The subdivision of the Historical Sciences offers no methodological difficulty as soon as those epistemological arguments are acknowledged by which we sharply distinguish history from the Physical and Mental Sciences. If history is a system of will-relations which is in teleological connection with the will-demands that surround us, then political history loses its predominant rôle, and the history of law and of literature, of language and of economy, of art and religion, become coördinated with political development, while the mere anthropological aspect of man is relegated to the physical sciences. The more complete original scheme was here again finally condensed for practical reasons; for instance, the planned departments on the History of Education, on the History of Science, and on the History of Philosophy were sacrificed, and the department of Economic History was joined to that of Political History. In the same way we felt obliged to omit in the end many important sections in the departments; we had, for instance, in the History of Language at first a section on Slavic Languages; yet the number of scholars interested was too small to justify its existence beside a section on Slavic Literature. Also the History of Music was omitted from the History of Art; and the History of Law was planned at first with a fuller ramification.
The division of Physical Sciences naturally suggested that kind of subdivision which the positivistic classification presents as a complete system of sciences. Considering physics and chemistry as the two fundamental sciences of general laws, we turn first to astronomy, then from the science of the whole universe to the one planet, to the sciences of the earth; thence to the living organisms on the earth; and from biology to the still narrower circle of anthropology. The special classification of physics offers a certain difficulty. To divide it in text-book fashion into sound, light, electricity, etc., seems hardly in harmony with the effort to seek logical principles in the other parts of the classification. The three groups which we finally formed, Physics of Matter, Physics of Ether, and Physics of Electron, may appear somewhat too much influenced by the latest theories of to-day, yet it seemed preferable to other principles. In the biological department, criticism seems justified in view of the fact that we constructed a special section, Human Anatomy. A strictly logical scheme might have acknowledged that human anatomy is to-day not a separate science, and that it has resolved itself into comparative anatomy. Sections of Invertebrate and Vertebrate Anatomy might have been more satisfactory. The final arrangement was a concession to the practical interests of the physicians, who have naturally to emphasize the anatomy of the human organism.
In the division of Mental Sciences, we have the Department of Sociology. We were, of course, aware that the sociological interest includes not only the psychological, but also the physiological life of society, and that it thus has relations to the physical sciences too. Yet these relations are logically not more fundamental than those of the individual mental life to the functions of the individual organism. Much of the physiological side was further to be handed over to the Department of Anthropology, and thus we felt justified in grouping sociology with psychology under the Mental Sciences, as the psychology of the social organism. Here, too, a larger number of sections was intended and only the two most essential ones, Social Structure and Social Psychology, were finally admitted.
The ramifications of the practical sciences had to follow the general principle that their character is determined by purpose and not by material. The difficulty was here merely in the extreme specialization of the practical disciplines, which suggests on the whole the forming of very small units, while our plan was to provide for fifty practical sections only. It seemed, therefore, incongruous to have the whole of Internal Medicine or the whole of Private Law condensed into one section. Yet as the purpose of the scheme was a theoretical and not a practical one, even where the theory of practical sciences was in question, we felt justified in constructing coördinated sections, even where the practical importance was very unequal. On the other hand, some glaring defects just here are due merely to chance circumstances. That there were, for instance, no sections on Criminal Law or Ecclesiastical Law in the Department of Jurisprudence, nor on Legal Procedure, resulted from the unfortunate accident that in these cases the speakers who were to come from Europe were withheld by illness or public duties. The absence of the Department of Art in the Division of Social Culture, and thus of the Sections on the theory and practice of the different arts, has been explained before. It is evident that also in the Economical Department the practical development has interfered with the original symmetrical arrangement of the sections. This is not true of the Religious Department, whose six sections express the tendencies of the original plan. The frequently expressed criticism that the different religions and their denominations ought to have found place there shows a misconception of our purpose; a Parliament of Religion did not belong to this plan.
III
THE RESULTS OF THE CONGRESS
The programme of the Congress, as outlined in the previous pages, was in this case somewhat more than a mere programme. It not only invited to do a piece of work, but it sought to contribute to the work itself. Yet the chief work had to be done by others, and their part needed careful preparation. Yet very little of the preparation showed itself to the eyes of the larger public, and few were fully aware what a complex organization was growing up and how many persons of mark were coöperating.
