Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 62.djvu/377

Rh while the last thirty years have altered not only critical opinion, but also popular taste.

If we regard now more especially the racial distribution of our great men, we get results conveniently exhibited in the accompanying figure. The heights of the rectangles are proportional to the numbers of great men produced by several nations. France leads, followed pretty closely by Great Britain. Then there is a considerable fall to Germany and Italy. Borne and Greece are nearly alike. America has produced one more eminent man than Spain (not on the chart) which is followed by Switzerland, Holland and Sweden. We then reach the nations headed by Russia, which have produced fewer than 10 preeminent men. The shaded rectangles show the distribution of the 500 men who are the most eminent and the heavily shaded rectangles the hundred who are the greatest of all. Here the relations are somewhat altered. Great Britain surpasses France, and Greece has produced more exceptionally great men than Germany.

We have already noticed the curves showing separately the Greek and Roman periods. Similar curves for the leading modern nations are given in the chart. The Italian renaissance is followed by its decadence with a partial revival in recent times. Germany for one short period in the fifteenth century rivaled France and England, but in the two following centuries lagged far behind, to rise with great rapidity in the eighteenth century. France and Great Britain, as we have seen, have produced nearly the same number of great men, and their curves during the centuries cross and recross. The British curve is somewhat more regular than the French, exhibiting perhaps certain racial characteristics. As has been already stated, the French revolution brought into prominence many men not truly great, and the position then attained by France is not held in the nineteenth century. In so far as the curves