THE LIBRARY PAST AND FUTURE 225 



libraries in the world, those which are the documents of the history 

 of human thought and which are the letters-patent of the nobility of 

 an ancient greatness. This, I think, would, nay should, be the most 

 serious and principal duty assumed by the library of the future: to 

 preserve these treasures of the past while hoping that the present 

 and the future may add to them new ones worthy of public venera- 

 tion. Think how vast a field of work, to seek through all nations the 

 autographs or archetypes to which have been intrusted the thought 

 of great men of every age and of every race, and to reproduce them 

 in the worthiest way and to explain them so as to render them ac- 

 cessible to modern readers. Thus should we form the true library of 

 the nations which, with the facsimiles, would bring together the 

 critical editions of their authors and the translations and the texts 

 made for the explanation of the works. But the first and most 

 urgent duty would be that of making an inventory, an index, of what 

 should constitute this collection; and, first of all, we should know 

 and search out such authors as may have influenced the history of 

 the human race by their works in all times and among all peoples; 

 and we should have to find the venerable codices which have handed 

 on to us the light of their intellect, the beating of their hearts. Every 

 nation which is careful of its own glory should begin this list, just 

 as we are now beginning that of the monuments of marble or of stone 

 which have value as works of art. We should thus begin to prepare 

 the precious material to be reproduced, while at the same time it 

 would be possible to calculate the expense needed for carrying out 

 the magnificent design. The Belgian Government has appointed a 

 congress to meet at Lieges next year for this purpose, but its pro- 

 grammes are too extended; for they take in also the documents in the 

 archives and in the museums. More opportune and practical would 

 be an inquiry affecting the libraries alone and beginning with oriental 

 and classical authors, with those who represent the wisdom of the 

 ancients. Thus the library of to-day would gradually prepare its 

 work for the future library, which will surely want something more 

 than the editions, however innumerable, supplied to it by the biblio- 

 graphical production of the years to come. 



Internationalism will also be able to render great services to 

 science, in the field of photo-mechanic reproductions, if it find a way 

 of directing them to some useful goal, and if it prevent them from 

 taking a merely material advantage of the precious collections which 

 every nation is justified in guarding with jealous care. Photography 

 with the prism, which has no need of the plate or of the film, costs 

 so little and is so easy of execution, especially if the process of the 

 late Mile. Pellechet be adopted, that one can, in a few hours, carry 

 away from a library the facsimile of an entire manuscript. No 

 doubt many learned men of the new style find it more convenient to 



