509. 395 



010. 



IV. 



The Genealogy of the Sciences as the Basis 

 of their Bibliography. 



HUMANITY, that " Great Man," possesses a knowledge so vast, 

 that in our days even a " God " could scarcely compass it. 

 No one can see and corrjprehend all that has been made clear and 

 comprehensible. For man cannot become master of all sciences, 

 nor, if there were but one, could he master it. We do not suspect the 

 quantity of work, the wealth of knowledge, represented by our 

 scientific periodicals ; and at every moment, while engaged in our 

 researches, we deceive ourselves. No encyclopaedia can contain 

 everything. Special dictionaries and treatises may serve as guides 

 to lead us to the original sources. But what devious paths we have 

 to follow before we know what to read to find out about any given 

 subject ! And yet we only arrive at it by searching and searching, 

 often without success. 



Bibliographies are far from rendering us the services they might. 

 Besides, it is only of late that we have occupied ourselves seriously 

 with scientific bibliography, and what has been done up to the 

 present is merely preparatory. Thus, for example, the " Catalogue 

 of Scientific Papers " of the Royal Society of London can only be 

 considered as a first attempt, in which English, French, and German 

 publications alone have been seriously dealt with, whilst other 

 languages, e. g. Russian, have been omitted altogether, or put in here 

 and there. Nevertheless it forms a list of works under authors, 

 very useful in certain cases, but not for those who seek the literature 

 relating to the subject of their study. 



Despairing of achieving single-handed a larger undertaking, 

 the English invited every nation to take part in such a work. An 

 International Bibliographical Congress assembled in July 1896, under 

 the auspices of the Royal Society at London. According to the 

 newspapers, the Congress dined well, listened to fine speeches, and 

 then, before separating, certain rules were made, regulating in 

 some way the workers in other countries. It was unanimously 

 resolved that it was desirable to finish the *' Catalogue of Scientific 

 Papers," so as to have as complete a list as possible of the scientific 

 literature of the century. It was also resolved that it would be well 



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