together, and seek for the unity which we believe 

 underlies their infinite diversity. 



The assembling of such a body as now fills this 

 hall was scarcely possible in any preceding generation, 

 and is made possible now only through the agency of 

 science itself. It differs from all preceding inter- 

 national meetings by the universality of its scope, 

 which aims to include the whole of knowledge. It is 

 also unique in that none but leaders have been sought 

 out as members. It is unique in that so many lands 

 have delegated their choicest intellects to carry on its 

 work. They come from the country to which our 

 republic is indebted for a third of its territory, includ- 

 ing the ground on which we stand ; from the land which 

 has taught us that the most scholarly devotion to the 

 languages and learning of the cloistered past is com- 

 patible with leadership in the practical application of 

 modern science to the arts of life ; from the island whose 

 language and literature have found a new field and a 

 vigorous growth in this region ; from the last seat of the 

 holy Roman Empire; from the country which, remem- 

 bering a monarch who made an astronomical obser- 

 vation at the Greenwich Observatory, has enthroned 

 science in one of the highest places in its government ; 

 from the peninsula so learned that we have invited one 

 of its scholars to come and tell us of our own language ; 

 from the land which gave birth to Leonardo, Galileo, 

 Torricelli, Columbus, Volta what an array of immortal 

 names ! from the little republic of glorious history 

 which, breeding men rugged as its eternal snow-peaks, 

 has yet been the seat of scientific investigation since 

 the day of the Bernoulli s ; from the land whose heroic 



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