The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1927-03-18
THINKERS LIST
FAILS TO CARRY
AMERICAN NAME
England Is Nation Most
Frequently Mentioned
With Three.

BIZ United Press
NEW YORK, March 1S.-Not one
American appears on list of the
ten greatest thinkers of all time
which has been prepared by VIII c.
Durant, author Of the "Story of
Philosophy" Here is Durant's list:
Confucius, Plato, Aristotle, Thomas
Aquinas, Copernicius, Francis Ba-
con, Newton, Vo1taire, Kant and
Earwih.
AS to nationalities, England is rep
resented by three names and Greece
by two, with one each for China,
Italy, Poland, France and Germany.
A list of ten ''runners-up''. consti-
tuting a second team" of world
thinkers, still has no American rep
resentative: Democritus, Epicurus,
Marcus Aurelius, Abelard, Galilee,
Spiloza, Leibnitz, Schopenhauer,
Spencer and Nietzsche.
Durant explained why neither list
included such familiar names as
Shakespeare or Lincoln.
Artists First
"How shall we define a thinker"
he asked. Presumably the word
will embrace philosophers and scien-
lists. Shall we include men like
Dante, Shakespeare or Goethe? No,
we shall bow humbly to such great
names and class them, despite the
reach and fathom Of their thought,
as only secondarily thinkers, as art
fefG nd oh al Ion
include such immensely religious fig
ures as Jesus, Buddha, Augustine or
Luther? No; these great founders
and reviewers of religion would over
lap our term; it was not only thought
and reason, but also feeling, noble
passion, mystic vision and unyield-
ing faith that made them move the
world.
"Shall we admit into our council
great men of action like Caesar, Ma
poleon or Lincoln? No; if we spread
3 the word thinker to catch such he
roes in it's net we shall deprive it
of it's distinctive meaning, and shall
fail to catch the significance of
= thought"
Durant discussed his ten thinkers
4 in turn, showing how each won an
enduring place "by the originality,
scope, veracity and depth of his
\ thought, and by the extent and per-
sistence of his influence"
He admitted that the selection Of
fered considerable difficulties. Study
showed whole civilizations which
rose and fell without providing any
dominant name or powerful secular
personality voicing and forming it's
people. 1t was SO, he observed with
India and with the Jews-even with
Egypt, perhaps the most lasting
and marvellous civilization ever
known" Among the nomad races of
& Asia Minor, he found an Isaiah, a
Jesus and a Mohammed, but no
world-scientist, no philosopher.
No Roman Thinker
Classical Rome also failed to get
3 place in the list. Lucretius, first
and finest of the Latin thinkers, was
dismissed because his philosophy
was not his own, and because his
influence was esoteric and sporadic,
s touching only the topmost minds"
: Other Roman philosophers We're re-.
tected because they were echoes of
the Greeks"
After the collapse of the Roman
Empire. Durant found the re-birth
of pure thinking in Thomas Aquinas,
a monk of the Catholic Church. at
lis true" he said, that the world
does not follow Aquinas now, prefer
ring a doubling Thomas to dog
8matic one, but there was a time
when every philosophy took his
work as it's premises. Even today,
lin a thousand colleges, his thought
lis reverenced as sounder than sci
|ience, and his philosophy is the Off
Scial system of the largest church in
Christendom. We may not love him
las we love the rebels and martyrs
#of philosophy, but because of his
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