IX
THE EVENTFUL MAN AND THE EVENT-MAKING MAN
Throughout this book we have been using the word “hero” in the rather large and vague sense given to it in common usage. It is now necessary to make the term sufficiently precise to permit some check upon the position that will be subsequently developed.
Before proceeding to the main distinction upon which our thesis hangs, it will be helpful to introduce a few secondary distinctions that have been alluded to in earlier chapters. First of all, we must distinguish between the hero of historical action and the hero of thought. Popular estimates of “great” or “eminent” men rarely differentiate between the two. Thus in the well-known survey made by J. McKeen Cattell on the outstanding figures in Western history, the ten who headed the list of a thousand names were: Napoleon, Shakespeare, Mohammed, Voltaire, Bacon, Aristotle, Goethe, Cæsar, Luther, and Plato.[1] But as far as the records of historical events go, only four out of this group can be considered as candidates for the role of historical hero. No one can plausibly maintain that Shakespeare had any influence on the occurrence or non-occurrence of decisive historical events. It is not precluded that heroes of thought might also be great men of action or that the consequences of their ideas, as in the case of inventors, religious leaders, and social philosophers, might have impressive historical effects. But it is to the record of events that we must turn to evaluate their claims. In the history of the ancient world, it is Alexander, whose name does not appear on the list, who emerges as a historical hero rather than Aristotle. Only if it could be shown that it was Aristotle’s ideas that inspired Alexander in his march toward empire could the former be considered in this connection.
- ↑ Popular Science Monthly, vol. 62 (1903), p. 359. This study was based on the comparative space allotted to a thousand pre-eminent men in biographical dictionaries and encyclopædias.
