# Popular Science Monthly/Volume 66/November 1904/The International Congress of Arts and Science

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THE
POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY
NOVEMBER, 1904.
* THE INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF ARTS AND SCIENCE.
By WM. HARPER DAVIS,
Lehigh University.
THE first International Congress of Arts and Science has passed honorably into history. What may have been a philosopher's dream is now also a fact accomplished. Not that with the successful completion of the program the living influence of the congress has ceased. Rather, indeed, is it certain to continue and possibly to yield increase beyond foretelling. This is really implied in the statement that the undertaking was a success, as must appear to all who are cognizant of the unique purpose and the correspondingly definite plan of the whole. With this our readers may be assumed to be in a general way familiar. In this article some attempt will be made to sketch, unhappily in an all too fragmentary fashion, the actual operation and course of the congress and to indicate, in a manner necessarily inadequate, a few tentative impressions as to its outcome and probable value. No single man, least of all one who had the pleasure of attending the congress in blissful ignorance of the reporter's task which was in store for him, can hope to do justice to a program so vast and so varied as was that which filled the week from the nineteenth to the twenty-fifth of September last at St. Louis.
The great exposition now in progress is notable not only for its material illustration of the arts and industries of the world, but chiefly because in its conception the place of first importance has been given to education. This means the explicit acknowledgment of the sovereignty of mind in human progress to a degree unprecedented in similar undertakings. It was therefore peculiarly fitting that the management should make a special effort to assemble a congress of the world's leaders in the acquisition, elaboration and application of knowledge, as a worthy spiritual capstone to the magnificent material edifice ​
Professor Wilhelm Waldeyer, of the University of Berlin, Honorary Vice-president of the Congress for Germany, who gave the address on Human Anatomy. The portraits illustrating this article were taken for The Popular Science Monthly by Mrs. Jessie Tarbox Beals, Press Photographer, St. Louis, Mo.
which their enterprise had erected. Imposing as is the mere array of the visible tokens of progress in material civilization—a progress born of science, nourished by science, and in its turn begetting science—the whole must appear considerably more impressive when seen to be, as it really is, the outer expression of the inner intellectual life of mankind, the index of its vigor and plenitude, and the earnest of its future possibilities. Almost all the departmental exhibits, including manufactures, machinery, electricity, transportation, agriculture, horticulture, forestry, mines and metallurgy, and the like, illustrate directly the progress of applied science, while all, without exception, depend for their existence upon its development. Government and social economy presuppose some kind of philosophy and even a certain amount of knowledge, and both will increasingly apply the methods and results of science. Even the fine arts, quite apart from their technique, appeal to the reason and depend upon criticism. Some of the exhibits ​were strictly in pure science, as e. g., the department of anthropology, which included a laboratory of anthropometry and psychometry.
Such considerations suggest the ideal advantage which the Congress of Arts and Science enjoyed through its relation to the great exposition. It would further seem a happy thought which led to the convocation of an international group of scholars at a place independently dedicated as a meeting ground of the nations. Not to mention other advantages of a more practical kind for such of the participants as were interested in seeing a great world's fair, or studying some special aspect of its exhibition, the provision for this congress was at once a tribute to science many times deserved, and especially a lesson to the public at large of incalculable educational value. Besides, here was an opportunity too rare to be despised, of realizing, however imperfectly, a worthy ambition, widely shared, for the internal improvement of the whole kingdom of knowledge.
On the other hand, there were obvious drawbacks to the satisfactory conduct of meetings for the serious discussion of abstract and learned subjects under the conditions presented by a world's fair. It was impossible for the committee to overcome all the difficulties incidental to the subordination of the congress to the management of the exposition, of which it was externally but a small part, however significant. The fair's department of congresses had to provide for at least one hundred and fifty special conventions or international congresses of one kind or another, besides this universal congress. It was unfortunate that more halls suitable for speaking and hearing, and less widely scattered, could not be found or spared, and that no proper waiting and lounging room was provided for social intercourse. Yet great scholars spoke cheerfully to attentive listeners and congenial spirits contrived to meet for friendly conversation or for seeing the fair together. If some of the foreign guests suffered temporary inconvenience on the score of the creature comforts, they will probably not long remember it against us.
Those acquainted with the conditions may well pause for wonder at the smoothness with which so complicated a piece of machinery was kept running, involving as it did the direction of so large and variegated a group of markedly individual men who were for the most part hurried. In this connection credit is especially due the energy, patience and industry of the faithful staff of executive assistants under the efficient direction of the executive secretary of the congress, Dr. L. O. Howard, of Washington, government entomologist and chief of the division of entomology, U. S. department of agriculture. The congress was fortunate in securing for this arduous work the services of so eminent a worker for science, both as an investigator and as the permanent secretary of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, with his able assistant, Mr. Clifton. It is significant of the spirit of the congress that Dr. Howard's special executive ​assistants were six doctors of philosophy engaged in university teaching, who also served as secretaries for their special sectional meetings.
This was a congress of scholars, conceived, administered and conducted by scholars. Under the general supervision of Dr. Howard J. Rogers, deputy superintendent of education for the state of New York, who was the official director of congresses for the exposition, it was arranged by an administrative board consisting of Presidents Harper of Chicago, Jesse of Missouri, Pritchett of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Librarian of Congress Putnam and Director Skiff of the Field Columbian Museum, under the chairmanship of President Butler of Columbia University, a professor of philosophy and a distinguished expert in education.
