CONGRESS OF ARTS AND SCIENCE. 13 



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 mathe- 

 matical 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 mathe- 

 matics, 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 mathe- 

 matician 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 funda- 

 mental 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. Eobert S. Woodward, pro- 

 fessor of mechanics and dean of the school of pure science at Columbia, 

 distinguished alike for his buoyant efficiency and for his skillful com- 

 mand 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. 



The unity and variety of historical science, comprising political 

 and economic history, and the histories of law, language, literature, 

 art and religion, was discussed with characteristic literary distinction 

 by Woodrow Wilson, president of Princeton University, widely known 

 as an historical student of polities, a literary student of history, an 

 engaging cultivator of literature and a fond admirer of all the humani- 

 ties. The conditions requisite to a needed synthesis both in the teach- 

 ing and the writing of history were pointed out, with special emphasis 

 upon the services of literary art and the conceiving imagination. The 



