MENTAL APTITUDES. 173 



CHARACTER OF MOHAMMED. 



Of our five men there remains only Mohammed, who is ordi- 

 narily classed with Buddha, Confucius and Moses because he is 

 the founder of a great religion, but in cast of character he is 

 removed from these men by an almost infinite distance. Instead 

 of teaching and practicing peace and good will toward men, we 

 find him spreading his doctrines by means of the sword. During 

 the first years of the Hegira he proclaimed war against unbe- 

 lievers and commenced with attacks upon caravans of pilgrims. 

 He was continually engaged in aggressive warfare, and even at- 

 tempted to overthrow the Byzantine Empire. Evidently Moham- 

 med was more nearly like Alexander than he was like Buddha or 

 Confucius. 



If we should extend this inquiry it could easily be shown that 

 Handel [63] was principally famous for his church music; Dante 

 [A] and Milton [45] for their great moral and religious epics; 

 Swift [27] for his attacks upon the politicians of his day; and so 

 on through a large number of other persons who are more or less 

 removed from our established centers. But the multiplication of 

 examples is unnecessary. Enough has been given to show that the 

 cast of character as well as the mental capacity is very strongly 

 influenced by the age of the father at the time of the child's birth. 



GROUP OF POETS EXAMINED. . 



Comparatively early in my investigation I drew off from my 

 lists the names of eight poets for the purpose of studying them in 

 their relationship to each other. At the time this short list was 

 made, these persons were the only poets whose birth-ranks I then 

 had. Because I had obtained some outside opinions in regard to 



