404 NATURAL SCIENCE. June, 



will prosper. The curve rises again, gently at first, then more rapidly 

 and with a co-efficient of growth greater than in the homologous 

 section of the first years. In 1841 and in 1844 we have two maxima 

 greater than those of 1829 : again we are on the eve of revolution. 

 1846: fatal year for Poland, and fall of the curve. It does not rise 

 till after 1848, and attains a maximum in 1851. Then comes the 

 Crimean War. The losses sustained by Russia lead her to exploit 

 the Poles afresh ; want of money causes a cessation of publication, 

 and it is only after several years of fluctuation that the curve begins 

 again to rise, again sharply till the eve of the revolution of 1863. But 

 this fall is not so severe as the preceding, and from this moment the 

 curve grows more and more rapidly ; it has the form of the limb of a 

 hyperbola. 



I regret that I cannot prolong this curve for Poland to the present 

 day. I also regret that I have not the necessary data to trace the 

 curve of progress of scientific literature in Russia and Bohemia. But 

 however that may be, the facts allow me to charge Alphonse de 

 Candolle' with injustice. In speaking of the development of science 

 in Poland and Russia, he only considers insufficient evidence, and, 

 without taking the trouble to seek for the causes, he begins to philoso- 

 phise. Now to philosophise it is necessary to have far better evidence 

 than that now at our disposal, for even basing our arguments on 

 Bibliography, on the Catalogue of Scientific Papers for example, we 

 should equally arrive at entirely erroneous conclusions. 



It is absolutely necessary that scientific men of all nations should 

 take part in bibliographic work in order to obtain positive data. The 

 great bibliography of scientific work — this Bibliography of the 20th 

 century — must be really international, because it must be a monument 

 to science, and not to the scientific activity of that group of nations 

 which to-day are found at the head of civilisation. To arrive at a 

 successful conclusion it is necessary before all not to deceive ourselves 

 as to the aid that may be given by governments. And yet we do — 

 unfortunately. 



At the London Congress we saw a crowd of government 

 representatives. English scientific literature was represented by the 

 governments of the British Colonies, even of those that have as yet 

 no literature of their own. Slavonic literature on the contrary had 

 no government representative. Shall we be better off at future 

 gatherings ? We want to know also whether the Germans will cease 

 their convention of considering German works published in Vienna, 

 Prague or elsewhere, as German literature ? Whether Finnish 

 literature and the German literature of the Baltic Provinces will 

 become, by similar convention, Russian literature ? Whether the 

 Poles will permit their literature to be divided among the governments 

 on which they are dependent, and if, also by international convention, 



1" Histoire des Sciences et des Savants," pp. 238-241. 



