132 



KNOWLEDGE & SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



[JlNE, 1904. 



The International 

 Association of 

 Academies. 



The chronicle of scientific movements of the past 

 month would be incomplete without a record of the meet- 

 ing in London of the General Assembly of the Inter- 

 national Association of Academies, an event which 

 brought together a singularly noteworthy gathering of 

 men of science and of letters. .\n assemblage of such 

 cosmopolitan and select character as this was, comprising 

 the representatives of the premier academies of the world 

 in the departments of knowledge, had not hitherto been 

 seen in the metropolis. We have been privileged to 

 receive and welcome from time to time the various foreign 

 deputies to the peripatetic meetings of the British Associa- 

 tion, as well as those attending the meetings of chemical, 

 medical, and allied learned bodies, but never a congress 

 of the world's academies. This necessarily stands on a 

 plane distinct from composite gatherings held under 

 auspices such as the above mentioned, responsible though 

 they be in themselves, and worthy of all respect. 



The reason lies upon the surface, and is easy to state. 

 An amalgamation of academies strikes a new note, for it 

 is based on the wider authority that may be derived from 

 international co-operation, regularly organised, and made 

 applicable to the advancement of learning in its broadest 

 aspects. Here is an effort to open up useful avenues of 

 knowledge, and break untrodden ground under the stimu- 

 lating influence of a common purpose. And what of the 

 need for an organisation possessing these aims and 

 characteristics ? The answer is that its inception is the 

 actual and perceptible response to aspirations long enter-- 

 tained by men of science and learning of various countries. 

 It may be recalled that Sir Michael Foster, at the Dover 

 meeting of the British Association in 1899, uttered these 

 weighty words : — " Xo feature of scientific inquiry is more 

 marked than the dependence of each step forward on other 

 steps which have been made before. The man of science 

 cannot sit by himself in his own cave weaving out results 

 by his own efforts, unaided by others, heedless of what 

 others have done and are doing. He is but a bit of a great 

 system, a joint in a great machine, and he can only work 

 aright when he is in touch with his fellow-workers." 



From general considerations of this nature, reference 

 may pass to the initial steps that led ultimately to 

 the foundation of what is now denominated the Associa- 

 tion of Academies. Germany, the home of the greatest 

 of all academicians, Leibnitz, had zealously fostered for 

 many years a union of the Eoyal Societies of Gottingen 

 and Leipsic, in collaboration with the academies of 

 \ienna and Munich, called a " cartell." This met 

 annually, turn by turn, at convenient centres for the 

 purpose of discussing matters of science and learning 

 in which a partnership of effort was beneficial for the 

 several ends in view. It so happened that the scheme 

 of the Royal Society of London (now in active operation) 

 for the promotion of a universal and continued catalogue 

 of scientific literature on an international basis was one 

 of the subjects submitted to the cartell at its meeting at 

 Gottingen in the year 1S99, at which, it should be 

 mentioned, English representatives were present by 

 special invitation. The latter, however, at the time, 

 had been coupled with the expression of a wish that the 

 Royal Society would consider the question of itself join- 

 ing the cartell. To this cordial and significant desire 

 for an extension of the boundaries of the cartell's sphere 



of work — it could mean nothing else — the delegates were 

 empowered to say that the Society was disposed to join 

 if the principle of a plan for the founding of an inter- 

 national combination of the more important societies 

 and academies of the world was conceded, and, in fact, 

 made the objective. The little set of foreign academies 

 agreed, and the next move forward lay in the calling of 

 a conference at Wiesbaden in the same year, to consider 

 the general agreement previously arrived at, and to 

 discuss the lines of establishment of the amalgamation 

 thus forecasted. Here it is not out of place to recall that 

 the English delegates on this occasion were Sir .\rthur 

 Eucker, Professor A. Schuster, and Professor H. E. 

 Armstrong. 



It is beyond the limit of our space to fully detail the 

 subsequent and steadily progressive history of the move- 

 ment for an international alliance. Statutes and laws 

 were, however, formulated, and one by one the adhesion 

 of the greater societies and academies of the world was 

 obtained. The appointment of an international council 

 was ratified, whose duty it should be to conduct the 

 business of the .Association in the intervals of the tri- 

 ennial meetings of a plenary General Assembly, such as 

 that which has just concluded its deliberations. Further, 

 the decision was taken that the first gathering of the 

 latter body should be held in Paris in 1901 — an event 

 which virtually marked the birth of the International 

 Association. To M. Gaston Darboux, the distinguished 

 Permanent Secretary and doyoi of the Academy of 

 Sciences of Paris, fell the privilege of acting as Presi- 

 dent. By a unanimous vote London was then chosen as 

 the venue of the next Assembly. 



The delegates who have attended the Congress repre- 

 sented the full complement of constituent academical bodies, 

 and were drawn from the cities of Amsterdam, Berlin, 

 Brussels, Budapest, Christiania, Copenhagen, Gottingen, 

 Leipsic, London, Madrid, ^Munich, Paris, Rome, St. 

 Petersburg, Stockholm, \'ienna, and Washington. In 

 the case of London, the Royal Society delegation was 

 composed of eighteen Fellows, including Sir William 

 Huggins, its venerable President ; while the British 

 .Acadrmy, which is now, of course, within the pale of the 

 Association, was represented by Lord Reay, the Presi- 

 dent, and six other Academicians. Among notable 

 foreign men of science and of letters present were the 

 Count de Franqueville, M. Moissan, Sefior Jose Eche- 

 garay. President of the Royal Academy of Sciences of 

 Madrid, Dr. Viktor von Lang, of \ienna. Count Balzani, 

 and Prof. Svante Arrhenius, the eminent Swedish 

 chemist. 



Among the subjects that have been under consideration 

 during the Congress may be mentioned a scheme 

 for carrying on magnetic observations at sea, with the 

 view of establishing a comprehensive magnetic survey 

 around a parallel of latitude— a project requiring inter- 

 national co-operation to be completely successful. Seis- 

 mological and geodetic investigations were under discus- 

 sion—domains of inquiry in which scientific men of 

 various nationalities are just now much interested. The 

 British Academy promote a scheme for a lexicon of the 

 Greek language; the Academies of Copenhagen and 

 Berlin put forward a plan for a Corpus Medicorum .Vnti- 

 quorum. Then the important question of the establish- 

 ment of an institute for the purpose of investigating the 

 anatomy of the brain was under reference — a subject on 

 which great unanimity prevails among foreign and 

 English men of science. The above are instanced merely 

 to indicate a few of the matters of scientific and literary 

 interest that are before the Association in some stage 

 or other. 



