A STUDY OF BRITISH GENIUS. 375 



Putting aside the women for the moment, we find that Great 

 Britain has produced no fewer than 859 men of a high degree of 

 intellectual eminence. These I classify, according to the direction of 

 their activities, as follows: Actors, 23; Artists (painters, sculptors, 

 architects), 69; Business Men, 3; Divines, 128; Doctors, 7; Lawyers, 

 35; Men of Letters, 150; Men of Science (and inventors), 94; Musical 

 Composers, 14; Philanthropists, 4; Philosophers, 27; Poets, 98; Poli- 

 ticians (statesmen, agitators, administrators, etc.), 113; Sailors, 29; 

 Scholars, 40; Schoolmasters, 4; Soldiers, 46; Travelers and Explorers, 9. 



It is necessary to make certain remarks concerning this classifica- 

 tion. In the first place, there is some amount of duplication, owing 

 to one man having sometimes distinguished himself in more than 

 one field. This I have sought to minimize by placing a man only 

 in those departments in which he really reached a high degree of 

 eminence; thus many individuals belonging to the church or the law 

 appear in my lists only as Politicians, Philosophers or Men of Letters, 

 and not as Divines or Lawyers. It must be admitted, however, that, in 

 a large proportion of cases, the question of classification and of duplica- 

 tion remains difficult and doubtful. The longest and most miscellane- 

 ous group is that of Men of Letters. It would have been possible to 

 include the Poets also in this group, and in some cases (especially in 

 regard to some of the Elizabethan dramatists) it has been difficult 

 to decide into which group a writer should fall; but, on the whole, the 

 Poets were too large, important and homogeneous a group to be 

 merged into the miscellaneous body of Men of Letters. The smallness 

 of the group of Business Men will probably attract attention. It would, 

 indeed, be possible to enlarge the group somewhat, especially by 

 including various prosperous publishers and newspaper proprietors; 

 but it scarcely appeared that the biographers of these worthies regarded 

 them as persons of extraordinary intellectual ability, and it was also 

 notable that in many cases they owed much to birth and circumstances; 

 in any case, the group would still remain small. It may seem strange 

 that 'a nation of shopkeepers' should have produced so few merchant 

 princes entitled to figure brilliantly in this 'Dictionary.' The real reason 

 seems to be that a man of marked ability is not content to achieve 

 success in business only; he uses his business capacity merely as an 

 instrument for attaining further ends, to become free to devote himself 

 to literary or scientific aims, and especially to obtain an entry into 

 politics; business success is thus subordinated to success in other fields. 

 It must be added that, while many inventors have used their scientific 

 activity to build up large businesses, their claim to recognition in the 

 ' Dictionary ' remains that of men of science. Another unexpectedly 

 small group is that of Doctors. Here, again, it would have been possible 

 to enlarge the group somewhat by including a certain number of 



