Septembek 23, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



393 



other, criticising, comparing and reasoning. 

 This element was introduced by the organ- 

 ization of the Royal Society of London and 

 the Academy of Sciences of Paris. The 

 members of these two bodies seem like in- 

 genious youths suddenly thrown into a new 

 world of interesting objects, the purposes 

 and relations of which they had to discover 

 for themselves. The novelty of the situa- 

 tion is strikingly shown in the questions 

 which occupied the minds of the incipient 

 investigators. One natural resiilt of Brit- 

 ish maritime supremacy was that the aspi- 

 rations of the fellows of the Royal Society 

 were not confined to any continent or hemi- 

 sphere. Inquiries were sent all the way to 

 Batavia to know ' whether there be a hill in 

 Sumatra Avhieh burneth continually, and a 

 fountain which runneth pure balsam. ' The 

 astronomical precision with which it seemed 

 possible that physiological operations might 

 go on Avas evinced by the inquiry whether 

 the Indians can so prepare that stupefying 

 herb datura that 'they make it lie several 

 days, months, years according as they will, 

 in a man's bodj^ without doing him any 

 harm, and at the end kill him without miss- 

 ing an hour's time.' Of this continent 

 one of the inquiries was whether there be a 

 tree in Mexico that yields water, wine, 

 vinegar, milk, honey, wax, thread and 

 needles. 



Among the problems before the Paris 

 Academy of Sciences those of physiology 

 and biology took a prominent place. The 

 distillation of compounds had long been 

 practised, and the fact that the more 

 spirituous elements of certain substances 

 were thus separated naturally led to the 

 question whether the essential essences of 

 life might not be discoverable in the same 

 way. In order that all might participate 

 in the experiments, they were conducted in 

 the full session of the academy, thus guard- 

 ing against the danger of any one member 

 obtaining for his exclusive personal use a 



possible elixir of life. Cats, dogs, birds of 

 various species, a wide range of the animal 

 and vegetable kingdom, in fact, were thus 

 analyzed. The practise of dissection was 

 introduced on a large scale. That of the 

 cadaver of an elephant occupied several 

 sessions, and was of such interest that the 

 monarch himself was a spectator. 



To the same epoch with the formation 

 and first work of these two bodies belongs 

 the invention of a mathematical method 

 which in its importance to the advance of 

 exact science may be classed with the in- 

 vention of the alphabet in its relation to 

 the progress of society at large. The use 

 of algebraic symbols to represent quantities 

 had its origin before the commencement of 

 the new era, and gradually gi-ew into a 

 highly developed form during the first two 

 centuries of that era. But this method 

 could represent quantities only as fixed. It 

 is true that the elasticity inherent in the 

 use of such symbols permitted of their be- 

 ing applied to any and every quantity ; yet, 

 in any one application, the quantity was 

 considered as fixed and definite. But most 

 of the magnitudes of nature are in a state 

 of continual variation; indeed, since all 

 motion is variation, the latter is a universal 

 characteristic of all phenomena.. No seri- 

 ous advance could be made in the applica- 

 tion of the algebraic method to the expres- 

 sion of physical phenomena until the 

 language of that method could be so ex- 

 tended as to express variation in quantities, 

 as well as the quantities themselves. This 

 extension, worked out independently by 

 Newton and Leibnitz, must be classed 

 among the greatest epoch-making concep- 

 tions in exact science. With it the way 

 was opened for the unimpeded and contin- 

 ually accelerated progress of the last two 

 centuries. The feature of this period 

 which has the closest relation to the pur- 

 pose of our coming together is the seem- 

 ingly unending subdivision of knowledge 



