e learnt to recognise in
the past as the fruitful soil of greatness. I mean that when we put our
finger, in the past, on some period which seems to have been producing
great work in a great way, we generally find it in some knot or school
of people, intensely absorbed in what they were doing, and doing it with
a whole-hearted enjoyment, loving the work more than the rewards of
it, and indifferent to the pursuit of fame. Such it seems to me is the
condition of science at the present time, and it is in science, I am
inclined to think, that our heroes are probably to be found.

I do not, then, feel at all sure that we are lacking in great men,
though it must be admitted that we are lacking in men whose supremacy is
recognised. I suppose we mean by a great man one who in some region of
human performance is confessedly pre-eminent; and he must further have
a theory of his own, and a power of pursuing that theory in the face
of depreciation and even hostility. I do not think that great men have
often been indifferent to criticism. Often, indeed, by virtue of a
greater sensitiveness and a keener perception, they have been profoundly
affected by unpopularity and the sense of being misunderstood. Carlyle,
Tennyson, Ruskin, for instance, were men of almost morbid sensibility,
and lived in sadness; and, on the other hand, there are few great men
who have not been affected for the worse by premature success. The best
soil for greatness to grow up in would seem to be an early isolation,
sustained against the disregard of the world by the affection and
admiration of a few kindred minds. Then when the great man has learned
his method and his message, and learned too not to over-value the
popular verdict, success may mature and mellow his powers. Yet of how
many great men can this be said? As a rule, indeed, a great man's best
work has been done in solitude and disfavour, and he has attained his
sunshine when he can no longer do his best work.

The question is whether the modern conditions of life are unfavourable
to greatness; and I think that it must be confessed that they are. In
the first place, we all know so much too about each other, and there
is so eager a personal curiosity abroad, a curiosity about the
smallest details of the life of any one who seems to have any power of
performance, that it encourages men to over-confidence, egotism,
and mannerism. Again, the world is so much in love with novelty and
sensation of all kinds