September S, 1905.] 



SCIENCE. 



303 



of the ties which now knit together the 

 scientific interests of Europe and America. 

 A comparison of the scientific 'capital' of 

 the two countries, the climatic prerequisites 

 and the creative and thinking human ma- 

 terial, reveals an equivalence. If Europe 

 is still ahead in antiquity of culture ma- 

 terial and historical substrata, it will not 

 be so long before America catches up. 

 While European scientific institutions are 

 good, care must be taken lest the freedom 

 of their management be restricted, and 

 AA^aldeyer warns his colleagues that other- 

 wise Europe will soon fall behind America, 

 for science and art flourish only in the 

 open air ! 



In one large feature Europe is still, Wal- 

 deyer declares, ahead of America, and that 

 is in the making of great scientific discov- 

 eries and the formation of those theories 

 which have opened up wholly new domains 

 of knowledge. To Europe, he says, belongs 

 the credit of a surprisingly large number 

 of new chemical elements, spectral analysis 

 and, with it, astrophysics, the great dis- 

 coveries in the chemistry of dyes and 

 sugars, the physical chemistry of solutions, 

 the liquefaction and condensation of gases, 

 especially liquid air, the Eontgen and 

 Becquerel rays, radium and its rays,^ color- 

 photography, the dynamo-machine, electric 

 light, indeed, most, he asserts, of the in- 

 vestigations and applications of electricity 

 as a source of power, the electric furnace 

 and its fruitful application ; in the field of 

 biology almost the whole doctrines of the 

 protozoa and bacteria with their explana- 

 tions of epidemics, the toxines and anti- 

 toxines, the working-out of the doctrine of 

 immunity, the discovery of the finer proc- 

 esses of fertilization and of karyokinesis, 

 the doctrine of descent and Darwinism, 

 and above all, crowning all, the conception 

 and foundation of the great idea of the 

 conservation of energy. These he lists as 



the discoveries and theories of European 

 investigators during the past fifty years; 

 many of them belong to the immediate past. 

 It would be possible to enumerate a series 

 of men and researches in the domain of 

 the historical and philosophical sciences 

 also, which would easily demonstrate that, 

 in them, too, the main weight of achieve- 

 ment still rests in Europe. He rejoices 

 that Europe, with Germany in the heart 

 of it, has retained up to the present its 

 freshness in intellectual work and its 

 youthful vigor. As long as the climatic 

 factors remain as favorable as they now are 

 there will be no lack of intellectual accom- 

 plishment. 



Particularly noteworthy is a comment 

 made by Waldeyer on the importance of 

 the retention of individual character in 

 men and institutions. The schooling of 

 German youth has, he thinks, hitherto been 

 good, and he values highly the independ- 

 ence of the German university. Too great 

 a similarity should, he urges, be opposed. 

 The strength of an investigator, of a 

 scholar or of a teacher lies in the develop- 

 ment of his peculiar powers. In Germany 

 individuality in investigating and teaching 

 is usually well marked ; this, he lays stress 

 on, should be left undisturbed, and, all the 

 more, because in America there is a marked 

 tendency toward making things uniform 

 {um so mehr, als in der Union alles zu einer 

 gewissen Uniformirung drdngt). 



While western Europe still occupies the 

 first place in the field of science, the lec- 

 turer warns European workers that they 

 dare not rock themselves to sleep in the 

 pleasant certainty that this will continue 

 to be true. "America's scientific capital 

 is equal to ours; she is well in the way 

 toward preceding us in the culture of the 

 sciences. She has already produced men 

 and performances of the first rank in con- 

 siderable numbers ; over night there may 