The congress was presided over by Simon Newcomb, retired professor in the United States Navy, a profoundly original, accomplished and productive astronomer and mathematician, perhaps of all Americans the most honored throughout the world among the peers of the realm of science. Hugo Münsterberg, Harvard's brilliant psychologist, philosopher and man of letters, author of the original plan of the congress, to whom is also due the largest share of credit for the splendid achievement, divided the vice-presidency with Albion W. Small, professor of sociology in the University of Chicago, whose wide grasp of the multifarious activities of organized social regulation and culture is largely responsible for their elaborate representation in the final scheme.
Thanks to the wisdom, enthusiasm and devotion of these learned officers of the congress, and the intelligent enterprise of the management of the exposition under its president, the Hon. David R. Francis, it was possible to carry out a program without a parallel in history. Other meetings of men, including some more eminent than any of those who came to St. Louis, may have accomplished more for science and civilization, but never before has there been a gathering of so large and representative a body of the world's leading scholars and thinkers. It will lie sufficient to remind our readers in passing that the unique purpose of this congress was to see science whole. It was a deliberate attempt to exhibit the totality of intellectual achievement, to formulate the interrelations of the several branches of knowledge, and in some measure to realize the potential unity of the several sciences ami their applications by harmonizing the confused mass of knowledge scattered through a bewildering multiplicity of specialties.
The program was designed to exhibit a certain dramatic unity in the order of the proceedings, which represented a progressive differentiation from the most general treatment of knowledge in the opening session through the several divisional and departmental addresses to the more specialists sectional discussions, with a view to effecting an ultimate integration within each group, from the particular sections up to the all-inclusive whole of knowledge. The manner of the actual acting out of this ambitious plot during that memorable week in ​September must now be sketched in broad outlines and the details of the performance indicated by the barest reference to a few cases which may be taken as typical. Here the writer, lacking an adequate grasp of the whole, must be limited for illustration to the parts of the program with which he happens to be somewhat familiar.
Most of the members of the congress reached St. Louis on the morning of Monday, the nineteenth, registering in the exposition's Hall of Congresses, reserved as the official headquarters. The foreign guests were largely accommodated within the grounds in the dormitories of Washington University. The expenses of all the principal
| Picard. | Moore. | Maschke. |
| Professor E. H. Moore of the University of Chicago presided, and M. Emile Picard of the Sorbonne and Professor H. Maschke of the University of Chicago gave the Addresses before the Section of Algebra and Analysis. |||
| Clarke. | Jordan. | Osborn. | Scott. | Woodward. |
| Officers of the section of Paleontology and President David Jordan Starr, who gave the address on the Utilitarian Sciences. The addresses on Paleontology were given by Professor Henry F. Osborn, of Columbia University, and Dr. A. S. Woodward, of the British Museum. Professor W. B. Scott, Princeton University, was Chairman and Dr. John M. Clarke, Geologist of the State of New York, was Secretary of the Section. |||||
​speakers were liberally paid and each had been asked to prepare an address on a prescribed topic having a definite place in the total scheme.
The officers and speakers numbered over 500, while the total registration was about 2,000. Many probably attended meetings and enjoyed the privileges of the congress without registering as regular participants. Almost all the leading colleges, universities and higher institutions of learning at home and abroad were represented, although about 125 officers and speakers were scholars not engaged in university teaching. These include museum curators, experts in government scientific bureaus, representatives of research institutions, observatories, the army and navy, legislative bodies and diplomatic embassies, besides eminent municipal officers, school administrators, editors, librarians, engineers, architects, artists, physicians, social workers, clergymen, lawyers and jurists.
About 90 of the speakers were foreign scholars, of whom perhaps 60 addressed the congress in their own languages—German, French, Italian or even Dutch.
Counting the Mexican and the half dozen Canadians for America, there remain about 25 from Great Britain, over 30 from Germany, almost 20 from France, a half dozen from Austria, about as many from Italy, at least 4 from Japan, one from Russia, and about 10 representing other countries—Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland and Hungary. The Americans came from all parts of the country, a meritorious group of scholars worthy to receive their eminent guests from abroad. no less than seven women, distinguished for scholarship, were among the Americans who addressed the congress.
It was indeed a notable audience of men and women which assembled in the great Festival Hall of the exposition for the formal opening on Monday afternoon. Here under one roof were seated hundreds of scholars brought together by the common interests of learning and research, come together to exchange ideas and to meet and hear their peers and leaders. On the platform sat the administrative officers of the congress, the president and vice-presidents, and a distinguished group of representative leaders in the science of foreign countries, who had been invited to act as honorary vice-presidents of the congress. The meeting was called to order by Director Rogers, who called upon President Francis of the exposition to preside over the preliminary part of the session. In an appropriate address of welcome the congress was declared by President Francis to be the crowning feature of the exposition. An address was then made by Director Skiff, in charge of the exhibits of the exposition, on behalf of the administrative board, in which the exposition was characterized as a world's university, the exhibits being its museum and laboratories, and the participants of the congress its faculty. In the regretted absence of President Butler, made necessary by serious illness in his family. President Harper made a suitable address, setting forth the history of the plan and the ​preparations for the work of the congress. Responses followed by the honorary vice-presidents. England was represented, in the absence of Mr. Bryce, by Sir William Ramsay, K.C.B., professor in the Royal Institution of London, who stands in the forefront among inorganic chemists, distinguished by his discovery of argon and several other new chemical elements. M. Gaston Darboux, perpetual secretary of the Paris Academy of Sciences, one of the most original and profound inquirers in the field of modern geometry, spoke for France in the French language. Germany's spokesman was the venerable and venerated anatomist, the eminent Professor Wilhelm Waldeyer of the University of Berlin, who spoke in the language in which he has addressed two generations of medical students who have become leaders in the science of their profession. Dr. Oskar Backlund, director of the Russian Observatory at Pulkowa, which he has made famous by his celebrated astronomical measurements, expressed the greetings of Russia in English. Professor Theodor Escherich, the renowned Viennese pediatrician, spoke in German on behalf of Austria. Senior Attilio Brunialti, member of parliament and councilor of state at Borne, eminent student of constitutional law, which he came to discuss before the congress under the department of jurisprudence, after a few preliminary words in English, broke into his own familiar tongue in order, as he explained, to do justice to the feelings by which he was moved. The demonstrative enthusiasm of his expression was reciprocated by the hearty applause of the audience. In this succession of striking addresses by eminent personages, so individual and at the same time so representative, the keynote of the congress was struck and the spirit which animated the whole was quickly caught.
