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This institution reserves the right to refuse to accept a copy order if, in its judgement, fulfillment of the order would involve violation of the copyright law. A UTHOR: RICE INSTITUTE TITLE: THE BOOK OF THE OPENING OF THE RICE PLACE: HOUSTON, TEX DA TE: [1912?] Master Negative if COLUMBIA UNIVEI^ITY LIBRARIES PRESERVATION DEPARTMENT Restrictions on Use: DIDLIOGRAPHIC MICROFORM TARGET Original Material as Filmed - Existing Bibliographic Record 061R36 B Q f T' fVia |i i < I m i l ■ n in I , », ■"-■»;«p»-:i!rr=»^- 1 ? i -o Q ^ ■ (illian I lar c h Rice University. ■' K^^titete^Hiberai-afld-techiiicaHeammg, Mm^s^, an^iLnnf ''nf ' opening of tl.e Rice institute; being an account . . of an academic festival held in celebration of Hbefar.'n ]7o7'"^ f^ ^^' Kce institute, a universSy ot liberal and technical learning founded in the citv of h m t"fh?n f ' ''^' ^^''^"•-"^.Marsh Rice and dedicated by h" ustU Te^'lSlir ""' '''''''''' ^^-"-' -__ FILMED BY: RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS, INC WOODBRIDGE. CT //v^ i^i^ f- Tl,o book ofthe tSr %'f?S^' ^r^' Paged continuously P""ng ... [1912 ?j (Card 2) l?ivcn hv fl,« ,^"^/^"<^iscI quartet. Toasts in/ ^ ^ °^ *^^ concerts ^iVLii [)v tlic trustrp«: If ♦!,« n -i ;^ ^«tsis ana rcsnon<;fc of *u *-^* i^ 17-^097 i i 1 Restrictions on Use: TECHNICAL MICROFORM DATA FILM SIZE: ^S /^^^ IMAGE PLACEMENT: 1a "IFa'Ib JIB DATE FILMED: ^- T y-^ REDUCTION RATIO: ,//>^ C^ *- — COLUMBIA UNIVERSrrY LIBRARIES PRESERVATION DEPARTMENT Master Negative # _g3:lv2ibp DIDLIOGRAPHIC MICROFORM TA R G ET Original Material as Filmed - Existing Bibliographic Record Q61R3 Restrictions on Use: 1 iiiiife ... [IJ12?J (Card 3) soplMCal ianli ks be ne" J^",':"'"''"^^-''^'^^"' '^y Hugo de Vricr'°pf'-?"' library of Congress [ I LD4711.R349 1912 17-8097 \ TECHNICAL MICROFORM DATA REDUCTION RATIO: / ' ^" FILM SIZE: ^:£''^_'^__ IMAGE PLACEMENT lA ^ ID IID DATE FILMED: ^_A C^. INITI ALS___^/tIl.. 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I If OG\"K^S LIBRARY GIVEN BY PUBLISHER Cdunibia Untber-sttp ^ itttbeCitPofJleUiJDork i I i i .HMMirilL THE RICE INSTITUTE OCTOBER TENTH, ELEVENTH, TWELFTH NINETEEN HUNDRED AND TWELVE Volume One mMmm^u^immmm^m^i^mumiikmmimmmiltliimiimimmm > THE BOOK OF THE OPENING OF THE RICE INSTITUTE BEING AN ACCOUNT IN THREE VOLUMES OF AN ACADEMIC FESTIVAL HELD IN CELEBRATION OF THE FORMAL OPENING OF THE RICE INSTITUTE, A UNIVERSITY OF LIBERAL AND TECHNICAL LEARNING FOUNDED IN THE CITY OF HOUSTON, TEXAS, BY WILLIAM MARSH RICE AND DEDICATED BY HIM TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF LETTERS, SCIENCE, AND ART Volume I HOUSTON, TEXAS U.S.A. Uat-^..- Cf^^/^f^ r ^.eC'^^j^/-r ^', /.O/^'S*. THE BOOK OF THE OPENING OF THE RICE INSTITUTE BEING AN ACCOUNT IN THREE VOLUMES OF AN ACADEMIC FESTIVAL HELD IN CELEBRATION OF THE FORMAL OPENING OF THE RICE INSTITUTE, A UNIVERSITY OF LIBERAL AND TECHNICAL LEARNING FOUNDED IN THE CITY OF HOUSTON, TEXAS, BY WILLIAM MARSH RICE AND DEDICATED BY HIM TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF LETTERS, SCIENCE, AND ART Volume I HOUSTON, TEXAS U. S. A. Vi7 M THESE COMMEMORATIVE VOLUMES ARE INSCRIBED BY SPECIAL PERMISSION TO THE HONORABLE WOODROW WILSON, PH.D., LITT.D., LL.D., MAN OF LETTERS, LEADER OF MEN, THIRTEENTH PRESI- DENT OF PRINCETON UNIVERSITY, AND THE TWENTY-EIGHTH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA .\ V CONTENTS VOLUMES ONE, TWO, AND THREE LIST OF DELEGATES vol. i ADDRESSES OF WELCOME AND RE- SPONSES AT A LUNCHEON GIVEN AT THE CITY AUDITORIUM . . . vol. i PROGRAMS OF THE CONCERTS REN- DERED BY THE KNEISEL QUARTET vol. i TOASTS AND RESPONSES AT THE SUPPER GIVEN BY THE TRUSTEES AT THE RESI- DENTIAL HALL vol. I FORMAL EXERCISES OF DEDICA- TION VOL.1 RESPONSES AT THE LUNCHEON IN THE INSTITUTE COMMONS .... vol. i RELIGIOUS SERVICES IN THE CITY AUDI- TORIUM vol.1 THE INAUGURAL LECTURES The Problem of the Philosophy of History— The Theory of Civilization— The Methods OF Extending Civilization Among the Na- tions VOL. II Molecular Theories and Mathematics— Ag- gregates OF Zero Measure— Monogenic Uni- form NoN- Analytic Functions : The Theories OF Cauchy, Weierstrass, and Riemann vol. ii PAGE 3 25 53 57 97 221 237 265 347 CONTENTS THE INAUGURAL LECTURES- (continued) pace The Breviary of ^Esthetic . . . vol. ii 430 Mutations in Heredity— Geographical Bot- any—Modern Cytological Problems— The Ideals OF AN Experiment Garden . vol. 11 518 Philosophical Landmarks . . . vol. ii 620 The Introduction of Western Learning into Japan vol. iii 681 The Study of Poetry vol. hi 726 The System of the Sciences— Principles of THE Theory of Education .... vol. iii 778 Henri Poincare vol. iii 899 The Electron as an Element— Compounds of Electrons— The Disruption of the So-called Elements vol. hi 929 The Corpuscular Theory of Aurora Borea- Lis VOL. Ill 981 The Generalization of Analytic Functions —On the Theory of Waves and Green's Method vol. m 1036 • • • X- 1 Vlll I ■ -jp^T*?*?^* ^ w^lii^iiii' THF PRESIDENT AND IRUSTfcES OF THE RICE INSTITUTE OF LIBERAL AND TECHNICAL LKAKNINCi FOUNDHD IN THE f JTY OF IIOL^TON TFXaS m wax I AM MARSH RICE AiNr^ l>Elil€HTeD BY HIM TO TH E ADVANCr M ENT OT i ETTERS SCJ B-iCW. A ' . ?>T HAVrNG »E«X\fcD F.RVE FOtiMAt OFEiMING OF THK Ni^ t NrVERSiTY WITH AFPROPklATT ACAJ^f.^'r CI!I?*AIGNI!;S AND T'^ *^'V'TT- : ' • ,^ FROM T^"': '•l^tVtf^-- ^- ■' ^. :.,-.. . ,* nd^TIONS THE INAUGURATiO^ *tON f ■*','■ \ - ^ ,-., TO S&m A k£P(USFNTA.riVB OF THAT DISTilSGL'.'J^HD SiXIlfcTY OF SCHOLARS TO m, THE GUEST Hf iHF 8K E INSTITUTE THliRSDAY FHJDAY 4.ND SATURDAY »! : rmrn EtEviNTH knu refirrH dats of ocTC^m mtmimn : ' ; ■ "■'Duso amd tv^lve MKSinrwT rn\' TF\TS f f^R TV A ■f^Tr R: T !-• )7rTT ppc vN JtXFEKIMENT GARDEN >Of- VOL. I r jPHicAL Landmarks INTK 2T10N or Wfstf HF t K iiOUCAl :CARE VOL, III VOL. Ul ROS^ ElEMEN 1 — COMPOIJ NDS OF i^JSRFPTTOV OF TBV ^^ . . iii ir-UAi u: /^UKA DU>' \- T PACK \OL. II 430 CtR \ (^L. U 620 OGl 7 2 J ) 778 8(>Q 929 VOL. Ill 981 iZAi \NALrnc Functions ORV Of W^VF5, . VOL. Hi 1036 ^ 1 U: 1 1 1 .usA _^^_/V AKi / \ ~'' ll-M I, /" THE PRESIDENT AND TRUSTEES OF THE RICE INSTITUTE OF LIBERAL AND TECHNICAL LEARNING FOUNDED IN THE CITY OF HOUSTON TEXAS BY WILLIAM MARSH RICE AND DEDICATED BY HIM TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF LETTERS SCIENCE AND ART HAVING RESOLVED TO OBSERVE THE FORMAL OPENING OF THE NEW UNIVERSITY WITH APPROPRIATE ACADEMIC CEREMONIES AND TO INVITE DELEGATES FROM THE UNIVERSITIES COLLEGES SCIENTIFIC FOUNDATIONS AND LEARNED SOCIETIES OF THE WORLD TO BE PRESENT AT THE EXERCISES ATTENDING THE INAUGURATION OF THE EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMME OF THE INSTITUTION IT THEREFORE BECOMES MY PRIVILEGE MOST RESPECTFULLY TO REQUEST ^be XntniversitiP of Paris TO SEND A REPRESENTATIVE OF THAT DISTINGUISHED SOCIETY OF SCHOLARS TO BE THE GUEST OF THE RICE INSTITUTE THURSDAY FRIDAY AND SATURDAY %^^. '*f^ V THE TENTH ELEVENTH AND TWELFTH DAYS OF OCTOBER ;rt?«r' 1, • >•• '- ■ NINETEEN HUNDRED AND TWELVE it^f*r^XiJKI&Ptil^ PRFSIDtNT ^ CONTENTS VOLUME ONE PAGE INSCRIPTION V LIST OF DELEGATES 3 PROGRAM 17 ADDRESSES OF WELCOME AND RESPONSES AT A LUNCHEON GIVEN AT THE CITY AUDITORIUM BY THE MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT OF THE CITY OF HOUSTON Mayor Horace Baldwin Rice of Houston 25 Mr. James Addison Baker, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Rice Institute 26 Hon. Oscar Branch Colquitt, Governor of the State of Texas ^7 Professor Sir William Ramsay, of the University of Lon- don 31 Provost William Henry Carpenter, of Columbia Univer- sity 33 Professor Senator Vito Volterra, of the University of Rome 38 Professor Sir Henry Jones, of Glasgow University . . 39 Dean George Cary Comstock, of the University of Wis- consin 41 President Henry Sturgis Drinker, of Lehigh University . 44 Professor Emile Borel, of the University of Paris ... 45 Chancellor James Hampton Kirkland, of Vanderbilt Uni- versity 40 Professor Hugo de Vries, of the University of Amsterdam . 49 President Samuel Palmer Brooks, of Baylor University . 49 CONTENTS PAGE PROGRAMS OF THE CONCERTS RENDERED BY THE KNEISEL QUARTET OF NEW YORK CITY . 53 TOASTS AND RESPONSES AT THE SUPPER GIVEN BY THE TRUSTEES AT THE RESIDENTIAL HALL IN HONOR OF THE INAUGURAL LECTURERS "Letters"— Professor Henry van Dyke, of Princeton University rg "Mathematics"— Professor Emile Borel, of the Univer- sity of Paris ^j 'Thilosophy"— Professor Sir Henry Jones, of Glasgow University 5^ "Physics"— Professor Senator Vito Volterra, of the Uni- versity of Rome 53 "Science"— Professor Edwin Grant Conklin, of Prince- ton University ^q "Chemistry"— Professor Sir William Ramsay, of the University of London ^3 "History"— Professor Rafael Altamira y Crevea, of the University of Oviedo gQ "Biology"— Professor Hugo de Vries, of the University of Amsterdam ' ^ g^ "Art"— Dr. Ralph Adams Cram, Architect of the Rice In- stitute o- FORMAL EXERCISES OF DEDICATION Bible Readings and Prayer— Dr. Robert Ernest Vin- son, of Austin, Texas ^^ "Veni Creator Spiritus" jq2 The Inaugural Poem: "Texas, A Democratic Ode"— Dr. Henry van Dyke, of Princeton, New Jersey . . 103 "Education and the State"— Mr. Thomas Jefferson Brown, of Austin, Texas jj^ "The Church and Education"— Dr. Thomas Frank Gailor, of Memphis, Tennessee 123 "The Meaning of the New Institution"— Dr. Edgar Odell Lovett, of Houston, Texas ...!.. 132 "The One Hundredth Psalm" 220 Benediction— Dr. Charles Frederic Aked, of San Fran- cisco, California 221 CONTENTS PAGE LUNCHEON AT THE INSTITUTE COMMONS Congratulatory Greetings and Addresses: On the part of foreign and American learned societies, Professor Sir William Ramsay, of the University of London 223 For the foreign universities. Professor Emile Borel, of the University of Paris 224 On behalf of the American institutions of the East, Dean William Francis Magie, of Princeton University . 225 For the universities of the South, Professor William Holding Echols, of the University of Virginia . . 228 On behalf of the universities in the Northern States, Presi- dent Harry Pratt Judson, of the University of Chicago 231 For the American universities of the West, President Sid- ney Edward Mezes, of the University of Texas . . 234 RELIGIOUS SERVICES LN THE CITY AUDITORIUM Hymn— "O God, Our Help in Ages Past" .... 239 Invocation— Dr. Edgar Odell Lovett, of Houston, Texas 240 Hymn— "O God of Bethel" 241 Scripture Reading and Prayer— Dr. Henry van Dyke, of Princeton, New Jersey 242 Hymn— "A Mighty Fortress is Our God" .... 246 Sermon— Dr. Charles Frederic Aked, of San Francisco, California 247 Hymn— "Nearer, My God, to Thee 262 Hymn— "America" 263 Benediction— Dr. Charles Frederic Aked .... 264 %■- I 4 n^a LIST OF INSERTS VOLUME ONE The Founder As a young man Frontispiece In middle life facing page 94 The First Quadrangle OF THE University . '' " 132 The General Architectural Plan . . . '' " 133 The Invitation to the Festival In the form addressed to institutions . . . '* In the form addressed to individuals ..." Facsimiles of Some of the Letters Received The University of Paris " The University of Oxford *' The University of Cambridge " The University of Rome " The University of Aberdeen *' The Pontifical Gregorian University ... " The University of Oviedo *' Harvard University " The Polish University of Lemberg .... " The Royal Society of London " The Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences . . " Yale University " The Royal Academy of Sciences of Bologna . " Princeton University ** The University of Pennsylvania " The University of Wisconsin '' The University of S5^dney " The Technical High School of Zurich . . . ** Cornell University ** The University of Texas " The Nobel Foundation *' The Carnegie Institute of Technology ..." The British Academy " The Emperor William Association for the Ad- vancement of Science ** Cxiii] vni a 17 (( 3 (( 10 (( 22 (( 32 (t 43 (i 50 <( 58 (( 68 << 79 (( 86 (( 114 (( 122 <( 129 <( 140 (< 151 (( 158 (( 167 (( 174 (( 180 (( 197 (( 204 if 219 (( 222 <( 232 £ ^4 DELEGATES OF UNIVERSITIES, COLLEGES, AND LEARNED SOCIETIES, IN THE ORDER OF SENIORITY OF CHARTERS UNDER WHICH DEGREES ARE CONFERRED c^ "I 5 I l» I) L'UN[VERSIT£ DE PARIS A L'INSTITUT RICE Monsieur le President, Messieurs, UUniversite de Pam envoie son salut cb^ ses uceux a -voire jeune Iniiitut. Conviee a uos fites d'inau^ration, elle eft heureme de s'apocier a vos rejouij^ances (ijr de uom adrepr ses cordiales felicitations pour I'oeuvre que vom aveT^ si hriUamment realiiee. Les souhaits que nom formons pour la proiherite de votre Iniiitut re^oivent une chaleur particuliere de la sympathie seculaire qui exifle entre le peuple frangais i^ le peuple amemain. Les inoubliables souvenirs qui uniflent les deux grandes Kepuhliques font hattre nos cceurs d'un mime desir de justice, de liherte, de proves. Videe de liherte, I' idee de proves ont preside a la fon- \ \ clatiou de lotre In^itnt Ceff en i8c)i qjie William Marsh Rice, nattf du Mafiachmetts, man fixe a HonHon depuh de louoties annees, fit part a qnelques amis choim du dcsir qiiH avait de doter sa utile adoptive d'nn lunnut oil seraieut enseigne's Its lettres, les sciences C^ les arts. II souhaitait que toute preoccupation politique (^ tout esprit de seek fufkut exclus de cet Inffitut, qui lie devait etre anime que par le de'sir pur de la recherche (J^* du travail 11 forma un noyau conflituc par une dewi- doji%aine de truflees. Dans les annees qui suivirent, la mort pt dans les rangs des truHees des uides que des elections comblerent a mesure. L'ImTitut Rice s'clabora dans les conversations de ces collahorateurs de la premiere heure. ^ En njoo. aprcs la difparition de William Marsh Rice Cr une [oh en pofiepon des dix millions dc dollars attrihue's a la jondation par le genereux donateur, les truffees s'adjoiguirent le profefieiir Edgar Odell Lovett. de rUniversite Princeton, auquel je suis personnellemeut heureux d'apporter It salut de VUniversitech Paris. ^ Le President Lovett a cons acre" tons ses efforts a la tdche importante qui lui etait conpee. II a uisite les priu- cipaux etablifiements d'enseiguement scientifique du monde, c^ // a pn ctahlir avec competence ci^ en toute conn a if ^a nee de came les plans de -iotre Imlitut. Vos architedes ont ete pour lui d'mtelligents & precieux {^ gra- urtnt cieux fS toftr r//c Ucs H O^ CO collahorateurs. S tnSpirant des edipcts du Vitux Monde meridional, ils ont su ohtentr un ensi mblt tmtt a la fm adapte aux ne?e/Iite's de I'enseigucmtnt ^ di I'hvri^m (i^ fair pouf le plaisir des yeux Tin harmonie avec voire climat, Aj // dense s des archmtlures mediterranc tci. Vous ave\dfs chines italic ns rnu jardins arms de longs cypres, uom av ai'ahes aux totts plats, un campann des hafitns dejsints a la manure decof.uu articles jardiniers de la Rcnaiflanie. latement teintes de vos monta^nes. k ^an/t dn Texas mcttent dans T ensemble une Cb^ sur !e fof/t rjinrp'tf 7 nt^-,^ A/-..--. &" se develop^nni de quoi powraieni Vieux m'enrofe iMti,., quelle ^ic sou pim ;. - pleine campagne cb^ ;«* terra me GT* cJe /'Ocean, des Lahorat tones, des hi ^i tuts techniques heancoiij, ., apprendre dans /Vj dont votre hiTlitut offre un modiLe si intiyijant; c til un iUijunt ■ (I mversftcs dn Paris, aui n\:iUi: , Ulti ti: li4 . Ohserra ■^'■//f .:t ' v: 17 i'. nit]. ■ 'iiilUClint : lit ■*h'fl< f< Wiiltam it rut- ■-fj-ziZfi I 'iJi.j.-t '■'J Ji/fmr Httmn / 'in ;fff> cs de T/ hislrt/.t /r f)f/f // / -1 . ^m Ai p/rr ir> {rfn/y collaborate f (VS. S'iufpirant des edifices du Vieux Monde meridional, ils ont sn ohteuir un ensemble tout a la fcm adapte" anx necef^ite's de I'enseignement (i^ de l'h)gienc »^ 1-^«..-.n.. late to »refcre, debarred Tliiffiklng you ''* '*»'»^ V» <^? 1 ;■ v > and '^xpr b«na,ir of till! Unlvemity our oongratulationa aad goo-l wi# to remain. I iMkV Your obedient Her. a. .., t^Viif^U^JL. p The President of th- Fire In«titate FROM -^HC VICe-CHANCCLLOR. BRASENOSE COLLEGE, OXFORD. July 11, 1912 iily d«ar Sir, I beg to than]- you for your Vindnees in Inviting this University to send a delegate to the opening of the F.ice Institute in October next. I much regret that as the Vacation is now b«gun th-re will be ' no opportunity of bringing the matter before the Council of the U: ersity before the beginning of next Term, when it will b^ hiv- '00 late to appoint a delegate. l a:r. very sorry that we are, therefore, debarr from accepting your kind invitation. Thanking you for your courtesy, and expressing on behalf of ed this University our congratulations and good wishes, I have 5 the honour to renmin. Yo'or obedient servant. ^'r-if.tS^JU^^, PO] The President of the Pice Institute. BOOK OF THE OPENING LIST OF DELEGATES fVellesley College Mrs. Gentry Waldo Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas Dean Charles Puryear American Chemical Society Dr. Henry Winston Harper The Johns Hopkins University President Ira Remsen American Bar Association Robert Edward Lee Saner, Esq. Creighton University Dean Alpheus Hugh Hippie Sam Houston Normal Institute President Harry Fishburne Estill University College, Dundee William Mackenzie, Esq. University of Southern California President George Finley Bovard Bryn Mawr College Dr. Lindley Miller Keasbey American Society of Mechanical Engineers Dr. Alexander Crombie Humphreys William Buckhout Tuttle, Esq. Drake University President Hill McClelland Bell The Society of Chemical Industry Dr. George William Gray THE RICE INSTITUTE LIST OF DELEGATES University of Texas President Sidney Edward Mezes American Institute of Electrical Engineers Fred Atwood Jones, Esq. The Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary President Robert Ernest Vinson Texas State Department of Education Superintendent Francis Marion Bralley American Economic Association Dr. Edmund Thornton Miller Goucher College Mrs. John W. Fairey United Chapters of Tau Beta Pi Dr. Brown Ay res H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College President Brandt van Blarcom Dixon Michigan College of Mines President Fred Walter McNair University of Nevada President Joseph Edward Stubbs Catholic University of America Rev. James Martin Kerwin Geological Society of America Professor Frederic William Simonds Georgia School of Technology President Kenneth Gordon Matheson BOOK OF THE OPENING LIST OF DELEGATES National Geographic Society Lewis Randolph Bryan, Esq. Mrs. Harris Masterson American Academy of Political and Social Science H. Baldwin Rice, Esq. Barnard College Dr. William Henry Carpenter Clark University Dr. Alexander Caswell Ellis Daniel Baker College President Tinsley Penick Junkin General Federation of Women's Clubs Mrs. Percy V. Pennybacker Howard Payne College President John Strother Humphreys North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts President Daniel Harvey Hill American Microscopical Society Dr. Creighton Wellman Leland Stanford Junior University President David Starr Jordan American Jewish Historical Society Rabbi Wolf Willner The University of Chicago President Harry Pratt Judson University of New Mexico Regent Richard William Dickerson Bryan President David Ross Boyd ['33 THE RICE INSTITUTE LIST OF DELEGATES University of Oklahoma President Stratton Duluth Brooks American Mathematical Society Dr. Milton Brockett Porter National Association of State Universities Dr. Sidney Edward Mezes Southwestern Louisiana Industrial Institute President Edwin Lewis Stephens American Physical Society Professor William Francis Magic Carnegie Institute of Technology Director Arthur Arton Hamerschlag Secretary William P. Field American Electrochemical Society Professor Eugene Paul Schoch Clark College Dr. Alexander Caswell Ellis General Education Board Dr. Harry Pratt Judson College of Industrial Arts President William Bennett Bizzell The South African School of Mines and Technology Hennen Jennings, Esq. Germanistic Society of America Professor William Henry Carpenter Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning President Cyrus Adler D4] BOOK OF THE OPENING LIST OF DELEGATES University of Florida President Albert Alexander Murphree The Conference for Education in Texas Secretary Lee Clark Oklahoma State Department of Education Superintendent Robert Harrison Wilson American Nature Study Society Secretary Elliot Rowland Downing Oklahoma College for Women President James Burnette Eskridge American Federation of Arts Mrs. Jennie Scott Scheuber Professor William Woodward University of the Philippines Frank Russell White, Esq. Organization for the Enlargement and Extension by the State of Texas of its Institutions of Higher Education Robert Lynn Batts, Esq. Reed College President William Trufant Foster 1:^53 ;:i -I ^ V <%. \ N^ ^ ^N V X N ^ ,vy ^ l^N V ^V >^ ^.^ K^ \> \ ^^ X- PROGRAM OF THE FORMAL OPENING OF THE RICE INSTITUTE A UNIVERSITY OF LIBERAL AND TECHNICAL LEARNING FOUNDED IN THE CITY OF HOUSTON TEXAS BY WILLIAM MARSH RICE AND DEDICATED BY HLM TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF LETTERS SCIENCE AND ART THURSDAY FRIDAY AND SATURDAY THE TENTH ELEVENTH AND TWELFTH DAYS OF OCTOBER NINETEEN HUNDRED AND TWELVE EDGAR ODELL LOVETT: PRESIDENT THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES JAMES ADDISON BAKER: CHAIRMAN JAMES EVERETT McASHAN: VICE-CHAIRMAN EMANUEL RAPHAEL: SECRETARY BENJAMIN BOTTS RICE: TREASURER WILLIAM MARSH RICE JR. CESAR MAURICE LOMBARDl EDGAR ODELL LOVETT CI?] ^ THE RICE INSTITUTE Thursday, October io, 19 12 8 .-30 A.M. At the Bender Hotel an Informal Breakfast to the Lecturers, Delegates, and other Guests by the Trus- tees of the Institute 10:30 A.M. In the Faculty Chamber of the Institute read or presented by title the Inaugural Lectures of Prof essor Rafael Altamira y Crevea, of Madrid, Spain The general ideas in the history of human progress. Their application to the political institutions of society. Their illus- tration in the Spanish backgrounds of American civilization Professor Hugo de Fries, of Amsterdam, Holland The ideals of a naturalist. Mutations in heredity. Geograph- ical botany. Modern cytological problems Professor John WiUia^n Mackail, of London, England Three lectures on the task and function of poetry in modern life Professor Frederik Carl St^rmer, of Chris tiania, Norway Three lectures on recent developments in cosmical physics, with special reference to the theory of magnetic storms I :oo P.M. At the Banquet Hall of the City Auditorium a Luncheon in honor of the Guests of the Institute by the Mayor and the Commissioners of the Municipal Government of the City of Houston. Responses by several delegates to addresses of welcome by the Gov- ernor of Texas, the Mayor of Houston, and the Chair- man of the Board of Trustees of the Institute 3:00 P.M. In the Faculty Chamber of the Institute read or presented by title the Inaugural Lectures of BOOK OF THE OPENING Professor Emile Borel, of Paris, France Une conference sur les theories moleculaires et les mathema- tiques. Trois lecons sur la theorie des series divergentes et ses applications a la definition des fonctions monogenes Senator Benedetto Croce, of Naples, Italy II problema dell' arte e della critica— Quattro lezioni:— "Che cosa e Parte?,, Pregiudizii intorno all' arte. II posto dell' arte nello spirito e nella societa umana. La critica e la storia deir arte Professor Sir Flenry Jones, of Glasgow, Scotland Three lectures on philosophical landmarks: being a survey of the recent gains and the present problems of reflective thought Privy Councilor Baron Dairoku Kikuchl, of Tokyo, Japan Three lectures on the introduction of Western learning into Japan 5:00 P.M. In the Academic Court cf the Administration Building an Informal Garden Party at the conclusion of the lectures of the afternoon 8:30 P.M. At the Majestic Theater a popular illustrated Lecture on the Ideals of a Naturalist, by Professor Hugo de Vries, of the University of Amsterdam 9:30 P.M. At their home, 141 6 Main Street, a Reception in honor of the Guests of the Institute by Mr. and Mrs. James Addison Baker Friday, October ii, 19 12 8 :30 A.M. At the Bender Hotel an Informal Breakfast tendered the Guests of the Institute by the President and Directors of the Houston Chamber of Commerce I THE RICE INSTITUTE 10:30 A.M. In the Faculty Chamber of the Institute read or presented by title the Inaugural Lectures of Privy Councilor Professor TVilhelm Ostwald, of Leipsic, Germany Das System der Wissenschaften. Erfinder, Entdecker und Or- ganisatoren. Die Prinzipien der Erziehung. Die Grundbe- griffe der Chemie The late Professor Henri Poincare, of Paris, France Three lectures on the philosophy of the sciences Professor Sir JVilUam Ramsay, of London, England Three lectures on transmutation : some deductions from modern views concerning atoms and molecules Professor Senator Vito Volterra, of Rome, Italy A memoir in appreciation of the mathematical work and scien- tific influence of Henri Poincare. Three lectures on the prog- ress of science, in particular its advancement in Italy I :oo P.M. At the Thalian Club a Luncheon in honor of the Guests of the. Institute by Mr. and Mrs. Jonas Shearn Rice 3:00 P.M. At the Majestic Theater a Concert by the Kneisel Quartet of New York to the Guests and Friends of the Institute by the Trustees 5 :oo P.M. At their home, 'The Oaks/' after the Matinee Concert, a Garden Party to the Guests of the Institute by Mr. and Mrs. Edwin Brewington Parker 8:30 P.M. At the Institute, in honor of the Inaugural Lecturers, a Chamber Concert by the Kneisel Quartet in the Faculty Room, to be followed by a Supper at the . Residential Hall Commons BOOK OF THE OPENING Saturday, October 12, 191 2 9:30 A.M. From the Residential Hall a Procession of the Delegates and Guests in academic costume to the Aca- demic Court of the Administration Building. Inaugu- ral poem by Dr. Henry van Dyke and dedicatory addresses by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Texas, the Bishop of Tennessee, and the President of the Institute 12:30 P.M. At the entrance to the South Wing of the Residential Hall a photograph of the assembled Lec- turers and Delegates I :oo P.M. At the Institute Commons a Luncheon to the Guests of the Institute. Congratulatory addresses from universities at home and abroad, and from learned societies, foreign and national 4:00 P.M. At the Houston Country Club a Farewell Re- ception by Mr. and Mrs. Edgar Odell Lovett 6:30 P.M. From the Houston Country Club a special train to convey the Guests of the Institute to Galv^eston to receive the hospitality of the Hotel Galvez at the hands of the Trustees of the Institute 8 :oo P.M. At the Hotel Galvez a Shore-supper and Smoker THE RICE INSTITUTE Sunday, October 13, 191 2 8 :oo A.M. At the Hotel Galvez Breakfast 9 :30 A.M. Special train from Galveston to Houston 11:00 A.M. In the City Auditorium a Religious Service with Sermon by the Rev. Dr. Charles Frederic Aked, of San Francisco C"] A^^ ^sv^^ o"^ OA^,^^ 'o. ■4 4^"' 2^ ^S^^t^AA^.^^ ^ // Z^ Jit ##• ^'' >*VA*«,A ' / *>■* ■*^ 44L/' • '"W**™"^*' ■»*< (^fc, /c^^ V***"^*^ '?' V <*•». .^»-«" -■«■ tf"^ I T T . J I i.\ o i i X w 1 i^ ', IQ12 ,' r^ T* •■"' "? liT ! "^ "Zf u I iouston Service vked, _^,..>^; - 0^.,,,^ St'^crX^ rc^^^^-To^^ •o/ 2Z ^-^c<^. J^.> J r V« o^.^ ;t^ S C^ ^r^ .^ ^ ^ 5^ it. ^t<. e^/^^c^ /C«^ ^^ a^^^A V. rc^^A..^o. ^<» «»^v6.r »> Cm U 12. ^ ^.<^^ t ^6C^ /^ «^j c^^ cA ^^5^^ ^5^^^ .^v..^ .^.^:.^ X/>9>*->«-^^ 7? ^ ii ii ADDRESSES OF WELCOME AND RESPONSES AT A LUNCHEON GIVEN AT THE CITY AUDITORIUM BY THE MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT OF THE CITY OF HOUSTON ADDRESSES OF WELCOME AND RESPONSES AT A LUNCHEON GIVEN AT THE CITY AUDITORIUM BY THE MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT OF THE CITY OF HOUSTON Mayor Rice: Ladies and Gentlemen — This day marks an epoch in the history of our city. As head of the munici- pal government I have the pleasant privilege of extending a hearty welcome to our guests by whose presence the day is made historic. We are profoundly grateful to the distin- guished gentlemen who have come across the seas to do honor to our city and State on this occasion. Equally grate- ful are we to the many citizens of our great republic and to our fellow-citizens of Texas who are assembled here in the name of civilization. Though Houston is a comparatively young town, we have the energy and progressive spirit by which every young city in America, I believe, is characterized, and it gives me un- told satisfaction to know that in the commercial strife inci- dent to the great development of our country we still have the ability to recognize the necessity of cultivating the mind of man and giving him broad and thorough education. Of the institution which is opened to-day modesty forbids me to speak. To those who are going to make it a success and to those who have made great colleges a success I leave the expression of opinions which I might hesitate to form. But to all the distinguished guests of the new university I desire to say that although our city is small, as cities are measured, and thus unable to offer many of the entertainments and attractions of larger metropolitan cities, the hospitality we offer you comes from our hearts, and our desire to make your visit a pleasant one is not to be measured in any respect by the size or ways of the town, but by the ways and size of the human heart itself. THE RICE INSTITUTE I now have the pleasure, ladies and gentlemen, of intro- ducing to you the chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Rice Institute, a gentleman of high standing in this commu- nity, who has done a great work in its behalf — Mr. James A. Baker of Houston. Mr. James A. Baker: Your Excellency the Governor, your Honor the Mayor, and you my Friends and Guests of the Rice Institute—! am commissioned by the Rice Institute, whose dedication is to letters, science, and art, to extend to you, collectively and individually, a cordial welcome, not only to the halls and home of the new institution, but also to the homes and hearts of the people of the whole city of Houston. As America a little more than a hundred years ago achieved her national independence and established on her eastern shores an asylum for those seeking liberty, so, too, have we, through the magnificent generosity of William Marsh Rice, established in the far Southwest the Rice Insti- tute, an asylum of learning; and in the name of this new university I extend a welcome to all to come and drink from the fountains of knowledge which have been provided for this festal occasion. And especially do we extend a glad welcome to those of our guests who have come to us from foreign lands. A joyous welcome indeed to the representatives of the great French Republic; for it was she who more than a cen- tury ago recognized the independence of this country and gave to America the brilliant Lafayette, who in turn gave us generously of his blood and fortune, that the spirit of liberty might flourish upon our shores. An equally warm and cordial welcome to the representa- tives of the great German Empire— the Fatherland. She BOOK OF THE OPENING not only furnished us a distinguished soldier who fought with our forefathers the battles of our Revolution, but she has freely given us thousands upon thousands of the sturdy citizenship of our people, who have cultivated the waste fields of the State and nation until they bloom as the rose. A warm and joyous welcome to the distinguished repre- sentatives of imperial Spain, for to her we are indebted for the patronage of the intrepid discoverer of America. In the heartiness of this welcome we wish you to feel that all of the wounds inflicted by the late unpleasantness between Spain and America have long since been healed in the recol- lection of the bravery and the heroism of the soldiers of both armies. And a threefold welcome to the distinguished representa- tives of grand old England and merry old Scotland. In coming to America you come among us as kinsmen who are flesh of our flesh and blood of our blood. All the years which lie between 1776 and this year 191 2 have only served to teach us mutual sympathy and to strengthen the bonds that bind our hearts to our mother-country. Welcome, thrice welcome, one and all, to the hearts and homes of our people. Mayor Rice : It is my pleasure to introduce to this audi- ence the Governor of Texas; and when I say the Governor of Texas I mean the man who governs the largest area of land as a State in the American Union, and who, as a typical American, stands before the people of the United States as the chief executive of this great commonwealth — the Hon- orable O. B. Colquitt, Governor of Texas. Governor O. B. Colquitt: Mr. Mayor, Guests of the Rice Institute, of the City of Houston, and of the State of Texas, Ladies and Gentlemen— Tht most humble citizen of Or' THE RICE INSTITUTE Texas may enjoy the privilege of being governor of this State, and on this occasion I feel myself to be the most humble of the humble. I am glad to be present on this occa- sion. I feel that I am indeed fortunate in being present. As chief executive of this State I am proud to come to Houston and welcome the representatives of American and foreign universities, distinguished scholars and scientists of England, France, and Holland, of Germany, Italy, and Spain, who have come to participate in the inauguration of the Rice Institute. Within seventeen miles of this city is the San Jacinto battle-field, where the Republic of Texas was born. In this city of Houston, which used to be the capital of the State, within three blocks of this auditorium, the Congress of the Republic of Texas used to assemble in a log cabin, and to that log cabin the nations of the earth sent their representa- tives in recognition of the republic. And now, in these latter days, you have the Rice Institute, a great private institution magnificently housed for the public good, and the nations of the earth send their representatives here to welcome it into the fold of educational institutions. With a handful of men under the leadership of Sam Houston, the independence of the republic was achieved in 1836. Since that day the progress of the American people has been truly wonderful. The progress of the people of Texas has been even greater. We have builded without assistance a magnificent civilization. I say without assis- tance, for even William Marsh Rice's splendid contribution was a product of Texas, because, although a native of Massachusetts, he came to Texas in his early boyhood and here made his fortune and his career. I am happy to welcome you to Texas because Texas is made up of people from all the nations, and some of the \ i BOOK OF THE OPENING best people we have are among those who have come from other nations. I am proud to say that my own mother's family came from Holland, and that the adjutant-general of my staff is an Englishman. I am proud, my friends, of the State of Texas. I am proud of its magnificent territory, proud of the progress that we are making in educational matters; and I want to say to you that as governor of Texas I am proud of the form of its government and of the government of this nation, the gov- ernment of Washington and Jefferson, of Madison and Franklin. They founded a government based on a written constitution, written for the purpose of defining and limiting the power of the government. Freedom of conscience, free- dom of religion, the right of each man to listen to the dictates of his own conscience, these are the proudest heritage of American citizenship enjoyed under this constitutional gov- ernment. And I want to say, without disparagement to any other nation, that there has been more advancement in science since the Declaration of American Independence than there was during six thousand years before. As I said a moment ago, the capital of this State, of the Republic of Texas, used to stand within three blocks of where you are now sitting. Representatives of foreign na- tions, of the French Government and of the English and German empires, came to Houston to represent their people at the capital of the Republic of Texas. In the meantime, we had knocked at the door of the American Union for entrance; our knocking was finally answered, and we became a part of this Union, and to-day we are the proudest part of these United States. The Mayor of the city of Houston was very modest in- deed when he told us that Houston is a small city. I want to say that Houston is not a small city, and I welcome you THE RICE INSTITUTE not only to the largest State in the Union, but to the largest- hearted municipality you will find between the rising and the setting of the sun. And now I want to invite those of you who are looking for a haven of prosperity, a haven of politi- cal and religious peace, to make your permanent residence in Texas. We do not ask your religion, we do not ask your politics, we do not ask you where you graduated— I had not the chance to graduate anywhere myself. All we ask is, Are you a man? We judge men by their merits. All shall have equal protection under the law. We are a truly cos- mopolitan people, and live by the freedom of democracy. The Rice Institute is one of the results of this freedom of spirit. This spirit of independence, this spirit of hope, this spirit of progress prevails everywhere throughout Texas. And, my friends, I want to say that so far as I am con- cerned, and so far as my influence might go, I would rather have founded the Rice Institute and provided for its main- tenance to educate the hearts and the minds of the people of Texas than to be emperor of any foreign nation of the earth. Now, Mr. Mayor, I came here without any written speech. I have been so busy attending to the necessary af- fairs of the people who occupy the territory extending from Orange to El Paso, a distance of nine hundred and thirty miles, and from Brownsville at the mouth of the Rio Grande to Amarillo, a distance of nearly eleven hundred miles, that I have not had time to prepare a speech for you; but a man who is governor of a territory so extensive has so many features of life presented to him daily that he is always bold enough to make a speech on any occasion. Again I thank you one and all for coming to Houston and for the distinction you are lending the city and the State on this auspicious occasion, and again I welcome you from the Do] BOOK OF THE OPENING bottom of my heart, and I speak for the entire citizenship of Texas in extending you that welcome. Mayor Rice: We have listened to Governor Colquitt's cordial address of welcome, and now we are going to have the great pleasure of listening to a response from one of our most distinguished foreign visitors. Professor Sir William Ramsay of London, England, who, with Lady Ramsay, has come to assist in the launching of Houston's university. Professor Sir William Ramsay: Your Excellency, your Honor, Ladies and Gentlemen — I have to make one remark before beginning, and that is to allude to the way in which the mayor expressed his invitation of welcome. He called me a ''foreign visitor." I decline that aspersion. I am not a foreign visitor. When we have the pleasure of receiving you Americans in London, we don't call you foreigners. We don't expect to be called foreigners when we come to your country. Now, ladies and gentlemen, what your mayor has said about the progress of education is true. It is absolutely true. The governor has hinted that the progress of edu- cation, the progress of science, has been contemporaneous with the separation of America from England. That re- minds me that I once heard your ambassador to Great Britain, Mr. Choate, make the following remark at a dinner given on the occasion of the ninth jubilee of the foundation of the University of Glasgow, which took place in 1901. He said: "Your institution was founded in the year 145 1, about the same date as that on which America was discov- ered. Before that you had what you justly called the 'dark ages.' " We are separated, America and Britain, but we on our side welcome the close alliance which now exists. I see in 1:313 THE RICE INSTITUTE front of me the word ^'Peace." I am reminded of one of your great cities in America— Philadelphia— and of its motto, ^^Philadelphia maneto^^ (''Let brotherly love con- tinue''). I also see numerals on the same flag on which is written the word "Peace/' running from one to ten, which I presume is intended to recall the ten commandments. I presume it is intended to mean that the people here are not to break them. Well, ladies and gentlemen, up to the ninth commandment I am willing to obey; but when it comes to the tenth, I am not quite sure. I have seen the Rice Insti- tute this morning, I have read its papers, and I know what it intends to do, and I am not sure that you have done right to show us the Rice Institute before suggesting to us that tenth commandment. We know you have before you a magnificent career. You have begun it well by making appointments of eminent men to be your professors. You have begun it well by the num- ber of students whom you have enrolled. I am told that only about one fourth of those who could have attended and who could have come in have been accepted. You are going to keep your standard high. Well, gentlemen, there is one thing that has struck me as a danger threatening American universities. It is the large number of students enrolled. These numbers are growing too large. Let me give you a specific instance. The pro- fessor of chemistry in the University of California told me lately that he had over two thousand students to teach. To teach two thousand students is an impossibility. What can you do? My suggestion is this, that you increase the number of your teachers. Don't appoint assistants, teachers, lec- turers, but create entirely separate departments. If you require two professors of philosophy, have them at double expense. It pays. You cannot turn out students as you 1:323 :^^. -* Viiiuli lil rER15 ART1BU6Q MuNlFlCENrL\ OUiL^-L- ^Mi RiCr:'HOU5ToNH'lN URBETE- '^riO'CONDITl-VITu5'VOLTERRA FAO% D\Ti5'6CiE!sJlA.RM ROMANAE PRAE5E.S ^t'<^ S DP ■c>. if C TO R Mav;nificu5 iVacsiae6Ptx>ti ^so» vcs> omne* Rc«^iaSludionim RomanaeVobii Viri clanssimi suis verbis haec a mt' ticnuntiari \v:^uerunt Quod exi* mia civii VksXfi libemiitate Vcstraque cum ac dihgeiitia novix apud V06 M u^arum Ae- v-aa ci>t omnibus rcbui.quae ad oflirxtii «tudia ex- ro1cn4a promovendaque pertinent opipare m5tTacta,V'«^ bi^gratuiamur. nobjs «^audc)rnu6 Nam ceruirnu: ^* 6Lratum opera ^enuA hunianum ihvci^tis . > • -• 1 ;.. ; i modj vid aJ uUJit^em \ntae vel ad co^iii ... ;>tudio as3jduo feUcic^ue^ succesiu locupkr-tan ; mean that the people here are not I, \:\ jnd eentlemen, up to the ninth commuiiUiiiCnt 1 im wilhii^ lu uulv ., uui vucn it comes to the tenth, I am not quite sure. 1 have st-en the Rice Insti- ^"fp ^hlc -n< hnve l•Q^^l its papr - I know what Li intends C" and i am not sure that you have done right to show us rh^' Ri-.r [nsfifi^^e before ^^uv^ii g to us that tcncn comniuiidmcnr. We know you have before you a mag?: -t career. You have begun it well by making appoininuius .^i eminent men to be your professors. You have begun it well by the num- ber of cMiJpnfc T'hom you have enrolled. I am told that only about one lourth of those who could have attended and who cou^d have com" in have been accepted. You are going to keep your scanuai.. high. Well - a Oi'.ii^c numb too I.; I nere is one tiling rh:i' has struck me as vUicUn uiiiv ci5i;.icci. iL ib liiC large ^ enrolled. These mi s are growling bmver >t Calitornia told me Jarelv th-vt he had ovt^r rw«> thoiisnn;! stud^^nf*^ tn teach. To tcauii Lwu iiiuuj>iiau iiucicnt;; is *in irnpussibiiit) . What can you do? 1 is t ihat v'>u increase the number ''■ y^-*'** 'Ji ai5i;^iauii>. luadicrs, lec- turers, i)v £ cnnreiy separate us. If you renu^re two nrof^'^'^nr^ of pImIo*;.' nhv- h- -. ^hem at double expense, ic pjys. 1 ou cap.noi lurn out students as you [32] iRAEFEcTo ADMINISTRATORIBUSQ'-'E lN6riTuTi'UrTER15 ARTiBU5QUE |cOLEND15-MUNlFlCENnA GUlLFb= ?M1 RlCE^HOU6ToNE'lNURBE^TE= XATi6'CONDiri'VITu5' VOLTeRRA' FAC^lr rATi6'5CiESriARM'ROMANAE PRAESE5 S DV ^N s^^5BJ!i-j iR-->..