The greatness of individuals can be decided only by those who live after them, not by theirContemporaries.

The statement above takes an extreme position by claiming that it is only by people who live after the great individuals that greatness of them can be decided. Notwithstanding that the future people have an advantage in evaluating the past characters because of the passage of time, contemporaries are not entirely unable to determine the greatness of the individuals.

When we tie the significance of men and women to the judgment of others, those who will live in the future can make better judgments while contemporaries might not be able to judge properly. This is because the more time is passed, the wider information is achieved. Consider the greatness of Mosaddegh. During the monarchy of Shah as a prime minister, Mosaddegh served Iranian with honesty. However, political intrigues _by the surreptitious involvement of foreign agents such as MI6, and treacherous native individuals_ demonized and overthrew such a great leader. Years after his death, divulgence of documents of those spy activities for the future generations proved that Mosaddegh was the victim of political games and it was a misrepresentation of him that the greatness of such a leader was not understood by the contemporaries back then.

The same scenario happens especially for those men and women who are ahead of their time and might not be recognized properly by the contemporaries. Consider Vincent Van Gough. His paintings are traded in terms of millions of dollars, while during his life he became so desperate that he cut off his ear to draw the attention of the then society to his work. After he died, his posthumous fame was due to the understanding of the art society of the style which was not appreciated during the life of its founder, van Gough. Hence we see that to determine the greatness of individuals, future generations have a privilege of time to better judge the greatness of the past individuals.

However, contemporaries are not unable to attribute magnitude to somebody. Someone who contributes something helpful that is not far from the understanding of his/her coevals, can be recognized decently. Fleming, the discoverer of antibiotic was one of the magnificent personages who established and proved his outstanding level both among coevals and the future generations. Due to his self-evidently priceless work was that he immediately became recognized as a great person.

In short, when we include others idea whether to attribute high value to someone or not, the future can have better judgment. Nevertheless, coevals are also able to evaluate the one definitely, whose great contribution is understandable for contemporaries.