The scientific part of the program was then set going by the introductory address of the president of the congress, Professor Newcomb, who sketched in a scholarly and illuminating manner the evolution of the scientific investigator, who must be regarded as 'the primary agent in the movement which has elevated man to the masterful position he now occupies.' The common motives of all research and the vital significance of all truth for civilization and human welfare, as brought out in this address, seemed at once to suggest and to justify the universal scope and synthetic purpose of the congress, which was to comprehend not only all the branches of theoretic knowledge, but their several applications to the arts of life.
On Tuesday morning the seven grand divisions of the congress convened simultaneously, each division being addressed by an American scholar, chosen because of a conspicuous breadth of grasp in a wide domain of inquiry and an authoritative appreciation of its inner unity.
Thus normative science, inclusive of philosophy and mathematics in their entirety, was discussed by Professor Josiah Royce of Harvard University, America's foremost representative of speculative philosophy, unrivaled in systematic and constructive learning, unexceled in subtlety ​of insight, who has awakened a fruitful interest in mathematics among philosophers and in philosophy among mathematicians.
In a remarkable address, too technical to summarize here, in which, to the luminous exposition of old ideas, was added the suggestion of novel ideas of fundamental interest, a statement was made of the community of interest shared by the several philosophical and mathematical sciences when abstractly regarded, and an account given of certain concrete investigations typical of the contemporary mutuality of interest among the more advanced students of philosophy and mathematics, together with some promising results. The sciences here grouped together as normative all agree in that they seek 'ideal' truth, as distinct from physical truth or from historical fact—are concerned with the consequences, implications and interrelations of ideas or of ideals, rather than with the order of phenomena or events. The mathematician is concerned with the exact expression and abstract logical development of ideas, the meaning of which in terms of their ultimate relations is sought by the philosopher. Both groups of sciences in all their branches are in need of a theory of the 'categories' or the fundamental and logically elementary conceptions by means of which human minds think; and in the discovery of such categories and their critical classification students in both groups must cooperate.
The discussions under physical science, embracing not only physics, chemistry, astronomy and the sciences of the earth, but biology and anthropology as well, were heralded by Dr. Robert S. Woodward, professor of mechanics and dean of the school of pure science at Columbia, distinguished alike for his buoyant efficiency and for his skillful command of the mathematics as a tool of physical inquiry, in which he combines a conspicuous catholicity in scholarship with a rare versatility in research, having been especially successful in the treatment of problems in cosmical mechanics which overlap the borders of many sciences. Professor Woodward pointed out a threefold unity in all physical science—a unity of origin in observation and experiment, a unity of growth in quantitative expression and elaboration toward prediction as a goal, and a unity of purpose in its attempt to describe the universe in 'consistent and verifiable terms.' A culminating unity, linking physical science to all other science, may be found in the light which it throws on man, and the human ends which it fulfills.
| Rotch. | Arrhenius. | Nipher. | Clayton. | Bauer. |
| After the Adjournment of the Section of Cosmical Physics. The Addresses were given by Professor Svante Arrhenius, of the University of Stockholm, and Dr. A. L. Rotch, Director of the Blue Hill Meteorological Observatory. Dr. L. A. Bauer, of Washington, was Secretary. |||||
historian of religion was said to be especially concerned with the workings of an incalculable supernatural factor, which indeed no history can wisely ignore.
The spirit of mental science, subsumed under which were psychology and sociology, was voiced by Dr. G. Stanley Hall, an eager student of human life, who has achieved an encyclopedic learning; the creator of a school in the investigation of problems in mental science conceived and approached in a singularly generous spirit, who has made Clark University, of which he has been president since it was founded, preeminently an institution for psychological research; while, as teacher, editor and organizer, he has inspired an enthusiasm for the ​inductive study of pedagogical problems which has made itself felt throughout the schools of the land. While Dr. Hall is one of few men who might have appropriately represented more than one of the great divisions of the congress, lie chose on this occasion to discuss particularly the leading problems and methods of psychology, in an address spoken from the heart, abounding in fertile suggestions and no less characteristically teeming with allusions—an address which insisted on the continuity if not the identity of life and mind, and emphasized the urgent need of an objective study, at once comprehensive and thorough, of every concrete phase of experience in all its heterogeneous richness, as a basis for subsequent generalization under the guidance of the principle of evolution.
The division of utilitarian sciences, giving shelter to medicine, technology and economics, was generalled by President David Starr Jordan, of Leland Stanford University, eminent as a systematic zoologist, especially in ichthyology, who has placed his special knowledge at the service of the state in relation to questions of international import, and has admirably exemplified in his career what, as educator, writer and publicist, he has enunciated in no uncertain terms—the union of theory with practice in intelligent, effective work. President Jordan pointed out the unity of all the so-called utilitarian sciences in that they have their common source in disinterested investigation, at the same time claiming for pure research and practical application a relation of reciprocal dependence. Science is the guide of life and pure science must precede its applications, yet the utilities of science may not only determine the direction of its efforts but must ultimately control its results, measuring their exactness by the relentless standard of consequences.
