512 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



more scientific men per thousand of its population than New England 

 has hitherto produced. In the first list of the thousand leading scien- 

 tific men, Massachusetts produced 109 and Connecticut 87 per million 

 of their population. Of the younger men added to the list in the sec- 

 ond arrangement under comparable conditions, Massachusetts pro- 

 duced 85 and Connecticut 57. The other North Atlantic states failed 

 in like measure, while the central states show a gain — Michigan from 

 36 to 74, Minnesota from 23 to 59, etc. These changes must be at- 

 tributed to an altered environment, not to an altered racial stock. 

 Japan had no scientific men a generation ago and China has none now, 

 but it may be that in a few years their contributions to science will 

 rival ours. 



A Darwin born in China in 1809 could not have become a Darwin, 

 nor could a Lincoln born here on the same day have become a Lincoln 

 had there been no civil war. If the two infants had been exchanged 

 there would have been no Darwin in America and no Lincoln in Eng- 

 land. Darwin was a member of a distinguished family line possessing 

 high natural ability and the advantages of opportunity and wealth. 

 Lincoln had no parental inheritance of ability or wealth, but he too 

 had innate capacity and the opportunity of circumstance. If no infants 

 had been born with the peculiar natural constitutions of Darwin and 

 Lincoln, men like them could not have been made by any social insti- 

 tutions, but none the less the work they did might have been accom- 

 plished by others and perhaps their fame would have been allotted to 

 others. There may have been in England other family lines equal in 

 natural ability to the Darwins and in this country other individuals as 

 well constituted as Lincoln, but undistinguished from lack of oppor- 

 tunity. It is still more probable that such conditions obtain in Russia 

 and in China, in whose graveyards there may lie innumerable "mute 

 inglorious" Mil tons, Lincolns and Darwins. 



The most exceptional ability may be suppressed by circumstances; 

 but it can sometimes deal with them on equal or perhaps superior 

 terms. Thus the writer has pointed out how widely distributed in race, 

 age and performance are the most distinguished men who have lived.'^ 

 When we turn from the most eminent men to those next in rank, we 

 may doubt whether their natural ability has not been equaled by thou- 

 sands who have not attained distinction. Among the two hundred 

 most eminent men who have lived in the history of the world are: 

 Napoleon III., Nero, Fox, Julian, Fenelon, Clive, Alberoni, Bentley and 

 Gerson. It is quite conceivable that there are at present living in the 

 United States hundreds or thousands of men having as great natural 

 ability as these. There may be a hundred thousand men and women 



T "A Statistical Study of Eminent Men," The Popular Science Monthly, 

 1903. 



