International Congress of Arts and Science, Volume 1 / Philosophy and Metaphysics

by Unknown

The same freedom, which every one was to have as to the general standpoint, was intended also for all with regard to the arrangement and limitation of the topic. All the sectional addresses were supposed to deal either with relations or with fundamental problems of to-day. It would have been absurd to demand that in every case the totality of relations or of problems should be covered or even touched. The result would have become perfunctory and insignificant. No one intended to produce a cyclopedia. It was essential everywhere to select that which was most characteristic of the tendencies of the age and most promising for the science of the twentieth century. Those problems were to be emphasized whose solution is most demanded for the immediate progress of knowledge, and those relations had to be selected through which new connections, new synthetic thoughts prepare themselves to-day. That this selection had to be left to the speaker was a matter of course.

Yet it may be said that in all these directions, with reference to the general standpoint and with reference to problems and relations, the Organizing Committee had somewhat prepared the choice through the selection of the speakers themselves. As the standpoints of the leading speakers were well known, it was not difficult to invite as far as possible for every place a scholar whose general views would be least out of harmony with the principles of the plan. For instance, when we had the task before us of selecting the divisional speakers for the Normative and for the Mental Sciences, it was only natural to invite for the first a philosopher of idealistic type and for the latter a philosopher of positivistic stamp, inasmuch as the whole scheme gave to the mental sciences the same place which they would have had in a positivistic scheme, while the normative sciences would have lost the meaning which they had in our plan if a positivist had simply psychologized them. In the same way we gave preference as far as possible, for the addresses on relations, to those scholars whose previous work was concerned with new synthetic movements, and as speakers on problems those were invited who were in any case engaged in the solution of those problems which seemed central in the present state of science. Thus it was that on the whole the expectation was justified that the most characteristic relations and the most characteristic problems would be selected if every invited speaker spoke essentially on those relations and on those problems with which his own special work was engaged.

Yet there is no doubt that this expectation was sometimes fulfilled beyond our anticipation, in an amount of specialization which was no longer entirely in harmony with the general character of the undertaking. The general problem has become sometimes only the starting-point or almost the pretext for speaking on some relation or problem so detailed that it can hardly stand as a representative symbol of the whole movement in that sectional field. Especially in the practical sciences more room was sometimes taken for particular hobbies and chance aspects than in the eyes of the originators the occasion may have called for. Yet on the whole this was the exception. The overwhelming majority of the addresses fulfilled nobly the high hopes of the Boards, and even in those exceptional cases where the speaker went his own way, it was usually such an original and stimulating expression of a strong personality that no one would care to miss this tone in the symphony of science.

Even now of course, though the Congress days have passed, and only typewritten manuscripts are left from all those September meetings, it would be easy to provide, by editorial efforts, for a greater uniformity and a smoother harmonization. Most of the authors would have been quite willing to retouch their addresses in the interest of greater objective uniformity and to accept the hint of an editorial committee in elaborating more fully some points and in condensing or eliminating others. Much was written in the desire to bring a certain thought for discussion before such an eminent audience, while the speaker would be ready to substitute other features of the subject for the permanent form of the printed volume. Yet such editorial supervision and transformation would be not only immodest but dangerous. We might risk gaining some external uniformity, but only to lose much of the freshness and immediacy and brilliancy of the first presentation. And who would dare to play the critical judge when the international contributors are the leaders of thought? There was therefore not the slightest effort made to suggest revision of the manuscripts, for which the whole responsibility must thus fall to the particular author. The reduction to a uniform language seemed, on the other hand, most natural, and those who had delivered their addresses in French, German, or Italian themselves welcomed the idea that their papers should be translated into English by competent specialists. The short bibliographies, selected mostly through the chairman of the departments, and the very full index with references may add to the general usefulness of the eight volumes in which the work is to be presented.