The general interests of social regulation—in the sphere of politics, of jurisprudence and of those human groups with the economy of which social science is concerned—were entrusted to Mr. A. Lawrence Lowell, a distingushed member of a distinguished American family, professor of civil government in Harvard University, a scientific student of legislation, who has brought to the examination of political and legal institutions a ripe scholarship and an exceptionally critical mind. It is reported that in Professor Lowell's address the discussion took a somewhat practical turn, emphasizing especially the many-sided race problem, which was considered both historically and in relation to present-day conditions.
| Perry. | French. | Tufts. | Ormond. | Höfding. | Ward. | Arrhenius. |
| Hammond. | Boltzmann. | Cattell. | Ostwald. | Creighton. | Erdmann. | Loeb. |
| Before the Addresses of Professors Ostwald and Erdmann on the Methodology of Science. |||||||
​which has exerted a profound influence alike upon educational theory and upon religious thought, and withal a practical student and expert adviser in conspicuously active touch with the complex organization of instruction in our schools. Commissioner Harris doubtless traced the history of social culture from its first beginnings, as the unfolding temporal expression of an immanent purpose realizing itself through the instrumentality of human institutions, and having therefore from the start a unity of aim, at once natural and divine, namely, the perfection of spiritual citizenship in a rational society of personal selves.
Thus it was, in a general way, that these 'seven wise men' opened the gates of their respective fields of science. It is unfortunate that the aspiring listener was limited to the choice of a single one of this series. These men and their discourses have been chosen for specific characterization because they furnish a clue to the diversities as well as to the unities which pervaded the whole of the congress.
The divisional addresses over, the twenty-four departments were free to open fire. These were operated, eight at a time, at three intervals, scheduled for the late mornings and for the early and the late afternoons, respectively. It was thus possible for, say, the philosopher to do his duty by his own department at 11.15 while enjoying that of psvchology at 2, with the freedom after 4 to choose between education, religion, sociology or some department farther afield, or yet again, to see something of the fair!
Xo account of the departments can be given which would be at all representative. Their titles have been already indicated under each of the divisions. It should be recorded that in general the departmental meetings were conducted by Americans, one in the chair and two with prepared addresses respectively on fundamental conceptions and methods, and on the history of progress during the last century. In some cases the fundamental character of the conceptions and methods discussed might be opened to question, and in others the ancient habit of beginning any history with Adam was not successfully inhibited, yet on the whole these departmental discourses did conform to the specifications prescribed, and the two addresses nicely supplemented each other. It remains only to illustrate the personnel a little more fully.
Taking philosophy as the first on the program, its chairman was Professor Borden P. Bowne, of Boston University, valued for his conservative temper, constructive scholarship, and the keen, clear and interesting analysis long familiar to a group of grateful students and readers. The historical paper was presented by Professor George Trumbull Ladd, celebrated for the comprehensiveness and thoroughness of his productive erudition over the whole field of mental and moral philosophy and as one who helped to lay the cornerstone of experimental psychology in America, whose name is honorably associated with ​the department at Yale University, where he early founded a psychological laboratory which has taken high rank among like establishments throughout the world. The other paper for philosophy, read in the author's absence by Professor Charles M. Gayley, of the University of California, had been prepared by Professor George H. Howison, of that university, a man beloved and revered as an inspiring teacher of philosophy by a large and able body of students scattered over a continent, uniting intense moral fervor with a highly developed metaphysical imagination, and acknowledged as the most consistent defender of 'spiritual idealism' in academic circles.
Since it is impossible to. mention by name all of the departmental speakers, let us glance at the list for the physical and mental sciences, sometimes called 'descriptive.' Nichols and Barus, Nef and Clarke, Pickering and Boss, Davis and Chamberlin, Loeb and Coulter, McGee and Boas, Baldwin and Cattell, Vincent and Giddings—of such names we need not be ashamed.
The important work of the 128 sections began on Wednesday and lasted through Saturday, the two sections in religious influence postponing their sessions till Sunday. Each sectional meeting occupied the greater part of a morning or an afternoon.
The offices of chairman and secretary for each of the sections were filled by Americans, chairmen being for the most part specialists of eminence, while the secretaries usually, although by no means invariably, represented a younger generation of scholars, conspicuous for promise.
some cases by two foreigners, in others by two Americans, but in most of them by a foreigner and an American scholar in turn.
Philosophy must again serve for illustration. The problems and relations of metaphysics were grappled with by two live thinkers, both authors of important recent books of a strictly metaphysical nature. The first was Professor A. E. Taylor, of McGill University, reputed for his firm and clear grasp of fundamental metaphysical and ethical problems and an exceptional acuteness in analysis. The second was Alexander T. Ormond, Princeton's influential teacher of philosophy, known as one of the few profoundly constructive metaphysical teachers among Americans, and a veritable paragon of synthesis in philosophy.
The philosophy of religion was shared by two eminent Germans.
Dr. Wilhelm Ostwald, Professor of Chemistry at the University of Leipzig, who gave one of the Addresses on the Methodology of Science.
​representing somewhat different standpoints: Dr. Otto Pfleiderer, the distinguished Berlin professor, a comparative historian and speculative thinker of the neo-Kantian persuasion, in the domain of religion, conceived as a logical development of ideas in history, and Professor Ernst Troeltsch, of Heidelberg, a philosopher to be sure, but eminent primarily as scientific student and critic of literary documents and historical sources in religion. Pfleiderer read in English, Troeltsch in German.
