been made, it will be possible to study the ideas which were given expression in the meetings. 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. It would indeed have been a miracle if the sciences had simply been shaken together and a perfect kaleidoscopic picture had resulted. But such was not the case.
A unified classification had been prepared, as a means, not as an end, and elaborate as it was, it lent itself with remarkable fitness to the actual work of the congress. This does not mean that all the addresses conformed to the specifications in the same degree, or that those which heeded them most were always the most interesting. It is perhaps fair to say that if the dramatic unity of the whole was not mechanically perfect in its execution, it was ideally present throughout. Specialists were of course primarily interested in their own departments, but it was impossible not be conscious of the varied opulence of learning by which they were constantly surrounded and the one animating spirit of research with which the very atmosphere was surcharged. The leaders were mostly men whose previous interests and accomplishments were general and synthetic, as well as specialistic. Poincaré, Ostwald and Boltzmann might have been assigned to places in physical science; James Ward, to normative science; Arrhenius, to chemistry: Bryce, to history; while medicine would have been proud to open its doors to such savants as Waldeyer and Loeb.
A balanced evaluation of results must await the later work of better judges. Suffice it to remark in conclusion that a keen sentiment of mutual interest and respect was aroused and personal acquaintances were formed which should be an inspiration to all concerned. The congress will be a lasting monument to the idealism of the American spirit of enterprise. It gave a definite and a permanent expression to the scientific and social Zeitgeist. It must tend to quicken among scientific workers their sense of the multifarious variety of the human interests for which they labor, and to make for the desiderated extension of the methods of science to the whole domain of human life and effort, foreshadowing by the existing unity which it revealed a yet completer unity to be. 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.
