It is, perhaps, no accident that many of the outstanding figures of the past were exceptionally versatile men. Right up until comparatively recent times, it was possible for an intelligent person to acquaint himself with almost every branch of knowledge. Thus, men of genius like Leonardo da Vinci or Sir Philip Sidney, engaged in many careers at once as a matter of course. 61) Da Vinci was so busy with his numerous inventions that he barely found the time to complete his paintings; Sidney, who died in battle when he was only thirty-two years old, was not only a great soldier but a brilliant scholar and poet as well. Both these men came very near to fulfilling the Renaissance ideal of the "universal man", the man who was proficient at everything.
Today, we rarely, if ever, hear that a musician has just invented a new type of submarine. Knowledge has become divided and subdivided into countless, narrowly defined compartments. The specialist is venerated; the
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