Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 62.djvu/380

374 Soldiers are also surpassed in numbers by men of science and our curves foretell the gradual cessation of wars. Churchmen and theologians are of decreasing importance in human affairs. It is interesting to note that the sterility at the end of the seventeenth century and the subsequent revival hold for nearly every separate department. Fiction and belleslettres make the only exception, their growth in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries continued in the nineteenth century, and the number of prose writers, novelists, essayists and the like, who attained eminence in the past century, surpasses that in any other department. Any librarian can confirm this by telling what books are most read. Poetry and art seem to be failing. Next to politics and belleslettres, science occupies the most important place.

The first five hundred were separated from the five hundred less eminent men, but they were found to be nearly equally divided in the different classes, except that there are more very great poets and fewer very great men of letters.

The accompanying chart shows the contributions of different nations to different departments. It is evident that France has excelled in war, in belleslettres and in science—England in politics, in poetry and in philosophy—Italy in art. Germany has produced ten and Italy six of the eighteen great musicians. Of the fourteen great explorers England has produced five and Spain four.

There are two somewhat anomalous classes of eminent men which I have not as yet mentioned. Hereditary sovereigns and those made eminent purely by circumstance. The hereditary sovereigns included are of course only the more eminent, 102 in all, but they can not be compared with the other classes. Only eight have been included under the class of those eminent by circumstance, of whom Casper Hauser is typical—but several others, especially the wives of kings, might be placed there.