William Harper Davis

“ President Jordan pointed out the unity of all the so-called utilitarian sciences in that they have their common source in disinterested investigation, at the same time claiming for pure research and practical application a relation of reciprocal dependence. Science is the guide of life and pure science must precede its applications, yet the utilities of science may not only determine the direction of its efforts but must ultimately control its results, measuring their exactness by the relentless standard of consequences. ”

“ It will lie sufficient to remind our readers in passing that the unique purpose of this congress was to see science whole. It was a deliberate attempt to exhibit the totality of intellectual achievement, to formulate the interrelations of the several branches of knowledge, and in some measure to realize the potential unity of the several sciences ami their applications by harmonizing the confused mass of knowledge scattered through a bewildering multiplicity of specialties. ”

“ Almost all the departmental exhibits, including manufactures, machinery, electricity, transportation, agriculture, horticulture, forestry, mines and metallurgy, and the like, illustrate directly the progress of applied science, while all, without exception, depend for their existence upon its development. Government and social economy presuppose some kind of philosophy and even a certain amount of knowledge, and both will increasingly apply the methods and results of science. Even the fine arts, quite apart from their technique, appeal to the reason and depend upon criticism. ”

“ THE first International Congress of Arts and Science has passed honorably into history. What may have been a philosopher's dream is now also a fact accomplished. Not that with the successful completion of the program the living influence of the congress has ceased. ”

“ Commissioner Harris doubtless traced the history of social culture from its first beginnings, as the unfolding temporal expression of an immanent purpose realizing itself through the instrumentality of human institutions, and having therefore from the start a unity of aim, at once natural and divine, namely, the perfection of spiritual citizenship in a rational society of personal selves. ”

“ The subject itself is both new and fundamental, and perfectly typical of the class of problems for the consideration of which the congress was planned. It has to do with the determination and mutual adjustment of the concepts which underlie the special sciences and the methods peculiar to each, and is thus in the closest relation to logic and to the sciences themselves. A science of method must both conform to the laws of our minds and apply to the subject matter of experience which the sciences severally study. ”

“ Thanks to the wisdom, enthusiasm and devotion of these learned officers of the congress, and the intelligent enterprise of the management of the exposition under its president, the Hon. David R. Francis, it was possible to carry out a program without a parallel in history. Other meetings of men, including some more eminent than any of those who came to St. Louis, may have accomplished more for science and civilization, but never before has there been a gathering of so large and representative a body of the world's leading scholars and thinkers. ”

“ Not until then will it be possible to estimate with safety the scientific outcome and value of the congress as a whole. It is certain, however, that the addresses were for the most part real contributions to science, and many of them of exceptional importance. It may strain the imagination of some to conceive of unification among subjects so diverse as logic and obstetrics, in spite of the Socratic simile. But it was the unity of ordered position in a complex system, and not without a sufficient number of intermediaries, that was sought, and in large measure realized. ”

“ In addition to the professional philosophers, a number of remarkable men of science were present. In the front row, for instance, sat Svante Arrhenius, of Stockholm, physical chemist, famous for his mathematical and experimental contributions to the theory of solutions and speaker for cosmical physics, and Ludwig Boltzmann, of Vienna, mathematical physicist, distinguished especially for his work in the kinetic theory of gases, who represented applied mathematics in the program of the congress. ”

“ The spirit of mental science, subsumed under which were psychology and sociology, was voiced by Dr. G. Stanley Hall, an eager student of human life, who has achieved an encyclopedic learning; the creator of a school in the investigation of problems in mental science conceived and approached in a singularly generous spirit, who has made Clark University, of which he has been president since it was founded, preeminently an institution for psychological research ”

“ Thus normative science, inclusive of philosophy and mathematics in their entirety, was discussed by Professor Josiah Royce of Harvard University, America's foremost representative of speculative philosophy, unrivaled in systematic and constructive learning, unexceled in subtlety of insight, who has awakened a fruitful interest in mathematics among philosophers and in philosophy among mathematicians. ”

“ Here under one roof were seated hundreds of scholars brought together by the common interests of learning and research, come together to exchange ideas and to meet and hear their peers and leaders. On the platform sat the administrative officers of the congress, the president and vice-presidents, and a distinguished group of representative leaders in the science of foreign countries, who had been invited to act as honorary vice-presidents of the congress. ”

“ The division of utilitarian sciences, giving shelter to medicine, technology and economics, was generalled by President David Starr Jordan, of Leland Stanford University, eminent as a systematic zoologist, especially in ichthyology, who has placed his special knowledge at the service of the state in relation to questions of international import, and has admirably exemplified in his career what, as educator, writer and publicist, he has enunciated in no uncertain terms—the union of theory with practice in intelligent, effective work. ”

“ For Hall, introspection was an almost anomalous byproduct of evolution, for Cattell, only one of the methods of psychology. If Hall defined his science in terms of his general philosophy or Weltanschauung, and Titchener in terms of its most distinctive feature, Cattell may be said to have defined it inductively, in terms of the concrete interests of working psychologists as measured by their output. ”

“ The unity and variety of historical science, comprising political and economic history, and the histories of law, language, literature, art and religion, was discussed with characteristic literary distinction by Woodrow Wilson, president of Princeton University, widely known as an historical student of polities, a literary student of history, an engaging cultivator of literature and a fond admirer of all the humanities. ”

