CORRESPONDENCE. 



207 



statesman unless he lives at least a suf- 

 ficient number of years to acquire the 

 development of an adult, and to have 

 the opportunity of developing his abil- 

 ities and distinguishing himself. If 

 great men were great from their in- 

 fancy, and if we had the means of as 

 certaining this fact, then, and only then, 

 would the method used be correct. 



It is ordinarily stated that the aver- 

 age duration of life is somewhere be- 

 tween thirty-three and forty years, and 

 Mr. Thayer considers that in the pres- 

 ent century it has moved forward to- 

 wards the latter figure. What this 

 means is that if we were to keep a 

 record of the age at death of all Ameri- 

 cans who are to be born within the 

 first ten years of the coming century, 

 we should find that their average age 

 at death would be some thirty odd 

 years. But this number can by no 

 means be used as a standard with which 

 to compare the average age at death of 

 men of distinction, or indeed of any 

 other class of men selected according 

 to a standard which involves on their 

 part the attainment of mature years. 

 If we were investigating the longevity 

 of twins, or of persons with supernum- 

 erary toes, or indeed of persons pos- 

 sessing any quality which one could de- 

 tect in new-born infants, and if we 

 could determine the average life-period 

 of this class of persons and find that 

 it markedly exceeded the average of 

 the entire community, we should be en- 

 titled to conclude that twins, or persons 

 who have supernumerary toes, are 

 blessed with a greater longevity than 

 the average man. But so long as men 

 who are to acquire distinction bear no 

 traces upon them of this power until 

 they exhibit their powers and actually 

 gain distinction, it is obvious that we 

 are concerned with their longevity only 

 from that moment when they have 

 entered, or have become promising can- 

 didates for that class of selected indi- 

 viduals whose longevity we are investi- 

 gating. Proceeding on this basis, I tried 

 to determine the age at which, on the 

 average, men of genius had accom- 



plished a work sufficient to entitle them 

 to be so denominated. This investiga- 

 tion was instigated by Mr. C. S. Peirce, 

 then in charge of courses in logic at the 

 Johns Hopkins University. Under his 

 leadership a small company, of whom I 

 was one, proposed to study certain 

 traits of great men, and for this purpose 

 we tried to select the three hundred 

 greatest' men of all times. The work 

 was never carried on to completion, so 

 that the final selection of the names, 

 and particularly their use in the present 

 connection, must rest on my sole re- 

 sponsibility. I mention these facts 

 mainly to indicate the general repre- 

 sentative character of the list which I 

 used. I take from my previously pub- 

 lished article the following essential 

 facts: Omitting all doubtful names, 

 about two hundred and fifty names re- 

 main, presenting a list which most per- 

 sons would agree to be fairly representa- 

 tive of the greatest men of all times. Of 

 these again I selected at random those 

 about whom it was easiest to fix the 

 age at which they had done work which 

 would entitle them to a place on this 

 list, or work which almost inevitably 

 led to such distinction. It is a date about 

 midway between the first important 

 work and the greatest work. The av- 

 erage of over sixty such ages is thirty- 

 seven years; which means that, on the 

 average, a man must be thirty-seven 

 years old in order to be a candidate for 

 a place on this list. The real question, 

 then, is, How does the longevity of this 

 select class of thirty-seven-year-old men 

 compare with that of more ordinary in- 

 dividuals? The answer is given by the 

 expectation of life at thirty-seven years, 

 which is twenty-nine years, making the 

 average age at death sixty-six years. 

 And this is precisely the age at death 

 of these sixty great men; showing that, 

 as a class (for these sixty may be con- 

 sidered a fair sample) great men are 

 not distinguished by longevity from 

 other men." 



It will thus be seen that my own 



conclusion is entirely opposed to that 



I of Mr. Thayer. But this opposition 



