Whereas, the dream of Columbus's life was to make his way by an unknown route to what was known, or to what he considered to be known.

He wished to find out an easy pathway to the territories of Kublai Khan, or Prester-John.
Neither were his motives such as have been generally supposed.

They were, for the most part, purely religious.

With the gold gained from potentates such as Kublai Khan, the Holy Sepulchre was to be rebuilt, and the Catholic Faith was to be spread over the remotest parts of the earth.
Columbus had all the spirit of a crusader, and, at the same time, the investigating nature of a modern man of science.

The Arabs have a proverb that a man is more the son of the age in which he lives than of his own father.