But the significance of the Congress of Arts and Science ought not to be measured and valued only by reference to this printed result. Its less visible side-effects seem in no way less important for scholarship, and they are fourfold. There was, first, the personal contact between the scholarly public and the leaders of thought; there was, secondly, the first academic alliance between the United States and Europe; there was, thirdly, the first demonstration of a world congress crystallized about one problem; there was, fourthly, the unique accentuation of the thought of unity in all human science; and each of these four movements will be continued and reinforced by the publication of these proceedings.

The first of these four features, the contact of the scholarly public with the best thinkers of our time, had, to be sure, its limitations. It was not sought to create a really popular congress. Neither the level of the addresses, nor the size of the halls, nor the number of invitations sent out, nor the general conditions of a world's fair at which the expense of living is high and the distractions thousandfold, favored the attendance of crowds. It was planned from the first that on the whole scholars and specialists should attend and that the army should be made up essentially of officers. If in an astronomical section perhaps thirty men were present, among whom practically every one was among the best known directors of observatories or professors of mathematics, astronomy, or physics, from all countries of the globe, much more was gained than if three thousand had been in the audience, brought together by an interest of curiosity in moon and stars. For the most part there must have been between a hundred and two hundred in each of the 128 sectional meetings, and that was more than the organizers expected. This direct influence on the interested public is now to be expanded a thousandfold by the mission work of these volumes. The concentration of these hundreds of addresses into a few days made it in any case impossible to listen to more than to a small fraction; these volumes will bring at last all speakers to coördinated effectiveness; and while one hall suffered from bad acoustics, another from bad ventilation, and a third from the passing of the intermural trains, here at least is an audience in which nothing will disturb the sensitive nerves of the willing follower.

But much more emphasis is due to the second feature. The Congress was an epoch-making event for the international world of scholarship from the fact that it was the first great undertaking in which the Old and the New Worlds stood on equal levels and in which Europe really became acquainted with the scientific life of these United States. The contact of scholarship between America and Europe has, indeed, grown in importance through many decades. Many American students had studied in European and especially in German universities and had come back to fill the professorial chairs of the leading academic institutions. The spirit of the Graduate School and the work towards the Doctor's degree, yes, the whole productive scholarship of recent decades had been influenced by European ideals, and the results were no longer ignored at the seats of learning throughout the whole world. European scholars had here and there come as visiting lecturers or as assimilated instructors, and a few American scholars belonged to the leading European Academies. Yet, whoever knew the real development of American post-graduate university life, the rapid advance of genuine American scholarship, the incomparable progress of the scientific institutions of the New World, of their libraries and laboratories, museums and associations, was well aware that Europe had hardly noticed and certainly not fully understood the gigantic strides of the country which seemed a rival only on commercial and industrial ground. Europe was satisfied with the traditional ideas of America's scientific standing which reflected the situation of thirty years ago, and did not understand that the changes of a few lustres mean in the New World more than under the firmer traditions of Europe. American scientific literature was still neglected; American universities treated in a condescending and patronizing spirit and with hardly any awareness of the fundamental differences in the institutions of the two sides. Those European scholars who crossed the ocean did it with missionary, or perhaps with less unselfish, intentions, and the Americans who attended European congresses were mostly treated with the friendliness which the self-satisfied teacher shows to a promising pupil. The time had really come when the contrast between the real situation and the traditional construction became a danger for the scientific life of the time. Both sides had to suffer from it. The Americans felt that their serious and important achievements did not come to their fullest effectiveness through the insistent neglect of those who by the tradition of centuries had become the habitual guardians of scientific thought. A kind of feeling of dependency as it usually develops in weak colonies too often depressed the conscientious scholarship on American soil as the result of this undue condescension. Yet the greater harm was to the other side. Once before Europe had had the experience of surprise when American successes presented themselves where nothing of that kind was anticipated in the Old World. It was in the field of economic life that Europe looked down patronizingly on America's industrial efforts, and yet before she was fully aware how the change resulted, suddenly the warning signal of the "American danger" was heard everywhere. The surprise in the intellectual field will not be less. The unpreparedness was certainly the same. Of course, there cannot be any danger of rivalry in the scientific field, inasmuch as science knows no competition but only coöperation. And yet it cannot be without danger for European science if it willfully neglects and recklessly ignores this eager working of the modern America. For both sides a change in the situation was thus not only desirable, but necessary; and to prepare this change, to substitute knowledge for ignorance, nothing could have been more effective than this Congress of Arts and Science.

