Ixxvi Trans. Acad. Sci. oj St. Louis. 



geometric rather than arithmetic, kinetic rather than dynamic. 

 Probably the last century saw the doubling of the entire sum 

 of human knowledge ; Saint Louis Academy has seen in its 

 half -century the doubling of the sum of consciously organized 

 knowledge as it proceeds year by year atan ever increasing rate 

 of advance ; and it cannot be questioned that both the advance 

 and the rate of advance will continue cumulatively in such 

 fashion that the next quarter or third of a century will see 

 the sum of science doubled again — and that the next fifth of 

 a century will witness another doubling. 



How will the Saint Louis Academy of Science keep pace 

 with this progress? Its fifty years of history answer : it will 

 stand in the van. Probably it will progress along lines of 

 extension no less than along the intensive lines to which it has 

 chiefly held ; it may work indirectly by fostering off-spring 

 after the fashion of the Philosophical Society of Washington, 

 or it may combine increase and diffusion within and from 

 itself; in either case its influence must grow and it must enter 

 into the solidarity of intellectual life in our interior metropolis : 

 contemporary institutions may plant knowledge, it will water; 

 other organizations may gather crude ore of science, it will 

 smelt and tine and alloy and mint — and the standard coin 

 will circulate afar. Already its influence is strongly felt, as 

 has been that of like institutions before ; a germ springing in 

 the Centennial Exposition was fertilized by the influence of 

 Joseph Henry's foundations, and the National Museum took 

 shape in the national capital ; an ovum in the Columbian Ex- 

 position was fructified by the spirit of Chicago Academy of 

 Science, and the Field Museum was begotten; a nucleus was 

 gathered in the Louisiana Purchase Exposition and vivified by 

 the vitality of Saint Louis Academy, and our Public Museum 

 was conceived — to the future benefit of our city and state. 



Hardly half a century ago Huxley declared ♦« Prophecy is 

 not yet exact science;" yet such has been the advance in 

 both knowledge and method that we may now hold : Pre- 

 vision on a given plane is the function of Science. So, while 

 none may point out the precise lines along which Saint Louis 

 Academy will grow and make its influence felt — since these 