<^ }i^^ 4 ^^1 _ o ♦ ♦ pi ECTOR Maoniticus PraesidesProfcsso= 105 omiies Rco^iae UnivcriilaM^^tudionim RomanaeVobis Vin clai'issimi suis verbis hacc a me denuntiah x-oluerunt. Quod exi- miacivis V^tri liberaiitateVestraque cura ac'diligciitia nova apudV^os Musarum se= de5 condita est omnibus rcbus.quae ad optinta 6tudia ex= colcnda promovcndaquc pertinent, opipare instructa.Vcn bi6 gratulamur. nobis gaudemus.Nam cernimusVc- stratum opera genus hunianuna ihvcnlis ciiiuscumque modi vcl ad utilitatem vitae vel ad cognilionem rcruni studio asoiduo helicique successu locupletari ; et arbitra= fnur.quiJc[uid ubi».juc gentium, repertum sit. id cum ad omne5 honimcs tun\ ad nos maxime attmeiv QiiaTC Institute V^stro lam lactis auspiciis orto y/oto^ etiam atque etiam nuncupamu* aao;ura= murque ibre ut m pcrpetuumfloreat atque .summam doctrinae glo= nam adipiscatur Q_uod bonum laustuin.feiix fbrtuneitumque sit- VALETE l i-r-J -s MCMXilpChrn gj. .^^m BOOK OF THE OPENING would needles or wire or nails. Learned men cannot be made like them. Each student must come into personal con- tact with his teachers. And now, gentlemen, speaking for your foreign visitors and guests, I have the honor to express our gratitude to you for having given us this opportunity of coming among you. We have passed, my wife and I, through this great country of Texas. Of course I suppose that while alongside of a railroad one sees the homes and the farms of the settlers, when one goes back of a railroad the country loses signs of being inhabited, yet what we have seen of the country has been magnificent. It is evidently very fertile, and it is be- coming populated, and you have only to wait and let Immi- gration take place to have Texas become one of the greatest imperial States of this country, and one of the finest in the world. We have come to you, we have come to see your country, we have come to make friends with you, and I now desire that you will give us every opportunity to do so. I thank you very heartily for your cordial reception. I will now use a custom which is not included in American gatherings of this kind, but is common at similar gatherings on the continent of Europe; it is to raise my glass and drink to ''The Prosperity of the Rice Institute." Mayor Rice: Professor William Henry Carpenter, Pro- vost of Columbia University, is one of our guests from the Metropolis of the Union. He has kindly consented to re- spond for the Eastern institutions. With great pleasure I present him to you. Provost William Henry Carpenter : Ladies and Gen- tlemen — The life of every human being in retrospect, I D33 THE RICE INSTITUTE imagine, has its quota of regrets for hopes unfulfilled and for opportunities wasted. Since I have been sitting at this table, I have added still another to my own total of regrets, and that is a regret that I am not a citizen of this great com- monwealth of Texas. The governor's speech has filled me with desire. I belong to a community which, to be sure, has played its historical part in the evolution of a nation; but nevertheless, when I think over its past in connection with the governor's glowing picture of the future, it seems to me what we have done is little in amount and significance in its ultimate effect as an influential part of the whole. The president of the Rice Institute has asked me to say a word on behalf of the Eastern institutions of learning. In thinking over what I was to say before I came here, it seemed diflScult to make a choice where so much might be said at the launching of a new educational enterprise under the peculiarly favorable conditions that attend the present. Some thoughts, however, have suggested themselves, that perhaps may be presented as bearing upon the occasion that has called us together. The one thing that I have thought of is the object-lesson that is made by such a gathering of men as are present here to-day. For it seems to me that no gathering of men, for whatever purpose it is arranged, or in whatever spirit it is intended, is so significant as is an assemblage of this kind, that has brought learned men across the seas and from so many parts of this great republic. No gathering of men speaks so much for the solidarity of human Interests as does an educational gathering such as this. There are other gatherings of men that have for their object the extending of the propaganda of some particular subject. There are political conventions that are got to- gether in a state or in a nation for a single definite purpose. [34] BOOK OF THE OPENING But here is a gathering from the ends of the earth for a purpose that is broader In Its Intention and its results than any other— the common purpose of education. And another thing comes to my mind in looking over the names of the delegates to your celebration. I have thought not only of the solidarity of interest, but of the permanency of interest that is Indicated by the gathering here to-day. No human Institution is so permanent as a university. Dynasties may come and go, political parties may rise and fall, the influences of men may change, but the universities and what they stand for go on forever. Oxford and Cam- bridge have outlasted changes of party and of policy. The University of Paris has withstood a revolution that trans- formed the face of the nation, but It exists to-day stronger than ever before. The University of Bologna, to go further afield, stands almost alone as a monument of previous great- ness In a city whose Importance is wholly a thing of the past and whose very existence has almost been forgotten. And in our country universities have been founded that have out- lasted the long list of presidents of the republic. Harvard and Yale and Princeton and Columbia, In fact, have wit- nessed the change from the colonial government of England to the democracy of the present day. Whigs and Tories have come and gone, political waves have risen to the sur- face and have been submerged, generations of men have lived and died, but these universities have gone on their way to the present time, and, well founded, they will go on for- ever. No human activity is so permanent as the influence of the university, and the opportunities of the university are greater to-day than they have ever been before In the civilized world. This is possibly true as well of the great Industries of this great country, and the two— Industry and education — an THE RICE INSTITUTE go more and more hand in hand together. The present time is pre-eminently a time of awakening in industry and educa- tion alike, and industry, in its many-sided interests, is look- ing more and more to education, even in an age that is called material, for enlightenment and support. Out of the labora- tories of the universities are coming to an increasing extent the influences that make for economic and industrial im- provement and contribute to the betterment of human living and to the good of mankind. In America we have had in education an era of theology at the beginning, which was succeeded by an era of law, and which, in its turn, has been succeeded by the era of science in which we at the present time live. It seems to me that the time is ripe for the founding of a university such as the Rice Institute will doubtless develop into in the near future. There is in my mind, and in the minds of many who have carefully watched the signs of the times, the possibility of the development of a new interest in America in the arts and in letters and in all the liberal knowledge that is included under these names. By taking advantage of the opportunity which is plainly open to you in working out your educational plan, and by firmly basing a scientific superstructure only upon a broad cultural foundation, you will not only exercise an important influence in that movement of enlightenment that is sweeping through this part of the world, as the gov- ernor has so proudly and eloquently explained to us, but you will contribute your part to a movement that presently, un- less all signs fail, will extend over the United States. There is an old motto, a motto that has come down out of the distant past: ^'Ex oriente lux^* ("Light comes out of the East'^). In the establishment of the Rice Institute you have done something that in a future that may not be distant will lead us to say, ^'Ex occidente lux/^ as well, for light will [36] BOOK OF THE OPENING surely come to us out of the West as a consequence of your action. Well, gentlemen, I do not know that I have much more to say. I should, however, after all, like to say just one more word about the opportunities of a great university, such as this in the future is to be, as a factor in the life of the nation. Somebody has said, "The weaknesses of a democracy are the opportunities of education." I think there is a great deal in that to ponder over, because a democracy— this democracy— does have its weakness as well as its strength. A great weakness, as I see it, in this democracy is the indif- ference that largely prevails throughout the country to the broader education of the body of the people. If we go on along those lines in the future as we frequently follow them to-day, we shall develop here in America not at all what the forefathers of the republic had in mind when they signed the Declaration of Independence, and we shall have a gov- ernment of the many by the few, instead of a government by all, as is inherent in the very life of a democracy. It is the business of the educator to recognize this weakness, to come down from his heights into the valleys, and to work in the light that has been given him for the extension of edu- cational opportunity that will make in the end for the salva- tion of his country. Now, gentlemen, in closing, I wish to extend to the Rice Institute, so auspiciously founded to-day, the congratulations of the older Eastern universities upon your entrance into the work of education— a work, maybe, that has its discourage- ments, but which has in an extraordinary measure its pro- found satisfactions. My university— Columbia University in the City of New York— was founded back in 1754, so that I am speaking in a way, at least by proxy, out of the [37] r THE RICE INSTITUTE depths of time and experience. I wish, however, not merely to bring to you the felicitations of our universities in the East on your birthday, but to extend to you by a heartfelt grasp of the hand an invitation to join our ranks, in what seems to me in many ways to be more than almost any other human institution whatever, a community of the immortals. I thank you, gentlemen. Mayor Rice : It is now my pleasure to introduce to this audience Professor Vlto Volterra of the University of Rome, life Senator of the Italian Kingdom, whom we wel- come most cordially from the south of Europe to this south- ern country of the American nation. Professor Senator Volterra: Mr. Governor, Mr, Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen — I should like first of all to declare my great pleasure in being present at this festival, and my appreciation of the cordial and bountiful hospitality that I have found here in Houston. Allow me to express the feeling of admiration that I experience in visiting this great new country, an admiration that has changed only to in- crease since my last coming to America. Your high civiliza- tion and enterprising spirit have been able to conquer an entire continent, to create as if by enchantment marvelous cities like this which we are visiting now. These grow up in a few years. They provide themselves not only with all the modern comforts which make existence easy and agree- able, but also reach a high place in life that is intellectual and moral. And we see here to-day one of the most notable examples of this spirit, as we inaugurate this magnificent university, the gift of William Marsh Rice. He has ren- dered to the culture of his country a magnificent, well-con- ceived service. [383 BOOK OF THE OPENING No institution could more impress the mind, could make more manifest the difference between the old continent which we have left, and this country, full of youth and spirit, which we have found. Our universities have ancient and most deep-reaching traditions. Every idea that has been developed in moral and intellectual fields, from the time of the distant Middle Ages until to-day, has left its impress upon them, and their life exhibits always the results of this long development of customs and thought. But you have created institutions from the beginning and at once, univer- sities in which you can accommodate everything to the de- mands of the present, without the embarrassment of a single relic from the past. Yet the men of the old universities of Europe, and those who constitute the new ones in America, have the same high aspirations and scientific ideals in common. Rendering mu- tual aid, they can and ought to march together. Both should bring their contributions to the collective labor that tends to scientific progress and evolution. It is for this reason that I see with such great joy, united here before me, the representatives of these two continents. Mayor Rice: I now have the honor of introducing to you Professor Sir Henry Jones of the University of Glas- gow. We welcome this distinguished philosopher warmly from a city whose example we have sought to emulate in the Houston ship-channel. Professor Sir Henry Jones : Your Excellency the Gov- ernor of Texas, your Honor the Mayor of Houston, Ladies and Gentlemen— V^t have been told many things this after- noon, and told them well. You will pardon me, I am sure, if my words are few; I am not convinced that though they [39] I THE RICE INSTITUTE were many they would add to the value of those to which you have already listened with such courtesy and so gladly. But I have two duties to perform, and I can neglect neither The first is to express my satisfaction m bemg pres- ent amongst so many lovers of learning not only from this city but from the States of America and of western and southern Europe. I count it a great privilege. On the last occasion of such a gathering as this at which I was present, the jubilee of Lord Kelvin as professor in the University of Glasgow was being celebrated. Professor Ker of Lon- don University compared it to heaven. "You meet so many old friends," he said, "and you are so surprised to see them. My second duty and my still greater privilege is to jom with you all in good wishes for the prosperity of the Rice Institute. You are entering to-day, ladies and gentlemen, upon an enterprise whose significance for the future no man can measure. There is no doubt as to the means whereby man masters his world and converts its blind forces into beneficent powers. They are the same means, in the last resort, as those which help him in the still more difficult enterprise of mastering himself. They have all one, and only one, purpose. It is that of so operating upon the mind of man as first to awaken and then to foster that passion for truth which Is the condition of all sincerity in conduct as well as of all advancement in knowledge, and which brings a clear conscience as well as a clear mind. Your Institute, in the last resort, is dedicated to the making of character- and character, good or bad, builds up or pulls down civili- zation. It is the greatest thing in the world. With all my heart I desire your prosperity In your dealing with it, for in it Is the true measure of the attainment of the end which you have set before you in the Rice Institute -"the advance- ment of literature, science, and art." --»»*, BOOK OF THE OPENING Mayor Rice: We have among our guests Dr. George Gary Comstock of the University of Wisconsin. It is now my pleasure to present him to you, with a request that he speak not only for his own university, but for the other insti- tutions of the West. Dean George Gary Gomstock: Your Excellency the Governor, your Honor the Mayor, my Colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen-On behalf of the university I represent- Wisconsin-and on behalf of her sister universities of the Middle West, in so far as I may speak for them, it is with great pleasure that I return to you our thanks for the cour- tesies that we have received on this occasion, and our appre- ciation of the very warm hospitality that the city of Houston and the State of Texas have extended to us. But I stand here, Mr. Mayor, not simply as the recipient of your kind hospitality, but as your fellow-countryman in welcoming the addition of a new star to the educational firmament of this land. I desire to join with you especially in extending my share of recognition and praise to that new name that has been added to the list of distinguished bene- factors of American learning and science, to that list which, beginning with Harvard and Yale and continuing in un- broken line through the generations of our forefathers, to- day has added to its roll the name of William Marsh Rice. We stand at the beginnings of the Rice Institute, a notable foundation placed in the midst of an empire ready for its service. It is the function of its honorable president and its Board of Trustees to care for the future of that institution, to determine the lines along which its development shall take place; and far be it from me upon this occasion to ex- press to them aught other than sympathy for their under- taking. Words of advice are not needed, and would indeed [41] THE RICE INSTITUTE be out of place at this time. But I may speak to some of you gentlemen here, who are men of affairs, who enjoy the fruits that come out of the educational policy of our land, and who desire to see that policy grow and bear fruit fairer and better than any yet realized. The greatest Englishman of our day, politician, adminis- trator, financier-I mean the late Cecil Rhodes-cherished such desires from boyhood to the close of his career, and dying at the height of his power and influence, left a vast fortune to be devoted mainly to such ends. Let me put be- fore you briefly his aspiration and the purpose that he sought to accomplish by endowing at Oxford University some two hundred scholarships to be filled by the most promising youth that could be collected from English-speaking lands; young men of power and purpose, of moral aspiration as' well as scholarly attainment, who were to be assembled at that ancient seat of British culture, "for breadth of view, for mstruction in life and manners," and-mark the vision of the empire-builder !-"to secure an attachment to the country from which they have sprung." Does his vision ap- peal to you? Is it worth while to bring together during their impressionable years the youth that have shown promise of future leadership and to give to them a common training m the best traditions of the race? To wear down the cor- ners of prejudice, to round out the defects of provincialism, to fill up the gaps of ancestral experience? Rhodes thought It was. I share his belief, and I appeal to you, gentlemen, shall this remain only a British ideal? May we not look forward to its Americanization? May there not be placed upon the head of the Rice Institute a great crown of glory in that It shall be a center toward which the youth of the world shall come to be trained in the ideals of American life and 1:423 #ii'"^.,jl^,"_^*# ill R THE UNIVRRSFTY OF ABKRDEKN having been invited by the President and Trustees of the Rice Institute of [liberal and Technical Learning in Houston, Texas, to send a dele.oate to the formal opening of the New University and to the exercises attending the Inauguration of the ^:ducational Pro- gramme of the Institution on the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth of October; the University Court, in response to the invitation, while endeavouring to arrange that the University of Aberdeen shall be represented on so auspicious an occasion by r,ne of its graduates, desires to congratulate the President and Trustees of the Rice Institute upon the magniHcent endow- ments and buildings in their charge, and prays that the studies to which these have been devoted, and which open this year, may abundantly flourish to the advancement of Literature, Science, and Art in the State of Texas and throughout the' American Continent. ? t^'l-Qt dcLa^s,^ ^^•t^ V /. ^ . Principal and Vice-chancellor. September jsth, 191 2. M- moth 11 Rhc ■ , nt iiiiiission lie le macrcrs, I ,-i r^ ;-* pi 1* . BOOK OF T; oi^? light, of religion and liberty, tor the use ana pruni .■• lule earth? But, gentlerneit ' '.'dm Iroui nua concept pressed with equal clearness In the words ^-r . an.l which seems also ^.ntnxvn^fhv r>Jh-!^ -n way. Having confided to Uxiora tne spiendi ab(u f> suggested, he pavs his respects to its pc words: *'As aie coucgc authorities hv. world, and are so like children as to commt wouiu aa\ isc them to consult ...; tP'^t^^ of our American universities, lei me disclaim aiiv sucii con- cent ns hp Irind of m.en that shor'ld compose the ♦acuity of an jiistiiunon of learning. V de West believe that a great university shnuld be an institution lu wiiuu the comrnuni ship, for expert advice in r that He ^^evond the rinrrr d be a place in v/hich I. suhsfantial additions "w art; nut n no less iHcu^uH: mu.. knowledge is utilized for the bene the rn.in A major function of th-v . concrete and profitable to mankimi, and riiat ^nd ^diuiy secured ^v the dreamy rechi^p n( Mr. Rhodes. That Indeed lias its uses, and wiih its Gisappearimic t>onietns!iu would be lost from the sweetness of life, but let us not trust to It aiOiie iot uur academic. :^^:^^ Here are two ideas that T would bring before you: " the institution in wh-^^^ K^n^e we meet ^^.;^a• hi^j Kpfnrp -r an extraordinary oppurt unity to ser\ its ncrvp.rrntprx and that it wHI • ^nnlus to voui moned iiitiier nom an area rar vviuc:- uiau the pru. 43] nv »i X iNivr and th *» 'ir.vc;i:THV mvLnt PrcsKlent and ' Jmniitute upon tJ;e magriHct ,. Jjii^s Ml their charge -^mi pmv- ,du's Je\ot(.- d>y^A^£L >^(' d BOOK OF THE OPENING light, of religion and liberty, for the use and profit of the whole earth? But, gentlemen, I turn from this concept to another ex- pressed with equal clearness in the words of Cecil Rhodes, and which seems also noteworthy, albeit in a very different way. Having confided to Oxford the splendid commission above suggested, he pays his respects to its personnel in the words: "As the college authorities live secluded from the world, and are so like children as to commercial matters, I would advise them to consult my trustees," etc. On behalf of our American universities, let me disclaim any such con- cept as to the kind of men that should compose the faculty of an institution of learning. We of the North and Middle West believe that a great university should be an institution to which the community may turn for guidance, for leader- ship, for expert advice in matters of science and scholarship that lie beyond the range of every-day experience. It should be a place in which knowledge grows; in which, year by year, substantial additions are made to science, to letters, and to art; but in no less measure should it be a place in which that knowledge is utilized for the benefit of the man on the street. A major function of the university is to make abstract science concrete and profitable to mankind, and that end cannot be secured by the dreamy recluse of Mr. Rhodes. That type indeed has its uses, and with its disappearance something would be lost from the sweetness of life, but let us not trust to it alone for our academic staff. Here are two ideas that I would bring before you: that the institution in w^hose home we meet to-day has before it an extraordinary opportunity to serve humanity as one of its nerve-centers, and that it will be a stimulus to youth sum- moned hither from an area far wider than the prairies of [43^ THE RICE INSTITUTE Texas and placed under the influence of men awake to the needs and tendencies of the times and capable of giving will and heart to service that shall be as thorough and competent as it is devoted. And now let me bid you join in pledging to the Rice Insti- tute and its successful fulfilment of its mission that good old academic toast: ^'Fivat, crescat, floreat in eternumr^ Mayor Rice: Among the university presidents of the East who have come to visit us at this time is the distin- guished president of Lehigh University, Dr. Henry Sturgis Drinker. I have great pleasure in asking him to address you. President Henry Sturgis Drinker: Governor Col- quitt, Mayor Rice, President Lovett— Among the gracious words of welcome which have greeted us who have come from distant points to rejoice with you to-day were words of kindly thanks and appreciation for our presence here. Sirs, it is for us from full hearts to thank you for the oppor- tunity to share in the great work to-day inaugurated, and I assure you we appreciate the privilege. We come from the North, the South, the East, and the West to draw from the Lone Star State the new inspiration of liberty that you gave us of the older States in your strug- gle for independence, and now you are setting us a further example in your successful educational progress. Columbia University has just spoken to us from among the older institutions of our land. There was a time when we used to rate Lehigh University as of the younger brethren in the educational family. But we have moved up into the middle-aged class. The donation of Asa Packer, amounting 1:443 BOOK OF THE OPENING in the aggregate to about three million dollars, and begin- ning with five hundred thousand dollars in 1865, to found my Alma Mater— Lehigh— was at that time said to be the largest sum ever given to education. But now you spring full-panoplied into the arena with your magnificent endow- ment, and withal, with the past half-century of experience of our country in the working out of our American system of higher education, of which you may, and will, avail. Surely your future is bright, and surely the founder of this great institution— great already, greater in its potentialities for the future— merits the application of Sophocles' words where he says in his ''GEdipus" : ^'Methinks no work so grand Hath man yet compassed, as, with all he can Of chance or power, to help his fellow-manJ* Mayor Rice : Professor Emile Borel, a celebrated mathe- matician and educator of France, has come to the inaugura- tion of the Rice Institute as the official delegate from the University of Paris, the mother of all modern universities, to participate in our academic festival. You will, I am sure, share the pleasure and honor I feel in introducing him to you. Professor Emile Borel: Mr, Governor, Mr, Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen— Tht presence on this occasion of so many eminent representatives of American and European universities shows clearly with what interest the learned world regards the inauguration of your new university. I am happy to convey to you the greetings and congratulations of the University of Paris, which is one of the oldest of uni- versities. I am happy to thank you, both in its name and in my own, for your cordial hospitality. The municipality of Houston does us the honor of receiving us to-day as its \ n THE RICE INSTITUTE guests. Permit me to raise my glass to the rapid extension of this great new city, so active and so rich, which, along with its commercial development, has desired to have a corresponding scientific and intellectual development, in such a way as to become doubly a center— namely, a business center and a center of thought. I drink most heartily to the prosperity of the city of Houston and to the prosperity of the Rice Institute. Mayor Rice : It is now my pleasure to call upon the presi- dent of one of our own Southern universities, who will re- spond on this occasion for the universities of the South- Chancellor Kirkland of Vanderbilt University. Chancellor James Hampton Kirkland: Your Excel- lency the Governor, your Honor the Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen — It is a pleasure to be here on a day that, I think, will live and go down in the history of this country and the State of Texas. I have had the honor as well as the plea- sure of attending and participating in many educational con- ferences and many gatherings of men of science and letters, but I never attended one launched upon such a broad scale — such a truly cosmopolitan scale— as this gathering inci- dent to the dedication of the Rice Institute. It means that the great colleges of the world recognize the Rice Institute as one of their number. When all who have participated in these exercises have passed away, and all who are now appearing and bearing the glory of building this new institution have passed, their work and this beginning of this Institute will be remembered in history as the greatest day in the history of Houston and Texas. It is a pleasant thing. Governor Colquitt, to come to Texas. Tennesseeans know that, and they come here in [46: BOOK OF THE OPENING abundance. You are gracious, Mr. Mayor, to call for com- ment from a representative of my State. Among the names most revered in the State of which I am a citizen is the name of Sam Houston. Do you know, sir, that a very curious thing is this, that every historian of Tennessee who has writ- ten about Sam Houston and his life has raised the question, but never found a solution of the question, why Sam Hous- ton ever left Tennessee and came to Texas. But no man who has ever lived in Texas has ever raised the question. It is of very great significance that the governor of the State is here from his duties to take part in the exercises of to-day, to participate in the inauguration of a great private institution, as he has just said. I do not agree with the gov- ernor. This great institution that you are launching here is not a private institution. There are no private educational institutions, gentlemen. All institutions for the education of a people are public institutions, devoted to public acts and public enterprise, and always part of the great public inter- est. As we come to this festal day, a few things of great significance occur to those of us who are working in other institutions, especially so if those institutions happen to be in the South. In the first place, the Rice Institute begins its history with- out the dreaded poverty that has marked the growth of every Southern institution, and of almost every institution in this country, until now. We of the South know what it is to pass through individual and institutional poverty, and of the two, I may say that institutional poverty is worse, much worse, than individual poverty, more harassing and harder to get rid of. Another striking factor in the greatness of this institution I speak of with real gratification. The Rice Institute will not be compelled to follow the example of so many insti- n473 • - •■ • • ■ ■ r ■»•«• • •* »"-.* ' ^ ityn^Upji ^ - ■liiiimnfiif I ly THE RICE IiNSTITUTE tutions, and engage in the mad race for numbers. It can afford, under its endowment, to make it a badge of honor to have been a student of the Rice Institute, and I am sure that just such high standards will be maintained. Still another factor I would mention— though I mention none of these things to give advice. This institution will be conducted, by the history of Its being, to a certain specific line of work, to a line that we may call scientific in its broad- est sense, scientific In a sense that would neglect neither the spiritual nor the commercial value of science. Now, In that broad sense, we look to this institution to be a mediator be- tween those two great ideas. And in this work of mediation it will do great and needed service to the South. What resources of the land here are undeveloped! Throughout our whole history we have been lingering along, and we have followed along the way of our fathers, believing that what was good enough for them would be good enough for us. But now in the South we realize that, while we honor the past, the past is not good enough for the present and much less Is It good enough for the future. Our leaders are breaking away from the past traditions; they are think- ing for themselves, and they are speaking for themselves. The day Is near at hand when Southern men shall again enter in power and influence the halls of state which their fathers held under possession in the earlier years of our national history. And so I look to the Rice Institute to lead a new South, a South that shall walk hand in hand, in science. Industry, and service, with all other sections of our country and with the whole world. Mayor Rice : Among the distinguished European scien- tists present this afternoon is Professor Hugo de Vries of 1:483 BOOK OF THE OPENING Amsterdam, eminent for his researches In biology. I now have much pleasure in presenting him to you. Professor Hugo de Vries : Mr. Governor^ Mr, Mayor ^ Ladies and Gentlemen — \ bring greetings from the Univer- sity of Amsterdam to the Rice Institute, now entering upon a university career begun under conditions the most favor- able. The universities of the old world as well as the uni- versities of the new world welcome the advent of this new university. There is room in the world for more and more universities, because the tasks of science and education, al- ways vast, are becoming vaster and vaster. This is not my first visit to America. And here in Houston and in Texas, as on previous visits, I find warm hospitality and friendly greeting. I am grateful to the president and trustees of the Rice Institute, to the mayor and citizens of Houston, and to the governor and people of Texas for the gracious hos- pitality I am enjoying as their guest. For the new university I predict a bright future full of service to science and to Texas. To that prosperous future I raise my glass in high hopes and confident expectation. Mayor Rice: We have listened to warm responses from our foreign guests, and to equally cordial expressions from American Institutions of the North, South, East, and West. It is now my pleasure to call upon a university man of Texas who will respond for the universities and colleges of this State— President Samuel Palmer Brooks of Baylor Uni- versity. President Samuel Palmer Brooks: Your Excellency the Governor^ your Honor the Mayor ^ Ladies and Gentle- men— I confess very much personal embarrassment that I, a simple Texan, reared on the frontier of things, should be [49] THE RICE INSTITUTE associated here with these distinguished guests who have come from the learned scientific centers of the world. I am conscious of my inability to measure language and know- ledge with these men, skilled as all of them are in their respective fields. Gentlemen of the scientific world, you have a welcome in Texas. What we may lack in expressing this welcome we fill full in the bounty of our sincerity. For your learning we have high respect. You have ceased to surprise us by your discoveries. If you shall reduce all old physical ele- ments to one, or conserve the waves of the ever-rolling sea, or extract the heat of unmined coal, or find perpetual mo- tion, or increase the working-hours of honey-bees by cross- ing them with lightning-bugs, we Texans will never run from the facts. President Lovett, Professors of Rice Institute, Members of the Board of Trustees, I give congratulation to you each and all on this happy day, the culmination of labors that make possible so auspicious an opening of this promising institution. Ladies and gentlemen all, we here together represent the aristocracy of science and letters, which at last is a pure democracy where the merit of every man counts. However exalted we may become, we delight to sit at the feet of those able to teach us. However humble may be the walk and work of the schoolmaster, it carries the dominant note of strength, without limits of language or law or geography. However many of the old and worthy universities and col- leges of the East there may be, none will fail to rejoice at the coming of any new institution giving promise of genuine power in the development of men. Right well we know there is no competition in real culture. As I speak these words of congratulation on this felici- 1:503 ,<. v I f / \ ■t f'' i.l.< ■* * : I - :'»tt/,,/^ /^. f ■'' '■, .yttt^.- <•««^irv^.i' ^•de^iUtf -r-- f_ fr.''-'r.-l'^' '• ,^/^f0^»f/^i*f-f*' y%r«v/«^ '• * r < W.f^*4tf^ - I II come cor TTTF v^irj: INSTITUTE djstinjnii'^hed {guests who have • ic cciiicr svurld. lam measure lani^uaee and know- ...... in their respective iieids. i exa^. " Vhal wc til] hiU he hount*' nl vour discover!'*-. )u h?\c .. *rf^lrf^me in siiig this vveicome we F'or v(>ur learning cubc^ iipnse us oy 11 old physical ele- ■ - iv-JKng sea, imd perpetual mo- ev-hees by cross- exaas wul never run from tlif fict? i ' '\ Members ' gi\ e ccfigratuhuion to you each • ..^. i ic culmi^ ' -^ labors that make possible so auspicious an opening ui this promising i ■ ' '^ c luTc ajgether represent the at last is a pure ! f ■ < . V bet ■ L wifhoi; . Hovi; many letres of the Fast th- powe (ievr .Vs 1 spcaK. tiv However o sic at the teet of those ^le ^ he walk and :rnes the. dominant note of iincre or \iw or oriiiv' umversiiics and col- n fail to rejoice at ; J, .1^ Piwii.-e of genuine Ticn. Kight well we know re. >rd^ or cuiigratulation on this felici- L- J Aff/y/ (///ff/f^ //ftf/rr/'^ff //r-/f/^i>€rj tr/'/^f'f/'^-^^ t ftt/tr/e fi^ /'^' jt^ '■^f.et^'. \/ f /<'^i/ .///^^/u. /f f r^fr yV'/^/^ ^^■^yM^ ■f-rt^o'^if cyr /tie^yt-e^^ crt^a^t ^// ^^treJ ^■^r ft^^ ,, c^^^.fyi^i^ , ^'e^Y.trr^if /Mf^-,/ 7 f/'rr////'/ /y/yyf/ '/-■ '/,f///^ ///'/'./ ^JT ^vr/VA/rv r". /■'f, r/y/f//^/ ff/ti//' rfn^ftir. Jtr-/i-*-//ff y-frfV^^A', f // //-/r^^-rr^Utr/' yfr//ff /ft^Ai'/fff" y/ffrc /4-/y;' ^ y-<2^ej. ^^^ >^ '-co/^M^orwYtu^ '^^ Jit*tuufi'jiuf ^.'^:^. '-* — ■ /> fit '/I yff /rw-f f "y^f r/f^ /fr/f/fff fzf r^ f^f f^/yfryny -^'^<'/t^ A^r*^-^ ya^y/ir jf/ c^t^^/^^J^ *r j/i^ /?/ f/rt/t,' c/^-t^t/f/ft /rtyt^^- frff^.rrft/>y /tr f/e/t/// THE RICE INSTITUTE them a cipher, and wherever this cipher turns up it says one and the same thing: The man who wrote these lines was a lover of nature and a lover of men. And consonant with this cipher one finds ''love, beauty, joy, and worship," which, as Plotlnus says on the great arch of the sally-port yonder, "are forever building, unbuilding, and rebuilding in each man's soul." Ladies and gentlemen, I have the honor of calling on Dr. Henry van Dyke, man of letters, faithful friend, poet laureate of the Rice Institute, who will respond for "Literature." Dr. Henry van Dyke : Nothing ought to surprise those who have been the guests of Texas at the inauguration of the Rice Institute, and nothing ever after can be too good for them. We have been lifted by the springtide of your hospitality to the absolute high-water mark, and henceforth we must measure festivals by comparison with this. One thing, however, has astonished me a little during these days, and that is to find so many "lions" in Texas: academic lions, scientific lions, lions of the world of higher education. Among these distinguished representatives of famous institutions, these doctors of many degrees, a simple shepherd of the hills can understand how Daniel must have felt in the lions' den— perfectly safe but somewhat embar- rassed. I do not represent any learned Institution, any scientific theory, any school of philosophy. Merely because I have written a few stories and a few verses, I have been asked to speak for Literature. Literature Is that one of the arts which works with the least costly of all materials— words— to embody the most precious of all human possessions— ideas. Any language that has expressed noble thought and feeling In lucid form CS8] UNIVERSIDAD • DE • OVIEDO jf^^ n I .V, A ft /c J .♦ ^*r' I f rtfr a fnantfttr certtta/fJ rr/aftonfy fn /'/(ft !