20 REPORT—1899. 
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 due 
touch with his fellow-workers. If his labour is to be what it ought to be, 
and is to have the weight which it ought to have, he must know what 
is being done, not by himself, but by others, and by others not of his own 
land and speaking his tongue only, but also of other lands and of other 
speech. Hence it comes about that to the man of science the barriers of 
manners and of speech which pen men into nations become more and more 
unreal and indistinct. He recognises his fellow-worker, wherever he may 
live and whatever tongue he may speak, as one who is pushing forward 
shoulder to shoulder with him towards a common goal, as one whom he 
is helping and who is helping him. The touch of science makes the whole 
world kin. 
The history of the past gives us many examples of this brotherhood of 
science. In the revival of learning throughout the sixteenth and seven- 
teenth centuries, and some way on into the eighteenth century, the 
common use of the Latin tongue made intercourse easy. In some respects 
in those earlier days science was more cosmopolitan than it afterwards 
became. In spite of the difficulties and hardships of travel, the men of 
science of different lands again and again met each other face to face, 
heard with their ears, and saw with their eyes what their brethren had to 
say or toshow. The Englishman took the long journey to Italy to study 
there ; the Italian, the Frenchman, and the German wandered from one 
seat of learning to another ; and many a man held a chair in a country 
not his own. There was help, too, as well as intercourse. The Royal 
Society of London took upon itself the task of publishing nearly all the 
works of the great Italian Malpighi, and the brilliant Lavoisier, two years 
before his own countrymen in their blind fury slew him, received from 
the same body the highest token which it could give of its esteem. 
In these closing years of the nineteenth century this great need of 
mutual knowledge and of common action felt by men of science of different 
lands is being manifested in a special way. Though nowadays what is 
done anywhere is soon known everywhere, the news of a discovery being 
often flashed over the globe by telegraph, there is an increasing activity in 
the direction of organisation to promote international meetings and inter- 
national co-operation. In almost every science inquirers from many lands 
now gather together at stated intervals in international congresses to 
discuss matters which they have in common at heart, and go away each 
one feeling strengthened by having met his brother. The desire that in the 
struggle to lay bare the secrets of Nature the least waste of human energy 
should be incurred is leading more and more to the concerted action of 
nations combining to attack problems the solution of which is difficult 
and costly. The determination of standards of measurement, magnetic 
surveys, the solution of great geodetic problems, the mapping of the 
