The greatness of individuals can be decided only by those who live after them not by their contemporaries

How do we decide a person’s greatness? The greatness of an individual cannot be referred by the one who live after him, it can be largely decided by their fellow individual. I disagree with the author about this statement because a person who comes after might or might not be analogous but their contemporaries can be totally compared as they belong to the same generation. Their personalities and thoughts also differ by generation.
Although, comparing Albert Einstein to an individual now working in physics would not be fair. As Einstein is known for developing the theory of relativity and an individual those who live after him will now use that theory and make it better. Making that theory which already exists better than developing that theory are totally two different things which are not even comparable. Greatness can in any way from success to persons behaviour.
Greatness cannot be determined by just their success; it also depends on what kind of a person they are to another individual. It depends on an individual what kind of greatness they want in their life. Contemporaries may also be according to their success and hard work. If a person does more hard work in one form and another does hard work for another form and they receive same greatness then it totally depends on an individual’s mind.
Generation plays an important role to counter claim this statement. Since, an individual who lives after them might have a different perspective on success which the other person might not have achieved. But if similar people from one generation are compared according to their greatness, then it makes is totally fair. As, they have almost approximate thoughts and mind sets.
Thus, we can say that this notion does not really work for this generation. Though earlier this notion was considered when people had deficit intellectual skills. But now there that has drastically changed by each and every individual.