142 



The Review of Reviews. 



modern Europe, picked up amongst a couple of 

 million souls in the great multitude : — 



The greatest devotional writer — • Tiiomas h. 

 Kempis. 



The greatest humanist — Erasmus. 



The greatest anti-Reform. Jesuit — Canisius. 



The greatest jurist — Grotius. 



The greatest philosopher — Spinoza. 



The greatest physicist — Christ. Huygens. 



The greatest painter — Rembrandt. 



The greatest founder of a State — William the 

 Silent. 



The greatest statesman-king — William III. 



The greatest admiral — De Ruyter. 



The greatest physician — Boerhave. 



The greatest military engineer — Coehoorn. 

 " Pretty good — is it not ?" 



Sir Hiram Maxim's List. 

 The list of Sir Hiram Maxim is very characteristic. 

 Sir Hiram is one of our- few public men who are 

 vehemently opposed to religions of all kinds. He 

 accompanied his paper by an assertion that neither 

 Moses nor St. Paul ever existed ! This animus 

 explains the presence of Colonel IngersoU and Tom 

 Paine among the world's greatest men : — 



Confucius, author of the golden rule, B.C. 551 — 



B.C. 479- 

 Archimedes, science and mathematics, B.C. 287 — 

 B.C. 212. 



/'/l y/i'j^-r.i/'/i 



Sir Iliraiii Maxim. 



Columbus, who discovered America after it had 



been discovered by others, 1435 — 1506. 

 Shakespeare, 1564 — 1616. 

 Galileo, astronomical discovery, 1564 — 1642. 

 Voltaire, gave superstition its death-blow, 1694 — 



'778. 

 Benjamin Franklin, drew electricity from the sky, 



1706 - 1790. 

 Watt, inventor of the modern steam engine, 1736 — 



1819. 

 Thomas Paine, liberator of man's mind, 1737 — 



1809. 

 Thomas Jefferson, rejected the superstition of his 



time, 1743 —1826. 

 Jenner, discoverer of vaccination, 1749 — 1823. 

 Napoleon, the greatest soldier, 1769 — 1821. 

 Stephenson, inventor of locomotive, 1781 — 1848. 

 Abraham Lincoln, the best of great men and the 



greatest of good men, 1809 — 1865. 

 Darwin, work of evolution, 1809 — 1882. 

 Bessemer, inventor of steel process, 1813 — 1898. 

 Pasteur, bacteriologist, 1822 1895. 

 Colonel IngersoU, killed the devil and abolished 



Hell, 1833— 1899. 

 Ernest Haeckel, greatest living scientist, 1834. 

 . Graham Bell, inventor of telephone, 1847. 



Mr. Harold Begbie's List. 



Mr. Harold Begbie's list is in contrast to that of 

 Sir Hiram Maxim's : — 



" By greatest I mean most valuable to the greatest 

 number of humanity in the sense of giving happiness 

 and vision and knowledge. Therefore I exclude 

 Napoleon, who was a greater man than Charles 

 Dickens, and prefer Frazer, who has illumined the 

 whole region of superstition, before Julius Caesar, 

 who was no doubt a man of most exceptional force 

 and power. Until one has a definition about the 

 word greatest it is impossible to compose a reason- 

 able list. No man, I .suppose, has given more 

 comfort and joy and encouragement to the human 

 race than David ; but he did not invent the rotary 

 engine nor employ coal as illuniinant. Which is the 

 greater — David or Symington ? David or Murdock ? 

 One has to think before one decides, Which has 

 done more for the human race, the Twenty-third 

 Psalm or the Steam Engine ? " ^ 



Moses, 15th century B.C. 

 David, about 1055 — 10 15 B.C. 

 Socrates, about 469 B.C. 

 St. Paul. 



CJulenberg, 1400 — 1468. 

 Michael Angelo, 1475 1.S64. 

 Luther, 1483 — 1546. 

 William the Silent, 1533 1584. 

 Shakespeare, 1564—1616 

 Newton, 1642-1727. 

 Handel, 1685 — 1759. 

 Watt, 1736 -1819. 

 Beethoven, 1770 — 1827. 