■/( (ft rn/fetrrr fen J/t rirtrrn //frninnn f/f L?fxay at mi >/nc (ifntht> ct4f rtntte rtjoeftnyic trt/-aff f/f fZf/nttmft^n n ' f(nfr<>oc iti'if/af/or' lA///fnmy//nrj// Jltct ( t Autcr fr/ff/c M f/f (ffta/n f/f /9/Z / 1 Jfeff/tlrte fjftifmf I' < BOOK OF THE OPENING becomes classic. Any race that has succeeded in producing real literature, by virtue of that production becomes immor- tal. The one thing that does not die is the well-chosen word whose soul is the well-born thought. Literature is the most humane and intimate of all the arts. It comes closest to the common life of man. Good books help us to understand our own hearts. They open the world to us. They are revealers and interpreters, friends and counselors. They liberate us, at least for a little while, from the slavery of time and space. And while the other arts in their perfection are not always accessible to those who are not rich in this world's goods, the best litera- ture is usually the cheapest. There has been a good deal of talk about an ''American literature." American literature has begun. It began when the life of the American people became conscious of deep thought and true feeling, and took expression in literary form. It will continue and grow and develop, this American literature, just as the life of the people of America becomes deep, strong, vital, and sane. It cannot be made to order. It cannot be made on a cook-book recipe. It cannot be made by any plan of localism, or by the division of the country into geographical sections, so that we shall have a literary school of the southern half of Indiana, or a literary school of the eastern corner of the northern half of Texas. That is not the way literature is made. Literature will grow when the life of America is so enriched with deeper emotion and thought that it must find expression in our common and classic English tongue. Literature cannot be taught. There are things in our uni- versities that we call "chairs of literature." Those who occupy them, if they are doing their duty, are simply "teach- ers of reading"— that is all. Literature cannot be taught, [59] <. THE RICE INSTITUTE any more than any other of the higher arts can be taught. You cannot make a literary man by instruction in a class- room. You can correct his grammar. You can correct his spelling; that is to say, you can do something in that direc- tion as long as the "Simplified Spellers" remain in abeyance. But you cannot make him a writer, any more than you can make him a sculptor, unless Nature has bestowed the gift. The best that we can do for Literature in our universities is this: to cultivate an appreciation for that which is finest and most humane in the writings of the past; to teach young men and women to know the difference between a book that is well written and a book that is badly written; to give them a standard by which they may judge and measure their own efforts at self-expression; and to inspire in the few who have an irresistible impulse to write, a sincere desire to find a clear, vivid, and memorable form for the utterance of the best that is in them. This is something which I think the university may well propose to itself as one of its high objects: to promote the love of good literature, and to endeavor that no one shall obtain an academic degree who does not know how to read — to read between the lines, to read behind the words, to enter through the printed page into a deeper knowledge of life. I hope that the Rice Institute, with its magnificent outlook toward science, will produce scientific men who shall be at the same time men of true culture, who shall illustrate that type of science whose representatives we have listened to here— men whose knowledge of the facts and laws of the physical world does not blind them to the beauty and power of those ideals, memories, imaginations, and hopes which are perpetuated in literature for the cheer and guidance of mankind. [60] I BOOK OF THE OPENING President Lovett: It was at the Sorbonne, I believe, that the first conspicuous public reference to the plans of the Rice Institute was made, and in one of the lectures which, as visiting professor, the last speaker delivered on the ^'Spirit of America.'' We have with us on this occasion a distinguished permanent member of the University of Paris. By way of making him feel more at home at the table of this Residential Hall, I venture to remind him that his own ancient university was originally composed of residential colleges, and that the Ecole Normale, whose scientific studies he directs, is itself a residential college. Further- more, the subject which he represents has a great community of interest both to the scientific and to the lay mind, for mathematics is as fundamental as logic itself to scientific inquiry, and shares with music the distinction of being a survivor of the Tower of Babel. On this high and noble theme I now ask Professor Borel to speak. Professor Emile Borel: President Lovett has very kindly asked me to speak to you this evening concerning the role of mathematics in the domain of culture. It is a sub- ject which seems somewhat dry and rather difficult to treat in an after-dinner speech. Mathematics is rarely considered to be an appropriate subject for conversation by those who are not mathematicians. People generally think that the science of numbers has no very Intimate connection with life, and that mathematicians might without great loss to civiliza- tion remain shut up In their towers of Ivory. Nevertheless, It Is Impossible not to recall that twenty-five centuries ago, under a sky as beautiful as is yours. It was precisely through abstract speculations that the great geometers began the lib- eration of the human reason. From these speculations geometry, algebra, mechanics, astronomy, and physics have [;6i:] < flwf^ THE RICE INSTITUTE sprung. Through the logical play of his reason man has given himself an account of the laws which regulate the w^orld. He has come to comprehend that blind chance does not preside over the destinies of the universe, and that the concepts accessible to the mind of geometers can serve to penetrate the great laws of nature. Therefore he has come to use these laws for the profit of human civilization. Ac- cordingly, the mathematical reason is the basis of man's con- quest of the universe. Is it not by virtue of mathematics that navigation of the seas has become possible? If the thinkers had not meditated upon certain abstract laws, could any vessel have been able to plow through the waves of the Atlantic? It is to mathematics that Christopher Columbus owed, exactly four hundred and twenty years ago, his ability to reach in safety these unknown shores. And they are the heirs of Greek thought who, realizing the great scientific movement of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, have made possible the great industrial inventions of the nine- teenth century, the organization and conquest of the globe by human civilization. The mathematicians are the pioneers of science. Often indeed their work is several centuries in advance of prac- tical applications, but, without their works, discoveries the most admirable would have failed of any practical applica- tion. It is not sufficient to observe the facts: it is necessary to know the laws which govern these facts. Every one knows that the stone he drops will fall to the ground; mathe- matics alone has given, with respect to this fact which ap- pears so simple, explications and formulae which have been permitted most admirable mechanical applications. The Rice Institute preserves by the side of letters and art a place for the sciences — for the mathematical sciences among others. In addition to the practical utility of which 1:62] BOOK OF THE OPENING I have just spoken, the mathematical sciences have an intel- lectual utility in the development of the human spirit. They accustom the intellect to the use of a rigorous and clear-cut logic; they render the understanding tractable to finesse of intuition and induction. I trust that in so magnificent a new university as is the Rice Institute mathematics may make many adepts. For if mathematical culture should be re- moved from the world, scientific culture would become as a tree whose roots had been cut. And in conclusion I raise my glass to Mathematics and the prosperity of the Rice Insti- tute. President Lovett : The gentleman who has just spoken would agree with Gauss that mathematics is "the queen of the sciences.'' The eminent philosopher who is about to speak would insist that philosophy is the science of the sci- ences, the glory and the guardian of all the sciences. We have paid our tribute to philosophy on the chief stone of our first building, where one may read the tribute Democritus paid to science for its own sake when he exclaimed: "Rather would I discover the cause of one fact than become king of the Persians." This fine expression of the spirit of science on the part of the ancient Greek philosopher is rather more generous than is the attitude of the average modern scientist toward philosophy. The intensely human philosopher on my left has told me in conversation this evening that to get a speech out of him to-night it would be necessary to stir his temper. It is in the affection inspired in all of us by the earnest appeal of his discourse as the sun was setting last evening that I venture to apply the necessary lash. To him there may perhaps be some stimulus in that ancient characterization of a meta- physician—a characterization so old, in fact, that the mind 1 if I < ''*'-*tif^ the IVe8kl«nt and Tn.:?'^^'^' o< The Rice Ins&tuit. in tiiC City of Houstoffi. Ttxm tt> bt v^.^icnted :eU^^^'^^ .s ^Hr t-^t^nhe- »»tendant upon mc opcQtng v . and twelfth oi Oaobcr, ninctern humir«^i ^nd fv^^i' jQ}fmtn«ed as jts ddc^ate on that occasion. H.'srn ^ andeli Rmjch! cL Ph.D., Prok&soi •>{ Apphcd Mathcrnai;. he Lni- vrt?»«lj w Given ar Cambndgie • first day c* Oct^^r in the Ji Harvard r scan have ranp:> r ■ I ■ be S,,"' OI .1 do oi grc IHi ^-^i^i- iaSTITUTE , 1 I roni the ph) . f the earth through :1^ eiher to the motiuns of the hejvvenly J j^, . ih.. hnnnr of risking Professor ra to 'Olid UHS iuiidamental field mathematics has met with some I liie physical uiuvcise. : Without doubt we , ; . soeiit at Houston. ■an of such an institute ve consequences Beginning in .0 large, di- o have a considerable Tr wp. ■ tiie case exactly to speak of pure science R, . . co^d base to culture, vou are certain prepare the new generations not only to -v , _., . -.rrrcss, but also to be ready to appiy the resources ot science to its most useful applications. -iences. Dure phvsics in the most general wora, g.vc cu. .pport' r- illustration of : icient to consider the aevfi- -^r few years, and the :iit> iiavv aad on liic general iblic has found for itself. In completely theoretical tical physics, and the experi- ^Ide bv side, each an hes, indeed, that at first sight ]o<^r inspection to have uiiiir. A astronomy, or, more sen' 1 >r' t me' ?! * H S€C» had considerai » \ » 1 1 HARVARD UNIVERSITY accepts with pleasure the kind invitation of the President and Trustees of The Rice Institute in the City of Houston, Texas to be represented by a delegate at the exercises attendant upon the opening of the Institute to be held on the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth of October, nineteen hundred and twelve, and has appointed as its delegate on that occasion. Harr> Yandell Benedict, Ph.D., Professor of Applied Mathematics at the Uni- versity of Texas. Given at Cambridge on the first day of October in the nineteen hundred and twelfth year of our Lord and of Harvard College the two hundred and seventy-seventh. i< tI BOOK OF THE OPENING precisely, celestial mechanics. It seems entirely theoretical and abstract. Yet from where came the concept of poten- tial? Laplace Introduces It Into the subject of celestial me- chanlcs In order to study In a simple mathematical way the laws of universal gravitation. Now little by little the Idea of potential was carried from the domain of celestial me- chanics to that of static electricity. After that It was Intro- duced Into electrodynamics. And, different only In form, when electricity was brought to the hands of the whole world, It was acquired by the workers In electricity and the people. In a word, potential took its point of departure In Integral calculus, but Is now used by everybody. Mr. Borel spoke to us. In his fine lecture, of certain func- tions, very complicated and difficult to study, that appear in analysis. They are to be applied to modern physics. Let us hope that they have a future comparable with that of the potential function. The greatest progress In physics has taken place doubtless In the subjects of electricity, optics, and the theory of heat. At first widely distinct, they have become little by little closely connected; and if a scientist of a hundred years ago should behold their modern development he would be quite surprised to perceive that optics has become a special branch of electrodynamics, and that electricity is merely one chapter in a general theory that includes as special instances the theory of gases and the conduction of heat and electricity. And finally he would notice that the theory of energy doml- nates all branches of natural philosophy. According to Descartes, mechanics was the basis of all physics. It has undergone many changes, and in the view of many scientists will cease to play that principal role and become a special branch of energetics. According to others, It will be modified In its most fundamental laws and become [69] f \\ 1^ THE RICE INSTITUTE an entirely new organum, completely without the bounds of classical mechanics. Who can tell what the future prepares for us ? New mar- vels are quite likely to follow those which have lately star- tled us. Probably many of the hypotheses that now serve us usefully must fall. They constitute merely the light scaf- folding by means of which we erect a great building. Beginning to-day, I see the Rice Institute, by means of its professors and students, drawn into the scientific progress of the future. I raise a glass and drink to the future of this institute, to its glory and service in the culture of America and the world. President Lovett: We have reached the keystone of our arch. In calling for the formal toast to "Science," I beg to remind you that the spirit of this university of science has been cut in two tablets of stone on the walls of its chief building. On one of them the Greek Aristotle says, "If we properly observe celestial phenomena, we may demonstrate the laws which regulate them," and on the other the Hebrew Job says, ''Speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee." It is with peculiar pleasure that we have requested Professor Conklin of Princeton University to make this response; for, as one of the members of our first advisory committee, we greet him, not as a stranger, but as one on whose counsel we leaned even before any of our aspirations had begun to assume definite or concrete form. In his double capacity as professor of biology in Princeton University and expert adviser to the Rice Institute, I have the honor of Introducing to you Dr. Edwin Grant Conklin, who will speak to the toast "Science." Professor Edwin Grant Conklin: During this aca- demic festival we have seen everywhere, on banners and [70] I 4 14 BOOK OF THE OPENING programs, on ice-cream and cakes, the seal of the Rice Institute with its three owls. In poetry and classic lore the owl is the bird of Minerva, the symbol of wisdom, but in fact and natural history he is the bird of night, and it was not until this dinner had lasted long beyond the night's key- stone that the real inner significance of this seal dawned upon me— namely, the three-owl power of the Rice Insti- tute, But considering these owls on the seal as birds of wisdom, I ask you to observe their positions and names: two are on the roof or in the air, and one is in the coop or on the ground. The two in the air are labeled "Literature" and "Art," the one on the ground or in the coop is labeled "Science." I am to speak for a kind of learning which is thought by some persons to have no wings, which "moves but slowly, slowly, creeping on from point to point"; which many con- sider as not only groveling, but as narrow in outlook and material in its tendencies. I wish to show that the chief debt of civilization to Science Is not for material comforts, but for Intellectual freedom and enlightenment; that while Science plants her feet on the solid ground of nature, she moves with her head among the stars. The great aim of Science is to know and control nature, not merely for the purpose that man may obtain the golden touch, not that all things may be made to minister to his com- fort, but rather that he may know the truth, and that the truth may set him free. The wonderful material changes wrought by science, such as the developments of steam, electricity, and great engineer- ing enterprises, and the consequent increase of comforts and enlargement of human experience; the remarkable growth of the applied sciences of chemistry, physics, biology, [TO I THE RICE INSTITUTE and geology; and, perhaps most of all, the revolutionary changes in medicine, surgery, and public health which have followed a scientific study of the causes and remedies of various diseases, are liable to blind us to other great achieve- ments of science, which, if less material, are none the less real and valuable. I. First among all the services of science must always be reckoned its liberation of man from the bondage of super- stition. We can never fully realize the terrors of a world supposed to be inhabited by demons and evil spirits, a world in which all natural phenomena are but the expressions of the love or hatred of preternatural beings. But we may gather from history and from present-day ignorance and superstition some faint idea at least of the ever present dread, even amidst happiness and joy, of those who feared Nature because they knew her not, of those to whom the heavens were full of omens and the earth of portents, of those who peopled every shadow with ghosts and evil spirits, and who saw in all sickness, pain, adversity, and calamity the cruel hand of a demon or the evil eye of a witch. It is frequently assumed that the decline of superstition is due to the teachings of religion or to the general develop- ment of the intellectual powers of man, and there is no doubt that to a certain extent this is true. The general advance of the intellect, in so far as it is associated with truer views of Nature, is unquestionably inimical to superstition; yet the persistence of such a superstition as that concerning witch- craft through periods of great religious and intellectual awakening, the almost universal belief in it throughout the golden age of English literature, the statutes of all Euro- pean countries against the practice of witchcraft, sorcery, and magic, some of which remained until the beginning of A BOOK OF THE OPENING the nineteenth century— all these things show that however religion and general intelligence may have curbed its cruel and murderous practices, its downfall could be brought about only by a more thorough knowledge of Nature. The com- mon belief that insanity, epilepsy, and imbecility were the results of demoniacal possession necessarily led, even in en- lightened and Christian communities, to cruel methods of exorcising the demon, and the final disappearance of this superstition (if it may be said to have disappeared even at the present day) is entirely due to a scientific study of the diseases in question. The same might be said of any one of a hundred forms of superstition which, like a legion of demons, hedged about the lives of our ancestors. As false interpretations of nat- ural phenomena, only truer interpretation could displace them; and what centuries of the best literature, philosophy, and religion had failed to do, science has accomplished. Science is, as the elder Huxley has said, organized and trained common sense; and nowhere is this better shown than in its rational, common-sense way of interpreting mys- terious phenomena. No doubt much still remains to be accomplished; the unscientific world is still full of supersti- tion as to natural phenomena, but it is superstition of a less malignant type than prevailed before the general introduc- tion of the scientific method. Furthermore, the cultivation of the natural sciences has done more than all other agencies to liberate man from slavish regard for authority. When all others were appeal- ing to antiquity, the Church, the Scriptures, Science appealed to facts. She has braved the anathemas of popes and church councils, of philosophers and scholars, in her search for truth: she has freed from ecclesiastical, patristic, even aca- demic bondage; she has unfettered the mind, enthroned 1:73] THE RICE INSTITUTE reason, taught the duty and responsibility of independent thought, and her message to mankind has ever been the message of intellectual enlightenment and liberty: "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." 2. But Science has not only broken the chains of super- stition and proclaimed intellectual emancipation: she has enormously enlarged the field of thought. She has given men nobler and grander conceptions of nature than were ever dreamed of before. Contrast the old geocentric the- ory, which made the earth the center of all created thmgs, with the revelations of modern astronomy as to the enor- mous sizes, distances, and velocities of the heavenly bodies; contrast the old view that the earth was made about six thousand years ago-5670 years last September, to be exact -in six literal days, with the revelations of geology that the earth is immeasurably old, and that not days but millions of years have been consumed in its making; contrast the doc- trine of creation which taught that the world, and all that therein is, recently and miraculously were launched into exist- ence, with the revelations of science that animals and plants and the world itself are the result of an Immensely long pro- cess of evolution. As Darwin so beautifully says, "There is grandeur in this view of Hfe with its several powers having been breathed by the Creator Into a few forms or into one, and that whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the first law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been and are being evolved." There is grandeur in the revelations of science concerning the whole of nature,-grandeur not only in the conceptions of Immensity which it discloses, but also of the stability of nature. To the man of science nature does not represent the mere caprice of God or devil, to be lightly altered for a child's whim. Nature is, as Bishop Butler says, n743 BOOK OF THE OPENING that which is stated, fixed, settled, eternal process moving on, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. Men may come and men may go, doctrines may rise and disappear, states may flourish and decay, but in nature, as in God him- self, there is neither variableness nor shadow of turning. The all too prevalent notion that nature may be wheedled, cheated, juggled with, shows that men have not yet begun to realize the stability of nature, and indicates the necessity of at least some elementary scientific training for all men. "To the solid ground of Nature trusts the mind that builds for aye." 3. Science has changed our whole point of view as to nature and man, and science cannot therefore be eliminated from any system of education which strives to impart cul- ture. It is not principally nor primarily in its results, how- ever great they may be, that the chief service of science is found, but rather in its method. In a word, the method of science is the appeal to phenomena, the appeal to nature. To the scientist the test of truth is not logic, nor inner con- viction, nor conceivablllty and inconceivability, but phenom- ena, or what are commonly called facts. The steps of this appeal to phenomena are first observation or experiment; then induction, hypothesis, or generalization; and finally verification by further observations, experiments, and com- parisons. The methods of science have now invaded to a greater or less extent all domains of thought,— philosophy, literature, art, education, and religion, — and the unique character of the method of science may not be fully appre- ciated except upon comparison with pre-sclentific or non- scientific methods. Of course one need not expect to find any proper appre- ciation of the scientific method among the ignorant, but it is amazing how ^such appreciation is lacking among many [75] THE RICE INSTITUTE otherwise intelligent and cultivated people. We daily see innumerable cases where the test of truth is the appeal to superstition, to sentiment, to prejudice, to inner conviction — in short, to anything rather than facts. Consider for a moment the art of healing, as contrasted with the science of medicine; the various "schools of medi- cine,'' and much more those who never went to school, ap- peal not to carefully determined, accurately controllable phenomena, but largely to sentiment, prejudice, and super- stition. The same is true of the "fake" science which flour- ishes mightily in the daily papers, and especially is it shown in the hypotheses, discoveries, and dogmas of those who determine the laws of nature from introspection and con- struct the universe from their inner consciousness. Every little while there arises a new and brilliant Lucifer who draws after him a third part of the hosts of heaven. Though he appears under many guises, such as divine healer, Christian Scientist (Heaven save the mark!), spiritualist, theosophist, telepathist, the main tenet of his belief is always the same— a revolt against the scientific method of appealing to phenomena. What is the remedy for such a state of affairs? A little first-hand knowledge of scientific methods. The appeal to facts is the very foundation of science, and it is a method in which every person, and particularly every student, should receive thorough and systematic training. To me it seems that there is no part of an education so important as this, none the lack of which will so seriously mar the whole life. Of course it is not claimed that all scientists best illustrate the scientific method, nor that it may not be practised by those who have not studied science, but that this method is best inculcated in the study of the natural sciences. Science not only appeals to facts, but it cultivates \ BOOK OF THE OPENING a love of truth, not merely of the sentimental sort, but such as leads men to long-continued and laborious research; it trains the critical judgment as to evidence; it gives man truer views of himself and of the world in which he lives, and it therefore furnishes, as I believe, the best possible foundation, not only for scholarship in any field, but for citizenship and general culture. But culture is not some definite goal to be reached by a single kind of discipline. There is no single path to culture, and the great danger which confronts the student of the natural sciences is that his absorption in his work may lead to a narrowness which blinds him to the broad significance of the facts with which he deals and unfits him for association with his fellow-men. A technical education which deals only with training for special w^ork, without reference to founda- tion principles, may be useful and necessary, but It cannot be said to contribute largely to culture. What teacher has not been surprised and pained by the fear which some students exhibit that they may waste an hour on some subject the direct financial value of which they do not see,— students who fail to grasp general principles, to take a broad and gen- erous view of life, to appreciate good work wherever done? The scientist no less than the classicist or the humanist should know the world's best thought and life. Life is not only knowing but feeling and doing also, and other things than science are necessary to culture. The day is forever past when any one mind can master all sciences, much less all knowledge; there can never be another Aristotle or Hum- boldt; nevertheless, In the demand for broad and liberal training the greatest needs of scientific work and the highest Ideals of culture are at one, and this Institute can serve no more useful purpose than to stand for the highest, broadest, and most generous views of science, of education, and of life. THE RICE INSTITUTE President Lovett: If the manifold ramifications of the modern spirit of research and scientific inquiry have resulted in a corresponding multipHcation of the sciences, that same method is constantly striving through their mutual relations to restore to science its unity. Physics and biology, the fun- damental sciences of the inorganic and the organic world, respectively, find a meeting-ground in chemistry. Chemistry stands out in the history of science with as romantic a back- ground as is that possessed by astronomy. The one began in astrology and the desire of man to read his fate in the stars; the other began in an alchemy which reflected a corre- sponding desire to find the fortune of gold in all the baser elements of earth. Professor Sir William Ramsay, in his inaugural lecture this morning, showed us how he has been bringing all that romance within reach of realization. He has consented to respond still further for Chemistry this evening. Professor Sir Willi/ m Ramsay: I did not know any- thing was expected of me to-night, and I will not disappoint you if at this very late hour of the night I suggest that speech should be extremely brief. The subject of chemistry is a very large one, and if I were to try to explain it to you, I think I should have to treat you to an account of what has been accomplished by all chemical students. If you are prepared to listen, I shall be delighted to go on; and, if you like, I can begin with the beginning of chemistry and lead you straight through the old and modern history of chemistry. Chemistry plays a considerable part in the welfare of mankind, and, as the last speaker has said, the scientific man regards it from the point of view of curiosity to know how the little wheels go round. I have always had such curiosity; [78] 1». TIIK rOLlSH I NIVKIJSITY IN LW('.W -LEMBERG'. GALICIA. Al>Ti;iA, \VI-HK> TO CONVKV TO THE RICE INSTITUTE IX HOUSTON. TEXAS, ox THE DAY OF ITS IXAUGURATION ITS GP.KETINGS AND HEARTIEST WISHES FOK A FAVoUIlAIJLE UEVELOPEMKM. WE HA\'E WITH PLEASURE RECEIVED YOLK CO.MMLNICATION WITH THE NEWS OF TilE FOINDING OF A NEW SI'LEMUD TEMPLE DEDICATED TO KNOWLEGDE AND EDUCATION ON AMERICAN SOIL, WHERE SO MANY POLES ARE LIVING FOUNDED BY THE LIBERALITY OF YOUR NOBLE COUNTRYMAN WILLIxVM MARSH RICE ERECTED AND ORGANISED WITH FORESIGHT AND CARE BY YOUR GREAT CITIZENS AND SrHoLARS. IT WILL BECOME A FRUITFUL FOUNT OF EDUCATIONAL WORK THROUGH WHICH YOU FILL OLD EUROPE WITH AMAZEMENT. BLESSED IS THAT LAND WHICH PO.-SE>SES SUCH SONS. HAPPY IS THE COUNTRY IN WHICH, THANKS TO THE LIBERALITY OF ITS CITIZENS. PALACES ARE ERECTED FOR CLLTIVATING AND EXTENDING HUMAN KNOWLEGDE. UNITED TO YOU BY THE BONDS OF COMMON ASPIRATIONS WE SEND ACItOsS THE SEA TO THE HANDS OF YOUR MOST HONOURABLE PRESIDENT EDGxVR ODELL LOVETT THE OLD POLISH WISH OF .SZCZD^C B02E" (GOOD LUCK) FOR YOUTl WORK IN FURTHERING THE GREATEST GOOD OP iLAN'KIND. a T RECTOR or THE nWIVERSITT OF LWOW BOOK OF THE OPENING but T think 1 mn\ «;peak for every true man .. ^uui ho takes the trouble to investigate nature, if I sav that women ought to be the best chemist* : for Eve was the v-^ nn.^ ir!nv:r curiou God's crcaiuicb. It is said to be owing to her action that the staro «m affairs whirh ivo ^;-r -ground ^c p^^-' \^ic produced; aku ;^):.^.ui>, m tilt uay- oi the tutare -tiie time when men have been ex- cl\ided from the vote, and when the country i iiiea ific courage v»iiich is mherent in success vviii agam appear- I remember a saying which struck me at the time as V- ^n • -^y no means discourteous to women; it is, that womei' c more interest iw persons, while men are more mfprrv:*^f'd In things. i am sure that you will find that there are few women who themselv^es to anv sourcf* riT hrrinch nf l*r.nwledo"e cAvi.'^n loi rhe love or some nvda wlioii] iiiey eiecc to follow. \- tor us men, we shall continue theTesearches wi^h as much vigo. > we have uj.- - • — bc;..ui\<.vi upon rhem. We are ally approaching a goal which can never be reached; .•^ ir v< ns wpII tU-if '*■ !c i^n -l^^-'. innKi: ^r^^ j _ ./ \ .. selfish in us to wish to nnu nut everythiiig and leave nothing for our ors. That is rr'ivKsihie: the worKj or knnwlfd?'*^' '=^ iiiiijiiiable. and no vv\>ruh are av aiiar-i ■ xpress its mlmite Newton, the great natural philosonher. ^aid once th If u f - ^'ij-e all like children on the sea-ii.uic, ^.ncivijig up iiere and there a pebble, while the vast ocean of knowledge is sp?*ead at our feet. We are lucky if we find pebble- • ^' of us who try pick up small and not very valuable stones tor the most Dart. The wuik oi the man of science is in some degree creativ and I say that this spirit of creation is not confined t(^ the cr;^nf:f:. y^^an, but is common to the aiu^t to the ma: • letters, and even to the philosopher. It is the spirit which Till: roLlsil I NIVKHSITV \\\(K INSTITrTE noi sTON, TKXAs. ON THE 1>AY OF n> i^ 'i- .;ni:FTIN.- \N1' I- -! \MMIF- Yi)\. I>KVEL'>PKMt;.Vi- WK HAVE WITH TLEASrHE liFX ElVKl> VOl K CoMMrNirVTION Wild TMK Ni W> '•: FOlNDI.Vti OF A NEW SI'LEN1>H> TEMPLE 1)E1»ICA'1KI» To KNoWLFouh AND EPrCATK'N on aMEIMCAN S(ML WHERE M) MANY Vn[.V.- .W.V. I.!\ IM. FOINOFD BY THE LUiFi: \E1TY oF YOFll NoBI.E COINTHYMAN WILLIAM MAP.SII RICE ERECTED AND ORGANISED WITH FORESIGHT AND CAKE BV YOLK GREAT CITIZEN- AND M UmI.MS IT WILL BECOME A FRUITFEL FOlNT OF EDlCATloNAL WORK THROIGH WHICH YOU FILL OLD EUROFE WITH AMAZEMENT BLESSED IS THAT LAND WHKU l'(i->F.-.>ES SUCH ^oN^ HAPPY IS THE COUNTRY IN WHICH, THANK> TO TIIF I.IBEHALITY OF ITS CITIZEN^ palace;s are erected for clltivatinu and extending human knowlegde. UNITED TO Vol HV THE BOND> (iF COMMON ASPIRATIONS WE SE:ND ACI;o-> THE -EA TO THE HANDS OF YOUR MOST HONOURABLE PRE>IDENT EDCiAR ODELL LOVETT THE OLD POLI.-H Wl-H oF ■GOOD LICK* FOi; YOUR WORK IN FURTHERING THE GREATEST GO(»D OF ^. MANKIND H. T RECTOR OF THE CyrVER=ITy OF I.WAW ^^«^ X Tin: POLISH IMVKliSlTV ws HA^TE wnra fiS- f ««WLWf?> 9MWMM' - lUl'f"' '•> THS Ct)l.Mi- LWtVW 'LE>' ill A Wl ., lilt: RICE IN^ '? T] "TV HOUSTHiN. ■ \Ti()S r.~ • .' ARTIt> T WISHES V >rUAt5! r» yotR ot .HK NEWS OF TUF >i>il> i i t.l) T(; ^ S*>IL . V, J , ' . 'J 1 . -f r:S ARK LIV1N(,- t- \- M r- ICE \' YOtk GREjvT CITii:»^:5S and *r'H'»LAR>i X t* 1H0LGU WHICH . . I. •■^. :■ ^laf .>F ITS CmZENS. f> ?(V,. •xn A> ^ MAN jKNOWLE(JDE . . KD ^) YOL BY THE BONDS Of CJOMSlttK A&PIKATI0N8 ME HE-M> ACROSS THE SEA TD THE HANDS OF VOIR T HONOfRABLfc PRESIDENT EDGAR ODELL LOVETT ««X)D LICK) I WORK LN FURTffJSKINO lUM QKMAWm aocH> m HiJCCIKD. >^-'-:,.^v or m iwnitRsiTT or i.rv rt RICE liSSiirUIF teaching of art as. this now obtains :« r university faculties of fine arts. coiKeive such teaching as being of rt of any scheme of general educa- be when viewed in the hght is, and I should expeci from irt^iiment for the universal »ii biiitilar line*; but vpe of such teach- ^ho set a ■I applied an extreme dispensable i!evfnu*nt (''' ' end and obu'ct aucatioii- n.iinciv, in-c i;uiiu cer. rherf wei nd I think the re very bad old days, whr • was held thdL cui - ^hould take no cognizance whatever of character^ ot the making of sane, sound, hon- or ^^^- men and women, but only of mental training and mental discipline. Then it was said with gr^vc assurance *^i of the province of public education to deal with t^'^ historical 'it the ' if>me — .urnpul- i. laments and we ' nibina, )f influ- ves— had her religion reiij4ion, ethic '^ 11- SI entji lari^c capi' b resuiceu nor ethi building ,^ Crete results v\ last ^- the fact th iC i»iCL ulai V ery sci JUS character- inerficial nature, vvfiile tlie con- iluu iV- Struck at dangerous criminal classes ^^iU4P^ '///( rn side lit. Coiiiia/, a mi /hi/o7k>s of THE ROYAL Society OE London for promofnig \atnral Knowledge send coniial congxatitlations to the Goveniors and Staff of The Rice Institute, at Houston, Texas, on the initia- tion of the active scientific career of that important foundation. They trust that THE RiCE INSTITUTE has a brilliant career before it. as a centre of enlightenment and discoT.fery. for the advantage of the whole 7i>orld, and in particular of the great State in which the Institute has its seat. Sigmd on helm 1/ of flu ROYAL SOCIETY OF LOXDOX for pron/oliuo Natnml Knmf/edj^i Stfifiiilhy n^r2 N BOOK OF THE OPENING were made up of those who were extremely well educated, we were compelled, as Walt Whitman says, "to re-examine philosophies and religions," and some of us came to the con- clusion that if the schools were to save the day, as they certainly must and certainly could, a new vision was neces- sary, and that what they were set to do was the bending of all their energies and powers toward character-building, toward the making, not only of specialists, but of fine men and women and good citizens. Under the old system the significance of art and the part it could play in education were generally ignored; it was treated either as an "extra," as a special study like Egyptol- ogy or Anglo-Saxon, and so regarded as the somewhat ef- feminate affectation of the dilettante, or as a "vocational course," ranking so with mining engineering, dentistry, and business science. So taught, it was indeed no essential ele- ment in general education; but if we are right in our new view of the province thereof, it may be that our old estimate of art and its function and its significance needs as drastic a revision, and that out of this may come a new method for the teaching of art. What is it, then,— this strange thing that has accompanied man's development through all history, always by his side, as faithful a servant and companion as the horse or the dog, as inseparable from him as religion itself; this baffling poten- tiality that has left us authentic historical records where written history is silent, and where tradition darkens its guiding light? Is it simply a collection of crafts like hunting and husbandry, commerce and war? Is it a pastime, the industry of the idle, the amusement of the rich? None of these, I venture to assert, but rather the visible record of all that Is noblest in man, the enduring proof of the divine na- ture that is the breath of his nostrils. 1:87:1 I THE RICE INSTITUTE Henri Bergson says, in speaking of what he calls— inade- quately, I think— intuition: *'It glimmers wherever a vital instinct is at stake. On our personality, on our liberty, on the place we occupy in the whole of nature, on our origin, and perhaps also on our destiny, it throws a light, feeble and vacillating, but which nevertheless pierces the darkness of the night in which the intellect leaves us.'' Here lies the province of art, where it has ever lain; for in all its mani- festations, whether as architecture, painting, sculpture, drama, poetry, or ritual, it is the only visible and concrete expression of this mystical power in man which is greater than physical force, greater than physical mind, whether with M. Bergson we call it intuition, or with the old Chris- tian philosophers we call it the immortal soul. And as the greatest of modern philosophers has curbed the intellectualism of the nineteenth century, setting metes and bounds to the province of the mind, so he indicates again the great spiritual domain into which man penetrates by his divine nature, that domain revealed to Plato and Plotinus, to Hugh of St. Victor and St. Bernard and St. Thomas Aquinas. As Browning wrote, '*A man's reach must exceed his grasp, or what is a heaven for?" — so, as man himself, transcending the limitations of his intellect, reaches out from the world of phenomena to that of the noumenon, as he for- sakes the accidents to lay hold on the substance, he finds to his wonder and amazement the possibility of achievement, or at least of approximation, and simultaneously the over- whelming necessity for self-expression. He has entered into a consciousness that is above consciousness. Words and mental concepts fail, fall short, misrepresent; for again, as M. Bergson says, "The intellect is characterized by a natu- ral inability to comprehend life," and it is life itself he now sees face to face, not the inertia of material things; and it is BOOK OF THE OPENING here that art in all its varied forms enters In as a more mobile and adequate form of self-expression, since it is, in its highest estate, the symbolic expression of otherwise in- expressible ideas. Through art, then, we come to the revelation of the high- est that man has achieved; not in conduct, not in mentality, not in his contest with the forces of nature, but in the things that rank even higher than these— in spiritual emancipation and an apprehension of the absolute, the unconditioned. The most perfect plexus of perfected arts the world has ever known was such a cathedral as Chartres, before its choir was defiled by the noxious horrors of the eighteenth cen- tury; when its gray walls were hung with storied tapestries, its dim vaults echoed to solemn Gregorians instead of oper- atic futilities, and the splendid and dramatic ceremonial of medieval Catholicism made visible the poignant religion of a Christian people. And in this amazing revelation of con- summate art, music was more than "a concord of sweet sounds," painting and sculpture more than the counterfeit presentment of defective nature, architecture more than ingenious masonry; through these and all the other assem- bled arts radiated, like the colored fires through the jeweled windows above, awe, wonder, and worship of men who had seen some faint adumbration of the Beatific Vision and who called aloud to their fellows, in the universal language of art, the glad tidings of great joy, that by art man might achieve, and through art he might reveal. Now if art is indeed all this— and the proof lies clear in itself— then its place in liberal education becomes manifest and its claims incontestable. If education is the eduction of all that is best in man, the making possible the realization of all his potentialities, the building up of personality through the dynamic force of the assembled achievements ^ jl THE RICE INSTITUTE of the human race throughout history, and all toward the end of perfecting sane and righteous and honorable charac- ter, then must you make art, so understood and so taught, as integral a part of your curriculum as physics or mathe- matics or biology. Not in dynastic mutations, not in the red records of war, not in economic vacillations or in me- chanical achievements, lies the revelation of man in his high- est and noblest estate, but in those spiritual adventures, those strivings after the unattainable, those emancipations of the human soul from the hindrance of the material form, which mark the highest points of his rise, presage his final victory, and are recorded and revealed in the art which is their voicing. The Venus of Melos, "Antigone," Aya Sophia, Grego- rian music, Latin hymnology, the "Divina Commedia,'' Giotto's Arena Chapel, Chartres, Westminster Abbey, "Hamlet," Goethe's "Faust," "Parsifal," "Abt Vogler," are all great art, and as great art beyond price, but greater, more significant by far as living indications of what man may be when he plays his full part in God's cosmogony. Where is art taught in this sense and to this end? I con- fess I do not know. Instead we find in many places labora- tories of art-industry, where, after one fashion or another, ambitious youth— and not always well advised— is shown how to spread paint on canvas; how to pat mud into some quaint resemblance to human and zoological forms; how to produce the voice in singing; how to manipulate the fingers in uneven contest with ingenious musical instruments; how to assemble lines and washes on Whatman paper so that an alien mason may translate them, with as little violence as possible, into terms of brick and stone, or plaster and papier- mache. And we find names, dates, sequences of artists taught from text-books, and sources and influences taught n9o] i BOOK OF THE OPENING from fertile imaginations, together with erudite schemes and plots of authorship and attribution, but where shall we find the philosophy, the rationale of art inculcated as an ele- mental portion of the history of man and of his civilization? Categories, always categories; and we delimit them to our own undoing. There have been historians who have compiled histories with no knowledge of art and with scant reference to its existence; there have been artists who have taught art with no knowledge of history and with some degree of contempt for its pretensions: yet the two are one, and neither, from an educational standpoint, is wholly intelligible without the other. It is through Homer and iEschylus that we understand Hellas; through Aya Sophia that we understand Byzantium; through Gothic art that we know medievalism; through St. Peter's and Guido Reni that the final goal of the Renaissance is revealed to us. And so, on the other hand, what, for example, is the art of the Mid- dle Ages if we know nothing of the burgeoning life that burst into this splendid flowering? What are the cathedral- builders to us, and the myriad artists allied with them, when severed from monasticism, the Catholic revival, the Cru- sades, feudalism, the guilds and communes, the sacramental philosophy of Hugh of St. Victor, and the scholastic philos- ophy of St. Thomas Aquinas? We build our little categori- cal box-stalls and herd history in one, art in another, religion in a third, philosophy in a fourth, and so on, until we have built a labyrinth of little cells, hermetically sealed and se- curely insulated; and then we wonder that our own civiliza- tion is of the same sort, and that over us hangs the threat of an ultimate bursting forth of imprisoned and antagonistic forces, with chaos and anarchy as the predicted end. Again we approach one of those great moments of re- adjustment when much that has been perishes and much that 19^ i THE RICE INSTITUTE was not comes into being; one of those nodes that, at five- hundred-year intervals, mark the vast vibration of history. For five centuries the tendencies set in motion by the Renais- sance have had full sway; and as the great epoch of medi- evalism ended at last in a decadence that was inevitable, so is it with our era, called '*of enlightenment,'' the essence of which is analysis as the essence of that was synthesis. As medievalism was centripetal, so is modernism centrifugal, and disintegration follows on faster and ever faster. Even now, however, the falling wave meets in its plunge and foam the rising wave that bears on its smooth, resistless surge the promise and potency of a new epoch, nobler than the last, and again synthetic, creative, centripetal. No longer is it possible for us to sever being into its com- ponent parts and look for life in each moiety; for us, and for our successors, is the building up of a new synthesis, the new vision of life as a whole, where no more are we inter- ested in isolating religion, politics, education, industry, art, like so many curious fever-germs, but where once more we realize that the potency of each lies, not in its own distinctive characteristics, but in the interplay of all. And with this vision we return to the consciousness that all great art is a light to lighten the darkness of mere activ- ity, that at the same time it achieves and reveals. So, as art shows forth man's transfiguration, does it also serve as a gloss on his actions, revealing that which was hid, illuminat- ing that which was obscure. So estimated and so inculcated, art becomes, not an acces- sory, but an essential, and as such it must be made an inte- gral portion of every scheme of higher education. A col- lege can well do without a school of architecture, or music, or painting, or drama, and the world will perhaps be none the poorer; but it cannot do without the best of every art in 1:923 BOOK OF THE OPENING its material form, and in the cultural influences it brings to bear upon those committed to its charge, nor can it play its full part in their training and the development of their char- acter unless, out of the history of art, it builds a philosophy of art that is not for the embellishment of the specialist, but for all, **Man Is the measure of all things," said Protagoras; and with equal truth we can say. Art Is the measure of man. President Lovett: It Is with sincere regret that I bring this meeting to a close. We have listened to philosopher, poet, historian, and architect, to biologist, chemist, physicist, and mathematician, and while we may neither point to the rooms In which Newton lived, as the Cambridge don may do at Trinity College, nor to the laboratories where Pasteur wrought, as may the doctors of Paris, yet from this night forth we shall forever be able to say that at this high table of the first Residential College of the Rice Institute, Alta- mlra, Borel, Conklln, Cram, de Vrles, Jones, Ramsay, van Dyke, and Volterra broke bread with us, and spoke to us of the things of beauty and truth that freemen hold dearer than life Itself. For them and for you, sound slumber and sweet dreams for the night; and for the morrow. In the words of Kipling, *'What all men desire— enough work to do and strength enough to do that work." And as a final favor I am going to ask Professors Sir Henry Jones and Sir William Ramsay to lead us In singing, "Should auld acquain- tance be forgot." 