32 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



been made, it will be possible to study the ideas which were given 

 expression in the meetings. Xot 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 excep- 

 tional 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 depart- 

 ments, but it was impossible not be conscious of the varied opulence of 

 learning by which they were constantly surrounded and the one ani- 

 mating spirit of research with which the very atmosphere was sur- 

 charged. The leaders were mostly men whose previous interests and 

 accomplishments were general and synthetic, as well as specialistic. 

 Poincare, 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. 