Two Americans spoke for logic, Professor Wm. A. Hammond, of Cornell, esteemed as a careful student of logic, metaphysics and psychology, especially in their historical aspects, and one of the few trained American scholars who has given serious attention to Greek philosophy, and Professor Frederick J. E. Woodbridge, of Columbia, who has made a marked impression as a scholarly teacher of philosophy, alike for originality and independence in the interpretation of philosophical systems and for the freshness which he has infused into metaphysical problems, while insisting on their intimate correlation with the problems of logic, in terms of which he has boldly defined them.
The session for the methodology of science was one of the most characteristic features of the whole congress. The subject itself is both new and fundamental, and perfectly typical of the class of problems for the consideration of which the congress was planned. It has to do with the determination and mutual adjustment of the concepts which underlie the special sciences and the methods peculiar to each, and is thus in the closest relation to logic and to the sciences themselves. A science of method must both conform to the laws of our minds and apply to the subject matter of experience which the sciences severally study. It was therefore essential that both speakers should be at the same time philosophers and men of science. And it was no less fitting than interesting that they should approach their subject by different roads. One is primarily a physical scientist, the other primarily a philosopher; both are preeminent. The first was Wilhelm Ostwald, of Leipzig, one of the most interesting personalities among living men of science. A brilliant investigator in the field of physical chemistry, where his name is linked with those of van't Hoff, Arrhenius and Nernst; a great teacher of chemistry and author of a monumental systematic treatise therein, conceived in a spirit original and unique; an ingenious expositor of the new doctrine of energetics in physical science; an enthusiastic student of philosophy, who has played up and down the whole gamut of the sciences; recently the founder of a new journal of natural philosophy, which is the acknowledged organ of a nourishing school:—such a man is Ostwald—a kind of 'modern Siegfried,' as an eminent colleague put it. The second speaker, also a German—
This session promised well from the start. The audience was representative in more ways than one. In addition to the professional philosophers, a number of remarkable men of science were present. In the front row, for instance, sat Svante Arrhenius, of Stockholm, physical chemist, famous for his mathematical and experimental contributions to the theory of solutions and speaker for cosmical physics, and Ludwig Boltzmann, of Vienna, mathematical physicist, distinguished especially for his work in the kinetic theory of gases, who represented applied mathematics in the program of the congress. Scattered through the audience were many eminent leading representatives of both the physical and mental sciences. Among Americans on the front were Loeb in biology and Cattell in psychology, both eminent specialists actively interested in scientific methods, both having applied exact methods with conspicuous success, albeit in very different ways, to the investigation of phenomena of life and mind. This is not the place to attempt a summary of the leading addresses, both delivered in German. Suffice it to point out that Ostwald presented a classification of the sciences professedly based on the empirical standpoint of energetics, and bearing but slight resemblance to the elaborate scheme which shaped the program of the congress. Erdmann attacked the subject from a frankly à priori point of view, arguing for the position which has recourse to a generating principle of logical necessity. Among those who took part in the open discussion were Boltzmann, Hoeffding, Ormond, Miss Calkins, etc., and the chief speakers again in reply.
In the section for ethics the speakers were Professor William B. Sorley, of Cambridge, able philosophical moralist, keen critic of the ethics of naturalism, who has made sound learning, astuteness and vigor of mind tell also in the study of the more vital questions of practice, and Professor Paul Hensel, of the University of Erlangen, philosophical scholar and critic, a gifted student of ethical theory and interpreter of ethical ideals in literature. The first address in the esthetics section was made by Dr. Henry Rutgers Marshall, of New York, a successful architect by profession, a philosopher by instinct and performance, distinguished as a philosophical student of psychology and a psychological student of esthetics, who has made interesting contributions to the analytical and genetic aspects of both sciences. The second speaker was Professor Max Dessoir, of the University of Berlin, erudite historian of German psychology in all its ramifications, himself a philosopher, psychologist and esthetician.
And so one might run through the long program, apart from a fortunate limitation of space and an unfortunate but inevitable ​ignorance. Without systematic attempt at characterization, let us swiftly glance at a few scattered sections. Thus E. H. Moore, of Chicago, presided over the section for algebra and analysis in which his colleague Heinrich Maschke spoke on the same platform with the illustrious Emile Picard, of the Sorbonne—a truly remarkable trio in the purest of pure sciences, the very problems of which are unknown variables even to the educated lay mind. Leave can not be taken of mathematics until attention is called to the immortal name of Poincaré, also of the Sorbonne. preeminent equally in pure mathematics and in their applications to physical research, especially to the problems of celestial mechanics, in which connection he has been called the 'Laplace of the present century.' Poincaré read his address before the section of applied mathematics.
Readers of the Monthly will be well familiar with the name of Karl Lamprecht, of Leipzig, great historian of Germanic culture and philosopher of history, who spoke without a note before the section of medieval history. Other sections of the same department were addressed by Mahaffy, of Dublin; Pais, of Naples; Cordier, of Paris; Bury, of Cambridge; Conrad, of Halle; while under the history of languages came MacDonell, of Oxford; Sonnenschein, of Birmingham; Jespersen, of Copenhagen; Paul Mayer and Lévi, of the Collège de France; and Sievers, of Leipzig, the highest authority in phonetics. Classical art was represented by Furtwängler, of Munich; modern painting by Muther, of Breslau, and the Japanese artist Okakura Kurozi, wearing native costume and attended by his lackeys. Sections devoted to the history of oriental religion heard Oldenberg, of Kiel; Goldziher, of Budapest; Budde, of Marburg; while the history of the Christian Church was discussed by that splendid historian Adolf Harnack, of Berlin, and the scarcely less distinguished Jean Reville, of the faculty of protestant theology of Paris, both of whom represented ecclesiastical history not as a thing apart, but as merely a distinguishable aspect within the continuous stream of civilization.