Even if we abstract from the not inconsiderable number of those European scholars who followed naturally in the path of the invited guests, and if we consider merely the function of these invited participants, the importance of the procedure is evident. More than a hundred leading scholars from all European countries came under conditions where academic fellowship on an equal footing was a necessary part of the work. There was not the slightest premium held out which might have attracted them had not real inter-academic interest brought them over the ocean, and no missionary spirit was appealed to, as everything was equally divided between American and foreign contributors. It was a real feast of international scholarship, in which the importance and the number of foreigners stamped it as the first significant alliance of the spirit of learning in the New and the Old Worlds. And it was essentially for this purpose that the week of personal intermingling in St. Louis itself was preceded and followed by happy weeks of visits to leading universities. Almost every one of those one hundred European scholars visited Harvard and Yale, Chicago and Johns Hopkins, Columbia and Pennsylvania, saw the treasures of Washington and examined the exhibitions of American scholarship in the World's Fair itself. The change of opinion, the disappearance of prejudice, the growth of confidence, the personal intercollegiate ties which resulted from all that, have been evident since those days all over Europe. And it is not surprising that it is just the most famous and most important of the visitors, famous and important through their width and depth of view, whose expression of appreciation and admiration for the new achievements has been loudest.

We insisted that the effectiveness of the Congress showed itself in two other directions still: on the one side, there was at last a congress with a unified programme, a congress which stood for a definite thought, and which brought all its efforts to bear on the solution of one problem. There seemed a far-reaching agreement of opinion that this new principle of congress administration had successfully withstood the test of practical realization. Mere conglomerations of unconnected meetings with casual programmes and unrelated papers cannot claim any longer to represent the only possible form of international gatherings of scholars. More than that, their superfluous and disheartening character will be felt in future more strongly than before. No congress will appear fully justified whose printed proceedings do not show a real plan in its programme. And the consciousness of this mission of the Congress will certainly be again reinforced by the publication of these volumes, inasmuch as it is evident that they represent a substantial contribution to the knowledge of our time which would not have been made without the special stimulating occasion of the Congress.

And, finally, whether such a congress is held again or not, the impulse of this one cannot be lost on account of the special end to which all its efforts have been directed: the unity of scientific knowledge. We had emphasized from the first that here was the centre of our purposes in a time whose scientific specialization necessarily involves a scattering of scholarly work and which yet in its deepest meaning strives for a new synthesis, for a new unity, which is to give to all this scattered labor a real dignity and significance; truly nothing was more needed than an intense accentuation of the internal harmony of all human knowledge. But for that it is not enough that the masses feel instinctively the deep need of such unifying movements, nor is it enough that the philosophers point with logical arguments towards the new synthesis. The philosopher can only stand by and point the way; the specialists themselves must go the way. And here at last they have done so. Leaders of thought have interrupted their specialistic work and have left their detailed inquiries to seek the fundamental conceptions and methods and principles which bind all knowledge together, and thus to work towards that unity from which all special work derives its meaning. Whether or not their coöperation has produced anything which is final is a question almost insignificant compared with the fundamental fact that they coöperated at all for this ideal synthetic purpose. This fact can never lose its influence on the scholarly effort of our age, and will certainly find its strongest reinforcement in this unified publication. It has fulfilled its noblest purpose if it adds strength to the deepest movement of our time, the movement towards unity of meaning in the scattered manifoldness of scientific endeavor with which the twentieth century has opened.