It was essential to find for every address the best man. Specialists only could suggest to the committees where to find him. It has been told before how our invitations were brought to the foreigners first till the desired number of foreign participants was secured, and how the Americans followed. As could not be otherwise expected, interferences of all kinds disturbed the ideal configuration of the first list of acceptances; substitutes had sometimes to be relied on; and yet, when on the nineteenth of September President Francis welcomed the Congress of Arts and Science in the gigantic Festival Hall of the St. Louis Exposition, the Committee knew that almost four hundred speakers had completed their manuscripts, and that it was a galaxy which far surpassed in importance that of any previous international congress. And the list of those who stood for the success of the work was not confined to the official speakers. Each Department and each Section had its own honorary President, who was also chosen by the consent of leading specialists and whose introductory remarks were to give additional importance to the gathering. At their side stood the hundred and thirty Secretaries, carefully chosen from among the productive scholars of the younger generation. And a large number of informal, yet officially invited contributors, had announced valuable discussions and addresses for almost every Section. Invitations to membership finally had been sent to the universities and scholarly societies of all countries.
That the turmoil of a world's fair is out of harmony with the scholar's longing for repose and quietude is a natural presupposition, which has not been disproved by the experience of St. Louis. When Professor Newcomb, our President, spoke to the opening assembly on the dignity of scholarship, the scholar's peaceful address was accentuated by the thunder of the cannons with which Boer and British forces were playing at war near by. The roaring of the Pike overpowered many a quiet session, and the patient speaker had not seldom to fight heroically with a brass band on the next lawn. The trains were delayed, trunks were mixed up, and the sultry St. Louis weather stirred much secret longing for the seashore and the mountains, which most had to leave too early for that pilgrimage to the Mississippi Valley. Yet all this could have been easily foreseen, and every one knew that all this would soon be forgotten. These slight discomforts were many times made up for by the overwhelming beauty of that ivory city in which the civilization of the world was focused by the united energy of the nations, and it seemed well worth while to cross the ocean for the delight of that enchantment which came with every evening's myriad illumination. And every day brought interesting festivities. No one will forget the receptions of the foreign commissioners, or the charming hospitality of the leading citizens of St. Louis, or the enthusiastic banquet which brought one thousand speakers and presidents and official members of the Congress together as guests of the master mind of the Exposition, President Francis.
While the discomfort of external shortcomings was thus easily balanced, it is more doubtful whether the internal shortcomings of the work can be considered as fully compensated for. It would be impossible to overlook these defects in the realization of our plans, even if it may be acknowledged that they were unavoidable under the given conditions. The principal difficulty has been that many speakers have not really treated the topic for the discussion of which they were invited. This deviation from the plan took various forms. There was in some cases a fundamental attitude taken which did not harmonize with those logical principles which had led to the classification; for instance, we had sharply separated, for reasons fully stated above, the Division of History from the Division of Mental Sciences, including sociology; yet some papers for the Division of History clearly indicated sympathy with the traditional positivistic view, according to which history becomes simply a part of sociology. And similar variations of the general plan occur in almost every division. But there cannot be any objection to this secondary variety as long as the whole framework gives the primary uniformity. Certainly no one of the contributors is to be blamed for it; no one was pledged to the philosophy of the general plan, and probably few would have agreed if any one had had the idea of demanding from every contributor an identical background of general convictions. Such monotony would have been even harmful, as the work would have become inexpressive of the richness of tendencies in the scholarly life of our time. This was not an occasion where educated clerks were to work up in a secondhand way a report whose general trend was determined beforehand; the work demanded original thinkers, with whom every word grows out of a rich individual view of the totality. If every paper had been meant merely as a detailed amplification of the logical principles on which the whole plan was based, it would have been wiser to set young Doctor candidates to work, who might have elaborated the hint of the general scheme. To invite the leaders of knowledge meant to give them complete freedom and to confine the demands of the plan to a most general direction.