The physical sections are worthy of note for their threefold division into physics of matter, physics of ether, and physics of the electron. The last was discussed by Langevin, of the Collège de France, and the brilliant Rutherford, of McGill, whose experimental researches have resulted in the accepted theory of atomic disintegration as a cause of radioactivity. In one section Sir William Ramsay, in whose laboratory helium was first derived from radium, and the eminent French chemist, Henri Moissan, who, by the way, accomplished the manufacture of artificial diamonds in the laboratory, although his title to fame rests on a much broader foundation, discussed the science of inorganic chemistry. Physical chemistry was represented by the great van't Hoff. of Berlin, who developed the concept of osmotic pressure into a consistent theory of solutions and conceived the idea of ​Professor K. Mitsukuri, of the University of Tokio, who gave an Address on Oceanography. the Dutch astronomer Kapteyn, of Groningen, celebrated for his measurements of stellar distances, discoursed on astronomy. Our own Campbell, of the Lick Observatory, delivered an admirable address on astrophysics, along with Turner, of Oxford. The section of paleontology, with Scott, of Princeton, in the chair, and John M. Clarke, Professor Julius Wiesner, of the University of Vienna, who gave an Address on Plant Physiology. New York the tetrahedral carbon atom in explanation of the behavior of substances chemically identical which nevertheless react differently to polarized light, thus creating the science of stereo chemistry.
Besides Backlund, of Russia, ​state geologist, acting as secretary, was notable for its excellent address by Dr. A. Smith Woodward. F.R.S., the eminent systematic paleontologist of the British Museum of Natural History, and Professor Henry F. Osborn, of Columbia University and the American Museum of Natural History, together with the discussion which followed, of unusual interest, not only to paleontologists, but to geologists as well. Students of petrology and mineralogy heard Zirkel, of Leipzig, while those of physiography listened to Penck, of Vienna. The section of oceanography, manned by Rear-Admiral John E. Bartlett, U. S. X., in the chair, had the course of its deliberations directed by no less distinguished an explorer of the deep sea than Sir John Murray, K.C.B. . of Edinburgh, aided by the eminent Professor K. Mitsukuri, of Tokio. a zoologist celebrated for his embryological researches and his knowledge of marine life in eastern waters.
The section of cosmical physics was another remarkable for the ideals of synthesis and the spirit of cooperation which pervaded it. In an address as bold as it was original Arrhenius proposed a theory of the possible connection between phenomena the most diverse and separated by exceedingly great distances, thus, e. g., raising meteorology to the dignity of a cosmic science. Negatively charged electric corpuscles pass off from the sun and penetrate our atmosphere, producing its negative electricity, forming nuclei for the condensation of moisture, and so on. in intricate detail! Such students of meteorology and terrestrial magnetism as Drs. Rotch and Clayton, of the Blue Hill Observatory, and Dr. L. A. Bauer, of Washington, participated.
​For De Vries has been able to see with his own eves the actual evolution of several new plant forms possessing the characters of true species, and has accumulated a vast amount of exact evidence, in support of the theory that new species arise suddenly from marked variations of the discontinuous sort, called 'mutations' rather than by the gradual accumulation, through successive generations, of slight differences due to the ordinary 'fluctuating variation,' as Darwin had supposed.
This mutation theory of De Vries was discussed by its author before the section, while Whitman, after a general historical survey of his subject, discussed the interesting results obtained from a prolonged and controlled study of the evolution of color-pattern in the feathers of pigeons which he has bred for many years. Here the changes seem gradual, yet stable. As to the degree to which the two sets of results conflict, it would be premature to pronounce judgment.
Anthropologists were enabled to hear in their sectional meetings Manouvrier, of Paris, perhaps now the foremost name in physical anthropology; Seler, of Berlin, in American archeology; Haddon, of Cambridge, in ethnology.
The temptation must be resisted to report in detail the psychological sectional meetings. Denmark's ablest psychologist and England's, both eminent also in philosophy, discussed the relations and problems of general psychology with characteristic breadth and penetration. It was indeed a notable occasion when Hoeffding and Ward were introduced by Royce.
In another section Lloyd Morgan discussed the relations of the animal psychology which he may be said to have shaped for a band of younger workers who were in large part present to hear him, while Miss Mary W. Calkins, professor in Wellesley College, presented in excellent form a discriminating statement of the problems of genetic and comparative psychology in the large. As those addresses had been preceded by some well-chosen remarks by the chairman, Professor E. C. Sanford, who has directed important experimental work in comparative psychology, so they were followed by short papers of general methodological interest—one by the lamented Dr. C. L. Herrick, late editor of the Journal of Comparative Neurology and Psychology, read by Professor C Judson Herrick, in which the dynamic or functional standpoint was emphasized; another by Dr. John B. Watson, of Chicago, urging the desirability of combining neurological studies, both experimental and histological, with systematic observations of animal behavior. Some matters of method, involving such questions as the criterion of consciousness, were broached in another short address, and there followed an interesting discussion which led to a pleasant lunch party.
The fascinating but baffling questions of abnormal psychology were discussed in another section by Dr. Pierre Janet, of the Salpêtrière, world-famed psychiatrist and psychologist, eminent as a ​clinical investigator of abnormal conditions in the variegated and little understood field of the so-called psychic automatisms, obsessions, hysteria, 'multiple personality,' hypnotism, etc., whose penetrating analyses and fertile hypotheses have done much to bring unity and order into the chaos of phenomena presented. Dr. Morton Prince, an exceedingly clever Boston alienist, known also as a philosopher, offered an interesting array of facts from the field of the subconscious, which he subjected to an illuminating analysis. This section was particularly fortunate in having for its secretary an eminent alienist who has brought the methods and results of neurology and pathological anatomy, of physiology and psychology, together with clinical observation, to bear on a truly biological investigation of insanity—Dr. Adolf Meyer, of the New York State Pathological Institute.
