JOACHIM ELMENDORF. 13 



lield the view, u that every great advance in intellectual 

 education has been the effect of some considerable scien- 

 tific discovery or group of discoveries ;" and he declared 

 with equal confidence, that " the influence which has ef- 

 fected the advance has been that of the intellectual 

 achievements of one or two gifted men at the beginning 

 of those epochs. 1 ' 



When we remember what the inversion of the methods 

 of interpreting nature, from the deductive to the induct- 

 ive effected at once, and has since accomplished, who 

 shall limit the possibilities of impulse, expansion, con- 

 quest, which may be given to the whole family of sciences, 

 by the discoveries of any single heaven appointed mind '. 

 And when we think of the incompleteness of all the 

 great sciences and the warring theories within them, and 

 then remember the demonstrated quality and recognized 

 standing of minds in our own association, why may we 

 not expect the flashing of some grand, harmonizing prin- 

 ciple into one or more of them, that shall make and mark 

 an era of scientific progress, and link our Institute with 

 a glory that shall grow with the ages ? 



Whether this shall be or not, the influence of all true 

 work here will surely make more probable the realization 

 of the expressed thrilling hope, when "a science of 

 sciences" shall show that the sciences are not isolated 

 things, but are so bound together as to constitute a unity. 

 which is a reflection of the unity of nature and of the 

 nnity of that Supreme Reason which pervades all and 

 originates all intelligence. 



LITERATURE. 



The range of the department of literature is world- 

 wide and extends backward to the first historical record. 



Craik's conception goes quite beyond this. He says. 

 tk Literature is composed of words, of thought reduced to 

 the form of words ; but the words need not be written : 