1:933 ///// ^y //f / fT^'.J A .^ t r/' //, ' I' If / I tr / /, ^// ,////./ /" •/ ( . tl FORMAL EXERCISES OF DEDICATION t» m FORMAL EXERCISES OF DEDICATION Dr. Robert Ernest Vinson : 1. The earth Is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein. 2. For he hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods. 3. Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place? 4. He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart ; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. 5. He shall receive the blessing from the Lord, and right- eousness from the God of his salvation. 6. This is the generation of them that seek him, that seek thy face, O Jacob. Selah. 7. Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. 8. Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. 9. Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. 10. Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory. Selah. Psalm xxk\ I, > M •i M 12. But where shall wisdom be found? and where is the place of understanding? 13. Man knoweth not the price thereof; neither is it found in the land of the living. C973 rtf ,^^. THE RICE INSTITUTE 14. The depth saith, It is not in me: and the sea saith, It is not with me. 15. It cannot be gotten for gold, neither shall silver be weighed for the price thereof. 16. It cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir, with the precious onyx, or the sapphire. 17. The gold and the crystal cannot equal it: and the ex- change of it shall not be for jewels of fine gold. 18. No mention shall be made of coral, or of pearls: for the price of wisdom is above rubies. 19. The topaz of Ethiopia shall not equal it, neither shall it be valued with pure gold. 20. Whence then cometh wisdom? and where is the place of understanding? 21. Seeing it is hid from the eyes of all living, and kept close from the fowls of the air. 22. Destruction and death say. We have heard the fame thereof with our ears. 23. God understandeth the way thereof, and he knoweth the place thereof. 24. For he looketh to the ends of the earth, and seeth under the whole heaven; 25. To make the weight for the winds; and he weigheth the waters by measure. 26. When he made a decree for the rain, and a way for the lightning of the thunder: 27. Then he did see it, and declare it; he prepared it, yea, and searched it out. 28. And unto man he said. Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding. Job xxviii, 12-28. 1:98:1 BOOK OF THE OPENING 12. Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. John via, 12, Dr. Robert Ernest Vinson : Almighty God, our Father who art in heaven, we bow our heads with our hearts before Thee this day in humble adoration. Thou art King of kings and Lord of lords. Creator of the heavens and the earth, the same yesterday and to-day and forever, God over all, blessed forevermore. Thou art worthy of the admiration of all intelligent creatures. The heavens declare Thy glory and the firmament showeth forth Thy handiwork. Thou art the author and source of all life and of all good. Thou art the maker of our bodies and the fashioner of our spirits. Thou openest Thine hand and satisfiest our desires with the desires of every living thing. Thou hidest Thy face and we are troubled. Thou takest away our breath, we die and return again to our dust. Thou art the sustainer and the disposer of our days. Our times are in Thy hand. Thou hast made us for Thyself, that we might show forth Thy praise. We render Thee most hearty thanks for all Thy great goodness unto us, the children of men. Thy mercies are new every morning and fresh every evening. Thou hast not left Thyself without a witness among men, for Thy loving-kind- ness is over all Thy works. Thou hast blessed us as indi- viduals and as a people, in basket and in store, in body and in mind, and through the atoning blood of Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Thou hast redeemed us from sin and death, hast made us kings and priests unto our God and Father, and hast given unto us the hope of eternal life in His name. We render Thee most hearty thanks, our heavenly Fa- [99] THE RICE INSTITUTE ther, for the favor which is ours to-day as we set apart this institution to the promotion of the cause of truth among men and to the greater glory of our God. Especially do we remember with gratitude to Thee the name of him whose generosity and love for his kind have made this day possi- ble. We thank Thee, that in him were united both the abil- ity and the desire to bless his fellow-men, and that it has been given unto him to establish this institution that the darkness of Ignorance may be dispelled and that men may dwell In the light which comes from the truth. We thank Thee that our eyes behold this day the fruition of his hopes, and that he, being dead, yet speaketh. We humbly pray Thee, therefore, that Thou wilt gra- ciously accept this offering at our hands. In Thy mercy grant that this Institution may endure through all the years to come, that its Influence may broaden with its days, and that it may so touch and guide the life of this city, the com- monwealth, and the nation, that generations yet unborn may bless the day of Its beginning. Guard It by Thy almighty power from harm, that Its work may be unhindered by calamity. Fill It with the spirit of truth and of service, and by Thy grace make It to be a useful instrument in Thy hands for the advancement of Thy kingdom, that it may have no small part In the hastening of the day w^hen all of the world's ignorance shall be abolished, when men shall no longer op- press their fellows, but when the spirit of brotherhood shall prevail, and all men together shall strive for the common good in full obedience to the ordinances of God. To this end w^e beseech Thee to look with favor upon the Board of Trustees, giving to them all necessary wisdom and grace, that they may administer this great trust as good stewards, with all fidelity. Crown with Thy favor Thy servant, the president. Into whose hands and upon whose BOOK OF THE OPENING heart this responsibility has been laid, and who stands to-day upon the threshold of this great opportunity. Give to him high visions of the service to God and to man to which he may minister In this place. May the call of this privilege uplift him. May the burden of the heavy task before him lead him to lean heavily upon Thy strength. May Thy good Spirit so rule In his heart and so own and bless his work that he may go forward to his task with unfaltering courage and, if it please Thee, to abundant success, being given the desires of his heart. We beseech Thee for the teachers who are to stand within these walls, the leaders of the youth of to-day and to-morrow. Grant, our Father, that they may all be taught of Thee, that they may catch Thy Spirit and Thy mind, and that Thy truth may be their continual abiding- place. May they be conscious of the Issues of time and eter- nity with which they must deal as they lead the minds of men; and may they, therefore, humbly follow Him who alone Is the Light of the world. Give them that wisdom which begins in the fear of Thyself, and that understanding which is found only In departure from evil, that the youth who shall be committed to their charge may be led by them not only Into high Intellectual achievement, but also into the likeness of Jesus Christ our Lord. And thus may all the Influences of this Institution con- tribute to human good. Make it, we pray Thee, the uncom- promising foe to vice and crime, to Ignorance and sin. May the streams of Its Influence heal many of the waste places of earth and make glad the city of God, that Thy kingdom may come and Thy will may be done upon the earth as It Is done in heaven. And to Thy great name. Father, Son, and Spirit, shall be all the praise, both now and forever. Amen. CioO t u ( 1 i THE RICE INSTITUTE \ Veni Creator Spiritus G.P. da Palestrina i I; 3* P '■kw. - ai ^=?f=i ? i 1 nC- ^ W ^ 'O tl -*>- l.Ve - ni, Cre 2. Da gaii-di 3. Sit laus Pa - a -tor Spi-ri - tus, o - rum prae - mi tri cum Fi - 11 - a, ' o Men-tes tu Da gra - ti San-cto si ^ 'S 3t r p=^ ± g i E s: J* iZ H ^5^ »!/" « ^ ^ i O P « / 3fc ^ -rum o -rum mul Pa VI -SI mu-ne ra-cli I ta, ra, to, ple su - per-na sol-ve li - tis bis-que mit-tat gra - ti vin - cu Fi - li ■«- ^ / 22 -^ ^ 7 P E ^ w/ s^ 1> rfm. FT '/j I ^j p^_ E^ /Ts 2>p O -»- f -»- XE «: H Quae tu cre - a - sti, Ad strin-ge pa-cis Cha - ri - braa San-cti . pe foe Spi cto de ri ra. ra. tus. D02;] O ^ a la, us, 00 i^: /^ «: 1 A - men. i TEXAS A DEMOCRATIC ODE THE WILD BEES ALL along the Brazos river, jl\. A1! along the Colorado, In the valleys and the lowlands Where the trees were tall and stately, In the rich and rolling meadows Where the grass was full of wild-flowers. Came a humming and a buzzing. Came the murmur of a going To and fro among the tree-tops. Far and wide across the meadows. And the red-men in their tepees Smoked their pipes of clay and listened. *'What is this?" they asked in wonder; **Who can give the sound a meaning? Who can understand the language Of a going in the tree-tops?'* Then the wisest of the Tejas Laid his pipe aside and answered: "O my brothers, these are people, Very little, winged people. Countless, busy, banded people. Coming humming through the timber. These are tribes of bees, united By a single aim and purpose. To possess the Tejas' country. THE RICE INSTITUTE Gather harvest from the prairies, Store their wealth among the timber. These are hive and honey makers, Sent by Manito to warn us That the white men now are coming, With their women and their children. Not the fiery filibusters Passing wildly in a moment, Like a flame across the prairies. Like a whirlwind through the forest, Leaving empty lands behind them ! Not the Mexicans and Spaniards, Indolent and proud hidalgos. Dwelling in their haciendas, Dreaming, talking of to-morrow, While their cattle graze around them. And their fickle revolutions Change the rulers, not the people 1 Other folk are these who follow When the wild-bees come to warn us; These are hive and honey makers, These are busy, banded people. Roaming far to swarm and settle. Working every day for harvest. Fighting hard for peace and order, Worshiping as queens their women, Making homes and building cities Full of riches and of trouble. All our hunting-grounds must vanish, All our lodges fall before them. All our customs and traditions. All our happy life of freedom. Fade away like smoke before them. ■4 BOOK OF THE OPENING Come, my brothers, strike your tepees. Call your women, load your ponies ! Let us take the trail to westward. Where the plains are wide and open, Where the bison-herds are gathered Waiting for our feathered arrows. We will live as lived our fathers. Gleaners of the gifts of nature. Hunters of the unkept cattle. Men whose women run to serve them. If the toiling bees pursue us. If the white men seek to tame us. We will fight them off and flee them. Break their hives and take their honey. Moving westward, ever westward. There to live as lived our fathers." So the red-men drove their ponies. With the tent-poles trailing after. Out along the path to sunset. While along the river valleys Swarmed the wild-bees, the forerunners; And the white men, close behind them. Men of mark from old Missouri, Men of daring from Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Men of many States and races, Bringing waives and children with them. Followed up the wooded valleys. Spread across the rolling prairies. Raising homes and reaping harvests. Rude the toil that tried their patience. Fierce the fights that proved their courage. Rough the stone and tough the timber ^05 3 s I I * THE RICE INSTITUTE Out of which they built their order! Yet they never failed nor faltered, And the instinct of their swarming Made them one and kept them working, Till their toil was crowned with triumph. And the country of the Tejas Was the fertile land of Texas. II THE LONE STAR Behold a star appearing in the South — A star that shines apart from other stars, Ruddy and fierce, like Mars ! Out of the reeking smoke of cannon's mouth That veils the slaughter of the Alamo, Where heroes face the foe. One man against a score, with blood-choked breath Shouting the watchword, "Victory or Death—" Out of the dreadful cloud that settles low On Goliad's plain, Where thrice a hundred prisoners lie slain Beneath the broken word of Mexico- Out of the fog of factions and of feuds That ever drifts and broods Above the bloody path of border war, Leaps the Lone Star! What light is this that does not dread the dark? What star is this that fights a stormy way To San Jacinto's field of victory? It is the fiery spark Cioe;] BOOK OF THE OPENING That burns within the breast Of Anglo-Saxon men, who can not rest Under a tyrant's sway; The upward-leading ray That guides the brave who give their lives away Rather than not be free! O question not, but honour every name, Travis and Crockett, Bowie, Bonham, Ward, Fannin and King, all who drew the sword And dared to die for Texan liberty! Yea, write them all upon the roll of fame. But no less love and equal honour give To those who paid the longer sacrifice- Austin and Houston, Burnet, Rusk, Lamar And all the stalwart men who dared to live Long years of service to the lonely star. Great is the worth of such heroic souls : Amid the strenuous turmoil of their deeds. They clearly speak of something that controls The higher breeds of men by higher needs Than bees, content with honey in their hives ! Ah, not enough the narrow lives On profitable toil intent! And not enough the guerdons of success Garnered in homes of affluent selfishness! A noble discontent Cries for a wider scope To use the wider wings of human hope ; A vision of the common good Opens the prison-door of solitude; And, once beyond the wall. Breathing the ampler air, f i ^ t '" I THE RICE INSTITUTE The heart becomes aware That life without a country is not life at all. A country worthy of a freeman's love; A country worthy of a good man's prayer; A country strong, and just, and brave, and fair, A woman's form of beauty throned above The shrine where noble aspirations meet — To live for her is great, to die is sweet I Heirs of the rugged pioneers Who dreamed this dream and made it true, Remember that they dreamed for you. They did not fear their fate In those tempestuous years. But put their trust in God, and with keen eyes, Trained in the open air for looking far. They saw the many-million-acred land Won from the desert by their hand. Swiftly among the nations rise,— Texas a sovereign State, And on her brow a star ! Ill THE CONSTELLATION How strange that the nature of light is a thing beyond our ken. And the flame of the tiniest candle flows from a fountain sealed! How strange that the meaning of life, in the little lives of men, So often bafl^es our search with a mystery unrevealed ! i BOOK OF THE OPENING But the larger life of man, as it moves in its secular sweep, Is the working out of a Sovereign Will whose ways appear; And the course of the journeying stars on the dark blue boundless deep. Is the place where our science rests in the reign of law most clear. I would read the story of Texas as if it were written on high ; I would look from afar to follow her path through the calms and storms; With a faith in the world-wide sway of the Reason that rules in the sky, And gathers and guides the starry host in clusters and swarms. When she rose in the pride of her youth, she seemed to be moving apart, As a single star in the South, self-limited, self-possessed; But the law of the constellation was written deep in her heart. And she heard when her sisters called, from the North and the East and the West. They were drawn together and moved by a common hope and aim — The dream of a sign that should rule a third of the heavenly arch; The soul of a people spoke in their call, and Texas came To enter the splendid circle of States in their onward march. 1:109:] I THE RICE INSTITUTE So the glory gathered and grew and spread from sea to sea, And the stars of the great republic lent each other light; For all were bound together in strength, and each was free — Suddenly broke the tempest out of the ancient night I It came as a clash of the force that drives and the force that draws ; And the stars were riven asunder, the heavens were desolate, While brother fought with brother, each for his country's cause — But the country of one was the Nation, the country of other the State. Oh, who shall measure the praise or blame in a strife so vast? And who shall speak of traitors or tyrants when all were true ? We lift our eyes to the sky, and rejoice that the storm is past, And we thank the God of all that the Union shines in the blue. Yea, it glows with the glory of peace and the hope of a mighty race. High over the grave of broken chains and buried hates ; And the great, big star of Texas is shining clear in its place In the constellate symbol and sign of the free United States. C^^o] BOOK OF THE OPENING IV AFTER THE PIONEERS After the pioneers- Big-hearted, big-handed lords of the axe and the plow and the rifle, Tan-faced tamers of horses and lands, themselves remaining tameless, Full of fighting, labour and romance, lovers of rude adventure- After the pioneers have cleared the way to their homes and graves on the prairies : After the State-builders— Zealous and jealous men, dreamers, debaters, often at odds with each other. All of them sure it is well to toil and to die, if need be. Just for the sake of founding a country to leave to their children — After the builders have done their work and written their names upon it: After the civil war- Wildest of all storms, cruel and dark and seemingly wasteful. Tearing up by the root the vines that were splitting the old foundations, Washing away with a rain of blood and tears the dust of slavery, After the cyclone has passed and the sky is fair to the far horizon ; THE RICE INSTITUTE After the era of plenty and peace has come with full hands to Texas, Then — what then? Is it to be the life of an indolent heir, fat-witted and self-contented, Dwelling at ease in the house that others have builded, Boasting about the country for which he has done nothing? Is It to be an age of corpulent, deadly-dull prosperity, Richer and richer crops to nourish a race of Philistines, Bigger and bigger cities full of the same confusion and sorrow, The people increasing mightily but no increase of the joy? Is this what the forerunners wished and toiled to w^n for you. This the reward of war and the fruitage of high endeavour, This the goal of your hopes and the vision that satisfies you? Nay, stand up and answer— I can read what is in your hearts — You, the children of those who followed the wild bees, You, the children of those w^ho served the Lone Star, Now that the hives are full and the star is fixed in the constellation, I know that the best of you still are lovers of sweetness and light 1 You hunger for honey that comes from invisible gardens; Pure, translucent, golden thoughts and feelings and inspirations, Sweetness of all the best that has bloomed in the mind of man. t I BOOK OF THE OPENING You rejoice in the hght that is breaking along the borders of science ; The hidden rays that enable a man to look through a wall of stone ; The unseen, fire-filled wings that carry his words across the ocean; The splendid gift of flight that shines, half-captured, above him; The gleam of a thousand half-guessed secrets, just ready to be discovered! You dream and devise great things for the coming race — Children of yours who shall people and rule the domain of Texas; They shall know, they shall comprehend more than their fathers, They shall grow in the vigour of well-rounded manhood and womanhood, Riper minds, richer hearts, finer souls, the only true wealth of a nation — The league-long fields of the State are pledged to ensure this harvest I Your old men have dreamed this dream and your young men have seen this vision. The age of romance has not gone, it Is only beginning; Greater words than the ear of man has heard are waiting to be spoken, Finer arts than the eyes of man have seen are sleeping to be awakened — Science exploring the scope of the world, Poetry breathing the hope of the world, Music to measure and lead the onward march of man ! THE RICE INSTITUTE Come, ye honoured and welcome guests from the elder nations, Princes of science and arts and letters, Look on the walls that embody the generous dream of one of the old men of Texas, Enter these halls of learning that rise In the land of the pioneer's log-cabin, Read the confessions of faith that are carved on the stones around you : Faith in the worth of the smallest fact and the laws that govern the starbeams — Faith in the beauty of truth and the truth of perfect beauty. Faith in the God who creates the souls of men by knowledge and love and worship. This is the faith of the New Democracy — Proud and humble, patiently pressing forward, Praising her heroes of old and training her future leaders, Seeking her crown in a nobler race of men and women — After the pioneers, sweetness and light I Henry van Dyke. »/ n"43 A •■■•■, ," f u t> i it — ' ^ t. i- ■^ it V « K « 5 ¥ * e r Co s « e I 1^ € «: «: $ t I THF ^^TCE TV^TITUTE Come, v^ hr»n.>!;revi an.i welcome guests from the elder / Princes oi ' and arts and letters, ' embody the ge-^"**' us dream of one Texas, ' -'^-'e in the land of the ^h fhjit are carv^ed on the stones md the laws that d the truth of perfect beauty, r^' ihe ^ >'ib '^ '^'"" ^y knowledge andiovr ana worship 'I .' the faith of the New Demofracn - i'food and humDie, paticniiy pre >rward, Praising her h of old and traimng her future leaders, occiving her Liuvvn in a nobler race of men ana wuiacn — After the pioneers, sweetness and light! * Henry van Dyke. l^^^l 1 *) S a (0 «: c 5 •w ) o ts !^ e % «. ^ *^ (^ 0; ,c *. 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Cr. o Q a w « « to .^ «^ :r «, 0-. ^., ■c c; u c «d k C k c C 5 ft. c>. t* c R CX a «. 1 * 1 t* 1 C 1 • ^ ! tVI •■ t •^^ o * «i» c f ^J 3 o r C" '*^ * --A ^-> 1 VJ >J ■^ f. (0 1 <-'. c » »^ ~ \ k Q, O 1 ft. •»• *^ 1 - '--V ^'d' *• v^ / /ir ^/yy ■''■'•" f/fV.J'A'''-'^//'/^ / ■ / / rf'f/ ^A^ V/' "^^'9 /' ■''■■"/ //it -f* / ../ ''. /f/J^^ '■/■■ rf /v/ / 'W/fr//'/y/yy/yy^y7/K/^ryy/y,, //, //y,'^«-< •^ ■'^X-C^-»^ •-Kk V. • ^t^J'?;: Bologna. 24 Settembre 1912. m '■•^#>. >' .'*r. 'J ^ir '^'i "I II PrESIDENTE BOOK ( tils audience ' ^ENINH riition of the ; e Instit- ast, we hope, fo • ided that the American reoul- - to cverencc zLiu^ir. luuiin lucdm .rtiiie V of manhood and vvomanhoo ,.cnt sec "'- ^' '■^e rr^t cad :. elop men and ivoirien, and not to n: \ -mnrt mnr h.* <>n frained as to heccr;'^ i verv" «uc- . rnacuiae ror maiviag moiiey, or a *veen-. i looi ^r ' use !n cvploring and producincr mr^tcr; d. ; ,; p.uduvis uf the schooi:i v.! t ^ ;^*;w,.,o ■■^t husbands and fathers. 'irse 1 rc^'i/p that if life fnr ? r^ne of ;:« r 'make gi>ud," as the phrase goe^, !or o: /etting what comfort and ea^e and K c?n itort and suuggic iii rhe -^ of whatever social. Dnduce t : t and pragni. f'jfijre, or i?i*-erest Jic, or the happiness or niiscr (oine after us; — I realize that it '^ ?n of course the measure of "i ;!! hke this is the amount in dollars u r^nrc cV^'tII Kp trained ^^t necessanK* tn p-im r ) get, to acquire, to -, n. " I have not so understood the plan and scope of this -Cute. ' ' ''^^ ideals and hopes rf *-hr* rp,-^ v^ ,..c uii i^i of Administration and compose acuities. V 'his Institute Stand*^ ^^r Ul.yh, . -rf-r fhJnvT;: lere materialism and commerciaJisr Vnij: ■ii'^t be conducted according? to the most approveo which its !" deserve, d AL \rr\ M; ISTtTUTU Ul BOIJ i: ro i)i vU..Ai>bM!i 1 mRi£ T! pw.ni n MiJh lit MIDI .LKll D \Tr\ PER 1 LA pci; r*r\'r.r:u-, ros rhUti II PBaSCtMBTTE BOOK OF THE OPENING plead with this audience for a recognition of the claims of patriotism. The Rice Institute will last, we hope, for centuries to come, provided that the American people continue to main- tain and reverence those moral ideals of life which create the quality of manhood and womanhood that makes free government secure. For the true end and aim of education is to develop men and women, and not to make machines or tools. A man may be so trained as to become a very suc- cessful machine for making money, or a keen-edged tool for others to use in exploring and producing material wealth; but such products of the schools are very often poor citizens, and worse husbands and fathers. Of course I realize that if life for each one of us means simply to ^*make good,'* as the phrase goes, for our genera- tion, getting what comfort and ease and luxury we can by plan and effort and struggle in the present time; taking ad- vantage of whatever social, commercial, or political condi- tion may conduce to our individual advantage; opportunists in conduct and pragmatists in philosophy; having no thought for the future, or Interest in the success or failure of the Republic, or the happiness or misery of the generations that are to come after us;— I realize that if this be our life's phi- losophy, then of course the measure of the value of an insti- tution like this Is the amount in dollars and cents which its students shall be trained, not necessarily to earn or deserve, but to get, to acquire, to gain. But I have not so understood the plan and scope of this Institute, or the ideals and hopes of the men who are on Its Board of Administration and compose Its Faculties. Surely this Institute stands for higher and better things than mere materialism and commercialism. While, Indeed, It must be conducted according to the most approv^ed prlnci- 1:129] THE RICE INSTITUTE pies of scientific method and theory in order to promote the practical efficiency of its students from every section, yet it will, we hope, also give room and encouragement to that loftier human aspiration which we call liberal culture, and strive to create and nurture that enthusiasm for real learn- ing which has made the finest and truest progress of our race. For I hold that it is not the men of action, whether on battle-fields or in cabinets or in commercial business, that have most truly helped the world. Nor is it the men who have invented new tools and new machinery, and discovered new methods of utilizing Nature's forces for man's use and comfort, and for the increase of material wealth, who have been the foremost benefactors of mankind. Rather it is the men who with moral heroism and unwearied love of truth for its own sake, asking no recognition and no reward, have tried to create through schools and colleges and universities an atmosphere, a tone, a Zeitgeist, that will inspire men, in spite of themselves, to noble aims; aye, it is these men who by their very retirement and isolation have escaped the con- tagion of current fashions of thought, whose humility is the result of long experience of the difficulty of arriving at abso- lute certainty on any subject, and who by patience and faith have found for themselves, and are working to protect and defend, a height, whence he who will may attain their vision —the vision of a larger world and a greater life. This is the true measure of the scholar; this is the justifi- cation of the University. And this means religion; that a man is not a mere brute, nor a unit of sensation, but the child of God, akin to God, with capacity for infinite happiness and responsibility for infinite progress. And in this definition of education all true learning, all advance in real knowledge, has a religious value. The search for truth is itself a re- I BOOK OF THE OPENING ligious act; and the men who, honestly and sincerely, are studying and teaching Nature's secrets are the servants of the Most High God. Let us accept this as the Divine Message, the Divine Chal- lenge, and the assurance of the Divine Blessing to this Insti- tute. Truly it may be said of it, that it has been founded as securely as the wit and knowledge of man can plan, with financial support assured to it, in extent almost unequaled in the history of educational institutions. If only it will take its stand for God and His righteousness, then indeed may we apply to it the words of the Prophet : '*I will lay thy stones with fair colors, and lay thy founda- tions with sapphires. And I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones. And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord, and great shall be the peace of thy children." Thomas Frank Gailor. I ■ ri3r3 W— www THE MEANING OF THE NEW INSTITUTION I THE FOUNDATION: ITS SOURCE IT is a common saying in drawing-room and market-place that we are living in a wonderful age. Perhaps no known period of the past towers up to it, unless it be the age of Pericles, or that in which the Roman Empire was consoli- dated, or that of the Reformation. No features of the age are more striking than the handsome foundations which have been provided by private donation for lengthening the days of man and enlarging the content of his spiritual life. Every child of ten years knows the names of Alfred Nobel and Cecil Rhodes, of Mr. Carnegie and Mr. Rockefeller, of Girard and Peabody, of Johns Hopkins, Leland Stanford, and Cornell: the names of these gentlemen are household words, and in thousands of American homes their bearers have become household gods. In this charmed circle of immortal philanthropists the name of William Marsh Rice is permanently inscribed this day by the poet of Princeton, the jurist of Texas, and the bishop of Tennessee. Thanks to the inaugural lectures of those twelve prophets of the fundamental sciences, the lib- eral humanities, the progress of modern learning, Altamira of Madrid, Borel of Paris, Croce of Naples, De Vries of Amsterdam, Jones of Glasgow, Kikuchi of Tokyo, Mackail of Oxford, Ostwald of Leipsic, the lamented Poincare of Paris, Ramsay of London, St0rmer of Christiania, and Vol- terra of Rome, the good-will of Mr. Rice to open new « s# ) THE FIRST or ADR ANGLE OF THE UNIVERSITY I SCALE TH E GENERAL ARCHITECTURAL I* L A N r* i \ SCALE »M : C H I T E C T L R A L PLAN I BOOK OF THE OPENING springs of inspiration and living fountains of knowledge in an institution of liberal and technical learning becomes known to the world of letters and science and art, to whose advancement he gave of his substance and of his life. For this fair day we have worked and prayed and waited. In the faith of high adventure, in the joy of high endeavor, in the hope of high achievement, we have asked for strength, and with the strength a vision, and with the vision courage : the courage born of straight and clear thinking, the vision of enduring forms of human service, the strength in resolute and steadfast devotion to definite purpose. And to-day, by virtue of the founder's splendid gift to the people, by virtue of the public spirit of his early advisers, by virtue of the public service of those who defended his last will and testa- ment and thereby protected the people's rights, by virtue of the covenant which his trustees have kept in all good faith and conscience, by virtue of the constant creative work of supervising architects and the arduous labors of constructive engineers, by virtue of the cheer and the criticism and the counsel of friends in the community and throughout the com- monwealth, the Rice Institute which was to be, in this its modest beginning, now has come to be— the new foundation has accomplished in its own being the miracle of all living things: it has come to life, and from this day forth takes a place, let us hope of increasing influence and usefulness, among those institutions which have made possible the civ- ilized life of men in communities of culture and restraint— the State, the Church, and the University. There are men and men and men. There are men of mil- lions and men of millions. William Marsh Rice was a man in a million, an inspired millionaire who caught the prospect of monumental service to Houston, to Texas, the South, and the Nation. With no resources other than soundness of [133] 1 'I: tl ••^ i It 4^. >- THE RICE INSTITUTE body and strength of will, from a New England home of English and Welsh forebears, he came to Texas in his youth to make his fortune. By temperate habits of industry and thrift he made a fortune in Texas. He left his fortune in Texas. He gave his fortune — the whole of it— to Texas, for the benefit of the youth of the land in all the years to come ; thus writing in the history of Texas the first conspicu- ous example in this commonwealth of the complete dedica- tion of a large private fortune to the public good. More- over, resolutely living a simple life, he denied himself even the "durable satisfaction" of seeing his philanthropy's reali- zation in order that he might give more abundantly of life to his fellows and their successors. Shrewd in foresight, strong in purpose, of stout courage and independent spirit, generation after generation will rise to call him blessed— "with honour, honour, honour, honour to him, eternal hon- our to his name." BOOK OF THE OPENING l^S^l 1 II THE FOUNDATION: ITS SITE TO his trustees, a self-perpetuating board of seven life members, the founder gave great freedom in the inter- pretation of his programme and corresponding discretion in the execution of its plans. The charter and testament under which these gentlemen discharge the obligations of their trus- teeship are documents so liberal and comprehensive as to leave the institution under practically but one restriction, namely, its location must be in Houston, Texas. But therein lies what is perhaps its greatest opportunity. For men who are too busy doing the world's work to find time to talk about it would tell you that there never were more insistent chal- lenges to constructive thinking than are confronting the South at the present time. Opportunity is written over the whole Southwest : opportunity commercial, opportunity po- litical, opportunity educational, but educational opportunity is written larger than all the rest. We have problems to face, serious ones, that have been perplexing the South for a generation: but even to the most superficial observer it is daily becoming more and more apparent that any solution of these peculiar problems of the South calls for solutions of Southern educational problems in terms of educational op- portunities for all the people. Furthermore, the agricultu- ral and industrial transformation now in process of develop- ment offers manifold additional arguments to Southern men to prepare their sons for the possession of this land of plenty and progress. Though for nearly a generation the ambi- tious young Southerner may have seen larger possibilities D35] II ii t \ THE RICE INSTITUTE ahead of him farther from home, to-day he finds conditions completely changed. Go South, young man I is the slogan in one section. Stay South, young man! is the answering call of opportunity in the other. In the South and in the West, of the South and of the West, you find yourselv^es in an environment whose clear skies make men blandly or keenly observant of their powers, whose mild climate keeps men constantly human and neigh- borly and friendly in ways of living whose democracy recog- nizes no inequalities; in an environment which will have its way with us unless we have our way with it; an environment bristling with opportunities for creative and constructive effort. You find yourselves in a State which can know no provincialism, because it has lived under seven flags. You find yourselves in a section of that State which lives under a categorical imperative of progress, for we of the plains are drawn by irresistible lure of the prairie, impelled to advance by beckoning mirage quite as wonderful as mountain pros- pect. You find yourselves among men who live their lives in the open, under a making sun that does not rise but jumps from the horizon full-orbed in his noonday splendor. And how you do get into your blood and bone the wine and spirit of this country! Speedily you absorb its patriot- ism and pride, and as speedily come to feel the fearlessness and freedom, the frankness and the faith, that characterize the life of this Texan empire. For this reason it is that in portraying its virtues modesty is not a sin which doth so easily beset us. Houston— heavenly Houston, as it has been happily named by a distinguished local editor of more than local fame— you will find in some ways a bit too close to New York, perhaps, but here you will also find many a heart- ening reminder of the memories and traditions of the South, and all the moving inspiration in the promise and adventure BOOK OF THE OPENING of the West. Here, in a cosmopolitan place, in a community shaking itself from the slow step of a country village to the self-conscious stature of a metropolitan town, completing a channel to the deep blue sea, growing a thousand acres of skyscrapers, building schools and factories and churches and homes, you will learn to talk about lumber and cotton and railroads and oil, but you will also find every ear turned ready to listen to you if you really have anything to say about literature or science or art. Of cities there are genera and species and types whose science is still to be written: cities of arms, cities of kings, cities of government, cities of com- merce and industry, cities of pleasure and leisure, beautiful cities of art, holy cities of cathedrals and convents, univer- sity cities of letters and science. Houston at present may fail of qualifying for admission to certain of these classes, but there is great reason to rejoice in the commercial pros- perity of the city and in the growing development of the community; for just as certainly as trade follows the flag, just so certainly does the patron of learning follow in the wake of the empire-builder. For builders of cities, great merchants and captains of industry, by the character of their work and the extent of their interests, are rendered alert, open-minded, hospitable to large ideas, accustomed to and tolerant of the widest divergencies of view. Thus it has come to be that great trading centers have often been conspicuous centers of vigorous intellectual life: Athens, Florence, Ven- ice, and Amsterdam were cities great in commerce; but, in- spired by the love of truth and beauty, they stimulated and sustained the finest aspirations of poets, scholars, and artists within their walls. It requires no prophet's eye to reach a similar vision for our own city. I have felt the spirit of greatness brooding over the city. I have heard her step at midnight, I have seen her face at dawn. I have lived under [137] THE RICE INSTITUTE the spell of the building of the city, and under the spell of the building of the city I have come to believe in the larger life ahead of us, in the house not made with hands which we begin this day to build. However, in the exultation of the moment in which we witness the dedication of the new uni- versity, we must not forget that the organization which Wil- liam Marsh Rice incorporated has already rendered the city and State of his adoption considerable service. I need hardly remind you that during recent years the Rice Institute has contributed in a substantial manner to the upbuilding or Greater Houston. On a conservative basis— always on a conservative basis— certain of the foundation's funds have been invested in various enterprises which have sustained in no small measure the steady and continuous advance of the city in industrial and commercial prosperity. The epoch whose beginning we observe to-day with these formal exercises marks the period in which even more pow- erfully that same organization is to support the intellectual and spiritual welfare of the community; and, finally, to touch again upon the material side of progress, the very machinery by which the stone age of the new university is about to be transformed into its spiritual age will distribute the income of the foundation through the several channels of Houston's business, philanthropic, social, and religious life; and thus we contemplate with some degree of satisfaction the slow but sure evolution of a threefold Influence on the material, the intellectual, and the spiritual aspects of the life of the city. L'3^1 BOOK OF THE OPENING III THE FOUNDATION: ITS HISTORY IT Is now rather more than twenty years since several pub- lic-spirited citizens of the community asked Mr. Rice to bear the expense of building a new public high school for the city of Houston. This direct gift to the city's welfare Mr. Rice was unwilling to make, but a few months later, taking into his confidence a half-dozen friends, he made known to them his desire to found a much larger educational enterprise for the permanent benefit of the city and State of his adoption. These gentlemen were organized Into a Board of Trustees for the new foundation, which was Incorporated In 1 89 1 under a broad charter granting the trustees large freedom In the future organization of a non-polItlcal and non- sectarian Institution to be dedicated to the advancement of letters, science, and art. As a nucleus for an endowment fund, Mr. Rice at this time made over an interest-bearing note of two hundred thousand dollars to the original Board of Trustees, consisting of himself, the late Messrs. F. A. Rice and A. S. Richardson, and Messrs. James Addison Baker, James Everett McAshan, Emmanuel Raphael,^ and Cesar Maurice Lombardl. Under the terms of the charter, the board Is a self-perpetuating body of seven members elected for life: vacancies since Its organization have been filled bv the election of Messrs. William Marsh Rice, Jr., Benjamin Botts Rice, and Edgar Odell Lovett. It was the unalterable will of the founder that the devel- opment of the work which he had conceived should progress 1 In succession to the late Mr. Raphael, whose lamented death has occurred since the reading of this address, Mr. John Thaddeus Scott of Houston has been elected to membership on the Board of Trustees of the Institute. [1393 THE RICE INSTITUTE no further during his lifetime. However, in the remaining days of his life he increased the endowment fund from time to time by transferring to the trustees the titles to certain of his properties, and in the end made the new foundation his residuary legatee. Upon the termination of the long years of litigation which followed Mr. Rice's death in 1900, the Board of Trustees found the Institute in possession of an estate whose present value is conservatively estimated at approximately ten million dollars, divided by the provisions of the founder's will into almost equal parts, available for equipment and endowment respectively. It may be remarked in passing that it is the determined policy of the trustees to build and maintain the institution out of the income, thus preserving intact the principal not only of the endowment fund but also that of the equipment fund. While proceeding to convert the non-productive properties of the estate into income-bearing investments, the trustees called a professor in Princeton University to assist them in developing the founder's far-reaching plans. Before taking up his resi- dence in Houston, the future president visited the leading educational and scientific establishments of the world, re- turning in the summer of 1909 from a year's journey of study that extended from England to Japan. About this time negotiations were completed by which the Institute se- cured a campus of three hundred acres situated on the ex- tension of Houston's main thoroughfare, three miles from the center of the city— a tract of ground universally regarded as the most appropriate within the vicinity of the city. Another early decision of the trustees of the Institute was the determination that the new institution should be housed in noble architecture worthy of the founder's high aims; and upon this idea they entered with no lower ambition than to establish on the campus of the Institute a group of buildings I r Princeton I October th. u, . « To The Rice Institute Houston, Texas Gentlemen : On behalf of the authorities of Prin^* *■ -n Unher*v ^ have the honor of acknowledging ) ' - invitai»on asking that our academic hon oi tL% ication and to extend to our P' > in Princeton University.