CONGRESS OF ARTS AND SCIENCE. 469 



brief resume will be necessary. A genera] address on the work of the 

 congress will be followed by discourses on the inner unity of seven greal 

 divisions of knowledge. These seven meetings will be followed by 

 others in twenty-four departments in each of which will be set forth 

 the fundamental conceptions of the various branches, and the progress 

 of each during the nineteenth century. The remaining days of the 

 congress will be occupied with meetings, each lasting three hours, for 

 discussions of the present problems of each science and of its relations 

 to cognate branches. 



A necessary condition to success, which was had in view from the 

 beginning, was that the leading addresses should be given by the most 

 eminent representatives of every branch of science whose attendance 

 at the congress could be secured. This must be regarded as one of 

 the novelties of the scheme, calculated to heighten its interest. But 

 the problem of realizing it was no easy one. To invite all eminent 

 investigators of various countries was not a difficult matter — no doubt 

 it has been clone in the case of many a congress — but it w T ould obvi- 

 ously be impossible to bring together even one representative of every 

 branch of science by merely extending this invitation. The difficulty 

 was heightened by the fact that two principal addresses were to be 

 delivered in each of the great branches. Only three hours being al- 

 lotted to each branch, the number of addresses could not be increased. 

 After a careful consideration of the exigencies of the situation it was 

 found impracticable to extend the number of individual branches that 

 could be treated in a single week beyond a limit which might ap- 

 proximate to 130. By frequent additions and exclusions as the devel- 

 opment of the scheme was worked out the maximum was found to be 

 128. It seemed that the most satisfactory result would be reached by 

 having sixteen simultaneous meetings, each for the discussion of a 

 single branch, on each half-day. The number of available days being 

 four, it would thus be possible to arrange for 128 meetings of three 

 hours each. The limitations thus imposed rendered necessary the ex- 

 clusion of many important branches of science from the list of subjects 

 to be specially treated. The best that could be done w r as in each case 

 to give preference to branches of such interest or so widely cultivated 

 that it was not difficult to find speakers to treat them. 



Much having been written on the adopted scheme of classification 

 and its defects, a word on this subject may not be out of place. I do 

 not suppose that any one concerned would for a moment claim that 

 the field of knowledge could be separated into exactly seven divisions, 

 neither more nor less — or that there are twenty-four separate depart- 

 ments of knowledge, and 128 branches of sciences of sufficient impor- 

 tance to be separately treated. Nor is it important whether the scheme 

 of classification is or is not ideally a good one. The main object was 



