AMERICAN MEN OF SCIENCE 



787 



seems probable that few or none of them 

 TTOuld have become scientific men. It may 

 also be the case that few or none of the 

 babies from the south transplanted to New 

 England would have become scientific 

 men, but it is probably true that a nearly 

 equal number of scientific men would have 

 been reared in New England. It is cer- 

 tain that there would not have been 174 

 leading scientific men from the extreme 

 southern states and practically none from 

 Massachusetts and Connecticut. If the 

 stock of the southern states remains un- 

 diluted, it may, as social conditions 

 change, produce even more scientific men 

 per thousand of its population than New 

 England has hitherto produced. In the 

 first list of the thousand leading scientific 

 men, Massachusetts produced 109 and 

 Connecticut 87 per million of their popu- 

 lation. Of the younger men added to the 

 list in the second arrangement under 

 comparable conditions, Massachusetts pro- 

 duced 85 and Connecticut 57. The other 

 North Atlantic states failed in like meas- 

 ure, while the central states show a gain 

 ^Michigan from 36 to 74, Minnesota from 

 23 to 59, etc. These changes must be 

 attributed to an altered environment, not 

 to an altered racial stock. Japan had no 

 distinguished 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 oure. 



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 ex- 

 changed there would have been no DarAvin 

 in America and no Lincoln in England. 

 Darwin was a member of a distinguislied 

 family line possessing high natural ability 

 and the advantages of opportimity and 

 wealth. Lincoln had no parental inheri- 

 tance 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 constitu- 

 tions of Darsvin and Lincoln, men like 

 them could not have been made by any 

 social institutions, but none the less the 

 work they did miglit 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 Dar- 

 wins and in this country other individuals 

 as well constituted as Lincoln, but un- 

 distinguished from lack of opportunity. 

 It is still more probable that such condi- 

 tions obtain in Russia and in China, in 

 whose graveyards there may lie innumer- 

 able "mute inglorious" Miltons, Lincolns 

 and Darwins. 



Tlie 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 arc the most 

 distinguished men who have lived.* When 

 we turn from the most eminent men to 

 those next in rajik, we may doubt whether 

 their natural ability has not been equaled 

 by thousands who have not attained dis- 

 tinction. 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 con- 

 ceivable that there are at present living in 

 the United States hundreds or thousands 

 of men having as great njitural ability as 

 these. There may be a lumdred thousand 

 men and women having the natural and 

 specific ability of the thousand in this 

 country' who have accomplished the best 

 scientific work. 



President A. Lawrence Lowell lias re- 

 marked that we have a better cliance of 

 rearing eaglets from eagles' eggs i>laced 

 under a hen than from hen's eggs placed 

 in an eagle's nest. But it is also true that 



8 "A StAtisticftl Study of Eminent Men," The 

 Popular Science Monthhj, 1903. 



