COLUMBUS—THE FULFILLER OF PROPHECY.
George Bancroft, Ph.D., LL.D., D.C.L., America's premier historian. Born at Worcester, Mass. October 3, 1800; died January 17, 1891. From "The History of the United States."[28]
Imagination had conceived the idea that vast inhabited regions lay unexplored in the west; and poets had declared that empires beyond the ocean would one day be revealed to the daring navigator. But Columbus deserves the undivided glory of having realized that belief.
The writers of to-day are disposed to consider Magellan's voyage a greater feat than that of Columbus. I can not agree with them. Magellan was doubtless a remarkable man, and a very bold man. But when he crossed the Pacific Ocean he knew he must come to land at last; whereas Columbus, whatever he may have heard concerning lands to the west, or whatever his theories may have led him to expect, must still have been in a state of uncertainty—to say nothing of the superstitious fears of his companions, and probably his own.
The enterprise of Columbus, the most memorable maritime enterprise in the history of the world, formed between Europe and America the communication which will never cease. The story of the colonization of America by Northmen rests on narratives mythological in form and obscure in meaning; ancient, yet not contemporary. The intrepid mariners who colonized Greenland could easily have extended their voyages to Labrador and have explored the coasts to the south of it. No clear historic evidence establishes the natural probability that they accomplished the passage; and no vestige of their presence on our continent has been found.
Nearly three centuries before the Christian era, Aristotle, following the lessons of the Pythagoreans, had taught that the earth is a sphere, and that the water which bounds Europe on the west washes the eastern shores of Asia. Instructed by him, the Spaniard Seneca believed that a ship, with a fair wind, could sail from Spain to the Indies in the space of a very few days. The opinion was revived in the Middle Ages by Averroes, the Arab commentator of Aristotle; science and observation assisted to confirm it; and poets of ancient and of more recent times had foretold that empires beyond the ocean would one day be revealed to the daring navigator. The genial country of Dante and Buonarotti gave birth to Christopher Columbus, by whom these lessons were so received and weighed that he gained the glory of fulfilling the prophecy.
COLUMBUS MONUMENT, PASEO COLON, BARCELONA, SPAIN.
Dedicated May 2, 1888