698 THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE IN 1894. 



more important, tliis incessant activity bears evidence to the liigh 

 prestige which it enjoys throughout the civilized worhl. 



Not only the history of the institute, but also our personal experi- 

 ence and careful reflection, teach us every day the advantages of our 

 life in common. However different the tasks may be which the live 

 academies consider their special functions, the supreme aim of all your 

 efforts remains the same. You seek for truth in all its aspects, for the 

 beautiful in all its forms; you strive to inspire man with a clearer con- 

 sciousness of his ability to improve. In order to attain this end, we 

 all and everywhere employ the same means; the methods we employ 

 all have but one and the same priucij)le — to observe and to analyze all 

 the facts in nature and to combine them upon a basis of the unchange- 

 able rules of reason. The arts appeal perhaps to a logic somewhat less 

 severe, but by no means less rigorous, than that employed for algebra. 



The beautiful, the ideal representative of truth, can not perish any 

 more than the latter; hence it is subject to laws that are as much above 

 discussion as those which govern science. The plan for a masterpiece 

 of architecture, the composition of a beautiful symphony, may be ana- 

 lyzed with nearly as much j)recision as a geometrical problem. 



The sciences, for their part, never begin and never progress without, 

 as Bacon says, Ijringing man and nature nearer to each other; the sys- 

 .tem of the world in its scientific aspect is probably the most beautiful 

 of all works of art. While science and art define the just limits of our 

 powers, they also make us better aware of their extent and their bound- 

 ary lines. Both of them finally, with all their kindred — literature, his- 

 tory, philosophy — teach man the same lesson of hard work, in which he 

 is sustained by his faith in the ideal, and fill him with the consciousness 

 of the lofty mission intrusted to his mind. 



In proportion as progress is secured and accumulates in the vast 

 domain of human activity, the identity of the ends pursued and the 

 inevitable connection between the eftbrts made to reach them become 

 daily more marked; the study of the great problems of nature and of 

 life help us to comi)rehend better the marvelous harmony that rules all 

 creation; in the boundless space that surrounds us, all created bodies, 

 from the most minute atom to the grandest of all constellations, influ- 

 ence one another in some way, and their reciprocal action is subject to 

 eternal laws; all natural forces are preserved, binding the infinitely 

 small and the infinitely great to each other; new worlds arise, others 

 pass away, and from one evolution to anotlier the universe advances in 

 perfect order toward a mysterious destiny, and we are more and more 

 struck by tlie admirable relations which all parts of this infinitely 

 complex creation entertain to each other. 



At every instant some close, unthought of, connection between 

 the most varied branches of science and art is brought to light. 

 Who could have thought fifty years ago of the remarkably fruit- 

 ful intervention of physics and chemistry in astronomy, a science 



