A 1907 article in the Nation ... 'Taking up what had become a topical theme, the article looked back to the 1870s, running off a list of the 'giants of the day' in thought, literature and science [25 names]
... and then it asked who from the present could be ranked alongside them. This trope of pygmies on the shoulders of giants is a constant discussion of this topic, though not, of course, of this topic alone.
The article went onto consider the possibility that this apparent decline actually reflected the changed conditions of intellectual work.
Quotation from: Absent Minds by Stefan Collini. p.103
