68 



BASIS OF INVESTIGATION. 



RECORD OF THE CENTURIES. 



In the back part of the fourth volume of the Encyclopedic Dic- 

 tionary (edition of 1895) there is a "Pronouncing Dictionary of 

 Biography," containing about nine thousand names. As the list 

 contains the names Smith, Jones and Brown, it is evident that "pro- 

 nouncing" is not the criterion by which names are included or ex- 

 cluded, but that there are included the names of those who have 

 achieved greatness by some means or other. Opposite each name is 

 the date of birth and death as far as known. To determine how far 



FIG. 1. DISTRIBUTION OF EMINENT MEN GIVEN IN PRONOUNCING 



DICTIONARY. 



this list of eminent men would confirm or contradict the theory of 

 use-inheritance as applied to modern Europe, I tabulated the entire 

 list by their births, arranging them in centuries. The result of this 

 tabulation is given in Fig. 1. 



This diagram shows that before the revival of learning Europe 

 produced very few men who were eminent enough to have their 

 names preserved in a Pronouncing Dictionary of Biography, while 

 immediately following the revival the number increased rapidly and 



