ESSAYS 687 



the volume containing a fairly complete and well-arranged account of the mathe- 

 matical literature of the whole world for 19 13 : usually the Jahrbuch appears 

 about two years after the articles it reviews. Apart from the short quarterly 

 reports given in this journal, which make no pretension to completeness, there 

 are only two other systematic accounts of the progress in mathematics published : 

 one is the Revue semestrielle des publications mathe'matiques, published by the 

 Mathematical Society of Amsterdam in half-yearly parts, and the other is a 

 supplement to the Bulletin des sciences mathe'matiques, published in Paris. Of 

 these the Revue has the great advantages of brevity, references to all scientific 

 reviews of books, and publication about six months only after the articles to which 

 it refers. The notices are not critical, and only contain a brief summary of the 

 matters treated by the author. The reviews in the Bulletin are much longer, but 

 only deal with original papers in periodical literature, and do not appear in a form 

 in which the notice of any particular paper can be found at once. The notices in 

 the Jahrbuch are concerned with both periodical matter and separate books, but 

 do not, as a rule, mention reviews and notices of books, which are not usually 

 classed as " original contributions." In short, the Jahrbuch, while having the 

 defects of appearing long after the matters of which it treats and of neglecting 

 book-reviews, which occasionally contain quite valuable remarks, has an advan- 

 tage over the other publications in being thoroughly systematic and arranged for 

 each year in order of the matters dealt with, easy of consultation, and tolerably 

 detailed. 



The part that Great Britain has taken in the indispensable aid to research 

 provided by such publications as the Jahrbuch and the Revue is so small that it 

 compares unfavourably with that of practically every other European country. At 

 the present time, judged by the number of collaborators on this international 

 work, it is the same as Serbia. Indeed, it seems that the only European countries 

 which do less than Great Britain in this respect are Montenegro, Monaco, Luxem- 

 burg, Bulgaria, Turkey, Norway, Finland, Spain, Portugal, and Greece. In the 

 past Dr. J. W. L. Glaisher of Cambridge and Prof. G. A. Gibson of Glasgow 

 have sometimes appeared among the contributors to the Jahrbuch, but for many 

 years neither of these two men has been able to contribute, and at the present 

 time the only Briton who does work for either the Jahrbuch or the Revue is the 

 present writer. Outside Europe, India and Japan do as much as Britain, and 

 America more. Some Britons may perhaps feel that these facts are compensated 

 by the fine work done by the Royal Society in indexing, and by the Physical 

 Society in publishing abstracts of the world's literature in physics. I do not see 

 that this forms any excuse for lazy acceptance of the fruits of other nations' 

 industry in other domains. 



It is certainly necessary for the nations which form the Entente, and more 

 particularly for Great Britain, to make a serious effort to put an end to this 

 discreditable state of things. It may be said that this effort is necessary because 

 Germany has used its scientific publications to help towards an establishment of 

 German civilisation over the whole of Europe, and thus that, for political reasons, 

 it is desirable for the Entente to put an end to its condition of dependence on 

 German civilisation. About this I cannot offer any opinion that would be of the 

 slightest value : an opinion, to be of any value, would have to be backed by a 

 knowledge of the German official minds. If it is true that, as Gibbon hinted, 

 politicians make use of the religious beliefs of others, it seems likely enough that 

 a government would use the scientific ideals of others for its own advantage. It 

 seems fairly clear to me that, whether or no German scientific men have been 