^ the a J good will. May this new-bor^ ^^ nical Learning, ever keeping 1. founder, equal the best desires ot those \s the opening years of its career, ennch the intellect te of the great State of Texa^s and of our narinn, und hrin rr> dcvr^fe man- •kind for generations to come^t.v ;- :ii mvn >iiaii care for the cause of truth and knowkdge ■ ■ ItiC Ul|^15 iillCOi O' ~r> * C rndcnt no furt^pr {-!• days of t. to time b' his proper lies »'f-irne. Hntx'fM-er, in the remaining >ed the endowment fund from time ) ihe fnistees the fifl?^s to certain of no made the new foundation his n •■h{' t^r!?v'r!3tion o( the long years of i\icc s vieath in 1900, the r; !-h-^ In^tftnte in oossession of an DscrvatiV cly estiinaced at •v'ded by the provisions ' "* available for !r niav he remarked trustees to income^ thus ■ ^wment ceding '"^tate into I i : i i ^.. ment respective Ct I-' v.- • . mtam the mstitution out a out aistj mat Of the t. convert rh?- Jnrtiv.' inconie-oearinv estn}enri., toe trustees called a professor In Princeton University to assist them in developing the ^""" '■ ^ii'ig plans. Beir, . taking up his resi- dence Houston, the ;re oresident visited the lending ^^" ^ . i^i^ woriu, re- turnir iqrx s journey of 1. About this mpieted by which the Institute se- ■ ^( th-r^ HiM^dred ''i:\ttd on the ex- itare, three miles from >nnd ijnM'. rc^l'y rctifardcd cmity ot the city. . institute was on snould be housed under's high aims; and the cjsion 01 An< the deic in noble archifecture worthv upon this iu -ntered wtta no iuwer ambition than to establish on the campus of the Institute a group of buildings [HO J N Princeton University October the first, 191 2 To The Rice Institute Houston, Texas Gentlemen: On behalf of the authorities of Princeton University I have the honor of acknowledging your hospitable invitation asking that our academic body shall be represented on October tenth, eleventh and twelfth at the ceremonies formallv inaugu- rating the Rice Institute of Liberal and Technical Learning. It therefore gives me great pleasure to notifv vou that Princeton University has appointed William Francis Magie, Henry Professor of Physics and Dean of the Faculty, and Henry van Dyke, Murray Professor of English Literature, to attend in person as our delegates, to present our congratulations to the Rice Institute on the auspicious occasion of its formal ded- ication and to extend to your President, our former colleague in Princeton University, the assurance of our remembrance and good will. May this new-born Institute of Liberal and Tech- nical Learning, ever keeping faith with the high intent of its founder, equal the best desires of those who are guiding the opening years of its career, enrich the intellectual life of the great State of Texas and of our nation, and help to elevate man- kind for generations to come, even for as long as men shall care for the cause of truth and knowledge. ■■A President BOOK OF THE OPENING conspicuous alike for their beauty and for their utility, which should stand not only as a worthy monument to the founder's philanthropy, but also as a distinct contribution to the archi- tecture of our country. With this end in view they deter- mined to commit to Messrs. Cram, Goodhue, and Ferguson, of Boston and New York, the task of designing a general architectural plan to embody in the course of future years the realization of the educational programme which had been adopted for the Institute. Such a general plan, the work of Mr. Ralph Adams Cram, L.H.D., exhibiting in itself many attractive elements of the architecture of Italy, France, and Spain, was accepted by the board in the spring of 1910. Immediately thereafter plans and specifications for an administration building were prepared, and in the following July the contract for its construction was awarded; three months later the erection of a mechanical laboratory and power-house was begun, and by the next autumn the con- struction of two wings of the first residential hall for men was well under way. In the preparation of preliminary plans for these building operations the Institute enjoyed the co- operation of an advisory committee consisting of Professor Ames, director of the physical laboratory of Johns Hopkins University; Professor Conklin, director of the biological laboratory of Princeton University; Professor Richards, chairman of the department of chemistry, Harvard Univer- sity; and Professor Stratton, director of the National Bu- reau of Standards. Among the additional buildings for which tentative studies have already been made are special laboratories for instruction and investigation in physics,^ chemistry, and biology. 1 Since this address was read the construction of the physics laboratories has been begun from plans prepared b}' Messrs. Cram and Ferguson under the direction of Mr. Harold Albert Wilson, D.Sc, F.R.S., resident professor of physics in the Institute. By the beginning of the next academic year (1914- 15) these laboratories will be ready for occupancy, as will also the third wing of the first residential hall for men. THE RICE INSTITUTE IV THE UNIVERSITY: ITS STUDIES AND STANDARDS THAT we have been making large plans is already a commonplace of our thinking and talking. In the pro- posed solutions of some of the problems confronting them the trustees have been moved by several considerations, which may appropriately be recapitulated at this time. In the first place, the financial resources of the institution, how- ever handsome, are limited; for this reason it was deter- mined to build and maintain the Institute out of the income, keeping the principal of all funds intact. In the second place, the new institution is located in a new and rapidly develop- ing country. In the third place, the very problems pressing for resolution in the development of the environment seemed to call for a school of science, pure and applied, of the high- est grade, looking, in its educational programme, quite as much to investigation as to instruction. Accordingly, and in the spirit of the founder's dedication of the Institute, it was proposed that the new institution should enter upon a university programme, beginning at the science end. As regards the letters end of the threefold dedication, it was proposed to characterize the institution as one both of liberal and of technical learning, and to realize the larger characterization as rapidly as circumstances might permit. With respect to the art end, it was proposed to take architecture seriously in the preparation of all of its plans, and to see to it that the physical setting of the Institute be one of great beauty as well as of more immediate utility. This in a nutshell is the programme on which we have [142] BOOK OF THE OPENING thought with great deliberation and wrought with even greater care. Its chronology to date consists of one year of preparatory study from England to Japan, one year in the making of preliminary plans, and two years in work of actual construction and organization. The new institution thus aspires to university standing of the highest grade, and would achieve its earliest claims to this distinction in those regions of inquiry and investigation where the methods of modern science are more directly ap- plicable. For the present it is proposed to assign no upper limit to its educational endeavor, and to place the lower limit no lower than the standard entrance requirements of the more conservative universities of the country. More- over, all courses of instruction and investigation, graduate and undergraduate, will be open both to young men and to young women, and for the present, without tuition and with- out fees. These courses will be offered by a staff, initially organized for university and college work, ultimately to con- sist of three grand divisions, science, humanity, technology, each of which will break up into as many or more separate faculties. For these faculties the best available instructors and investigators are being sought wherever they may be found, in the hope of assembling a group of unusually able scientists and scholars through whose productive work the Institute should speedily take a place of considerable impor- tance among established institutions. Friends of education in America would insist that the term "Institute" is too nar- row in its connotation, friends of science in Europe would contend that it is too broad. However, in its dedication to the advancement of letters, science, and art, the educational programme of liberal and technical learning now being de- veloped may justify the designation "Institute" as represent- ing the functions of a teaching university of learning, and, at THE RICE INSTITUTE least in some of its departments, those of the more recent research institutions founded in this country and abroad. The planning of universities is no new problem. The list of modern solutions under state initiative is a long one from the national universities of Japan at Tokyo and Kyoto down to the reconstruction of the University of Paris and the re- vival of the French provincial universities; the reorganiza- tion of the University of London and the founding of the newer English municipal universities at Durham, Manches- ter, Liverpool, Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield, and Bristol; the newest members of the German system in the universities of Frankfort, Dresden, and Hamburg; and the conspicuous development of state institutions in our own country— to name but a few, in the new California under Wheeler, the new Illinois under Draper and James, the new Texas under Houston and Mezes, the new Virginia under Alderman, and the new Wisconsin under Van Hise. And at this very mo- ment there are building two new universities in Hungary, three in Canada, and two in Japan, while plans are being formulated for new institutions in China, Australia, and South Africa. Within the memory of all of us there have arisen on the benefactions of American philanthropists the Johns Hopkins University under Oilman and Remsen, Cor- nell University under White and Adams and Schurman, the University of Chicago under Harper and Judson, Leland Stanford under Jordan, and Clark under Hall; while the same period of university building has witnessed equally striking evolutions in the older American private founda- tions, notably the new Harvard under Eliot and Lowell, the new Yale under Porter and Dwight and Hadley, the new Princeton under McCosh and Patton and Wilson and HIbben, the new Columbia under Low and Butler, and the new Pennsylvania under Harrison and Smith. [144] BOOK OF THE OPENING It has been remarked that an inventory of present-day universities would reveal thirteenth-century universities, fif- teenth-century universities, nineteenth-century universities, and twentieth-century universities in formidable array and considerable confusion. There are universities that swear by Plato, others by Euclid, and others by Adam Smith. Some uphold the Thirty-nine Articles, while others worship ra- dium and helium. From glorified engineering shops to scho- lastic sanctuaries, they offer the widest possible choice of type. Nevertheless, there has been evolving a composite con- ception of the university In some such characterization of its functions as follows : First, from the persistent past, in which there are no dead, to embody within its walls the learning of the world in living exponents of scholarship, who shall maintain. In letters, sci- ence, and art, standards of truth and beauty, and canons of criticism and taste. Second, for the living present and its persistence in the future, to enlarge the boundaries of human learning and to give powerful aid to the advancement of knowledge, as such, by developing creative capacity In those disciplines through which men seek for truth and strive after beauty. Third, on call of State or Church or University, to convey to its community and commonwealth, in popular quite as much as in permanent form, the products of Its own and other men^s thinking on current problems of science and so- ciety, of government and public order, of knowledge and conduct. Fourth, in support of all institutes of civilization and all instruments of progress, to contribute to the welfare of hu- mankind in freedom, prosperity, and health, by sending forth constant streams of liberally educated men and women THE RICE INSTITUTE to be leaders of public opinion in the service of the people, constant streams of technically trained practitioners for all the brain-working professions of our time, not alone law, medicine, and theology, but also every department of ser- vice and learning, from engineering, architecture, commerce, and agriculture, to teaching, banking, journalism, and public administration. As thus conceived, the university is a great storehouse of learning, a great bureau of standards, a great workshop of knowledge, a great laboratory for the training of men of thought and men of action. Under this conception of its functions the university has to do with the preservation of knowledge, with the discovery and distribution of know- ledge, with the applications of knowledge, and with the mak- ing of knowledge-makers. Singling out one line of its activi- ties, the business of a university is to teach science, to create science, to apply science, to make scientists. To be even more specific, its objects in the department of chemistry are to teach chemistry, to create chemistry, to apply chemistry in all the arts of industry and commerce, and to make more creative chemists. This conception of the manifold function of a university in scholarship, in science, in social service, and in civilization corresponds point by point to the fourfold function of the career of a scholar or scientist: in scholar- ship, a conservator of knowledge; in science, a creator of knowledge; in citizenship, a contributor to public opinion; in service, a controller of the destiny of the cherished institu- tions of civilization. However, even to those who recognize in patriotism, edu- cation, and religion supreme enterprises of the human spirit, education itself is proverbially a dull subject whose technical details are sometimes dry as dust. For instance, I am by no means convinced that a discussion of the metaphysics of the [1463 BOOK OF THE OPENING optative mood in Greek would be especially edifying on this occasion. Then, too, mathematical studies are poems of a variety better appreciated when read in private than when declaimed in public. Nor are you likely moved at this time by any overpowering desire for relief from the perplexity of that dear old lady who said she could readily make out how astronomers determined the distances and dimensions, masses and motions, constitution and careers of the heavenly bodies, but for the life of her she never could understand how they found out their beautiful names. But studies and standards, students and staff are elements of a university programme quite as important as are a ma- chine-shop, a file of journals, a lively imagination, and a printing-press, its other constituent parts. If a university should take all knowledge for its province, it becomes neces- sary to undertake a classification of knowledge, a problem never yet done with satisfaction to any one except perhaps the last man attempting it. Nor is the problem rendered inordinately simple when restricted to a programme in sci- ence, for, to say nothing of more recent modifications up- heaving in character, the scientific thought of the nineteenth century has been made by Dr. J. Theodore Merz to align itself in a stately march of no fewer than ten views of nature : the astronomical, the atomic, the kinetic, the physical, the morphological, the genetic, the vitalistic, the psychophysical, the statistical, and the mathematical views. Yet all would agree, I think, that in mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, and psychology we have a logical series carefully co-ordinated in subject-matter and sequence, fur- nishing the theoretic foundations for the applied sciences of engineering, economics, eugenics, and education. Further- more, there would also be agreement in the opinion that this co-ordinated series should be flanked both right and left by 1:147:1 ?i I \ THE RICE INSTITUTE history and its interpretation, as a great laboratory in which to test all plans for political or social reform; by philosophy, as a clearing-house for all theories and methods of know- ledge; by letters, as the record in "thoughts that breathe and words that burn" of all human striving after sweetness and light; and by art, the creative imagination's flowering prod- uct in the ennobling and enriching of the content of life. Our studies are thus to be centered in the fundamental branches of pure science with a view to solutions of prob- lems of applied science in engineering, whose chief business is the development of the material resources of the world; in economics, whose cardinal problem is that of the distribu- tion of the wealth thus produced; in eugenics as the newest of the sciences, but really in idea no younger than Plato, which by taking thought would add cubits to the stature of the race; and finally in the latest of the experimental sci- ences, namely, education itself, in whose philosophical, psy- chological, and physiological foundations are now being sought the surest means of training the intellects and stimu- lating the imaginations of men. BOOK OF THE OPENING fj V THE UNIVERSITY: ITS SAINTS AND SEERS AS thus projected on a background of philosophy, history, xjL letters, and art, the programme of this university of science stands forth in the eflSgies and inscriptions which have been cut in the walls of this the first house of the home of its spirit. On the caps of the cloister's granite columns appear the heads of sixteen founders, leaders, and pioneers In Religion History Philosophy Art . . Jurisprudence Medicine . Engineering Commerce Mathematics Physics Chemistry Biology Electric Oscillations Aerodynamics Radioactivity . Eugenics . [h8] St. Paul Thucydides Immanuel Kant Michelangelo Thomas Jefferson Pasteur De Lesseps Christopher Columbus Sophus Lie Kelvin Mendeleeff Charles Darwin Heinrich Hertz Samuel Langley Pierre Curie Richard Galton i:h9 3 %M THE RICE INSTITUTE The obvious guiding call in this consistory of canonization was to pass from the ancient enterprises of humane learning to the modern endeavors of scientific exploration. An acci- dent of considerable interest is the circumstance that in the first group are a Greek, a Hebrew, a Latin, and a Teuton, while in the last are representatives of America, England, France, and Germany. On the exterior wall of the Faculty Chamber the threefold dedication is emblazoned in marble tablets to letters, science, and art. The Tablet to Letters bears the head of Homer, below which is inscribed Mackail's translation of Pindar's tribute to style : *The thing that one says well goes forth with a voice unto everlasting.'' The Tablet to Science bears the profile of Isaac Newton together with Job's anticipation of the method of scientific inquiry in his **Speak to the earth and it shall teach thee 1" The Tablet to Art bears the head of Leonardo da Vinci, under which is inscribed : *The chief function of art is to make gentle the life of the world." Adapted, after some modifications, from certain of Ab- bey's mural decorations in the State Capitol of Pennsylvania, modeled by C. Percival Dietsch, and executed by Oswald Lassig, are the two life-size draped figures adjoining the court side of the arch of the sally-port on the left and right W^\ m ifAi-aUnniar a ^ulidimtjiItairJihuvd^iiiiMtar s.p.x>. l«i-iu-i»olv iuuitMvrio x't xu'biTM'iun mnmni votraui -Ara- iViuinm'tam tVluitcr auv^.iorttuno ex aiiiuui anuocumo. (i;}uo^ \iern «ct*> Ic.^ntiuti :l^ fcvKi»> ittv-trao luirri'vc iioluioti^:^.i3iiihii^ naintiio plaiimno. t ihcntiooiuii nuMi Vcormc i'l'oci'ati lu'liiutrtti . c '^cuaru -n iVjiah iljnrmm^ |.tcnituunu piulv'oovliiac iillcamiiiinc^ochtmu- ucc mtii iCirtcramin Auijli- cavnm ^hvKc'>ootvin, i)ui uiutulntiiuu-o liotnqiu- ttlaaiotri h'lYhmnn <>vnatuo IhiiuaoiraHo pcunoL'li'nuictt^t»3 tid imo pcrf^Ta^ cl .:^lt cum h-orio hu-titiae uc^tvuc futit pnrtircp^. '«i^miii-.> autcnt opcratnuo Korc iir J^ca^cmin \>v-o.h-n. imi- '^' itcroitntinn Anti-rrcanninini quaoi oi«rin- iratu minium taut luiui^ auopiciio iti luccui riMhi. uxulttto per mmn^ l.itmu n^at t>fncii huuiaim iitilcni ocmpt-rquc i^loriu fri-v^ctit . ^ ^ ^^ Alt (TpiotuHo. (s^fiH.t I •n-?avu*>tn* IDobauuio }.^l^la^Wphiav• , UaJmii^io (g>fritlnilme, vXitutt Bouiiui milinioimit iinm^i-ufcnoinui ^1Ul^^•cimvJ. BOUK OF I > /: one, syr, oi ^cicnc ^ > cautious and >om' t un* ?n uo under AnstoiiC •> uKiuti ■ i we pi*openy obserye ceiesiial phenomena w " - . -':■■: .. '.s which reii'ilate the:n'" ; ''^^'tr, symbolic of Art", in nn !n'^n*'r':if''nn-?I ntfif-iv^/^ ^A*r\\ ;ri ficr iiice nor laiicnn^ i p, ^.Tiijerges « the chiseled intuition of Plotinus th (t "Love, beaucy, joy* and worshr; ir forever '^^ ^ !ing, and rebuilding ii; c:.? s s« ' '' 'g' -vgain, uiiaci the shieJvJ ^ •1 of the Rice Institute and the [• 'in of Houston, the chi^- ^e of • t {S perhars the best expression of t r5v ronrn;; T'lm me r^ rrrr-elc in'i'-'-int'm, sc historian ot the :e Samuel H. R^k .u, m the tr cau^ " T ZPV. trie Institute hai . S.pT* f»J*r 5iii 3>llii'vrr; Vrin-c- "■«*SA. , ■ .N ■>».,• n , aiv '. ]j! -• • qui ^latuiuiu «i>ii[ cum h't'ti*-' iiU'ti' viit* i»ri5trac tii .'r.>5lMiiini J^m»Trcannrttit: ninnita. i #~1 1 BOOK OF THE OPENING respectively: one, symbolic of Science, screening her gaze under the cautious and somewhat uncertain lead of reason, proceeds under Aristotle's dictum: "If we properly observe celestial phenomena we may dem- onstrate the laws which regulate them'' ; the other, symbolic of Art, in an inspirational attitude, with neither fear in her face nor faltering in her step, emerges from the chiseled intuition of Plotinus that '*Love, beauty, joy, and worship are forever building, unbuilding, and rebuilding in each man's soul." Again, under the shield of the State of Texas and the shield of the Rice Institute and the Flowering Magnolia of the City of Houston, the chief stone of this building bears what is perhaps the best expression of the Spirit of Science in any tongue: a Greek inscription in Byzantine lettering, from the Praparatto Evangelica of Eusebius Pamphili, the first historian of the Church, which, in the translation of the late Samuel H. Butcher, reads: " *Rather,' said Democritus, Vould I discover the cause of one fact than become King of the Persians,' " —a declaration made at a time when to be king of the Per- sians was to rule the world. In thus preserving in the twen- tieth century of our era this utterance of exultant enthusiasm for knowledge for its own sake, from a representative phi- losopher of that people who originated the highest standards in letters and in art, the trustees of the Institute have sought r THE RICE INSTITUTE to express that disinterested devotion both to science and to humanism which the founder desired when he dedicated the new institution to the advancement of literature, science, and art. From inspiration out of the past we pass to the inspiration of the living, and in particular to the heartening hail of those savants who have come or stretched their hands across the seas to us on this occasion. Under sunny skies whose clear air makes clear minds blandly or keenly observant of the world, with winds fair, on the anniversary of Columbus's arrival, we too are setting out on a voyage of discovery in three small craft whose lines and keels and turrets you have had opportunity to examine and admire. We pledge your standards at the masthead and your spirit in the crew, but until we find cur treasure island, where faith and promise brighten into performance and achievement, we have none but empty honors to offer you. Rather do we ask you to honor us still further by allowing us to place in the stateroom of the flagship the following tablets in commemoration of your visit to the fleet: Professor Rafael Altamira y Crevea, of Madrid, Spain: late Professor of the History of Spanish Law in the Univer- sity of Oviedo; Director of Elementary Education in the Spanish Ministry of Public Instruction; a scholar of recog- nized authority in the history of jurisprudence and politics, and a statesman whose public service has extended with in- creasing usefulness beyond the borders of his own country to the educational institutions of the Latin-American nations. Professor Emile Borel, of Paris, France: Director of Scientific Studies at the Ecole Normale Superieure; Editor- in-chief of La Revue du Mo'is; Professor of the Theory of ^ BOOK OF THE OPENING Functions at the Univ^ersity of Paris; successful in the dis- charge of exacting duties as administrator, educator, and editor, his studies in mathematical analysis worthily maintain the standards of scientific work established by the historic line of French analysts extending from Lagrange and La- place to Hermite and Poincare. Senator Benedetto Croce, of Naples, Italy: Life Senator of the Italian Kingdom; Member of several Royal Commis- sions; Editor of La Critica; an original and profound thinker, both constructive and critical, whose philosophy of the spirit, and in particular its theory of sesthetics, has com- pelled world-wide attention on the part of artists, philoso- phers, and men of letters. Professor Hugo de Vries, of Amsterdam, Holland : Direc- tor of the Hortus Botanicus and Professor of the Anatomy and Physiology of Plants in the University of Amsterdam; a careful observer and patient investigator of the phenomena of growth and change in living things, whose studies and experiments of a quarter of a century have resulted in capi- tal contributions to the theories of heredity and the origin of species. Professor Sir Henry Jones, of Glasgow, Scotland : Fellow of the British Academy; Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Glasgow; Hibbert Lecturer on Meta- physics at Manchester College, Oxford; an erudite editor and expositor of great movements of reflective thought In poetry and philosophy and religion, and himself a genial human philosopher who has elaborated a working faith for the social reformer and professed the docf:rInes of Idealism as a practical creed. • I THE RICE INSTITUTE Privy Councilor Baron Dairoku Kikuchi, of Tokyo, Ja- pan: late Japanese Minister of Education; formerly Pres- ident of the University of Tokyo, and later of the Univer- sity of Kyoto; recently Lecturer on Japanese Education at the University of London; a publicist of distinction and a close student of affairs, one of the pioneers in the introduc- tion of Western learning into Japan, who has rendered his native land patriotic service in the organization and admin- istration of its schools and universities. Professor John William Mackail, of London, England: formerly Fellow of Balliol College and later Professor of Poetry in Oxford University; a critic who would interpret art as art interprets life, favorably known by his many pub- lished lectures on Latin literature and Greek poetry, and himself a poet whose English pure and undefiled is scarcely surpassed in our time. Privy Councilor Professor Wilhelm Ostwald, of Gross- Bothen, Germany: late Professor of Chemistry in the Uni- versity of Leipsic; Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, 1909; a versatile man of science whose interests and activities range from art through letters into metaphysics, he is justly cele- brated as one of the founders of physical chemistry and equally well known as the chief propagandist of a new natu- ral philosophy based on the theories of energetics. The late Professor Henri Poincare, of Paris, France: Member of the French Academy; Commander of the Le- gion of Honor; Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy at the University of Paris; distinguished for discoveries of far-reaching significance in pure mathematics, celestial me- chanics, and mathematical physics, a varied intellectual activ- C154:] 'I j BOOK OF THE OPENING ity of extraordinary fertility has secured for him a place of eminence in letters, in science, and in philosophy. Professor Sir William Ramsay, K.C.B., of London, Eng- land: late Professor of Chemistry at University College, London; Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, 1904; President of the Seventh International Congress of Applied Chemistry; a facile experimenter of boldness and ingenuity, who has devised new theories and revived outworn ones in a series of remarkable achievements which of themselves constitute an epoch in the history of the chemical elements and a per- manent chapter in the annals of science. Professor Carl Stjeirmer, of Christiania, Norway: Mem- ber of the Norwegian Academy of Sciences; Associate Editor of the Acta Mathematica; Professor of Pure Mathe- matics in the University of Christiania; professorial suc- cessor of the illustrious Norse geometer, Marius Sophus Lie, and himself a master of the methods of reckoning who has drawn from the equations of mechanics a new theory of terrestrial magnetism revealing new explanations of the lights of the northern skies and kindred manifestations in the solar system. Professor Vito Volterra, of Rome, Italy: Life Senator of the Italian Kingdom; Dean of the Faculty of Science and Professor of Mathematical Physics and Celestial Mechanics in the University of Rome; recently Lecturer in the Univer- sities of Paris and Stockholm; an analyst of rare skill whose theories have found manifold applications both in pure and in applied science, he has served his country even more di- rectly as an able organizer of educational and scientific un- dertakings national in scope and international in influence. 1:1553 THE RICE INSTITUTE 3 VI THE UNIVERSITY: ITS STUDENTS AND STAFF FROM the hands of these illustrious citizens of Amster- dam, Glasgow, Leipsic, London, Madrid, Naples, Oxford, Paris, Rome, and Tokyo, the torch of civilization's great commission to think and to teach and to learn is this day passed on to the sons and daughters of the South and the scholars and scientists trained at the universities of Cam- bridge, Chicago, Harvard, Heidelberg, Leipsic, Michigan, Oxford, Pennsylvania, Yale, Virginia, Wisconsin,^ who con- stitute the charter membership of the new institution's aca- demic guild, a company of students and fellows, lecturers and instructors, preceptors and professors, who in a com- mon society would seek to realize a composite conception of the student-universities and the master-universities of earlier times; a voluntary association whose collective will for the present is to be executed by one of their number, who is to 1 Since this address was written the staff of the new institution has grown to some thirty members who bring to its problems training, experience, or honors from the following universities and colleges: Adelphi, Auburn, Bal- liol (Oxford), Berlin, Bethany (West Virginia), Birmingham, Bonn, Cam- bridge, Centre, Chicago, Christiania, Clark, Columbia, Cornell, Davidson, Drake, Emmanuel (Cambridge), Georgia, Gottingen, Harvard, Heidelberg, Illinois, Johns Hopkins, King's (London), Leeds, Lehigh, Leipsic, Liverpool, London, McGill, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Munich, Northwestern, Oberlin, Oxford, Paris, Pennsylvania, Pittsburg, Princeton, Robert, Rome, Southwestern, Stanford, Trinity (Cambridge), Tulane, Union, Vermont, Vir- ginia, Washington (College), Washington (University of), Wesleyan, Wil- liams, Wisconsin, Wooster, Yale; and the student members of an academic community of about three hundred souls come from some seventy-five towns in Texas and fifteen States of the Union, among them holders of degrees from Austin, Georgetown, Missouri, Phillips, Robert, Union, and Vanderbilt, and former students of Austin, Baylor, Daniel Baker, Georgia School of Technology, Howard Payne, Illinois, Lehigh, Marion Institute, North Texas Normal, Oklahoma (Agricultural and Mechanical), Randolph Macon, St. Mary's, Sam Houston Normal, Simmons (Texas), Smith, Sophie Newcomb, Southwestern, Sweet Briar, Texas (Agricultural and Mechanical), Texas (University of), Trinity (Texas), United States Military Academy. BOOK OF THE OPENING play the role of middleman between the public and the uni- versity, the trustees and the staff, the staff and the students, the students and their parents and guardians; a society of scholars which from the first aspires to be "a partnership in all science, a partnership in all art, a partnership in every virtue and in all perfection''; and "as the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations," to ap- propriate still further Burke's conception of the state, *'it becomes a partnership between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born." Democracy of science and republic of letters, nowhere mere empty phrases, meet in this partnership an unusual opportunity for translation into living actualities. Except for the organization indispensable to the efficient discharge of business, subject only to limitations of character and in- tellect, here are leisure and work and liberty, freedom in initiative, freedom in invention, the freedom that alone in- vites inspiration to thought and action. As at the Univer- sity of Virginia from the earliest days, and more lately at the University of Chicago, distinctions of academic rank and title will appear in official calendars but find no place in classroom or on the campus. For purposes of organization and administration each member of the university will natu- rally fall into one or more of three grand divisions: Science, Humanity, Technology. As has already been intimated, each of these divisions will eventually consist of several faculties : under Science we should have mathematics, phys- ics, chemistry, biology, psychology, and so on, together with their applications in the fields of engineering, economics, education, and so forth; under Humanity would appear his- tory, philosophy, letters, politics, and so on to art and re- ligion; while Technology would embrace science, humanity, and technology as professions of teaching or research, the 1:157:1 •ir THE RICE INSTITUTE older learned professions of law, medicine, theology, and the newer ones from engineering, architecture, and agricul- ture on down to the more recent acquisitions of commerce, banking, and public administration. The first larger divisions of the Staff of the new univer- sity to assume form will be a faculty of science and a faculty of letters. In the discharge of their functions these bodies will be aided by administrative committees constituted of their own members. To the duties of the officers of certain of these committees deans will succeed when the growth of the institution shall have called for more elaborate and more highly differentiated machinery of organization and adminis- tration. Administrative work, of increasing complexity in any modern university, is likely to make frequent calls on the time and judgment of its ablest and best trained members in the first days of a new one, but it is hoped to reduce the burden of these demands considerably by consistent and sharp differentiation between the constructive and critical, and the clerical. To meet the direct duties of administration in schools and departments, laboratories and museums, chairmen will be appointed annually and without regard to seniority. The Staff will assemble, and at regular intervals, in at least three different series of meetings: scientific, social, and business. Through the first of these the work of its members in the capacity of creator, critic, or censor will be assessed in its relations to productive scholarship; by the second, the university will be kept in intimate touch with the life of its community, and many a plan may trace its start to a bowl of punch or the pouring of tea; and finally, through the third of these series of meetings the Staff will consider, subject to the approval of the trustees, the conduct of the academic life of the university in respect of scholarship, research, teaching, and public service. TO 9 I 1 '!?■ '"'^"'iftf ti^% UfrC m* a^n^tilttiion &a*«^ u|.«&r; jwic-. !o dixicTCiii, riva;tvi and cortiial h fcTiciiaiic^'' upon iwr oppcriutniieii *irK> sr^ fjruiHcn of her vlans T ■or ^vf- ^i ^''''i V*'. ^^^$^5^ /Pp^^^ A<-' //^; 4- older learnt* J pre the - -^"^'- -^ ture on aov The ^irst XSTITUTE ,; ,' ' "cine, theology, and e- rinf tl.-. , ^nnrrions these bodies istrauve CO onstituica of Hiit^es of the officers of certain suuxcu vviich the growth of ' ' ire elaborate and more mg compkxuy m -nW to r'nkf* freouent calls on the fjiyjj- ^r aincd members in t^^c ^Tr«;t u»)ratufati«?n ^ upoT} the opcnint^ of f^cr ^art^ Ic putl \C Ui-C. I'oni'incc^ Jhol in Ipc ficW c^ acd^cn^xc *crc'icc ihcrc i* cc^iiai room an^ cquol ncc^ [or tl^c sLiJc f-upy'ovlcb •^tnic'crs-ik' anb |or to ^cncrcuS' riiMirq cixMi cordial |cHoa'£>bip a nca-' =-i*icr anb frici?^ wxit) fcUcilafion upon bcr opporlun'ttics arib «oi"5C|utnc hope for il^ Jruttion of \rtcr p(a^^. n IratiinmiE wltfrrof tf^r. .« ^i .ni. .I^. faicr. . upon ll)t-. jirdl bai< o[' C^lotcr. Clnno'Oomim. 1?1'2, ll^c^ 5«af of lr><2ilnic'cr*iitj of ilHsjcon^in anb Inc nonb of U^ t'^rcsibcnl I u /'^u^ ^A M JFrrrrturv I \ BOOK OF THE OPENING In America the spirit of scientific investigation has, cer- tainly until recently, found its best expression in the college and the university, and among the men of science associated with these foundations. To be sure, research institutions, as for example the Scientific Bureaus of the United States Government, the Carnegie Institution of Washington, the Rockefeller Institute in New York, and, earliest of all, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, independent of uni- versities, have abundantly justified their existence among us; but no university can live without the vitalizing reaction of original investigation. Even in the Rice Institute's days of hewing of wood and mixing of mortar, work of investigation is not to be allowed to suffer from any inconvenience due to inadequate provision of library and laboratory apparatus. The first investigators may feel their isolation and the absence of atmosphere, but in this day of rapid transit, speedy dissemination of intelligence, and manifold multi- plicity of periodical scientific publications, isolation offers no excuse for inactivity, for one cannot spend half an hour in the perusal of a first-class scientific periodical without think- ing of at least half a year's things to do. To the privileges of research and the duties of adminis- tration must be added the pleasures of teaching and public lecturing, and if the last phase of this cycle of action is to be efl'icient the schedules of daily and weekly performances should not be too heavy. Moreover, the time-tables of lec- ture and laboratory arrangements In each subject of instruc- tion or investigation will be so framed that the first-year students shall be brought directly under the tutelage of the senior members of the university: here again we are appro- priating an Idea of Thomas Jefferson's for the University of Virginia. Furthermore, this very work of teaching and pub- lic lecturing will Itself be Inspired by the temper of scientific THE RICE INSTITUTE investigation; for, as it seems to me, the scientific movement of the nineteenth century has no more striking lesson for the twentieth than that an inquiring mind is the safest guide for an inquiring mind: that the best man to lead the learner from the unknown to the known is the man who is continually leading himself from the unknown to the known, not only in point of encyclopedic and specialized knowledge, but also in point of new knowledge contributed by himself to the store of learning. Was Burke not right when he said that *'the method of teaching which approached most nearly to the method of investigation is incomparably the best, since, not content with serving up a few barren and lifeless truths, it leads to the stock out of which they grew; it tends to set the learner on the track of invention and to direct him into those paths in which the author has made his own discoveries"? And Burke said this half a century before the scientific renaissance. Nor was Burke an impractical dreamer, for, in his speech on the petition of the Unitarians, he also said: ''No rational man ever did govern himself by abstractions and universals. ... A statesman differs from a professor in a university. The latter has only the general view of society. ... A statesman, never losing sight of principles, is to be guided by circumstances; and, judging contrary to the exigencies of the moment, he may ruin his country for- ever. n Finally, to the energy and Invention of the planner, to the enthusiasm and initiative of the producer, to the erudition and imagination of the professor, must be added the energy and enthusiasm and erudition of the preceptor, whose power of summary statement in exposition, whose infinite capacity for details in explanation, whose persistent example and oc- casional exhortation in manners and morals, must conspire with strength of personality to win and guide the student's [i6o] BOOK OF THE OPENING interest in his reading and writing quite as much as in his thinking and in the meeting of his formal obligations to the university's standards and scheme of studies. This order of ideas goes back to a modification of the Oxford and Cam- bridge tutorial system which President Wilson Introduced at Princeton University several years ago. And the finest thing about the introduction of President Wilson's preceptorial system at Princeton University was not the bringing of forty preceptors to Princeton at one blow, but rather the calling of every professor of the university to personal participation In the plan as preceptor. The success of that system at Prince- ton Is to be attributed to this professorial participation no less than to the larger part taken in the execution of the plan by the specially appointed junior members of the staff. Thus It appears that a professor's work Is never done. Probably no expenditure of his time meets with smaller re- turn than that employed on editorial duties. Moreover, In a time when the world Is flooded with printing one should hesitate to increase the number of printed pages. Neverthe- less, In order to facilitate the prompt publication and dis- tribution of the products of Its library, laboratory, and lec- ture activities, the new university proposes to maintain a few periodical publications of Its own. Perhaps the most serious of these will be the Annals of Letters^ Science, and Art, to appear ultimately In several series, carrying the contributions of its own and other scholars to knowledge. Simultaneously with these quarterly quartos there will appear The Rice In- stitute Pamphlets, in octavo form, at least four times a year, containing occasional addresses, courses of lectures, and smaller papers of current and timely Interest. And finally, at least for the present, the Circulars of Information con- cerning the Rice Institute, In the numbers of which will be published the annual calendar, the programmes of study. THE RICE INSTITUTE and other announcements of the undergraduate and gradu- ate life of the institution. 