One of the most interesting sessions was that for experimental psychology, in which a fundamental question of definition—far-reaching in its consequences for psychological research—was brought to a sharp issue in a fruitfully polemical address by Professor E. B. Titchener, Cornell's learned and thorough experimental psychologist, who has made a profound impression, not only upon a loyal group of students, but among psychologists everywhere, by reason of the distinctive point of view to which he has consistently adhered, no less than for the contagious enthusiasm of his devotion to the ideals of the experimental method. Titchener, after a masterly review of the present needs of experimental psychology, felt obliged to insist in sober earnest that psychology is in essence introspective, that introspection should be at the core of every psychological experiment, and that only those investigators who are concerned directly with conscious processes are properly psychologists at all, although it was conceded that much useful work—useful even for psychology sensu stricto—might be done by those who approach the subject more objectively, in the spirit of physiology or of biology, or, on the other side, from the standpoint of the theory of knowledge.
The interest attaching to the particular form which the discussion took before the experimental psychologists was enhanced by the fact that other psychologists had already, in their divisional and departmental addresses, favored the congress with their respective psychological creeds. For Hall, introspection was an almost anomalous byproduct of evolution, for Cattell, only one of the methods of psychology. If Hall defined his science in terms of his general philosophy or Weltanschauung, and Titchener in terms of its most distinctive feature, Cattell may be said to have defined it inductively, in terms of the concrete interests of working psychologists as measured by their output. His was both a reasoned plea for a deliberate eclecticism in research, pending the adjustment of philosophical difficulties not easily banished, and a defense of a frank opportunism which has proved its usefulness. Ward's interests are apparently antipodal to Hall's. He ​would agree with Titchener as to introspection, but in his address minimized the importance of sensations, and of just those simple, 'presented' aspects of experience which Titchener had emphasized as the most promising for study. Hall warned the psychologist against mathematics, while Cattell correlated psychology with the physical sciences and emphasized the need of exact methods, and Titchener found a large place for quantitative work. The psychology of Ward and Hoeffding seemed tenuous by contrast with that of all these others, while that of Janet and Prince occupied a place apart. Yet all were able discussions of psychology of some sort, and beneath the troubled surface was a common interest in 'minds,' many fathoms deep.
In the section for social structure there were three speakers, the noted Austrian field marshal, Gustav Ratzenhofer, of Vienna, the eminent social philosopher, Professor Toennies, of Kiel, and our own distinguished sociologist and paleobotanist, Lester F. Ward, of the U. S. National Museum.
One would despair of doing justice to the eminent representatives of the great and beneficent science of modern medicine, even if there were space for the attempt. Happily here, as perhaps generally in the case of the so-called utilitarian and other applied sciences, it will only be necessary to mention the names of a few of the leaders that addressed the congress to awaken appropriate associations in the reader's mind. For, most of the distinguished visitors who shared in the work of these sections enjoy, in addition to scientific eminence, a merited popular fame. Professor Ronald Boss, of the School of Tropical Medicine at Liverpool, whose name is a household word through his work on the role of the mosquito in the etiology of malarial fever, came for preventive medicine; Sir Lauder Brunton, of London, and Oscar Liebreich. of Berlin, for therapeutics and pharmacology; T. Clifford Allbutt, of Cambridge, for internal medicine; Sir Felix Semon, of London, for otology and laryngology; Theodor Escherich, of Vienna, for pediatrics; Shibasaburo Kitasato, of Tokio, bacteriologist and possibly Japan's most eminent man of science, for neurology. Many of our ablest American physicians and surgeons addressed the medical sections. In the only section which the writer was able to attend, that of psychiatry, after the excellent papers by Dr. Charles L. Dana, of New York, and Dr. Edward Cowles, of Boston, interesting remarks were made by several workers in neurology, psychiatry, and outlying fields, including such men as Janet, Hall, Ladd, Marshall, Prince, Meyer and Putnam.
The sections in technology, including the various branches of engineering, technical chemistry and agriculture, were conducted by prominent Americans, although the interest in this part of the program was scarcely commensurate with its importance. President Humphreys, of Stevens Institute, Professor Kennelly, of Harvard, Mr. John Hays Hammond, of New York, Professor Liberty H. Bailey, of ​Cornell, and Hon. James Wilson, Secretary of Agriculture, were among the officers and speakers. The various branches of economics were discussed largely by Americans such as Clark in economic theory, Ripley in transportation, Seligman in public finance, and Hoffman in insurance, although Eugene von Philippovich came from Vienna.
In one of the political sections an address of exceptional interest was made by the Right Hon. James Bryce, M.P., eminent as a statesman, preeminent as a scholar in the field of political and legal history, gratefully honored by every educated American. The Hon. David Jayne Hill, our minister to Switzerland, spoke for diplomacy. Under jurisprudence, Professor La Fontaine, member of the Belgian Senate, spoke for international, and Signor Brunialti for constitutional, law. Professors Max Weber, Werner Sombart and T. Jastrow, and Dr. Emil Münsterberg, president of City Charities at Berlin, came from Germany alone for sections devoted to the social communities and groups. From abroad came Rein, of Jena, the eminent pedagogical philosopher, for educational theory; Michael E. Sadler, of Manchester, whose splendid work for public education in England has won the admiration of educators everywhere, for the section devoted to the school; M. Chabot, of Paris, for the university; and Guido Biagi, royal librarian at Florence, for the library. The section on the college listened to an address by that staunch and scholarly educator, President M. Carey Thomas, of Bryn Mawr College.
