What Did Jesus Leave to Grow?

H.G. Wells, himself an atheist, makes this point about the nature of greatness as it relates to Jesus:

A historian like myself, who doesn’t even call himself a Christian, finds the picture centering irresistibly around the life and character of this most significant man…. The historian’s test of an individual’s greatness is ‘What did he leave to grow?’ Did he start men to thinking along fresh lines with a vigor that persisted after him? By this test Jesus stands first.