'T is a bold man who would take upon himself the gift of prophecy, but from the birth of the science of the stars to the physics of the ether and the ion it has been the prov- ince of the professor to prophesy; sometimes, as the prophet of old, to ''stand like a wall of bronze, and an iron pillar, against the whole land, against the kings of Judah and the princes thereof"; but always striving, in the spirit of a mod- ern philosopher whose noble words might be turned into a command and written over the door of every library, labor- atory, and lecture-hall as a motto for all seekers after truth, to "cherish as a vital principle an unbounded spirit of enquiry and ardency of expectation, unfetter the mind from preju- dices of every kind, leave it open and free to every impres- sion of higher nature which it is susceptible of receiving- guarding only against self-deception by a habit of strict investigation— encourage rather than suppress everything that can offer the prospect of a hope beyond the present obscure and unsatisfactory state. The character of the true philosopher is to hope all things not impossible and to be- lieve all things not unreasonable. . . . Humility of preten- sion no less than confidence of hope is what best becomes his character." It is the business of the professor quite as much as it is the business of the successful promoter to get results out of the future by anticipating them through his knowledge of the past and his understanding of the present. On such an occasion as this it is hard not to prophesy. This academic festival provides the first alignment of the Rice Institute with other institutions. It is the placing of a new university on the map of the earlier universities. The new institution comes as a rival to none, as a competitor of none, but as a child hoping to grow in favor, to gain the confidence and to win the re- 1:162] BOOK OF THE OPENING spect of older foundations. It is the advent of a man-child that we have witnessed, and some of us believe we have dis- covered in its form the features and bones of a giant. And I like to think that within ten or twenty vears the staff and students of whom I am now speaking will have grown to be a residential community of at least a thousand souls— or, say a staff of a hundred members and a society of students a thousand strong. And the year that number, one thousand, has been reached — a graduate group of two hundred and an undergraduate group of eight hundred— we propose to say that in the year following only the best thousand among the applicants for admission, whether old or new, shall be re- ceived, and to persevere in this process of selection year by year for another score of years. This determination of ours has been accorded hearty support by many of our guests on this occasion ; for if they have urged one thing above another upon us, that one thing has been to keep the standards up and the numbers down. It is through such standards in scholarship and service severely maintained, and by a process of selection through these standards of culture and character, that the exceptional man is likely to be discovered. And, after all, is not this last discovery one of the highest forms of service within our aim? For the maintenance of these high standards we have promising material with which to begin. These first stu- dents who have come to us have come to us on faith; they have left the beaten paths to established institutions; they have left the company of their fellows to come to a new institution; and to this institution they have come unsolicited and unheralded; they have thus shown some independence of judgment, something of initiative, somewhat of the spirit of adventure, and these are the things by which men are judged and singled out from among their fellows at every stage of THE RICE INSTITUTE the game of life. For these reasons we believe that we make no mistake in banking on these young men and women and the future of the new university at their hands. And if we hope that this academic community is to be dis- tinguished by high standards in scholarship, we also hope that the student life of the community is to be equally distin- guished for its system of self-government. The latter sys- tem is already assuming form through the constitution of an honor system for the conduct of examinations, and the insti- tution of student government in the first halls of residence.^ With these two strong determinants of public opinion, the extension of student control to the entire campus should prove to be a comparatively simple undertaking. In the so-called honor system in examinations there is nothing novel to many i\merican institutions. Two generations ago such a system grew into existence at the University of Virginia, and some years later found a congenial atmosphere at Princeton. Since these beginnings it has grown into the life of many other colleges. On the other hand. In some univer- sities it has been tried without success. In the first days of a new one, however, when all traditions and customs are in the making. It promises well. And because of this same free- dom—that is to say, freedom from tradition— the Rice In- stitute is pre-eminently fortunately situated to undertake the building of halls of residence as an integral part of Its pro- gramme. As a matter of fact, the residential college Idea Is a prominent one In the plans of the new institution. At the time these plans were being made the Idea was stirring in the air about many of the older universities. It was at Princeton iThe Honor Council this year (1914-15) has representatives from three classes, and in another year will have become a permanent institution in the university. In the conduct of examinations during the first tv^o years of the institution's existence, this council has been vigilant in its care. The govern- ment of the residential college is in the hands of an elective board of repre- sentatives, chosen one each from the ten or a dozen separate houses into which the hall of residence is divided. [164;] BOOK OF THE OPENING that President Wilson proposed to give the idea concrete form in the reorganization of the social life of that ancient seat of learning. The programme there suggested was an adaptation of the English residential college to American undergraduate life. A similar plan had been elaborated by Dean West some years earlier for a future school of gradu- ate studies at Princeton, and the latter plan has come to realization In the Gothic halls and towers of the Princeton Graduate College about to be dedicated. From Oxford and Cambridge the idea goes back to the University of Paris, the mother university of all modern ones, which consisted orig- inally of residential colleges. In the Paris of the present day the type reappears in the Ecole Normale Superieure, founded by Napoleon, and in the more recent Fondatlon Thiers. Moreover, In Berlin an original suggestion of Fichte's in his scheme for a university has led lately to pro- posals for such a development at the university which bears the name of that city; while at the same time in our own country the University of Wisconsin has plans for residential halls already worked out and awaiting funds from the State ; Cornell University has undertaken such a plan, the first buildings of which are soon to be constructed; and Harvard has planned for the freshmen of the university a group of such colleges to be ready for early occupancy. The first of these experiments in college democracy at Rice finds its dedication on the corner-stone of its building, where, under the shield of the Institute, there appears the simple Inscription: 'To the freedom of sound learning and the fellowship of youth.'' Here is being realized an old seventeenth-century definition of education— William of Wykeham's 'Ue making of a man."^ For here In the resi- iThis definition of education was made the subject of his inaugural dis- course at Princeton University by President Hibben, at whose recent mstalla- L 165:1 • 4r«»rm"T8S^ THE RICE INSTITUTE dential college men liv^e in freedom, checked only by self- mastery and gentle manners, a freedom of the kind that Goethe meant when he said, *'He alone attains to life and freedom who daily conquers them anew"; here they grow in wisdom, not alone in the wisdom of books but also in the wisdom of work and service; here they find the incom- tion there appeared for the first timp in an American academic procession an official representative of the Rice Institute. In many respects the present address is a chronicle of first things— first either in point of time or in point of import. The first scientific papers by a member of the Rice Institute were presented to the American Mathematical Society and the American Philosophical Society. The first foreign reference to the new foundation was made by Dr. Henry van Dyke in a public lecture at the Sorbonne in his course on "The Spirit of America" as visiting professor at the University of Paris, in which, speaking of the development of education in our country, he said: "Nor has this process of assimilation been confined to American ideas and models. European methods have been carefully studied and adapted to the needs and conditions of the United States. I happen to know of a new institution of learning which has been recently founded in Texas by a gift of ten mil- lions of dollars. The president-elect is a scientific man who has already studied in France and Germany. . . . But before he touches the building and organization of his new Institute, he is sent to Europe for a year to see the oldest and the newest and the best that has been done there. In fact, the Republic of Learning to-day is the true Cosmopolis. It knows no barriers of nationality. It seeks truth and wisdom everywhere, and wherever it finds them, it claims them for its own." The first printed scientific papers to be dated from the Rice Institute were published in the "American Journal of Mathematics," the "Cambridge Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics," the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, and "Science." The first address by a member of the Institute was a vice-presidential address before the Baltimore meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which included some results of a paper presented previously at the Dublin meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. The first literary addresses written at the Rice Institute were a Phi Beta Kappa address on the mind and temper of science, delivered at the University of Virginia in June, 1910, and a commencement address on the spirit of learning, delivered at the Uni- versity of Texas in June, 191 1. The first scientific paper to go out from the laboratories of the Institute was one by Mr. and Mrs. H. A. Wilson, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London; while the first scientific paper to be published by a student of the Institute was one by Mr. Eric R. Lyon, an undergraduate, which appeared in the "American Physical Review." The first book to carry "Rice Institute" on its title-page was Mr. J. 8. Huxley's Cambridge manual on "The Individual in the Animal Kingdom." The second such book was Mr. A. LI. Hughes's "Photo-electricity," issued by the Cambridge University Press, and now in process of translation into German in Germany. Books from the pens of Mr. Guerard and of Mr. and Mrs. Tsanoff, though prepared elsewhere, have appeared in print since their authors came to Houston. Furthermore, Mr. Wilson has a new book in the 1:166:] cninntu0 of it» iiuccr. ^t tliia nvcnt bistaiirr it i« bitTi- ^ult in »o «l)ort nti ititrvtuit to niiilu- tIjc itfcra- •rtvu arrnuorturnts foi- nunilinit oitrsrlttre of tJje Ifonoiir ; luit luc Howe nv♦H^«^>tc^ our of ottr numlicr. |Jt»iUirtm fi. |JLinrrcii, Xi-^., UUj.^c. Pl.3ii»t. «:.(!?.. ClioUie ^U-ofrssor of (^tiixiuccrino, iioiu troucHijut in (Pnropc niih ^inrrica, to net a* our bclcontc, if tjis arrnuitrturuts permit. ^l)oulb, liouirtxr, tl)i» tic iuivo9«iblc. nub •Ijoulb wc fitil to be v<^vsounUij rrvrc»cutcb. nic ucucr- tl|clc69 iu nil aiuirritu ^c•ire to trnuauiit our covMnl (trcctiuiift llu^ ooo5 utiei)ca to tljc uciu |(uiiu-v«itij ; au^ to rxvrrvs our tjopre tljot tljc •Vli*«»i»«b nu»v«ci» uubcr uiljicl) it i* c«trtbli«l|cb. lunij be ouev«l^n^olueb by tl)e eelebrity tijnt it tierenftcr nttaiu*, nub thnt tt» portiou of pro- motiuit tlie iutelleetunl iutercets of tunuhiub nutu be rentiseb in tl)e nci)ieueuteut« of lt» future tencbers nub nluuiui. llor eou we refrniu frout couorntulntiu(i n liiubrrb comnuuiitu wliiclj, tl)ouiii| olbcr tbnn tl|o»e iu tbe Goutljeru pens, i«, Hhe tlfcnt, n new urowtli iu n nen» tworib, in tije euii(ti}teueb liberotitij of it* prioate ritiieuB tljnt Ija* iu *o mnuy cn»c« leb to tl)r muuificeut eubotoment of culture nub resenrcl), onb tlint uout once more receit>e« to concpirtt- ou« an iliufttrntiou. Hie tru»t tljat in remote (ieurrntiou« tlje f^iee fuBtitttte mnij »till be fttlftUiu£i lt» benificeut tnia«iou iu nil procperity nub fnir fnme. i/// nhi< (fi^* If 't Ct|anc«Uor. /^Ch^LtCL %JcUjUyt^ jlctlnfi y(0i«trar. wmtmmm femmmmmmmeaasMiK^^-^ »v:i!Tn corn'';? ind ioyou> conri- : :€ fearless boi J toilowirjg lines ■ < ^ ^or was it least rft< in later veav^ 'h dcadtmic insAiuits 111 it thev held somethwif up to \ .^uiiL^ j^hsi t, an Stood T .. rfround; that vje were brothers ali :i "iiy i^ rr: rn m ' • 'f* * t \' e\ fUfi t>fn lav 1 tha -f n tifhi iitu's mere in iC^^ c^io^m j prn<^per(ifJS ernes of G :, .^ .w. ^r-z-rr .ozuship with venciai}it uoofis, ^inn the Prond zvorkint/^ of huuiin tibcTiy. •ihal! . n society a coiiuiiun lite uau^ Danicll, Evans, and Guerar»i \ n 'j'-Mn2 ^•. f-r^i/ BOOK OF THE OPENING parable fellowship, warm comradeship, and joyous com- panionships of college years; here they live in the uncon- querable enthusiasm, the fearless courage, the boundless hope of youth. A faithful characterization of the spirit of the hall is found in the following lines from Wordsworth's "Prelude": Nor was it least Of many benefits, in later years Derived from academic institutes And rules, that they held something up to view Of a Republic, where all stood thus far Upon equal ground; that we were brothers all In honour, as in one community, Scholars and gentlemen; where, furthermore, Distinction open lay to all that came. And wealth and titles were in less esteem Than talents, worth, and prosperous industry. Add unto this, subservience from the first To presences of God's mysterious power Made manifest in Nature's sovereignty. And fellowship with venerable books. To sanction the proud workings of the soul. And mountain liberty. In this first residential hall students and staff are already living in a common society a common life under conditions press, Messrs. Caldwell, Daniell, Evans, and Guerard have books in the making, Messrs. Axson and Dumble have courses of public lectures on liter- ature and science in manuscript awaiting publication in the Pamphlets of the Rice Institute, while Messrs. Daniell, Evans, Graustein, Guerard, Hughes, Huxley, Reinke, and Tsanoff have contributed to literary and scientific periodicals papers which were written at the new university. Though this recital does not attempt to be exhaustive, no account of the initial scholarly work of the new institution should fail to mention the in- augural lectures and other performances of the formal opening to which reference has already been made. The omission here of details concerning the first Rice Institute university extension lectures will be supplied in a subsequent paragraph of this paper. -«! h ■ THE RICE INSTITUTE the most democratic. They sit at a common table; they lounge in common club-rooms; they frequent the same cloisters ; in games they meet again upon the same playing- fields. The quadrangle is self-governed, with no other machinery of government than is necessary to conduct a gentlemen's club. To the quadrangle, as to the college, the only possible passports are intellect and character. In the quadrangle, as on the campus, the business of life is to be regulated by no other code than the common understanding by which gentlefolk determine their conduct of life, con- stantly under the good taste, the good manners, the enduring patience of gentle minds, among strong men who believe that he lives most who works most, labors longest, worries least. Each hall is to have its own literary and debating society, its own religious association, and its own musical and athletic organizations.^ A little later in the history of the Institute similar colleges will be provided for the young women. It IS hoped that ultimately all students of the Institute will be 1 From the start the students of the Rice Institute, irrevocably committed Arhurl^lT "^ "u7 'P'^'i ^^^' participated, unde^ the directiHf Mr frc..n-l;-'" ^"u^'!?- «f ^"f^collegiate athletic contests. Following the organization of the Rice Institute Athletic Association, the first s^cTefv of wTatio°n'%°hfs's;:n' 'M'^ ^"^ '^T"'' ^'^ ^^^ Young MenVchriJtial Association. This step on the part of the young men was speedily followed their hZrl" Tl ''^ u' Pt^' "^ '^' y°""g ^^«"^^" i" the organization of IhZ y^ °^ '^' "^^^^^^ ^°""S Women's Christian Association. Each of Roth Z/''^''^"' associations has held regular meetings continually since Both have contributed to the social life and the religious spirit of the InstN tute. Regular classes in Bible study, meeting weekly throughou the tear are being conducted by Messrs. Johnson and Tsanoff.^ The foHege studen ' above all his kind, is a political animal, and, to a degree far bevLd wha; hT.'.r'' ' '^T^' f. ''^'^T' ^^^"g- F«^ ^hi's reason it is gratifying to say that the internal religious forces of the new institution have been constanth^ and consistently growing in strength. The founding of the religioursocfe" es was followed by the forming of three literary societies, one bv the voune women, bearmg the name of Elizabeth Baldwin, wife of the founder of thf Institute, and tvvo by the young men, known respectively as '"The Owl Liter! ary Society" and the "Riceonian Literary and Debating Society '' These so cieties have met weekly from the date of their organiLdon Ind have held" occasional intersociety meetings in public debate. Though founded by studem initiative, the literary and debating societies have called to their assistanceTn an advisory capacity a committee consisting of Messrs Arbuckle Axson Darnell, Evans, Huxley, Hughes, and Watkin ^rbuckle, Axson, 1:1683 BOOK OF THE OPENING housed in such halls of residence. For example, the residen- tial section for men calls for a great quadrangle of quadran- gles, whose main axis terminates at one end by a great gymnasium and at the other by a great union club. In the gymnasium all students will receive systematic work in phys- ical education, while the union will offer many opportunities open by competition to members of all colleges, for among these colleges there will arise the liveliest sort of rivalry in scholastic standing, in field sports, in musical, literary, and debating activities. To those students who for one reason or another are obliged to live in the city the union will afford many of the opportunities of the residential hall. By thus providing in the way of dwelling halls units larger than those provided heretofore in American institutions it is hoped to preserve and to maintain the present democratic conditions of life which obtain on the campus of the new univ^ersity. And to that end, side by side with the building of great laboratories of investigation and halls of instruction is to proceed the building of these collegiate homes for human living. Each of these homes will have its roll of honor and hall of fame, and, even as the older colleges, will point with pride to men of initiative and achievement who were former members of the hall. Though these halls may not go as far as Balliol College went under Jowett's mastership and re- ceive as students only those who are candidates for honors, yet, "scorning delights" and ^'living laborious days,'' may they not look forward to a time when their historian may say as does Mr. W. W. Rouse Ball of his college, Trinity, Cambridge— to name another English college represented in the first faculty of Rice: 'This particular staircase, which I have taken as a typical one, contains one Fellow's set, five undergraduates' sets, one of which is now used by the porters, and an odd room. The rooms on the ground floor J THE RICE INSTITUTE on the right-hand side on entering the staircase were occu- pied by Thackeray, and later by the present Astronomer- Royal; those on the opposite side, by Macaulay; the rooms on the first floor next the gate were occupied by Isaac New- ton, and later by Lightfoot, afterwards Bishop of Durham, and R. C. Jebb, the Greek scholar; and those on the opposite side by J. G. Frazer, who has done so much to investigate the habits of thought of primitive man. This is an interest- ing group of men, but in fact there are few rooms in the college which have not been inhabited at some time by those who have made their names famous." A distinguished mathematician in Germany said very re- cently that American college spirit is the greatest need of the German university. To this academic audience college spirit Is neither novel nor unreal. The boldness in commenting upon it may be pardoned when I remind you that it Itself Is freedom, courage, comradeship. It is the freedom of sound learning and the fellowship of youth; it Is the spirit of soli- darity, the spirit of co-operation, the collective spirit of cor- porate unity. It appears upon the rostrum, at the desk, and In the field, on the gridiron and the diamond and the track. Always It Is the spirit of romance, occasionally of revelry, sometimes of reformation, and frequently, in its most serious and sober moments, bent on nothing more sober or serious than recreation. In manners It demands simplicity and sin-' cerlty; In morals, honesty and Integrity. It laughs at pedantry, howls at the pompous, rebels at cant, exults In candor. In judgment merciless, if not always unerring; in action immediate, if sometimes unreflecting; of robust adven- ture "that bulldeth In the cedars' tops and dallies with the wind and scorns the sun"; of virile sport that "greets the unknown with a cheer and bids him forward." It rings in the song after defeat as well as in the shoutings of victory. BOOK OF THE OPENING It Is progress and purpose and pluck and prayer, though certain of these aspects reveal themselves only upon analysis somewhat refined. It owns the college, loves the college, runs the college. Let this be the spirit of Rice. If I have adequately described this Incense of college spirit as It rises from the college campus, all that I have said and a great deal more Is necessary properly to characterize that Informing spirit of the college itself whose sources are In conference, cloister, and council-chamber. This Inform- ing spirit is more than opinion and impulse and enthusiasm, though Inspired and directed by each of them In turn. It is more than tradition and custom and law, though continually molded by all three. It Is the spirit of science and the spirit of service. Sustained by such hard and homely supports as concentration of study, co-ordination of studies, co-operation of students, and capitalization of student activities, its life is continually renewed by the native and unceasing demands of the human spirit for the sweetness and light of culture, for the strength and charity of character, for the law and order and security of enlightened citizenship. It Is the brain of the college, the heart of the college, the soul of the col- lege. May this also be the spirit of Rice. There is nothing unusual in insisting that the spirit of one's college Is democratic. Every college in the country contends that It has the spirit of true democracy; the only difference, If any. Is that here we do have it. It is equally true that every good thing in college life has been a subject of criticism, and this Is well, for criticism Is the way to health, while complacency may be on the way to stagnation. No feature of organized college life has been the subject of greater criticism than the organized devotion to athletic sports, both In the college and among the colleges. In cli- matic conditions where outdoor life Is easily possible I THE RICE INSTITUTE throughout the year, the new institution will have to face its problems in athletics resolutely. This will be the more nec- essary because we believe to a man in outdoor sports; for quite as important to the student as his home and standards, as his habits and studies, are his hobbies and his sports. We used to advocate athletics to make the boy a man; we now advocate athletics to keep the man a boy. Youth I eternal youth ! lived in a fountain of perpetual youth ! This is one of the great compensations of the academic life. Genera- tions of coUege men may come and generations go, but youth, joyous and eternal in its spirit, runs on through all these comings and goings. And this contagion has spread beyond the academic atmosphere, for everywhere there is the determination to die a hundred years young. This de- termination is best realized through systematic and regular physical exercise : it may be throwing the discus, hurling the hammer, putting the shot, wielding tennis racquet or golf stick, participating in football, baseball, and other sports in season, felling trees, driving a motor-car, or steering an air- plane. Equally advantageous is a similar system of mental gymnastics to discipline the intellect and stimulate the imagi- nation by some serious study wholly independent of one's vocation: for example, the Iliad or Euclid, the Principia or the Novum Organum, However, inasmuch as we do no less of our thinking with our hearts than with our heads, it be- comes imperative that the springs of our impulses be kept strong and pure. That is to say, the emotions must be held sane and normal; this equilibrium is perhaps best maintained by interest or skill in art. A study and a sport and a song! Personal prejudice might lead me to suggest mathematics, meadow-running across country, and music. In conclusion, and on the mighty element of this triad, the great defense of college sports is that sane devotion to them which leads not i BOOK OF THE OPENING only to healthy living but to clean living. The dangers lie in over-training, in high specialization, in professional ten- dencies in the highly developed team, making sport for the few and spectators of the many. The problem is to get the student crowds off the bleachers and in the blazers. Some of these difficulties we hope to meet by giving athletic train- ing a place in the curriculum, by encouraging class, club, and college competitions, by fostering the sportsman's spirit of amateur sport in all meets— a temper which I can perhaps best express by quoting the following striking and appro- priate lines from a short poem by Mr. Henry Newbolt, en- titled "Clifton Chapel,'' which appeared in the "Spectator" of September lo, 1898: To set the cause above renown, To love the game beyond the prize, To honour while you strike him down The foe that comes with fearless eyes. To count the life of battle good, And dear the land that gave you birth, And dearer yet the brotherhood That binds the brave of all the earth. In thus writing about the students of Rice, I have written of their standards, their spirit, and their sports; I have yet to write, and as briefly as possible, of their studies, their shields, and their songs. I have told these students— these outriders of a host, these torch-bearers of the sun-dawn, these conquerors of a new day, these forerunners of a throng that is ultimately to be many thousand strong— these first students of the Rice Institute, I have told them that they are the Rice Institute. These beautiful buildings are its tene- ment of clay, but the staff and students its brain and heart, determining and regulating the flow of thought and the flow [173] i '' t THE RICE INSTITUTE of life in its being: in them its character and intellect, its standards in scholarship and sports, assume concrete form; m them its spirit and temper find a body; without their pres- ence these quadrangles would be empty, these halls silent; without their co-operation these plans would become inef- fective, these programmes unfulfilled. But with their help, which they have given heartily, and with their hopes, which well up constantly, the dry bones of an academic programme are coming to life, and these dry bones live. Probably the most joyous expression of that life will find itself in the songs of the students. These songs, inarticulate in our hearts, will one after another be called to vocal expression by the great days and crises of our life. We shall have our "Fair Harvard," "Old Nassau," "Hail, Pennsylvania," and "The Eyes of Texas are upon You." With Yale men we too shall smg of this "Mother of Men," and to "Alma Mater" with Stanford, Johns Hopkins, Chicago, and Cornell. Under the Lone Star of Texas and the Owls of Rice, under the Blue and Gray floating from their standards-a blue still deeper than the Oxford blue, and the gray of Confederate days warmed into life by a tinge of lavender-they shall smg their songs; sing of jasmine, magnolias, and roses, poin- settia and violets blue; they shall cheer their teams and their heroes for the deeds of valor they do in field or forum or class-room ; for Rice and for Houston and Texas they shall cheer and shout and sing-sing of campanile stately and their college near the sea, sing of sunset on the prairie of the moonrise through the pine-trees, of the Spanish moss and hveoak, of the Quad's fair towers and cloisters, of undying loyalty; songs of sentiment and devotion giving rise to songs of service, inspired by the device on their banner, a Homeric device. THf FEDERAL TFCHNICAL HIGH S^ jOL in THb v>!TY OF ZURICH. d.ttoiiiKs most cord'affv for the Mild toivf*tt.»i»f^entf ^-' - THE Pf^ESlDEN i ANDTRubrEEsOE THE RICE INSTITUTE OF LIBERAL andTechnicalLearning fevnileJ m the City of Houston, Tcxss ' fr^ hr .^reseB^ at the liutu^radon of the in<^ Mwt Mant o^ iiitfcre' ■ is vv ^ttzi oi learning, nor the great ^m dmance ttogr scj r. ; . v> t-^n- mujht aetiiii m fnmi oitef^if oiir wishes perse nalh , but the n!»jH>^sibiiir> for any member staff to be absent aii the ver> be|?jnning of 'Ije new academic NSi'e beg, rherefore. our sincere :-«>it|^«ttiitttioiis «< I m of this address, and icve in our kindest feelfeues Li and your infititurion. May the Rice Instinire with iC' 5$»^eficli W«»J^^:l oP Tni«fee&: tif ill.' Sp«V-'-, ■'' ■' *; . , V . ^. Zurich, Sv irzeriuKl, iber !0i:. TI *i* r .-> iicin us spii sncp these n fher -act: ^^^^ct, its >'UiU, assume concrete torrn ; ^ a bodv; without their pres- -iis silent; oiiid become inef- ^ ■■^' *^heir help, 'Jieu- hopes, which ogramrne "jucs iivc robably the 1 find itself 1^' the songs {icai*ts, -esston by the les iin^i?! ^ ::ir rh :e shall atdr ' with d.iA I of th''^^ riupkins. thica d Cornell. UnJer the ne Star of Tex., nr ^ H,. O. '' R"- -nder-the " ilit'ir scandards--~a blue still deeper than the Oxford bhie, and tht ,^ ,,. ^confederate '' - >J javender— they shall f jasmine, matrnol ^ ;;^ poin- * ' ms and thejr '•^^^' d or fonim or .>nd ir^T T^ 11 .iail ^'**^" atelv and c, of mish moss and ,vers qn^Jrloi- K^dying • '1 giving rise to songs :eonthe: inner lomeric device, Aii^v dpia-^ -yoi/ ffifxti'ai fy\\r V THE Federal Technical High School in the City of Zurich, Switzerland, thanks most cordially for the kind invitation sent to her by the President andTrustees of THE Rice Institute of Liberal andTechnicalLearning founded in the City of Houston, Texas U. S. A., to be present at the Inauguration of the Institution. Jot want of interest for this new seat of learning, nor the great distance that separates us from you might detain us from offering our wishes personally, but the impossibility for any member of our staff to be absent at the very beginning of the new academic >ear. We beg, therefore, to accept our sincere congratulations in the form of this address, and to believe in our kindest feelings toward you and your institution. May the Rice Institute with its splendid new buildings, its colleges and halls, its laboratories and libraries, become a rich source of culture and erudition, a great promoter of noble and useful knowledge in >our prosperous country. The President of the Board of Trustees: The Rector of the Federal Technical High School: C ^^-*^ xCyi Zurich, Switzerland, September 1912. Friti Amtort*r »o»m- Da>i^ Jt f"« t i ^ ^ « «» c •^-i^s^crs^' •'^T^fTt^'^ ■i'^lT"'^* '-^ ytTiijhii'Whi iiT ;^ :> 1 f^H ^ 'a X #^ I.*! « w c ^ ^* "^ S* *^ '«* kB ^ e V* •■ « •• ;5 J* c^ »- ^ w JT x» ig^ I :£ 't I ^ W *W ^^ 'X «. \j( 5 ? a £♦ ?tf« 5 il r •<' • '>urses leading to V' and mf'dinn:* but students look- -nu in che earlier years of rr8. 'ath( rore uue will nr J: i ►^sSS^x & " M 1^^ 1 1 s ^ ^« fe c ♦i > i V ^ * T -= ^ ;c ■c:>-« I S ^ ^ ^ i'^ i I §••• ^^ #^ :r ^ n — ' r a '^ JS Sii 2 \^ 1 ■ ^p i«^^t<- ^>f'Jf=3^: '••»». • • »»^ *C^.3 H ir BOOK OF THE OPENING the bachelor of arts courses all the requirements for admis- sion to many medical and law schools, provided suitable sub- jects are chosen. However, in view of the fact that several of the leading professional schools of law and medicine are now requiring a bachelor's degree for admission, all such students are urged to proceed to this degree before entering upon specialized study preparatory to the practice of their profession. To students of architecture the Institute offers a full course extending over five years, leading to the bachelor's degree at the end of the fourth year and to an architectural degree at the end of the fifth year. It is the purpose of the course in architecture to lead men during their residence to a comprehensive understanding of the art of building; to acquaint them with the history of architecture from early civilization to the present age ; and to develop within them an understanding and appreciation of those conceptions of beauty and utility which are fundamental to the cultivation of ability in the art of design. The course has been so ar- ranged as to include certain indispensable elements of liberal education and also such engineering and technical subjects as are becoming more and more necessary to the general education of a practising architect. Of the more strictly architectural subjects, design is given by far the largest place. As a matter of fact, the courses in history and design and those in free-hand drawing, in water-color, in drawing from life, and in historic ornament have all a double object: to create in the student an appreciation of architectural dignity and refinement, and to Increase constantly his ability to ex- press conceptions of architectural forms. Accordingly the training of the student must not be limited to the training in draftsmanship alone, but all courses should conspire to the cultivation of creative and constructive ability In expression i THE RICE INSTITUTE and design. With a view to keeping in touch with the prog- ress of his profession and with the daily routine and detail of its practice, it is strongly recommended that the student spend his summer vacations in the office of some practising architect. Courses will be offered In chemical, civil, electrical, and mechanical engineering. A complete course in any one of these branches will extend over five years. A student who has successfully completed the first four years of a course will be awarded a bachelor's degree, and after successfully completing the remaining year of his course he will receive an engineering degree. The work of the first three years will be practically the same for all students, but in the last two years each student will be required to select one of the special branches mentioned above. The work of the first two years will consist chiefly of courses in pure and applied mathemat- ics, physics, chemistry, and other subjects, an adequate know- ledge of which is absolutely necessary before the more tech- nical courses can be pursued with advantage. During the first two years, however, a considerable amount of time will be devoted to engineering drawing and the elements of sur- veying. Technical work will begin in the third year^ with courses of a general character in mechanical engineering, civil engineering, and electrical engineering, all three to be taken by all engineering students, including those in chemi- cal engineering. These courses will form an introduction to the technical side of each branch, and should enable students intelligently to select a particular branch at the beginning of their fourth year. In the third year instruction will also be begun in shopwork. The classes in shopwork are intended 1 As a matter of fact, during the present academic year (1914-15) mem- bers of the junior class are receiving lecture and laboratory courses of gen- eral and introductory character in engineering and architecture at the hands of xMessrs. Diamant, Hitch, Humphrey, Pound, Tidden, Van Sicklen, and Watkm. t m 'ii BOOK OF THE OPENING to give familiarity with shopwork methods. The object of these classes is not primarily to train students to become skilled mechanics, but to provide such knowledge of shop methods as is desirable for those who may be expected as engineers to employ mechanics and to superintend engineer- ing shops. It is intended in the engineering courses to pay special attention to the theoretical side, because experience has shown that theoretical knowledge is difficult to obtain after leaving the university, and without it a rapid rise in the profession of engineering Is almost impossible. On the other hand, it is not intended to disregard practical instruc- tion. For this reason the last three years will include, be- sides shopwork, a variety of practical work in engineering testing-laboratories. It is recommended that students obtain employment in engineering work during the summer vaca- tions, for it should be remembered that no amount of uni- versity work can take the place of learning by practical ex- perience In engineering establishments and In the field. The courses In engineering are not Intended to take the place of learning by practical experience, but are designed to supply a knowledge of the fundamental principles and scientific methods on which the practice of engineering Is based, and without which it is difficult, if not Impossible, to succeed In the practice of the profession. Students who can afford the time are recommended to devote three or four years to pre- liminary work instead of two, taking the bachelor of arts degree at the end of four years and an engineering degree at the end of six years. Students proposing to do this are advised to take a course devoted largely to mathematics, physics, and chemistry, or an honors course in either mathe- matics, physics, or chemistry. The subjects taken during the years of preparatory work must Include those of the first two years In the general engineering course, which may be (' THE RICE INSTITUTE substituted for electives in the academic bachelor of arts course. The honors course in physics is strongly recom- mended for those who wish to become either electrical or mechanical engineers. As has already been intimated, the course for the degree of bachelor of arts extends over four years. During the first two years a considerable part of the work is prescribed, while during the last two years each student is allowed, with certain restrictions, to select the subjects he studies. In the majority of the courses the formal instruction offered con- sists of three lectures a week, on alternate days, together with laboratory work in certain subjects. The academic year is divided into three terms, but as a rule the year is the unit of the courses rather than the term. In addition to informal examinations held at irregular inter- vals, there are formal examinations at the end of each of the three terms. In determining the standing of a student in each class, both his work during the term and the record of his examinations are taken into account. Of subjects included in the bachelor of arts course the fol- lowing are now available: Group A: English, French, German, Spanish, economics, education, history, philosophy, architecture. Group B : pure mathematics, applied mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, chemical engineering, civil engineering, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering. Instruction in the classics is also offered on demand. Candidates for the degree of bachelor of arts of the Rice Institute are required for the first two years of their course to select studies from the preceding groups according to the following yearly programmes. First year: pure mathemat- ics, English, a modern language, a science, and one other subject. Second year: pure mathematics or a science, Eng- BOOK OF THE OPENING lish, a modern language, and two other subjects. Students who enter with credit in two modern languages may substi- tute another subject for modern languages in the second year. At the beginning of the third year students may elect to take either a general course or an honors course. The third year general bachelor of arts course consists of four subjects, of which two must have been taken in the second year and one in both first and second. At least one subject from each of the groups A and B must be taken. Students will receive advice in the selection of their subjects. The fourth year general bachelor of arts course includes four subjects, two of which must have been taken in the third year and one in both second and third. At least one subject from each of the groups A and B must be taken. To students who have completed the general course the bachelor of arts degree will be awarded either with some grade of distinc- tion or without special mention. The third and fourth year honors courses are intended for students who wish to spe- cialize in particular branches of knowledge with a view to research work or teaching or later professional studies. In view of these special objects, the requirements in such courses will be more severe than in the general courses in the same subjects. For this reason it is recommended that students exercise due caution and seek advice before electing to take an honors course. Only those students who have shown in their first and second years that they are especially well qualified will be permitted to take an honors course. A student proposing to take such a course must satisfy the department concerned that he is qualified to proceeed with the study of that subject. He will be required to take the lectures and practical work provided for honors students in that subject during each of the two years, and in addition certain courses in allied subjects. The degree of bachelor THE RICE INSTITUTE of arts with first, second, or third class honors will be awarded, at the end of the fourth year, to students who have completed an honors course. Honors courses in mathe- matics and physics were given during the academic year 1913-14- In 1914-15 honors