Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 62.djvu/368

362 took six biographical dictionaries or encyclopædias —two English, two French, one German and one American and found the two thousand men (approximately) in each who were allowed the longest articles. In this way some 6,000 men were found. I then selected the men who appeared in the lists of at least three of the dictionaries, and from these (some 1,600) selected the thousand who were allowed the greatest average space, the value of the separate dictionaries being reduced to a common standard. Thus was obtained not only the thousand men esteemed the most eminent, but also the order in which they stand.

This list represents the point of view of these dictionaries, and would be somewhat different had other works been selected. Mathematical science can indeed assign a probable error to each name on the list, and tell us how likely it is that the man should be there, and within what limits his place on the list is likely to be correct. But the greater men of the thousand would remain whatever the authorities collated; and although the personal names of the lesser men might vary, this would affect but little the statistics sought. The preparation of this list required more work than may be supposed, but it has an objective impartiality and value, which it would not have if the names had been selected by an easier method.

According to this list the ten most eminent men are Napoleon, Shakespeare, Mahommed, Voltaire, Bacon, Aristotle, Goethe, Cæsar, Luther, Plato. There is no doubt but that Napoleon is the most eminent man who has lived. Yet it should give us pause to think that this Titan of anarchy stands first in the thoughts of most men. It is curious that these ten preeminent men are so widely separated in race and age—two Greeks, two Frenchmen, two Germans, two Englishmen, one Roman and one Arab: two in the fifth century and one in the first century before Christ, one in the sixth, one in the fifteenth, two in the sixteenth and three in the eighteenth century. The ten names last on the list are Otho, Sertorius, Macpherson, Claudian, Domitian, Bugeaud, Charles I. of Naples, Fauriel, Enfantin and Babeuf. These are scarcely great men, yet they fairly represent the lower limits of the thousand who are most eminent. Each hundred in the list shows a nice gradation in eminence. There are indeed many cases where each of us would shift a man up or down, but further examination will show that the opinion in such cases is usually individual, not having the objective validity of this series. I give for reference the thousand preeminent men of the world in the order of eminence, divided into groups of one hundred.