“ The great exposition now in progress is notable not only for its material illustration of the arts and industries of the world, but chiefly because in its conception the place of first importance has been given to education. ”

“ The sciences here grouped together as normative all agree in that they seek 'ideal' truth, as distinct from physical truth or from historical fact—are concerned with the consequences, implications and interrelations of ideas or of ideals, rather than with the order of phenomena or events. The mathematician is concerned with the exact expression and abstract logical development of ideas, the meaning of which in terms of their ultimate relations is sought by the philosopher. ”

“ Scattered through the audience were many eminent leading representatives of both the physical and mental sciences. Among Americans on the front were Loeb in biology and Cattell in psychology, both eminent specialists actively interested in scientific methods, both having applied exact methods with conspicuous success, albeit in very different ways, to the investigation of phenomena of life and mind. This is not the place to attempt a summary of the leading addresses, both delivered in German. ”

“ Impromptu discussion was opened in the section after the delivery of the formal communications. The principal addresses were made in
Dr. Benno Erdmann, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Bonn, who gave one of the Addresses on the Methodology of Science. some cases by two foreigners, in others by two Americans, but in most of them by a foreigner and an American scholar in turn.
Philosophy must again serve for illustration. The problems and relations of metaphysics were grappled with by two live thinkers, both authors of important recent books of a strictly metaphysical nature. ”

“ Not to mention other advantages of a more practical kind for such of the participants as were interested in seeing a great world's fair, or studying some special aspect of its exhibition, the provision for this congress was at once a tribute to science many times deserved, and especially a lesson to the public at large of incalculable educational value. ”

“ It was therefore essential that both speakers should be at the same time philosophers and men of science. And it was no less fitting than interesting that they should approach their subject by different roads. One is primarily a physical scientist, the other primarily a philosopher; both are preeminent. The first was Wilhelm Ostwald, of Leipzig, one of the most interesting personalities among living men of science. A brilliant investigator in the field of physical chemistry, where his name is linked with those of van't Hoff, Arrhenius and Nernst ”

“ Hall warned the psychologist against mathematics, while Cattell correlated psychology with the physical sciences and emphasized the need of exact methods, and Titchener found a large place for quantitative work. The psychology of Ward and Hoeffding seemed tenuous by contrast with that of all these others, while that of Janet and Prince occupied a place apart. Yet all were able discussions of psychology of some sort, and beneath the troubled surface was a common interest in 'minds,' many fathoms deep. ”

“ The first address in the esthetics section was made by Dr. Henry Rutgers Marshall, of New York, a successful architect by profession, a philosopher by instinct and performance, distinguished as a philosophical student of psychology and a psychological student of esthetics, who has made interesting contributions to the analytical and genetic aspects of both sciences. The second speaker was Professor Max Dessoir, of the University of Berlin, erudite historian of German psychology in all its ramifications, himself a philosopher, psychologist and esthetician. ”

“ Almost all the leading colleges, universities and higher institutions of learning at home and abroad were represented, although about 125 officers and speakers were scholars not engaged in university teaching. These include museum curators, experts in government scientific bureaus, representatives of research institutions, observatories, the army and navy, legislative bodies and diplomatic embassies, besides eminent municipal officers, school administrators, editors, librarians, engineers, architects, artists, physicians, social workers, clergymen, lawyers and jurists. ”

“ In a remarkable address, too technical to summarize here, in which, to the luminous exposition of old ideas, was added the suggestion of novel ideas of fundamental interest, a statement was made of the community of interest shared by the several philosophical and mathematical sciences when abstractly regarded, and an account given of certain concrete investigations typical of the contemporary mutuality of interest among the more advanced students of philosophy and mathematics, together with some promising results. ”

“ And surely it. had one great lesson, writ so large that all but the blind must have seen, and that is this: that science is the true bond of the nations, owing no allegiance save alone to truth, for which all the world may work in one spirit and by methods which are universal. ”

“ Men may be interesting though their theories be wrong. When they are known to have ideas and to have won distinction, they are especially interesting, even to those not technically familiar with their work. ”

“ The Americans came from all parts of the country, a meritorious group of scholars worthy to receive their eminent guests from abroad. no less than seven women, distinguished for scholarship, were among the Americans who addressed the congress.
It was indeed a notable audience of men and women which assembled in the great Festival Hall of the exposition for the formal opening on Monday afternoon. ”

“ For De Vries has been able to see with his own eves the actual evolution of several new plant forms possessing the characters of true species, and has accumulated a vast amount of exact evidence, in support of the theory that new species arise suddenly from marked variations of the discontinuous sort, called 'mutations' rather than by the gradual accumulation, through successive generations, of slight differences due to the ordinary 'fluctuating variation,' as Darwin had supposed. ”

“ The offices of chairman and secretary for each of the sections were filled by Americans, chairmen being for the most part specialists of eminence, while the secretaries usually, although by no means invariably, represented a younger generation of scholars, conspicuous for promise. ”

“ It remains only to illustrate the personnel a little more fully.
Taking philosophy as the first on the program, its chairman was Professor Borden P. Bowne, of Boston University, valued for his conservative temper, constructive scholarship, and the keen, clear and interesting analysis long familiar to a group of grateful students and readers. ”