courses will be available in pure and applied mathematics, and theoretical and experi- mental physics. In addition to these, honors courses in mod- ern languages and literatures and in biology will be offered in 1915-16. A student who has completed a general or an honors course for the bachelor of arts degree may obtain the mas- ter of arts degree after the successful completion of one year of graduate work. A candidate for the degree of mas- ter of arts must select a principal subject and will be required to take such courses in that subject and allied subjects as may be determined for each individual case. He will also be expected to undertake research work under the direction of the department of his principal subject, and must submit a thesis embodying the results of his work. A student who has completed a general course for the bachelor of arts de- gree may obtain the degree of doctor of philosophy after not less than three years of graduate study and research work. A student who has obtained the bachelor of arts degree with first or second class honors may obtain the doc- tor of philosophy degree after not less than two years of graduate study and research work. Candidates for the de- gree of doctor of philosophy must submit a thesis and pass a public examination. For the year 19 14-15 graduate courses will be given in biology, pure and applied mathe- matics, and theoretical and experimental physics. From the preceding systematic schemes for academic and scientific work, it would appear that the Rice Institute aspires to university standing of the highest grade as an institution BOOK OF THE OPENING of liberal and technical learning, dedicated to the advance- ment of letters, science, and art, by instruction and by in- vestigation, in the individual and in the race, its opportuni- ties for study and research being open, without tuition and without fees, both to young men and to young women. Moreover, to recapitulate more broadly, the new university, subject neither to political nor to sectarian affiliations, is gov- erned by a self-perpetuating board of seven trustees, elected for life. Under a definite educational policy and compre- hensive architectural plan, it is being built and maintained out of the income of its funds of approximately ten million dollars for endowment and equipment. On its campus of three hundred acres, in a half-dozen initial laboratory, lec- ture, and residential buildings of extraordinary beauty, there are at work in the academic session of 19 14-15 a teaching staff of some thirty members, all inspired by the spirit of research, maintaining highest standards of entrance re- quirements and of scholastic standing after admission, of- fering university courses In liberal arts, pure and applied science, architecture and engineering; a small group of graduate students In mathematics, physics, and biology; a self-governed democratic undergraduate body of freshmen, sophomores, and juniors, of more than two hundred and fifty members, from some seventy-five towns In Texas and fifteen States of the Union, the first freshman class having been received In September, 1912, to earn the first degrees, which will be conferred In June, 19 16. .1*1 '» ti873 THE RICE INSTITUTE VII THE UNIVERSITY: ITS SHADES AND TOWERS NO sketch of the university's programme, however slight, would be complete without some descriptive account of the general architectural plan, according to whose principles of beauty and utility students and staff are to be provided with theaters of action, groves for reflection, labor- atories of discovery, libraries of knowledge, fields for sport, halls for speech and song, homes for complete living, and all dedicated to the freedom of sound learning and the fellow- ship of youth. At the risk of repetition, several details of this rather ambitious scheme will now be recited. It is not difficult to plan for fifty years, nor is it difficult to plan for five years: difliculty enters only when it is neces- sary to plan at one and the same time for the immediate future and for the next hundred years. The problem is to design a scheme which is so flexible as to be capable of in- definite expansion along prescribed lines of educational pol- icy and physical environment, and which at the same time is sufliciently compact and so closely articulated as to be com- fortably and economically efficient in the earlier stages of its development. The plan about to be described briefly is an evolution out of some thirty-five or forty preliminary studies. In its final form it is believed to represent with fidelity the educational programme of the new institution, and to meet, with some measure of success, the demands of local geog- raphy, subsequent growth, initial harmony, and final unity. Behold a campus of three hundred acres, a tract as irregu- lar in form as if purchased in Boston, with four thousand I > BOOK OF THE OPENING feet frontage on the Main Street of Houston. Unfold the map we have made, for a great deal of the meaning of this new institution appears in its lanes and lawns, its walks and drives, its cloisters and retreats, its playing-fields and garden courts, its groups of residential halls for men, its halls of residence for women, its gymnasium, and stadium, and union, its several quadrangles of laboratories in science pure and applied, its schools of liberal arts, of fine arts, of me- chanic arts, its chapel and choir, its lecture-halls and amphi- theaters, its Greek playhouse and astronomical observatory, its great hall with library and museum wings, its graduate college of research and professional schools. Of the four main entrances to the three-hundred-acre campus, the pnn- cipal one lies at the corner of the grounds nearest the city. From this entrance the approach to the Administration Building is a broad avenue several hundred yards long, end- ing in a fore-court, which will be bounded on the left by the School of Fine Arts, on the right by the Residential College for Women. The main avenue of approach coincides with the central axis of the block plan, and from the principal gateway opens up through the vaulted sally-port of the Administration Building a vista of more than a mile within the limits of the campus. After dividing at the fore-court the driveway circles the ends of the Administration Building and continues for half a mile in two heavily planted drives parallel to this axis and separated by a distance of seven hun- dred feet. Within the extended rectangle thus formed the pleasing effect of widening vistas has been realized. On passing through the sally-port from the fore-court, the future visitor to the Institute will enter upon an academic group consisting of five large buildings, which with their massive cloisters surround on three sides a richly gardened court measuring three hundred by five hundred feet, planted in 1:189:] •i « Ml ^ K. -% <^ ^ %jbk '^"_'S JV_"!*r. ^ ' THE RICE INSTITUTE graceful cypresses. Beyond this group Is another academic court of st,ll greater dimensions planted in groves of live- oaks ; this Great Court in turn opens into extensive Persian gardens beyond which the vista is closed at the extreme west by a great pool and the amphitheater of a Greek playhouse i he principal secondary axis of the general plan, starting from the boulevard and running north perpendicularly to the mam axis, crosses the lawns and courts of the Liberal Arts and Science groups into the Mechanical Laboratory and the Power-house, the first buildings of the Engineering Oroup. The fourth entrance on Main Street leads to the athletic playing-fields and the Residential Colleges for Men While each unit of the latter group has its own inner court' the several buildings themselves together inclose a long rec- tangular court bounded at the eastern end by a club-house, an adaptation of the Oxford Union, and on the west by the Gymnasium, which opens on the Athletic Stadium in the rear North of the men's residential group and across the Great Court, lying between the Botanical Gardens and the Labora- tories of Pure and Applied Science, appear the splendid quadrangles of the Graduate School and its professional departments; south and west of the latter quadrangles will rise the domes of the Great Hall with its Library and Mu- seum wings, and the Astronomical Observatories, respec- Ahhough designed to accommodate the executive and administrative offices when the Institute shall have grown to normal dimensions, the Administration Building will be used during the first few years to meet some of the needs of in- struction as well as those of administration. The building .s of absolutely fire-proof construction throughout ; it is three stones high, three hundred feet long and fifty feet deep with a basement running its entire length. Through a cen- BOOK OF THE OPENING tral tower of four stories a vaulted sally-port thirty feet high, leading from the main approach and fore-garden to the academic court, gives entrance to the halls of the build- ing and opens the way to the broad cloisters on the court side. On the first floor, besides offices of registration, there are lecture-rooms, class, study, and conference rooms. In the north wing of the second floor the temporary plans make adequate arrangements for library and reading-rooms; the second and third floors of the south wing are given to a pub- lic hall, which, with its balconies, extends to the height of two stories. A little later on in the history of the Institute this assembly hall will become the faculty chamber. The remaining part of the third floor provides additional space for recitation and seminar rooms, and offices for members of the teaching staff. The meeting-room of the Board of Trustees and the office of the President of the Institute are located in the tower. In its architecture the Administration Building reveals the influence of the earliest periods of the Mediterranean coun- tries: vaulted Byzantine cloisters, exquisite Dalmatian brick- work, together with Spanish and Italian elements in profu- sion; all in a richness of color permissible only in climates similar to our own. The dominant warm gray tone is estab- lished by the use of local pink brick, a delicately tinted mar- ble from the Ozark Mountains, and Texas granite, though the color scheme undergoes considerable variation by the studied use of tiles and foreign marbles. To meet the local climatic conditions the building has been pierced by loggias and many windows, while its long shaded cloister opens to the prevailing winds. The corner-stone of this monumental structure was set in place by the trustees of the Institute on the seventy-fifth anniversary of Texas independence. Two wings of the first building in the students' residen- THE RICE INSTITUTE tial group for men are now ready for occupancy This quadrangle, consisting of a dormitory and a commons, is placed southwest of the Administration Building, its front approach leading from the fourth campus entrance on the Mam Street boulevard. The residential wings are long three- story fire-proof structures with towers of five stories, broad cloisters on the front, and basements extending the entire length. Each wing opens upon a garden on one side, and on the other upon its own court. In arrangement and equip- ment the buildmgs are modern and in every way attractive and convenient. Accommodations for about two hundred students are offered in single and double rooms and suites. Lodgmgs have been provided for several preceptors, and two large halls have been set aside for the temporary use of literary and debating societies. The floors of the wings are so planned as to insure for every room perfect ventilation and absolutely wholesome conditions. There are lavatories shower-baths, and sanitary connections adequate to the needs of each floor; the power for both light and heat will be re- ceived from the central plant. An arcade rather more than one hundred feet in length leads from the dormitory wing across the inner court to the commons which constitutes the northern boundary of the quadrangle. The commons proper mcludes every detail necessary for the perfect service of all the men hymg in the residential group and at the same time IS of sufiJcent size and capacity to serve other members of the student body. In addition to the dining-hall and its equrpment, this section of the building contains club and reading rooms. It is graced also by a handsome clock-tower four stones high, surmounted by a belfry: the several floors of the tower have been arranged In suites of rooms to be reserved for the use of graduate students and instructors. As has been intimated already, the other buildings under ^92:1 BOOK OF THE OPENING way propose to reveal in brick and marble some of the more subtle suggestions of the southern architecture of Europe and the East, and at the same time to realize the funda- mental principles of their sources in a distinctive style of academic architecture for all the future buildings of the Institute. Consistent with the architectural style thus evolved, a pleasing and harmonious variation appears in the treatment of the first residential group, whose several tow- ers and cloisters in brick and stucco are designed to produce an effect characteristically Venetian. Located at the northern end of the principal secondary axis of the general architectural plan are groups of scientific and technical laboratories. The first buildings of this sec- tion of the campus, namely, the Mechanical Laboratory, Machine-shop, and Power-house, have been erected north of the Administration Building at the end of a long direct driveway from the third Main Street entrance. The Labor- atory, a two-story fire-proof building two hundred feet long and forty feet deep, with a cloister extending the full length of Its court side, is built of materials similar to those used in the construction of the Administration Building. The space of its floors will be given to scientific laboratories, lecture- halls, recitation-rooms, departmental libraries, and oflices for Instructors In charge, while its basement will afford addi- tional room for further apparatus. Through the Machine- shop the Mechanical Laboratory connects with the Power- house, where is installed equipment for complete steam, refrigerating, and electric generating and distributing sys- tems. The lofty campanile of this group, visible for miles In every direction, will probably be for many years the most conspicuous among the towers of the Institute. Further improvements of the campus are being gradually effected. An extensive concrete water-proof tunnel has been [193] .4 » f ( THE RICE INSTITUTE constructed to transmit power- water, steam, electricity, heat- ing, and cooling- from the central plant to all the buildings on the grounds. With a diameter sufficient to admit a man standing erect, the tunnel has ample space for all wiring and piping in positions easy of access, thus insuring perfect care of the equipment and a resultant increase in efficiency. Prog- ress has also been made in the installation of complete sani- tary and drainage systems, which, with an unlimited supply of wholesome water, should give assurance of perfect physi- cal conditions at the site of the Institute. The most impor- tant driveways, including the main approach to the Admin- istration Building, the drives along the axes leading to the group of scientific laboratories and to the students' residen- tial group, and the long roads inclosing the academic court, have been laid on deep foundations of gravel with surfacing of crushed granite. The planting of double rows of oaks, elms, and cypresses along these drives, and the assembling of hedges, shrubs, and flowers within the gardens and courts of the present groups, will subsequently impress even ^he casual visitor both with the magnitude and with the beauty of the general architectural plan. BOOK OF THE OPENING D943 VIII THE UNIVERSITY: ITS STRENGTH AND SUPPORT it ' T IS not the walls that make the city, but the men" ; and the men in the day of Pericles were freemen who *'pur- sued culture in a manly spirit, and beauty without extrava- gance.'' Such freemen are the men that build the university. The strength of this foundation lies in its freedom: the freedom to think independently of tradition; the freedom to deal directly with its problems without red tape ; the freedom to plan and execute vouchsafed by the will of the founder and the charter of his foundation; the freedom of his seven trustees, seven freemen, who approach its problems of or- ganization, policy, and aim, without educational prejudices to stultify, without partisan bias to hinder, without sectarian authority to satisfy, with open minds accustomed to large problems, with clear heads experienced in tracking the minut- est details of business; seven men always ready to reason together, steady and conscientious in reaching conclusions, quick and decisive in action when through common counsel they have come to a common mind respecting any line of action. Indeed, in no circumstance has the new institution been more fortunate than in the circumstance that the foun- dation and its future are held in trust by a half-dozen Texans, men who have the blood of the pioneers in their veins, the purpose and courage of the pioneers in their hearts, themselves successful men of affairs, who with the characteristic mindedness imposed by the magnitude of the State itself, desire only the best, seek only the best, and think in none but large terms of any problem or enterprise. 1:1953 •A: * f THE RICE INSTITUTE For this reason it is easy to dare and to do great things in Texas, for the men who have been winning this empire are to a man dominated by imperial ideas for it. The dominant idea of these trustees is that here in Texas there should arise an institution great for the future of Texas. Believing that the best is none too good for the sons and daughters of Texas, and determined to give to Texans a better Texas, these men have not hesitated to command the services of men and material and machinery whenever and wherever the^ best of such services was to be commanded. And in their freedom these trustees are building for the founder a university whose greatest strength likewise is in its freedom: in the freedom of its faculties of science, humanity, and technology, to teach and to search-each man a freeman to teach the truth as he finds it, each man a freeman to seek the truth wherever truth may lead: in the freedom to serve the State because entangled in no way with the government of the State, and the freedom to serve the Church because vexed by none of the sectarian differences that disturb the heart of the Church. While we rejoice in our freedom from Church or State control, we rejoice none the less in the work of these funda- mental and indispensable agencies of civilization, for we can conceive of no university in whose life there does not appear the energy and enthusiasm, the affection and the calm, that we associate in one way or another with reverence, patriot- ism, politics, and religion. Hence to us, quite as important as is a university's freedom from control by State or Church, are its right relations to each of these two institutions, be- cause upon principles of order, conduct, and knowledge is based our faith in the capacity of the human spirit for prog- ress, and without such basic faith all theories of education become either confused or futile. As a matter of fact, any ■A » I BOOK OF THE OPENING VN1VER5ITY OF TEXAS AV5TIN -TEXAS October - g - 1012 THE imrVBRSITY OP TEXAS ON THB OCCASION OF THE INAUGURATION OP T^ WAl- M- RICB INSTITUTE SENDS GREETING AND HEARTFELT WISHES FOR ITS PROSPBRtTr- PIMNED UN3ERTE ENUGHT- ENED GUIDANCE OP PRESI- DENT LO\-ETr, SUPPORTED BY ABUNDANT RESOURCES, SUSTAINED BY A lOlAL CITT THE INSTITUTE CANNOT FAI L TO PIAY A PART OP SPLENDID HELPFULNESS IN THE UPBUIIDING OP TEXAS- ^j^/ih^diu^ iized life or nii-.ti m coiiiiiiuriUiCb 01 vuicurc; aaa rc:>iriiuu ^ ^ demand for its very existence the three great ttal requirements I have just namea- v rde:' --^^^■ vvledge; and these three primary requisite ""ssion in the i"o^m<; rjf f! t^rrat ln5*''*"nfinn«5 - fhp ue, the Church, ana cue i>nrvc-fsri v. Th^ istitatjon^ iemselves are not fixed and final but {'w '^tly in the flow of change, m trar.M ^)^J'^. d and a • n:; rrter, to meet new requirements of a wing humanity. I:^ ♦:heir prescn ^tate, the master of the sword and peace; tiie <.-iiurcn, the guardian of the soul and pu^^v: the Univf^rsitv. rhp ^ervtifit >f each of them in preserving co ineri the masicry •>! aicir ^nirits. The State guarantee' ersirv in ' jal freedom, to the Church '^siiy in freedom o? : and research co v iching the St:. i,'--''*'^' ?:rantly recalling the Lhurch to the theones of lit 1 ill men are made free* ^h?* rh-.Trrh \r\ \x^ turn 'T2sfnjr?r'i*j : Nation and supporting uic University tn mga ivicaii • ress and ultimit;- r Thes** th^-ee ins^!rnt?'>n« co'v rute the triple ulnLinv; /ittiui; . «.i;c Iw j.- X iCOt. and the professor, the great progress, pre- serving to citizen, saint, and sch^ lorn, intel- lectual freedom, religious freedor .uanteeuig to all lib- ''^^v in the pursuit of happiness, lib^-rtv in tht^^ n'Trsiiit o^ knowledge, liberty in the pursuit of heaven. Tlus uirceroiei freedom, this threefold liberty, brings to -^aint, and scholar corresponding obligations. Thc'*' obliga- tion, greatest service, indixidual and collective co the State is to enlighten public opinion; to the Chu'-^^ ^'=; to cr^^^^^-^ faith; to the University, is to save the human race \ univer<5n] i^dncn*-ion, universal but not necessarily un. ■i^ \ t i " ' - '; ,—■ ,jU i LHX ' Ll. ' -.-, W ' lJU- juu-ii. ■■Ji ' -u-UMUM B m -a g g! ii^ XAS \ 'T'OCfT 'UNl , TRE^OIIRG. I. KVnrUTE' CA. . r-M . 3 PLAY A P\ST illX)fNG OP TR^~ ;• ■ ^»*< 1 -\ ,-^ ^ « v;: ..^ . ^ k « 1.' ■ ■-. r 1 / V .- 1 1^ ^ ^^ V J^^ . v; ^i M "H '^'^^•' \.^ .. l il W. •j'mm m-m^ ■ port toe 00; iiaucat e- Wiuid tur€ of villn i' STITUTE enship. the several concluding para- on t. -f^'i o^her sources of '^PP ' strength that sup- its of the larger rela- rsity, nor does it the whole sp:ui i he Church finds its ^i-?r5, inH Qrw-n-e has been n advance Thomas vvhole man's col- »n which ice as the Ours has \G Known age of the tory berore our own could have painted the pic- "he fnnumera^-^- <^hildren all round the world troop- -mg lormng to school, along the lanes of quiet 'Streets of nolsv rJti.-c on sea-shore and lake- I sun, and tarough the mists, in boats ♦-he rlains, in sledges on the snow, :>i* aiiu i^irciirn, by lonely moun- j,roups, in file*?, dressed in a ttiat kno'i'/h-^fl- . hrst general soiicituvie of ^!| d'^ilizfd <:n. th /^ i 1 s" ' • .'• ai«4 d^ the Ch' build Thr ers.iy s Utt the* laid 1 >iigucs. l^his Texas In the <,.„*\^ lie the oundations ^he State and urk viecermines the he foundations wiie preparatory • *-« ^ ^K^ 1 ; d n9> •<4 '>^ .^ \ .■ V. ;>4xv "v.-i^, 4HiunUrclr unit drociiTf. BCW3K ^ >t: t^! •'Except the LorH rioth h ■a build it.** ' f prayed, ant! liiukr V ui, and the spi* . above sceptres and t? e that never faileiii. "For wisdom is a brearlj - hience flowing fmm the ection of the evcriasiiiig 4ii.;ui c power of God and the : ages, entering into holy a- ' God, and prophets/* isdom hath huilded her I ihe hath hewn out her seven She hath mingled her Ti^;:. ; ^^fie hath also furn'^hed h-^ i.. she hath sent forth /.. Vpon the highest ■ ''Whoso is s'nnpJr. let him t-'trt- A s for hi ni i hai i : c o . : ■ ' -^ * '*Come, eat ye of my tm And drink of the f ' And walk in the way of • 'FN ningled, ''Blessed is the man that heareih JVatckuig daily at my gu*^" Waiting at the posts of my doo For whoso findeth wa- Undrth hh' And shall obtain favor of the I.ord. ' Edgar Ooell T 1 These several passages, from tisc nook n s'i<.i\^iv>2 dom, in sHghtlv abbrevir^ud farm have been distributed caps of the columns which supr-'r^ th- ir-he? in the c Winj: of the first Residential ]> «r JL» «■* ■* iiftw.'ife'i. \ I i 4' mi! latuf ' Jt 9r% .mm 4 ^ .^ % ,,* i-«i. .,.«» .-* f ,,. V ,'^- <»♦ v«^ h? Hti Builnititifule ufTau thi oiaimtm af ite lirrmai 1* i^n to the muifc 0f J'cthnifai ctntiTii?n, On r in uour i 01 I ^ou aur co-0|Ttml:iffu air hau0Tc7?r carctr BOOK OF THE OPENING ^'Except the Lord doth build the house, they labor in vain that build it." ''I prayed, and understanding was given me; I called upon God, and the spirit of wisdom came unto me; I preferred her above sceptres and thrones, for she is unto men a trea- sure that never faileth." *Tor wisdom is a breath of the power of God, and a pure effluence flowing from the glory of the Almighty. She is the reflection of the everlasting light, the unspotted mirror of the power of God and the image of his goodness. And in all ages, entering into holy souls, she maketh them friends of God, and prophets.'' Wisdom hath huilded her house, She hath hewn out her seven pillars; She hath mingled her wine; She hath also furnished her table. She hath sent forth her maidens; she crieth Upon the highest places of the city, 'Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither'' ; As for him that is void of understanding, she saith to him, ''Come, eat ye of my bread. And drink of the wine which I have mingled. And walk in the way of understanding, ''Blessed is the man that heareth me, Watching daily at my gates. Waiting at the posts of my doors; For whoso findeth me findeth life. And shall obtain favor of the Lord.'' ^ Edgar Odell Lovett. 1 These several passages, from the Book of Proverbs and the Book of Wis- dom, in slightlv abbreviated form have been distributed m the carving on the caps of the columns which support the arches in the cloisters of the North W^ing of the first Residential Hall for men. THE RICE INSTITUTE BOOK OF THE OPENING '.>, ■ 1 The One Hundredth Psalm i ^ /^ iS -<5 ^ — « -« -6 -6 d 1. All 2. Know peo - pie that on that the Lord is earth do dwell, Sing God in - deed; With - ^^ &. V T fe 5^ 5? g i 3 i ^'^ j j il jj r~? ? ^ /^ f a ^^ to the Lord with cheer-ful voice: Him serve with mirth, His out our aid He did us make: We are His flock, He ^ praise_ forth-teU, Come ye be - fore Him_ and re - joice. doth— us feed, And for His sheep He_ doth us take. E I 9- 6h & i 9- f ^ \J o 3. enter then His gates with praise, Approach with joy His courts unto: Praise, laud and bless His name always, For it is seemly so to do. 4. For why? the Lord our God is good, His mercy is forever sur»; His truth at all times firmly stood. And shall from age to age endure. [220] ^ I BENEDICTION Rev. Charles Frederic Aked: Thou who art the Giver of every good and perfect gift, who dost inspire every lofty thought, from whom all skill and science flow. Thou who hast been our help in ages past, who art our hope for years to come, crown, we beseech Thee, the labors of Thy ser- vants with Thy richest blessing. May the love of the Eter- nal Father, the grace of the Lord Jesus, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, abide with us and with our loved ones and with all good men and women everywhere forevermore! iVmen. [221] LUNCHEON AT THE INSTITUTE COMMONS -CONGRATULATORY GREETINGS President Lovett: Ladies and Gentlemen— Tht trus- tees of the Rice Institute honored themselves and the new university by addressing to the universities and learned so- cieties of the world invitations to participate in this our first academic festival. Many of these institutions are repre- sented here to-day in the person of their president, profes- sors, or distinguished alumni. Hundreds of others have sent us cordial addresses of congratulation, and in addition to these formal messages many telegrams and cablegrams have been received this morning. In number and signifi- cance these responses have far exceeded our best expecta- tions of courtesy and good will. To receive all these communications with proper ceremonies it would be literally necessary for this academic assembly to sit for at least an- other three days. In the midst of such an embarrassment of riches we have been obliged to restrict this part of our program to a few responses from representatives of the rep- resentatives. Accordingly, we have asked one of our distin- guished guests from abroad to speak for the foreign and American learned societies that have sent us greetings on this occasion, and another eminent guest from Europe to speak for the foreign universities, and for the universities of Amer- ica we shall call upon a delegate from one of the oldest en- dowed institutions of the East, the representative of one of the earliest State universities in the South, the president of one of the newer endowed universities of the North, and the president of one of the younger State universities of the West. [222] To The Pr^^i^^nr ':\ni\ ! 01 T H ] ill HE t>F Til" BRn .-'l Send Cortii. of the nex U good w>' h- - III '"lie g jininniiinii" .. ^. .A - ^ !(l X Mi —CO r\w []v*=;titi^tf: commons Th^ tee un; seir f^men— The trus- and the new . a ad learned so- this our first .jas arc rep re- nt, profes- hers have « .nd in addition • ablegrams vc b recci tins nioi ^nd signifi- ri* >^?:e "^^vf f'^r rxcff*c]f^(^, niir h<*sf expecta- tions ot ci^'uftesy ana good Wiil. vCivc all these commonlcntions with Droper ceremonies it would be literally necessary tor tti adeniic assembly to si" ^ r at least an- other thf' In the m )f such an embarrassment of riches we 1 * "- "^-ligedto r*-^*-* t 'his pare of our few ^e^ > from representatives of the rep- . ...Iced one of our dlstin- )reign and us ereetin^s on this urope to speak diversities of Amer- t lUL, coldest en- ntative of one of ,. he president of ■ e North, and the tate universities of the pre K ncT ». an ]{ ■- .. asiu- tor the ' do- • ' the e.. ... one of the r president o West. To The President and Trustees OF THE RICE INSTITUTE of Liberal and Technical Learning THE PRESIDENT, COINCIL AND GENERAL BODY OF FELLOW'S OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY SenJ Corduil Greetings o>i the occasion of the formal Opening of the nezL- University ^fm\)t Brtnsl) TitmXXW in the spirit of true fellowship desires to part.cpate m the ^ inaugxiral Celebration, and to joi,. with tho^e assemWed from far aad near m heart.r.t good wi.hes for the suecessful carrying out of the exalted .deals which prompted their large- hearted citizen, Wn.UAM Marsh R.ck, to endow and to dedicate to the Advancement ot Letters, Science and Art, the nobly equipped University Institute-a fitting Memonal ior generations to come of public-spirited munificence. The Council of the British Academy regret that, owing to the time of the. year, a representative of their Body is not able to naend the Celebration; but the Academys Congratulations un the present great .>ccasion are none the less sincere. May- the R.ce iNST.rcTE reaU/.e the highest hopes of us Founder and of all associated in the good work now to be inaugurated by the formal Opening of the new University! Sigfied, ^^,lCX<^a'Z.. 'i^ The BarnsH AcArewv, BlRLlNGION HcfSF, LoSnCN, PnsiJcn' 'if' il^' British .it;iJ,n:-. Kcrt-lary of the Britiih .L-iSiJ- %t**;i4., "-,*, I r' r BOOK OF THE OPENING On the part of foreign and American learned societies, Professor Sir William Ramsay, of the University of London. For the foreign universities. Professor Emile Borel, of the University of Paris. On behalf of the American institutions of the East, Dean William Francis Magie, of Princeton University. For the universities of the South, Professor William Holding Echols, of the University of Virginia. On behalf of the universities of the North, President Harry Pratt Judson, of the University of Chicago. For the American universities of the West, President Sidney Edward Mezes, of the University of Texas. I have great pleasure in calling on these gentlemen, who have very kindly consented to address you, according to the above program. Professor Sir William Ramsay: Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen-\Ye have witnessed within the last couple of days a birth, and there is one class of persons in this world which represents and is attendant upon births all over the world. This person is what is called in French the "sage- femme." She is represented here by the wise men who have joined in conveying congratulations to this University on the occasion of its birth. Personally I am the conveyor of congratulations from the University of London, from University College, London, and from the American Philosophical Society, and In the name of these three institutions I am here to wish a very long life and great prosperity to this newly born child. I have in my hand a number of cablegrams from learned societies In every part of the world. From Kief, Moscow, and St. Petersburg In Russia, from Berlin and Gottlngen in 1 w ■ 1 I i V I BOOK OF THE OPENING On the part of foreign and American learned societies, Professor Sir William Ramsay, of the University of London. For the foreign universities. Professor Emile Borel, ot the University of Paris. On behalf of the American institutions of the East, Dean William Francis Magic, of Princeton University. For the universities of the South, Professor William Holding Echols, of the University of Virginia. On behalf of the universities of the North, President Harry Pratt Judson, of the University of Chicago. For the American universities of the West, President Sidney Edward Mezes, of the University of Texas. I have great pleasure in calling on these gentlemen, who have very kindly consented to address you, according to the above program. Professor Sir William Ramsay: Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen-\Ye have witnessed within the last couple of days a birth, and there is one class of persons in this world which represents and is attendant upon births all over the world. This person is what is called in French the "sage- femme." She is represented here by the wise men who have joined in conveying congratulations to this University on the occasion of its birth. Personally I am the conveyor of congratulations from the University of London, from University College, London, and from the American Philosophical Society, and in the name of these three institutions I am here to wish a very long life and great prosperity to this newly born child. I have in my hand a number of cablegrams from learned societies in every part of the world. From Kief, Moscow, and St. Petersburg in Russia, from Berlin and Gottingen m [223] X f :l W If THE RICE INSTITUTE Germany, from Bucharest in Rumania, from Copenhagen in Denmark, from Christiania in Norway, from Stockholm in Sweden, from Lemberg in Poland, from Rome in Italy, and from many other points of the compass congratulatory telegraphic messages have been sent. Besides these tele- graphic good wishes which have been received this morning, there have been received from practically every literary and scientific center of the world formal addresses of felicitation and good will. And so I am here to say that the fame of this institution has been spread broadcast to the uttermost parts of the world, and I am here to convey in their names— the names of the institutions and colleges which I have mentioned— to this newly born institution, their most hearty congratula- tions and their wishes for a long and successful life. Professor Emile Borel: Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen — I have been commissioned to bring to the inau- guration of your great and beautiful Institute the best wishes of the University of Paris and those of the Ecole Polytech- nique. Besides the official messages of my mission, I desire to express to you also my warm personal appreciation of your cordial hospitality, which we can never forget, and also my great admiration for the university which you are found- ing. On my return to France I shall often recall the beautiful architecture of your Administration Building and the harmo- nious aspect of this large hall, with its decorations of flags. I am deeply touched to find, at so great a distance from our ancient Europe, a desire for work and for service animating your students altogether similar to the desire which animates ours in our faculties, in our schools. I am conscious here of the fraternity which unites men, in spite of the seas, in the same objects of research, of development, of progress. [2243 BOOK OF THE OPENING Your organization, so eminently practical, your plans of work, so thoroughly studied, give promise of brilliant re- sults. You have chosen some eminent professors. It is with complete confidence in the future that in the name of the University of Paris, in the name of the Ecole Polytechnique, and in my own name, I drink to your future success. Dean William F. Magie : Mr, President , Ladies and Gentlemen— It is with feelings of pride and pleasure that I appear before you to-day as the representative of the East- ern Universities of the United States. In their name I bring to President Lovett and to the trustees of the Rice Institute the cordial congratulations of these Institutions. They all join In welcoming to the number of the educational influ* ences by which science and art are to be advanced In our country, an Institution which takes Its place among them with such flattering prospects of a great future. Particularly, however, I appear to speak for Princeton University, In which President Lovett was for many years one of our most honored and best beloved colleagues. I shall not read the formal address with which I was fur- nished by the authorities of Princeton University, but I shall give expression In a more Informal way to that which I believe no other Institution can bring In so full a measure, the cordial and personal good wishes and congratulations of your president's Intimate friends. We all remember him with affection. We all felt the deepest regrets when he left us, and we now can only express to him our sincere good wishes for the greatest possible success In his new and dis- tinguished position. Our president, who signed the formal letter of congratula- tion, of course also sent his warmest personal congratula- tions. I shall not attempt to enumerate at this time those of 1:225] MMh . -ll ...^2.^ ■:hl..A:MikAimM.''ijUil-^ r i h. THE RICE INSTITUTE President Lovett's Princeton friends who wished to be per- sonally and by name joined with our president in these con- gratulations, but I am sure that you will be pleased to hear that I bring to President Lovett and to the Rice Institute the congratulations of a woman who is known and honored throughout the land— Mrs. Grover Cleveland. I would like to say just a word or two besides these words of congratulation, and explain why I wish to congratulate so particularly your president and your institution. I will first say a word on the subject which has just been referred to in the eloquent address of the representative of the University of Paris, when he spoke about the beautiful architecture of the buildings which are going up on this great campus. I feel that on this occasion it would not be right if we did not give full and hearty recognition— and I am glad to say that this has already been done in better words than I could possibly use— to the wonderful artistic success which has been attained already, and which you can, I think, expect to be attained in the future development of the insti- tution under the guidance of your supervising architect, Mr. Cram. I had the peculiar pleasure of going about with him while he inspected the buildings. He saw them in their completed form for the first time, and I never appreciated so well as I now do, after seeing his delight in his own achievements, what is meant by the words, "And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good.'' I congratulate you most heartily on having Mr. Cram as the supervising architect of this Institute. Then again, in line with what was presented in the speech of the Bishop of Tennessee and in the address of your presi- dent, I congratulate you upon the declared devotion of this Institute to science, literature, and art, in their pure form, as preliminary to the development of the technical sciences [226] BOOK OF THE OPENING and arts which contribute so much to the comfort and plea- sure of the world. I do not feel that, after what was said this morning, I need repeat the reasons why pure science is par- ticularly important in an institution which is to be devoted partly to the solution of technical problems. All the great inventions grew out of scientific discoveries. I could give you example after example, and every other scientific man here could do the same, but I cannot stop for it. The pure sciences furnish the ideas which are developed in practice. They give the student the necessary theoretical foundation for his practice and make it possible for him to be more than a mere drudge in the technical applications of the sciences. Chesterton says, somewhere, that if a machine stops because a nut comes off, or a tire is punctured, an ordinary mechanic can put it in order; but if some real trouble happens and the machine really breaks down, it is far more likely that it will be put in order again, not by a mechanic, but by some white- haired professor who seems to have very little practical knowledge, but who has been trained by his theoretical studies to get to the bottom of the trouble and so to remedy it. Besides all this, the study of pure science stimulates research, and it is to scientific research that we owe the most striking development of the modern mind, and it is to re- search carried on by men trained in such institutions as this that we are to look for the advancement of knowledge in the future. I congratulate this institution that, in spite of the temptation to found and develop a purely technical school, the other course has been taken and an institution has been established in which the technical arts and sciences will spring, as they ought to do, from a thorough foundation in theory; and I again extend to the president our congratu- lations on the purposes and noble aims of this Institute, and our best wishes that these will develop into full fruition. 1:227] r 1 THE RICE INSTITUTE Professor William Holding Echols: The Trustees of Rice Institute, Mr. President, my Colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen present— It is somewhat fitting that he who brings Virginia's greetings to you should be a Southerner, and, as it happens, in a sense a Texan, since he was born in San Antonio. I bear a message from the oldest Southern State to the youngest and most powerful of these States. In old Virginia on the east, in younger Texas on the west, and in all that land which lies between them without a break, live the most homogeneous people of one blood in all these United States. It is somewhat difficult at times for others to understand why we Southern people love so intensely the soil into which our blood has gone and out of which our blood has come, the deep affection and the swift understanding which we have in one another, the mutual dependence and trust with which we lean upon each other. For forty years the energy of the South has been absorbed in striving to satisfy the craving of the primitive belly-need of a wrecked people. During that period there was scant time among her sons for what is called education, there were small means for them for what is called culture. Let there be no mistake when one says the South is un- educated, lest by that one means the South is ignorant. This Southern generation knows that it has been hewing wood, drawing water; that it has made its bricks without the straw, but steadfastly, quietly reconstructing, rehabilitating ah initio. The South knows, and she has known it all along, that her people are coming into their own inheritance again. A sus- picion of this is even now felt beyond her borders. [2283 J BOOK OF THE OPENING The South has now passed through those dark days of feeding mouths and clothing bodies after devastation. She has not time, even as yet, for the gentler things of literature, music, and art. But she has come to the day when no longer shall she bear the transit, run the level, and drag the chain of an alien industry in the exploitation of her own resources. It is of intensely human interest to reflect that, in one generation after the bitterest and most fratricidal war the world has known, much of the means for the highest re- habilitation of her people has come from the personal kind- liness and friendly generosity of a one-time foe. Your splendid endowment has come from one Initially across the line. Also to Virginia has come from a similar source, for a similar purpose, more than a million of dollars; and so it was with Vanderbilt University, the Peabody funds, and many others. He who writes the history of this people cannot ignore these deep-rooting influences. Here to Texas, the youngest of these States, has come this golden opportunity, this great responsibility and sacred trust. It is within your power to respond to the great and crying need of a people near and dear to you. Yours is the exalted privilege and sacred duty to breed for that people leaders of men, leaders of industry, and leaders of thought; men trained to depend upon the solidity of scientific truth, with minds so philosophically trained that they may organize the present and with far-reaching insight design the future; men so prepared that they may enter the lists to claim and hold for the South her people's share in their birthright of her natural resources. The South is potentially the richest part of the United States, and we are the legitimate heirs of her treasures. ^ It is only through the minds of men splendidly trained in technology and the laboratory, transmitting energy for the [229: (f % r' jgnij (i ei ae? KiS ifC f 2i* ,-/'-^" 5 f^ ,Ti Se 'fir S isur Fa^iiti ■ i Herm ivip'3 jn ■ j^-jy iy^::(trV,i»''" » : MJ M M i I ^n I > I ' I t I II Whn!