the Great Congress of' Philosophers at Berlin. S29 



veries in the chemical nature of substances, in the numerical 

 relation of their elements, or the eddying streams of electro- 

 magnetic powers.* May those excellent persons, who, deter- 

 red neither by perils of sea or land, have hastened to our 

 meeting from Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Holland, England, 

 and Poland, point out the way to other strangers in succeed- 

 ing years, so that by turns every part of Germany may enjoy 

 the effects of scientific communication with the different na- 

 tions of Europe. 



But although I must restrain the expression of my personal 

 feelings in presence of this assembly, I must be permitted at 

 least to name the patriarchs of our national glory, who are de- 

 • tained from us by a regard for those lives so dear to their coun- 

 try ; — Goethe, whom the great creations of poetical fancy have 

 not prevented from penetrating the arcana of nature, and who 

 now in rural solitude mourns for his princely friend, as Ger- 

 many for one of her greatest ornaments ; — Olbers, who has dis- 

 covered two bodies where he had already predicted they were 

 to be found ; — the greatest anatomists of our age— Soemmer- 

 ing, who, with equal zeal, has investigated the wonders of or- 

 ganic structure, and the spots and Jdculoe of the sun, (con- 

 densations and openings in the photosphere;) Blumenbach, 

 whose pupil I have the honour to be, who, by his works and 

 his immortal eloquence, has inspired everywhere a love for 

 comparative anatomy, physiology, and the general history 

 of nature, and who has laboured diligently for half a cen- 

 tury. How could I resist the temptation to adorn my dis- 

 course with names which posterity will repeat, as we are not 

 favoured with their presence ? 



These observations on the literary wealth of our native coun- 

 try, and the progressive developement of our institution, lead 

 us naturally to the obstructions which will arise from the in- 

 creasing number of our fellow-labourers. The chief ob- 

 ject of this assembly does not consist, as in other societies 

 whose sphere is more limited, in the mutual interchange of 

 treatises, or in innumerable memoirs, destined to be printed in 

 some general collection. The principal object of this Society 

 is to bring those personally together who are engaged in the 



* The philosophers here referred to are Berzelius and Oersted. 