Among the speakers before the six sections concerned with practical religion were some who have exerted a wide popular influence, such as Rev. Hugh Black, of Edinburgh, Rabbi Hirsch, of Chicago, and Dr. Josiah Strong, of New York.
But the regular meetings were not enough. The Eighth International Geographic Congress, under the presidency of Commander Robert E. Peary, came to St. Louis to meet with the Congress of Arts and Science, and aroused considerable interest. Members of the congress having common technical interests were invited to special meetings of various sorts. Thus a Conference on Solar Research was held and an organization effected looking toward international cooperation among those interested in the investigation of solar problems. It is significant that almost all of the leading academies and other appropriate societies of the world which had been invited to cooperate, were ready with representatives from the membership of the congress.
Nor were the scientific meetings all. Men may be interesting though their theories be wrong. When they are known to have ideas and to have won distinction, they are especially interesting, even to those not technically familiar with their work. And while some scholars may seem.neither to have inherited nor acquired the art of social enjoyment, the species is almost extinct, except in fiction and on the stage. There was entertainment enough, in varying degrees of informality, including the spontaneous formation of numerous ​groups of manageable size for the investigation of 'The Pike.' No account of the congress would be complete which should fail to mention the series of formal entertainments arranged for its members. On Monday night the exposition celebrated the opening of the congress by special illuminations about the Grand Basin—a truly magnificent display. An attractive garden fête was given one afternoon at the French Pavilion by the Commissioner General from France. Another evening the German Imperial Commissioner General received at the German State House, with a hospitality that was handsome in its elegance and generosity. Other receptions were given by the Japanese Commissioner General and the Board of Lady Managers of the exposition. The Shaw banquet to the foreign delegates called forth numerous expressions of appreciation.
Perhaps in no event of the week was the informing spirit of the whole so impressively present to all as it was on the occasion of the closing banquet to the officers and speakers of the whole congress, tendered by the president of the exposition. In the great banquet hall of the Tyrolean Alps were assembled, for the second time, the whole personnel of the congress. The prevailing sentiment of scientific fellowship came out in all the speeches.
Commissioner Lewald made a ringing speech in German, Professor Darboux spoke in French, Signor Brunialti in Italian. Mr. Bryce. who spoke for British science with knowledge and with point, added that 'every meeting like this makes for international good will and every step like this is not only a step toward the advancement of knowledge: it is also a step toward the advancement of peace.' Notable too was the speech of Professor Nobushize Hozumi, of Tokio, one of the speakers in the section of comparative law and honorary vice-president for Japan. With winning felicity and consummate tact he expressed the pleasure which his countrymen had in cooperating with a distinguished Russian scholar in the congress, and added that this was the only place in which Japan could meet on equal terms that country with which it is at war in another part of the world.
The congress over, its members were soon scattered. Fortunately, many of the foreign guests were able to linger in our country for the purpose of traveling, visiting friends, or giving lectures. They were received by the President at the White House, also by Professor and Mrs. Newcomb in Washington; were entertained in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and elaborately in Boston and Cambridge by Professor Münsterberg and others; also at Yale and in Yew York, where the closing festivity was held under the auspices of the Association of Old German Students, and friendships old and new were cemented.
In what has preceded emphasis has been laid almost exclusively oh the personal element. This it is which gave distinction to the congress and which made the most immediate impression. After the publication of the addresses, for which a special appropriation has ​been made, it will be possible to study the ideas which were given expression in the meetings. Not until then will it be possible to estimate with safety the scientific outcome and value of the congress as a whole. It is certain, however, that the addresses were for the most part real contributions to science, and many of them of exceptional importance. It may strain the imagination of some to conceive of unification among subjects so diverse as logic and obstetrics, in spite of the Socratic simile. But it was the unity of ordered position in a complex system, and not without a sufficient number of intermediaries, that was sought, and in large measure realized. It would indeed have been a miracle if the sciences had simply been shaken together and a perfect kaleidoscopic picture had resulted. But such was not the case.
A unified classification had been prepared, as a means, not as an end, and elaborate as it was, it lent itself with remarkable fitness to the actual work of the congress. This does not mean that all the addresses conformed to the specifications in the same degree, or that those which heeded them most were always the most interesting. It is perhaps fair to say that if the dramatic unity of the whole was not mechanically perfect in its execution, it was ideally present throughout. Specialists were of course primarily interested in their own departments, but it was impossible not be conscious of the varied opulence of learning by which they were constantly surrounded and the one animating spirit of research with which the very atmosphere was surcharged. The leaders were mostly men whose previous interests and accomplishments were general and synthetic, as well as specialistic. Poincaré, Ostwald and Boltzmann might have been assigned to places in physical science; James Ward, to normative science; Arrhenius, to chemistry: Bryce, to history; while medicine would have been proud to open its doors to such savants as Waldeyer and Loeb.
A balanced evaluation of results must await the later work of better judges. Suffice it to remark in conclusion that a keen sentiment of mutual interest and respect was aroused and personal acquaintances were formed which should be an inspiration to all concerned. The congress will be a lasting monument to the idealism of the American spirit of enterprise. It gave a definite and a permanent expression to the scientific and social Zeitgeist. It must tend to quicken among scientific workers their sense of the multifarious variety of the human interests for which they labor, and to make for the desiderated extension of the methods of science to the whole domain of human life and effort, foreshadowing by the existing unity which it revealed a yet completer unity to be. And surely it. had one great lesson, writ so large that all but the blind must have seen, and that is this: that science is the true bond of the nations, owing no allegiance save alone to truth, for which all the world may work in one spirit and by methods which are universal.