598 BALCH— SOME FORMER MEMBERS. [April i8, 



verse learning were Leonardo da Vinci, Grotius, Rabelais, Coper- 

 nicus, Napoleon, Cavour and Bismarck. To all these men who 

 looked through all knowledge for their guide and aid in their life's 

 works are applicable the lines of Wordsworth : 



" Who with a natural instinct to discern, 

 What knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn." 



There are numerous societies devoted to one line of research, 

 where men who are engaged in a comomn pursuit, can exchange 

 ideas upon their favorite theme. Here in Philadelphia, the home 

 of the society, we have, for example, the Historical Society of Penn- 

 sylvania (1824), the Academy of Natural Sciences (1812), and the 

 Franklin Institute (1822), each one of which is devoted to a special 

 field of research. So in other cities you find quantities of such 

 societies devoted to a single, or at most two or three topics of inves- 

 tigation. But the American Philosophical Society is one of the very 

 few associations in the world which by its membership has been 

 representative of all learning. Other societies that represent all 

 knowledge are the Hungarian Academy of Sciences of Buda-Pest 

 (1825) ; the Institut de France of Paris (1795) : the American Acad- 

 emy of Arts and Sciences of Boston (1780), the second oldest 

 American society of learning ;^^ the Academie Royale de Belgique of 

 Brussells (1771) ; the Koniglische Bayerische Akademie der Wissen- 

 schaften of Munich (1759) ; the Royal Academy of Sciences and 

 Lettres of Denmark of Copenhagen (1742) ; the Imperial Russian 

 Academy of St. Petersburg (1725), conceived by Peter the Great, 

 and organized and endowed by Catherine upon the plans of Leibniz 

 and Wolff ; the Koniglische Preussiche Akademie der Wissenschaften 

 of Berlin (1700), whose first president was Leibniz and which num- 

 bered among its members Savigny, Schleiermacher, Bopp, Ranke 



J. Franklin Jameson, " William Usselinx, founder of the Dutch and 

 Swedish West India Companies," papers of the American Historical Associa- 

 tion, New York, 1887, Volume II., No. 3 ; James M. Swank, " Progressive 

 Pennsylvania : a record of the Remarkable Industrial Development of the 

 Keystone State," Philadelphia, 1908, page 13; Amandus Johnson, "The 

 Swedish Settlements on the Delaware, 1638-1664," Philadelphia, 191 1. 



'^Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Volume 

 XLIV., No. 26, September, 1909. 



