406 HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT 



and total population about equal to that of the 

 present State of Rhode Island but with less 

 than one-fifth as many free persons produced 

 at least twenty-five illustrious men. Among 

 statesmen and commanders there were Milti- 

 ades, Themistocles, Aristides, Cimon, Pericles, 

 Phocion; among poets ^Eschylus, Euripides, 

 Sophocles, Aristophanes; among philosophers 

 and men of science Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, 

 Demetrius, Theophrastus ; among architects 

 and artists Ictinus, Phidias, Praxiteles, Poly- 

 gnotus; among historians Thucydides and 

 Xenophon; among orators ^Eschines, Demos- 

 thenes, Isocrates, Lysias. In this small coun- 

 try in the space of two centuries there 

 appeared such a galaxy of illustrious men as 

 has never been found on the whole earth in 

 any two centuries since that time. 



These illustrious men came from a remark- 

 able race composed of individuals drawn 

 together from all the shores of the Mediter- 

 ranean by a process of unconscious but severe 

 selection. Athens was the intellectual and so- 

 cial capital of the world and to it the most 

 ambitious and most capable men were irresist- 



