GREAT MEN OF THE WORLD. 



155 



COMPARISON OF TABLES. 



As we read down the list from table to table of those whose 

 birth-ranks are given, it is often difficult to distinguish the relative 

 rank of one of them as compared to the next adjacent one above 

 or below, but when we compare any two groups in which the 

 birth-ranks are separated by ten years, the difficulty disappears, 

 and we can readily see that the figures are a relatively accurate 

 representation of the difference between them. When we come 

 to the last three, groups of those provided with birth-ranks, and 

 particularly to the group having birth-ranks under twenty-five, 

 we find many men who have achieved world-wide fame, but men 

 who cannot be strictly said to have acquired that fame because 

 of great mental endowments. As previously pointed out, fame is 

 not necessarily commensurate with intellectual greatness. 



LOMBROSO ON MILITARY COMMANDERS. 



In an article on "Megalomania," 1 Professor Lombroso says: 

 "Now that historians have dropped their reverence for mere con- 

 querors, the megalomania of these kings becomes perceptible. 

 They were one and all afflicted with insane big-headedness ; insane 

 big-headedness directed their every action; this nervous malady 

 overruled their intellect and finally superseded it. You will say, 

 surely Alexander was possessed with a powerful mind. So he was ; 

 but remember that as a child he dreaded the possibility of his 

 father's conquest of the world, that as a man he carried war into 

 India, which could have been of no use to him, and that his 



empire went to pieces even before his death Charles XII 



of Sweden acted even worse than Louis XIV. . . . This fool 

 invaded the interior of Russia, and after he succeeded in annihi- 

 (i) Chicago Tribune, April 21, 1901. 



