A second distinction must be recognized between historical figures who are famous, who can get themselves believed in, and individuals who have influenced events without achieving great popular fame. There is no reliable correlation between historical significance, measured by the effect of action on events, and historical fame, measured by acclaim or volume of eulogy. That is why the judgment of the scientific historian, who investigates specific causal connection, on the historical work of individuals, is always to be preferred to results of polls, comparative space allotments in standard works, and frequency of citation. The latter show enormous variation influenced by fashion, picturesqueness, parti pris, and very little by scientific findings. Particularly to-day, any “front” man can be built up into a “hero.” From 1916 to 1933, Hindenburg was undoubtedly the most popular figure in Germany but one could mention half a dozen individuals who had greater influence on German history, including military history, during that period.
Finally, we must rule out as irrelevant the conception of the hero as a morally worthy man, not because ethical judgments are illegitimate in history, but because so much of it has been made by the wicked. Only the making of history concerns us here, not whether it has been made well or disastrously.
The hero in history is the individual to whom we can justifiably attribute preponderant influence in determining an issue or event whose consequences would have been profoundly different if be had not acted as he did. It is sometimes objected that there is no universal agreement about the “importance” of any issue, event, or consequences. Some individuals profess that it is not “important” to them whether India remains free or not, whether the war is lost or won, or whether the future world state is democratic or Fascist in form. All this is immaterial to the problem. No matter what you regard as important, the problem is inescapable. Would that which you regard as important have taken place anyhow no matter what individual figured in the events leading up to it? Or is it ever true to say that an individual was chiefly responsible for the occurrence or non-occurrence of that important issue or event?
This brings us to the key distinction. This is the distinction between the hero as the eventful man[1] in history and the hero as the event-making man in history. The eventful man in history is any
- ↑ I owe the expression “eventful man” to Mr. Charles Haer, who is, however, in no way responsible for the position here developed.
