126 THE SCIENTIFIC PLAN OF THE CONGRESS 



seemed preferable to other principles. In the biological department, 

 criticism seems justified in view of the fact that we constructed 

 a special section, Human Anatomy. A strictly logical scheme might 

 have acknowledged that human anatomy is to-day not a separate 

 science, and that it has resolved itself into comparative anatomy. 

 Sections of Invertebrate and Vertebrate Anatomy might have been 

 more satisfactory. The final arrangement was a concession to the 

 practical interests of the physicians, who have naturally to emphasize 

 the anatomy of the human organism. 



In the division of Mental Sciences, w r e have the Department of 

 Sociology. We were, of course, aware that the sociological interest 

 includes not only the psychological, but also the physiological life 

 of society, and that it thus has relations to the physical sciences 

 too. Yet these relations are logically not more fundamental than 

 those of the individual mental life to the functions of the indi- 

 vidual organism. Much of the physiological side was further to 

 be handed over to the Department of Anthropology, and thus we 

 felt justified in grouping sociology with psychology under the Men- 

 tal Sciences, as the psychology of the social organism. Here, too, 

 a larger number of sections was intended and only the two most 

 essential ones, Social Structure and Social Psychology, were finally 

 admitted. 



The ramifications of the practical sciences had to follow the general 

 principle that their character is determined by purpose and not by 

 material. The difficulty was here merely in the extreme specialization 

 of the practical disciplines, which suggests on the whole the forming of 

 very small units, while our plan was to provide for fifty practical sec- 

 tions only. It seemed, therefore, incongruous to have the whole of 

 Internal Medicine or the whole of Private Law condensed into one 

 section. Yet as the purpose of the scheme was a theoretical and not a 

 practical one, even where the theory of practical sciences was in ques- 

 tion, we felt justified in constructing coordinated sections, even where 

 the practical importance was very unequal. On the other hand, some 

 glaring defects just here are due merely to chance circumstances. 

 That there were, for instance, no sections on Criminal Law or Eccle- 

 siastical Law in the Department of Jurisprudence, nor on Legal Pro- 

 cedure, resulted from the unfortunate accident that in these cases the 

 speakers who were to come from Europe were withheld by illness or 

 public duties. The absence of the Department of Art in the Division 

 of Social Culture, and thus of the Sections on the theory and practice 

 of the different arts, has been explained before. It is evident that 

 also in the Economical Department the practical development has 

 interfered with the original symmetrical arrangement of the sec- 

 tions. This is not true of the Religious Department, whose six 

 sections express the tendencies of the original plan. The fre- 



