puny, naked, defenceless — cowered in caves, or wandered 

 miserably about seeking the sustenance which his nature demanded, but 

 for the winning of which he was more illy equipped than the beetle that 

 he crushed beneath his heel. Behind every rock, in every bunch of 

 herbage, in every stream and pool, in the air he breathed, in the clouds 

 that rolled above his head, in the glare of the sun, and in the gloom of 

 night lurked death and a thousand dismal terrors. 



That the human species escaped extermination at its very beginning 

 is a marvel, and due solely to the one point wherein man is superior to 

 other animals, namely, greater development of the frontal brain wherein 

 lie the centers of memory and language. In that primitive society 

 were some who remembered what things were good for food and where 

 to be found; and so provided against death by poison and famine. 

 Some devised protection against carnivorous animals or enemies of 

 their own kind. These became head men. And, on account of their 

 superior knowledge or prowess, they were esteemed while living and 

 revered when dead. The memory of their deeds lived after them in 

 song and story. And so they were gradually transformed from men 

 into heroes and, later, into gods. 



Oliver Wendell Holmes, alluding to the influence of heredity, said 