- d. pre TITUTE Vf-^^ k he >kcd, How much avibli and hese lew davs iOdlAO :i>;-vca, What nd it : ??^}^t. spirit that i ' • ">a this institution, so splea- -reat benefit luriiiiiunity. fo the time luri' ell time the heads of •" -hips the i'ous rival, it was 1 that nothing ew uni •>• could havi^ happened for the Tctf-v ii-le^ -^^d tt^ h^nefit^ to educanon. ^mi nine the other city and :>[ate insucuuons have gone (nrrv^rc] 'd bound?, in students, in prestige, and in usefuiness. irecisciy inL a.u;. ut^ will best of asset the colleges and uni- ^ ' • '■ :'v"r sec- netter than t W anu Uisiicu . '.CSS h'^ ing rnos 'iO T > aii di rec IV'fr Prp-^idrnt. on the snlen- liStiUiCion start'> m ad been taught, .^cher is ne of science, unless he n^-«->' ,.d is press- \nd we rejoice that , J resources to V- %jm.- 'tiBBB'™>''''."S* Kaiter-XOilhclm-ecTeUtdiaft zur ¥6rderung dcr lOittcntchaftcn. Berlin niO 7. den 4, Sep te,fiter\9\2 KbnlglldJt Btbllothek. Tcliphon . Rmt 2rntrjni Hr. 11542. J^urer Uagnifizenz spr^che ich jVa,nens aer Kiiser-^il^oLn-'OeBclUor.iJt /v- die freur cliche Sinlidur.g zur TcilniKne 2-. der ^^r^ojf- nungsfeier des R i c c J n s t i t u t s aV.a jer- bindJic.sie: Dink lus , J^u ihrem Bediuem ist jeaocn aie Gesellscni^t nicr.t in dcr Lare, zu cen Fes.li c^-^ci :.r., denen sie einen frohen una gidnzenaen Verl.uJ ^c^insc.t, einen 7er:,reter zu entsenaen. Se in e r I'l on ifi zerz dem Prdsidenten aes Rice Jnstitucs Herrn Sdgir Ode 11 Lovett in H y s t n. Prdsider.t der Kii ser^Jilhelm-ucsel Iscmft i^ur Fdrderung aer fissensch^' ten. '._ *- - ,■ 'rfv-. I . f '11 1> J^^':,^l£-^JL^^Lt»^.i>JL^1)aL^^-:'*'-jr--^ i ,» >s Pi I' BOOK OF THE OPENING research in scientific knowledge. The learned chief justice this morning told of some of the things which science has done in our day. There are few things more fascinating. The world has a very great deal to thank science for. For example, take medicine alone. Just think of the communi- ties which a very few years ago were terror-stricken and harassed by epidemics of various malignant diseases. To- day such epidemics are practically unknown. Only a few years ago malaria and yellow fever were ills to be dreaded. To-day, thanks to applied science in medicine, we have found adequate remedies for each of these scourges. Another cause for congratulation, Mr. President, wdl appear in what such an institution as yours is going to mean to the community in which it lives. Your great institution is going to be an evangelic light to your entire community, for it will be the means of advancing, among all people of all kinds, the scientific attitude toward life. The future of this university will depend not alone on your splendid and magnificent hospitality, not alone on these beautiful and majestic buildings, not alone on your large programs for study and research, but quite as much will the real fruitage of your institution depend on the men who work here. Its future will be made by the men who carry on in these halls the researches of the scholar; by the men who will lead and guide the university to success; by the men, the professional men, who will go out of it— the lawyers, the engineers, the architects, and the plain, solid men of business who make our country; the men who will put into the life of the Repub- lic the knowledge and the training which they will derive from the results of your venture. On so auspicious a be- ginning and on so bright a prospect I congratulate you most warmly. 1:2333 i k THE RICE INSTITUTE President Sidney Edward Mezes: Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen— From the first announcement of William Marsh Rice's magnificent bequest we have looked forward with lively anticipation to this day. We have watched with growing interest the development of the trus- tees' plans; we rejoiced greatly when we learned that they were resolved to risk the charge of tardiness rather than build heedlessly; we especially rejoiced when we saw chosen to the office of president one of America's ablest and best trained scholars. In the new president we have found not merely an able and aspiring man, not merely a man of noble conceptions and prophetic visions, but a man so genial of heart, so true in his sympathies, so inspiringly hopeful, that he has carried light wherever he has gone, and conviction also that the in- stitution whose course he guides will bring an influence that deserves and will find a congenial home in Texas. In some States of the Union the several colleges and uni- versities have not dwelt together in the unity commended of the Psalmist. The colleges, for the most part on private foundations, have often distrusted one another and united in distrust of the State university. This distrust has given rise to conduct at times organized into sustained campaigns, intent on the purpose of mutual harm, and only too success- ful in attaining that unworthy end. Few pages in the edu- cational history of our country are so disheartening to high endeavor. But from such misguided enterprise Texas has most fortunately been unusually free. Across her broad expanses the winds of freedom and tolerance have swept, scattering the fogs of prejudice and self-seeking as from time to time they formed; and to-day, perhaps as nowhere in America, there prevails practically throughout our State a spirit of the fullest friendliness and co-operation among 1:2343 BOOK OF THE OPENING colleges and universities, endowed and State-sustained. That the new Rice Institute will strike a note of discord we have no fear. Why should we? Why should not a fresh worker be welcomed into the vineyard, when his aim is our own, with a slant of fortunate difference; when the field is white to the harvest, and the laborers are few? Seeing that barely one out of every ten high-school graduates takes any higher edu- cation whatever; that in Texas only one out of twenty of our boys and girls goes to college, whereas in California, for example, the proportion is one in eight; how can we do otherwise than rejoice at the founding of a new agency to help alter these distressing figures? Facing together some of the most vital problems before State and Nation, shall we not be glad that the new institution is now among us, blessed with the means to render great service? And now. President Lovett and members of the Board of Trustees, we welcome the Rice Institute into the brother- hood of Texas colleges and universities; we welcome you formally and with all our hearts. You will play a splendid part in the upbuilding of Texas; you will help train our youth; you will cherish learning; you will foster research; your achievements and example will stir us to renewed en- deavor. In the noble setting of spacious grounds; with buildings planned by a great artist; with a faculty chosen from all the world; with the stimulus of a rapidly growing city about you, to all human seeing the future holds for you a glorious destiny. One and all we unite to say: Esto perpetual President Lovett: Ladies and Gentlemen— ¥or the trustees and faculty of the Rice Institute I thank most sin- cerely these gentlemen and all the institutions they represent for their cordial greetings and for the warm welcome with 1:2353 >'»i!yyi»ifc->"*'*''*''? Lli? * ''' ' "* ' f i ?! ?'-* * * ' **^ ^ THE RICE INSTITUTE which they receive us into their fellowship and that of the world of learning. I can find no words in which adequately to say to them what their presence means to us at this time. In return for their great kindness we can only offer them the place in our history which they have made for themselves. And most cordially do we invite them one and all to come back. For their coming we thank God, and from their mes- sages we take courage. RELIGIOUS SERVICES SUNDAY OCTOBER THIRTEEN CITY AUDITORIUxM I II n236n Hymn-O God, our help in ages past ;. Voices in harmony ^ ^^ ff -fj- CM. Dr. Croft /^ Sir Arthur S. Sullivan, Mus. Doc. ( IZ :g :g -^ I -O- TT 1. God, our help in a - ges past, Our hope for years to come, S p «^ 21 i TZ. O T ^^ /^ ? * ^ T E z: ^ te 's:/ !Z i9- SC fi: ■^ir /^ ^3 Our shel-ier from the storm-y blast And our e - ter-nal home. ^3 2. Under the shadow of Thy throne Thy saints have dwelt secure; Sufficient is Thine arm alone, And our defense is sure. 3. Before the hills in order stood, Or earth received her frame, From everlasting Thou art God, To endless years the same. 4. A thousand ages in Thy sight Are like an evening gone; Short as the watch that ends the night Before the rising sun. 5. Time, like an everrolling stream, Bears all its sons away; They fly, forgotten as a dream Dies at the opening day. 6. O God, our help in ages past. Our hope for years to come, Be Thou our guide while life shall last. And our eternal home. 1:239] II m Lfff***"»S«Suife?!!|u! THE RICE INSTITUTE INVOCATION President Edgar Odell Lovett Almighty and most merciful Father, we have erred, and strayed from Thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against Thy holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; And we have done those things which we ought not to have done; And there is no health in us. But Thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders. Spare Thou those, O God, who confess their faults. Restore Thou those who are peni- tent; According to Thy promises declared unto mankind in Christ Jesus our Lord. And grant, O most merciful Father, for His sake, That we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life. To the glory of Thy holy Name. Our Father, who art in heaven. Hallowed be Thy Name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth. As it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses. As we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation; But deliver us from evil; For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen. BOOK OF THE OPENING Hymn-O God of Bethel CM. Sir John Stainer Mus. Doc. ^ t E ^ ttS ^— z 2: f \ ?l \^i 10 God of Bethel, byWhose hand Thy peo-ple still are fedj ^S 42- E G—Q- 9- P rr ZtZZ -a o o o o I Who thro' this wea-ry pil-grim - age Hast all our fathers led. Amen g m ]£ I^ SI 2. Our vows, our prayers, we now present Before Thy throne of grace: God of our fathers, be the God Of their succeeding race. 3. Through each perplexing path of life Our wandering footsteps guide; Give us each day our daily bread. And raiment fit provide. 4. Oh, spread Thy sheltering wings around, Till all our wanderings cease. And at our Father's loved abode Our souls arrive in peace! 5. Such blessings from Thy gracious hand Our humble prayers implore; AndThou shalt be our chosen God, And portion evermore. < H P. Doddridge, 1736 C2403 1:2413 THE RICE INSTITUTE SCRIPTURE READING AND PRAYER Dr. Henry van Dyke 1. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. 2. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and under- stand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. 3. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not char- ity, it profiteth me nothing. 4. Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, 5. Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil ; 6. Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; 7. Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. 8. Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophe- cies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. 9. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. 10. But w^hen that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. 11. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. [2423 BOOK OF THE OPENING 12. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. 13. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity. / Corinthians^ xiii. Great Lord of Life! Creator of all things seen and un- seen! We rise up with an awful joy to worship Thee in spirit and in truth. Cast down our earthly pride; shame from Thy presence our sinful cares and low desires; breathe with Thy blest spirit on the sacred fires of our hearts; and may we stand before Thee face to face, as heirs of glorious hopes and sons of the holy God. While our fathers serve Thee in other worlds of Thy love, amid spirits of more heavenly race, we would seek Thee with a lowly faith, and trust our lot and times to Thee. Thou art too near for our eye to see Thee, too far for our outstretched mind to reach; yet is Thy presence ever in the midst; and along the path- way of our life, and the wanderings of our hearts, and the transit of our days, we are alone unchangeably with Thee. Almighty God, whose kingdom is everlasting and power infinite; Have mercy upon this whole land; and so rule the hearts of Thy servants the President of the United States, the Governor of this State, the Mayor of this City, and all others in authority, that they, knowing whose ministers they are, may above all things seek Thy honor and glory; and that we and all the people, duly considering whose authority they bear, may faithfully and obediently honor them, in Thee and for Thee, according to Thy blessed Word and ordinance; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with Thee and the Holy Ghost liveth and reigneth ever, one God, world without end. [2433 \ ( »i ' V. ..r»..^^ita..jm.*mt.mmJmt..r^ tr'te'.tt tt^ jm- 1 ■ fW'-. > m iir* IT -"1. ''^I'll' idl> tfH ti> Mf AUlaJiM jll.JE-A«Cai^ ■ Ml THE RICE INSTITUTE O Thou Lord of all, who didst send Thy Word to speak in the prophets and live in Thy Son; and appoint Thy Church to be witness of divine things in all the world; revive the purity and deepen the power of its testimony; and through the din of earthly interests and the storm of human passions, let it make the still, small voice of Thy Spirit keenly felt. Nearer and nearer may Thy kingdom come from age to age; meeting the face of the young as a rising dawn, and brightening the song of the old, ''Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace." Already let its light abash our guilty negligence, and touch with hope each secret sorrow of the earth. By the cleansing spirit of Thy Son, make this world a fitting forecourt to that sanctuary not made with hands, where our life is hid with Christ in God. O Father of light, and Source of knowledge, who canst be taught of none, and whose inspiration hath giv^en us un- derstanding! O Thou who art love and dwellest in love! teach us to be followers of Thee as Thy dear children. We praise Thee for all thy wonderful works to the sons and daughters of men. The work of our hands, establish Thou it upon us, we pray Thee. Thy rich and abiding blessings grant to the new university of liberal and technical learning whose interests have assembled us in this service of praise and thanksgiving. We praise Thee for the founder's great gift to the people. We praise Thee for the great work his trustees have inaugurated. Give wisdom and sound judg- ment to the president and all those associated with him in shaping the policy and directing the destiny of this univer- sity. May constantly increasing streams of men go forth from these halls of learning, trained in the highest degree, equipped in the largest sense for positions of trust in the public service, for posts of leadership in the world's affairs. [244] BOOK OF THE OPENING May all who pursue letters and science and art at the Rice Institute, by these disciplines as allies of religion, be led to Thee who art the highest and yet the nearest, the holiest and yet the One who loves us best. Almighty God, who hast given us grace at this time with one accord to make our common supplications unto Thee; and dost promise that when two or three are gathered to- gether in Thy Name thou wilt grant their requests; Fulfil now, O Lord, the desire and petition of Thy servants, as may be most expedient for them; granting us in this world knowledge of Thy truth, and in the world to come life ever- lasting. Amen. \ itl 1:2451 THE RICE INSTITUTE BOOK OF THE OPENING Hymn-A Mig-hty Fortress is our God Martin Liithe: JAmieht-y fort-jess is our God, A sure de - fenc fHehefpsus free from ev-'ry need Which hath us now nd o^er- Deep guile and great might Are his dread arms in fight,- On 2 In our own strength can naught be done_ 3.And were the world with devils fiUed, Our loss were soon effected^ There fights for us the Proper One, By God himself elected. Ask you who frees us? It is Christ Jesus - The Lord Sabaoth, There is no other God; He'll hold the field of battle. All waiting to devour us; We'll still succeed, so God hath willed,. They cannot overpower us: The Prince of this world To hell shall be hurled; He seeks to alarm, But shall do us no harm; The smallest word can fell Him. 4. The Word they still must let remain, And for that have no merit; For He is with us on the plain, By His good gifts and Spirit: Destroy they our life, Goods, fame, child and wife? Let all pass amain. They still no conquest gain, For ours is still the kingdom. [246:] Martin Ltither 1529 Tr. Joel Swartz 187 9 SERMON Rev. Charles Frederic Aked WAITING FOR THE SONS OF GOD "For the earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for the revealing of the sons of God." — Romans viii, ig, "For all creation, gazing eagerly as if with outstretched neck, Is waiting and longing to see the manifestation of the sons of God."— Nfzt' Tes- tament in Modern Speech. THIS morning we will make no attempt to reach the height of Paul's great argument. We will content ourselves with immediate, practical applications of his pro- found thought. His view, in a sentence, is that all animate and inanimate creation protests against the suffering which has been imposed upon it; that the universal longing for a better state and a better time is a prophecy of distant glory; that these sufferings are but as the birth-pangs of new and gladder worlds; that the universe was made subject to change, in hope that no evil thing may endure, that even Winter may change to Spring, and that love may conquer at the last. And the essential condition of the realization of this hope is the appearance of the sons of God— the appear- ance, that is to say, of good men and women. For this the creation, gazing eagerly as if with outstretched neck, waits and longs. The good time coming— which is always coming but never come— will be here: the prophecies will be accom- plished fact; the radiant dreams of poets will be the plain prose of life; the creation itself will be delivered from the bondage of corruption— in proportion as the race produces men and women who are manifestly the children of God. What hinders the coming of God's kingdom amongst men? How hold we the heaven from earth away? What wait we for? We are waiting for more men and women heroic and 1:2473 ( ( i THE RICE INSTITUTE holy, generous and good. We are waiting for the sons of God. This is the energy of all moral effort— a steady supply of good men and good women. This is the steam which makes the engine move. This is the stored up potency of electricity which lights up a city or drives the vast machinery of mod- ern life. Do great men produce great ages? Or do great ages produce great men? These are questions which our Literary and Debating Societies have been arguing for a hundred years. Emerson would tell you that an institution is only the lengthened shadow of a man: Protestantism, of Martin Luther; Quakerism, of George Fox; Abolitionism, of Thomas Clarkson; Methodism, of John Wesley. All history resolves itself quite easily into the life stories of a few stout and earnest persons. To-day we give God thanks for the Rice Institute of Lib- eral and Technical Learning. We praise the Giver of all good for the bright hopes which have gathered about these Dedication hours. We rejoice in the public spirit of the man whose name it bears, in his broad and generous views, his insight into our common needs, his prevision of the dawning greatness of this State, his love of the fair Southland. We bless God for the inspiration of a great and splendid pur- pose in the soul of the founder of this University; not less do we praise Him for the men who have given themselves w^ith patient, self-denying, patriotic toil to the achievement of that purpose. Some have passed into the Unseen: some are with us to-day. One sows: another reaps: God be praised. Sower and Reaper rejoice together 1 In the Rice Institute of Liberal and Technical Learning the seeing eye perceives an incarnation of constructive en- ergy. From its halls and laboratories shall go forth men and women who are men and women indeed, trained, [248] BOOK OF THE OPENING equipped, fearless, aspiring, self-reliant, faithful to con- science and to God — the men and women for whom creation waits ! Producing such streams of redemptive, life-giving power, the Rice Institute shall make for the worth and wealth, the health and happiness, of this old world. And happiness is a moral asset, never doubt it. Diffused amongst the masses of the people, it is an asset of incalculable value in the life of a nation. It is hungry men who make revolu- tions. It is what a British journalist has called "a mighty mob of famished, diseased, and miserable Helots" who men- ace the security of life and property in the midst of a wealthy civilization. Happy men and women are under no tempta- tion to become anarchists. A honeymooning couple are in no mood to throw dynamite bombs at the palaces of the rich. Education, all the world over, in all the worlds there are and in all ages, is emancipation. It manumits and It edifies. First it frees the slave; then It builds the man. Capacity and culture — skill for the hand and sight for the soul — to open to the Individual, man or woman, a means of living and the meaning of life — why, this Is patriotism not less noble and ennobling than that of the heroic men whose praises our Laureate hymned yesterday, who saw the niany-miUion-acred land, Won from the desert by their hand, Swiftly among the nations rise, — Texas a sovereign State, And on her brow a star! It is poverty, stupidity, ignorance, which do the devIPs work. The world is cursed by ignorance and darkness. It will be blessed by knowledge and light. "Let there be light!"— it is the creative fiat. It thunders down the ages from the [249] / • I *f THE RICE INSTITUTE dawning of the first morning of the world. And Jesus said, "Give them to eatl'' When with prayer and praise and in communion with the Highest we dedicate this institution to the advancement of Letters, Science, and Art, we dedicate it to the making of men and the making of nations. We dedicate it to America I It is our contribution to the stability of the social order, to the permanence of American institutions, to the propagation of the principles for which America stands in our modern world, to the perpetuation of the forces which called her Into being and by which she lives. This is our gift to the great- ness of our land. For the forms of democracy are precisely those through which corruption most easily works if the spirit of democ- racy be lacking. What forces inhere in law and constitution and in the administration of law which may not be blown to the four winds of heaven upon the breath of some dema- gogue, drunk with the lust of place and power, most igno- rant of what he 's most assured of, and like an angry ape playing such fantastic tricks before high heaven as make angels weep ? This country was brought to birth under com- pulsion of the ideal. Heroes who poured their blood out for the truth, women whose hearts bled, martyrs all unknown, gave birth to our country and to its liberties. Its greatness goes back to the visionary and the seer; to the Jesuit mis- sionary marching from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, to the Pilgrim and the Puritan of New England, the Lutherans of Pennsylvania, the Moravian missionaries of Ohio, and all the countless hosts of the obscure, the silent, and the dead who, living, believed in God and His goodness, and followed the gleam. What is to preserve in our modern life this an- cient vigor of the spirit? What is to keep the soul of the nation alive? 1:2503 BOOK OF THE OPENING On what grounds do you believe that this Republic will endure? No republic has yet endured as monarchies have done. Fifty years ago some of the most thoughtful minds in Europe were satisfied that this democracy could not last. During the Civil War the Prince Consort, Queen Victoria's husband, said, with a sort of sardonic satisfaction, "Repub- lican institutions are on their trial.'' From that trial repub- lican institutions emerged triumphant. You believe that the noonday splendor of this land will outshine the golden glory of its dawn. Whittier declared that the sons and daughters of the Pioneer should Make the people^ s council hall As lasting as the pyramids. On what ground does this conviction rest? But on what grounds does your belief rest? Why should this Republic endure? On the side of a current controversy it is glibly asserted that in the last analysis a State rests on force. The oppo- nents of a popular movement go on repeating this dictum as though it were an oracle from heaven. A State rests on nothing of the kind. And force— by which is meant physical force— cannot keep a nation strong. Force could not save the Roman Republic. Rome possessed the finest army that has ever existed on the face of the earth. As a fighting ma- chine it had attained unto perfection. And the Roman Re- public failed. To-day Sir Edward Grey, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in King George's cabinet, has warned the British Parliament and the British people that if the insane rivalry of the nations in the matter of military and naval strength be continued, sooner or later it will submerge civilization itself. THE RICE INSTITUTE The State does not rest on force. It rests upon confi- dence—a vastly different thing. The basis of our modern society is confidence in one another. You who know a thou- sand times more about it than a preacher possibly can, let your imagination play for a moment about the vast, far- reaching, apparently illimitable ramifications of commerce made possible between man and man. How much business did you do last year, and how much are you hoping to do next, upon guarantees not very much stronger than the word of a man of whom you know little, and the honor of corpo- rations the individual members of which you do not know at all? The State rests upon confidence in the social order; upon our common trust in justice and in the administration of justice, in law and the sanctity of law. And if the objector says, **Yes; upon the knowledge that force can be used to secure the due observance of law," the answer is easy: "You have not carried your analysis far enough." Our confidence is not grounded in the conviction that the State can control and direct physical force, but in the conviction that the force of the State will in the long run be controlled and directed by wise and good ends. That is to say, the strength of states is in the fundamental rightness of our human nature and our undefined belief that the mass of mankind would rather do right than wrong. The material wealth of cities, the in- tegrity of states, the happiness of kingdoms, the greatness of a republic, alike go back to this, to the number of good men and women they can produce. All creation— all crea- tion we know, Houston, Texas, the South, America, our modern civilization— gazing eagerly as if with outstretched neck, IS waiting and longing to see the manifestation of the sons of God. We have felt the lack of this driving power in the machin- ery of our social and political life. We have missed the note [252] BOOK OF THE OPENING of moral enthusiasm. The touch of a high spirit upon hu- man affairs has been wanting. We seek the compulsion of commanding genius and character. Such a voice as that which once from Gettysburg, all fragrant with the memo- ries of a nation's dead, shook the civilized world, is heard no more. Our big men are not big enough. Our leaders are too far in the rear of those they lead! We are ready to cry out again with the poet— prophet of two democracies : O for an hour of that undaunted stock That went with Vane and Sydney to the block! O for a whiff of Naseby, that would sweep, With its stern Puritan besom, all this chaff From the Lord^s threshing-floor! For our conviction is that deep down in the hearts of the people there is a capacity for being led; that the people who are being led wrong could be led right; that however corrupt interests deceive, fool, and use the people, there is still that in a nation which might be called the soul of a people; and a soul which would wake at the call of a son of God. Men are there, but Man is missing. And like our wild-eyed Hosea Biglow, with his tongue of truth and heart of flame, we feel- M ore men f More man? It ^s there we fail; Weak plans grow weaker yit by lengthening' Wut use in addin' to the tail, When it *s the head '5 in need 0' strength' nin'f We wanted one that felt all Chief From roots of hair to sole of stocking Square sot zvith thousan'-ton belief In him and us, ef earth went rockin' ! 1:2533 THE RICE INSTITUTE We are waiting for this Man, with the thousand-ton belief in himself and in us, in Righteousness and God, who will give expression in consecrated and consecrating action to the social aspirations of a million hearts. We are waiting, in the high places of the land, for the sons of God. That is not all. Let us come to something even nearer to hand. Upon the work of this institution and of institutions like this depends entirely the question whether our amazing material resources, our ingenuity, our inventiveness, our sci- ence and skill, shall prove a blessing or a curse. A person or a community may find the disadvantage of possessing so many advantages. We may be ruined by our prosperity. We glory in the best equipment which skill and science can devise; but there is not one thoughtful person here who has not known individuals who would have been better equipped for their work if they had not been equipped so well I One is haunted by the fear that in our day and country we are not producing results commensurate with our efforts. In pro- portion to the extraordinary increase of our resources, are we doing the good in the world we ought to do? In the w^orld of art and science are we, with all our wealth of train- ing and equipment, doing relatively greater work and better work than, let us say, George Stephenson, the inventor of the locomotive, when he taught himself arithmetic on the sides of colliery wagons, or Wilkie when he learned painting with a piece of chalk and a barn door, or West when he made his first brushes out of the cat's tail; than Watt, the inventor of the steam-engine, when he made his first model out of an old syringe; Humphry Davy, of safety-lamp fame, when he extemporized his scientific appliances from kitchen pots and pans; and Faraday, described by Sir Wil- liam Ramsay last Friday as one of the most brilliant physi- cists and most daring experimenters of the nineteenth cen- [254] BOOK OF THE OPENING tury, when he made his from glass bottles; or better work and greater than when Elihu Burritt mastered eighteen an- cient and modern languages while shoeing horses at the vil- lage forge? We are doing better and greater work, you are confident. And you name Mr. Edison and Signor Marconi. But, rela- tively to the wealth of our resources, is the result all it should be? In the world of moral effort are you quite so confident? Stephen, the first Christian martyr, John Ruskin reminds us, did not get bishop's pay for that long sermon of his to the Pharisees. He only got stones. And Paul had no cathedral called by his name from which to preach his Gospel to the Roman world. When Augustine and his monks landed at Ebbsfleet and met the English king between that place and Canterbury, and declared the good news of Jesus to him, there was no missionary society and missionary press behind him. When the famous few met in a house at Kettering to win heathenism for Christ, the first collection was sixty-six dollars. Do you not think that we ought to do vastly more with our wealth and numbers than men did who were few and poor? Yet are we in the way of accomplishing more for the age we live in and for ages to come than Stephen did for the Jewish world, Paul for the Roman world, Augustine and his monks for the English world, and Fuller Pearce and Ryland for the world of the distant East? We are not gaining all we ought to gain from the re- sources that are ours. Why? We leave the work to the machinery, when we ought to do it ourselves. This nation has developed a capacity for organization which is as un- mistakably an inspiration of genius as the sculpture of Phei- dias or the philosophy of Plato. The art of the Greek, the law of the Roman, the Hebrew passion for righteousness, ^« rr'^'^'^T^ THE RICE INSTITUTE the genius of the English for colonization, is not more char- acteristic nor more significant in the evolution of the race than the genius of the American people for organization. But such high and notable qualities have their natural de- fects. In this country we first make the machine, and then we bow down and worship it. We kneel and say our prayer to it: ^^Almighty and everlasting Machine, we beseech thee to roll over us, crush down our insurgent will, and grind down our souls to a pale unanimity!" But neither an indi- vidual nor a nation can be better than the gods it worships. If we first make our gods and then worship them, we end by becoming like them. We worship the machine— and we be- come machines ! We have lived to see the apotheosis of the filing cabinet. When Gambetta was praised by a friend for what was perhaps the greatest speech of his life he said, "For seven years I have wanted to make that speech. I have had it here (the heart), but I have not had it here (the head) 1'' With us, he would only have had to look under A B C, or perhaps under X Y Z, and he would have found it all in the card index! Our religious work is hag-ridden by this superstition of the machine. The worst speech I have heard in more than five years of residence in this country— always excepting my own, but those I forget— was on "The Standardized Church." Every Church was to be raised up and leveled down and sawn off lengthwise and chopped across and planed superficially to a standard which existed in the ma- chine-made mind of the standardizes Somewhere in the broad heavens, he seemed to think, there is an everlasting stencil, and with every sweep of the cosmic brush a million souls are produced, all made to measure! The gifted or- ganizer wears himself to a shadow in his determination to standardize the world; and one prays for him the cure which BOOK OF THE OPENING William III, king of England, desired for the victim of a contemporary superstition. He was the last king of Eng- land who practised what was known as "touching for the king's evil." When kings ruled by divine right— what Byron called "the right divine of kings to govern wrong"— it was believed that the touch of one of them would cure a certain disease. They brought a sick man to bluff William; he laid his hand on the sick man's head and said, "May the Lord give you better health and more sense !" But we go on dis- cussing methods— methods— methods!— methods of Sun- day-school work, of Church work, of Missionary work — the underlying assumption being that there is one correct, com- plete, absolute, and universal method, and if only we could find it the work would get done of itself! I sat in a Mis- sionary Conference where godly old women of both sexes discussed "methods." And a missionary just home from the Congo whispered to me, "I have been flat on my back while a naked savage about six feet six inches high, and as tall across, had his foot on my chest and his spear at my throat. What sort of a missionary method ought I to have used then?" To be sure! There are just as many methods as there are men and women. There are just as many good m.ethods as there are wise and good men and women. There are just as many bad methods as there are foolish and lazy men and women ! Henry Ward Beecher once went through a factory equipped with the most perfect machines produced in his day. He gazed on them with admiration, and after a long and lingering gaze he said, "They look intelligent; I think they ought to vote." One has heard something somewhere about the machine voting, but that is neither here nor there ! A machine may look intelligent, but "intelligent" is precisely the thing which it is not. All your machinery needs intelli- 1:257] ■I . 'M THE RICE INSTITUTE gent men and women to work it. Organization is a neces- sity; but there is danger even in a necessity. The danger is that we leave the organization to do what can be done only by a living spirit. It is the tendency of all human organiza- tions to stifle individuality. Let the organization follow its own tendency and it droops and dies. It is for the individual to assert himself within the organization and, if need be, against it. By so doing he serves its interest and saves its life. Force and Fire brought the organization to birth- Force of Will and Fire of Devotion. By Force and Fire alone can it be fed and nourished into vigorous life— Force of Character and Fire of Love. The organization is a mag- nificent piece of machinery. But no mechanical means at present known to mortals will generate energy to set it work- ing and keep it going. Human heart-beats must supply the driving power. The Apostle Paul is right: we are waiting for the sons of God. "The Rice Institute of Liberal and Technical Learning'' —is it so the name of our institution runs? "Liberal and Technical Learning" : what I have lately called "Skill of hand and sight of soul"— it is a superb challenge to brain and heart. It was expounded yesterday by the President in a speech entirely noble, the chaste language worthy of his lofty theme. I will not go over the ground again, and do badly what Dr. Lovett did so well. But let me set his con- ception, v/hich is my own, in the light of religion, and test it by its proved capacity to satisfy our human needs. In the world of moral effort we meet the Idealist whose sublime head strikes the stars— and who tramples human hearts beneath his feet. He lifts up his eyes above the mountains, and he does not know of any healing ministry for the devil-haunted child in the crowded street. The Corn- law rhymer in England more than sixty years ago described 1:258] BOOK OF THE OPENING a type of philanthropist with whom our generation is scarcely less familiar: Their noble souls have telescopic eyes Which see the faintest speck of distant pain; JVhile at their feet a world of agonies ^ Unseen^ unheard^ unheeded, writhes in pain. With better intentions and purer life, the Idealist may yet fritter away his strength in endeavor as futile. But in the world of moral effort we still meet more often the person who thinks himself practical and takes pride from his belief. He will not look to the far-off interest of tears; no, not he ! He is not going to sow the seed and wait for after ages to reap the harvest. He tells you that he wants results. He wants crops. He wants to get there, and to get there quickly. He is the get-rich-quick man of the world of altruism, philanthropy, and reform. If he is called to preside over the councils of a great nation, the best you can say of him is that he is an extempore statesman, a statesman trying to set the world right by rule of thumb, profoundly ignorant of the nature of the forces with which he is playing, and proudly indifferent to the age-long, world-wide consequences of his acts. This is the best you can say of him — If you are a patient and sweet-natured person; but if you are not — why, you say something worse. A man may mean well. But men and institutions and nations need to avoid the devil's short-cuts to a desired end. What then? The Idealist may be a failure and the prac- tical man a fool. What we want is the practical man who lives by the power of the ideal. Often he has to work al- most in the dark; slowly he gropes through the broadening dawn. But he sees the light and whence it flows. And he ijfcl: ^^f-i^iiJf^^,-mM»i'm^ fc a<.fci«;^t. '"Jl..rv,vr'i.'«,*J?'U r -* ^ *■ ;" : ! ■V - » ',:t fc_«K_,.Tx Tac iM.^.m..:s .■.!:.■!. X . S 91 .*:.*^J».,.«,:«»-.^«H»»--*» 3 >/ . z. THE INAUGURAL LECTURES ON THE FUNDAMENTAL SCIENCES, THE LIBERAL HUMANITIES, AND THE ADVANCEMENT OF MODERN LEARNING PAGE THE PROBLEM OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF HIS- TORY 265 THE THEORY OF CIVILIZATION 288 THE METHODS OF EXTENDING CIVILIZATION AMONG THE NATIONS 321 Three inaugural lectures by Professor Rafael Altamira y Crevea, late Professor of the History of Spanish Law in the University of Oviedo, Director of Elementary Education in the Spanish Ministry of Public Instruction. MOLECULAR THEORIES AND MATHEMATICS . 347 AGGREGATES OF ZERO MEASURE 378 MONOGENIC UNIFORM NON-ANALYTIC FUNC- TIONS: THE THEORIES OF CAUCHY, WEIER- STRASS, AND RIEMANN 399 Three inaugural lectures by Professor Emile Borel, Di- rector of scientific studies at the Ecole Normale and Professor of the Theory of Functions in the University of Paris. . ;i,i mau4 J8 CONTENTS PAGE THE BREVIARY OF .ESTHETIC I. ^'What IS Art?" 430 II. Prejudices Relating TO Art . . . . . . . 458 III. The Place of Art in the Spirit and in Human Society 480 IV. Criticism and the History of Art 499 A monograph by Senator Benedetto Croce, Editor of *Xa Critica." MUTATIONS IN HEREDITY 518 GEOGRAPHICAL BOTANY 571 MODERN CYTOLOGICAL PROBLEMS .... 596 THE IDEALS OF AN EXPERIMENT GARDEN . . 615 Four inaugural lectures by Professor Hugo de Vries, Direc- tor of the Hortus Botanicus and Professor of Botany in the University of Amsterdam. PHILOSOPHICAL LANDMARKS, BEING A SURVEY OF THE RECENT GAINS AND THE PRESENT PROBLEMS OF REFLECTIVE THOUGHT ... 620 Three inaugural lectures by Sir Henry Jones, Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Glasgow and Hibbert Lecturer on Metaphysics at Manchester College, Oxford. [vi] LIST OF INSERTS VOLUME TWO Photogravures of Rafael Altamira y Crevea /^"'"^ P^^' n it Emile Borel Benedetto Croce tt it Hugo de Vries Henry Jones 265 347 430 518 620 CONTENTS PAGE THE BREVIARY OF iESTHETIC I. 'What IS Art?" 430 II. Prejudices Relating TO Art . . . . . . . 458 III. The Place of Art in the Spirit and in Human Society 480 IV. Criticism and the History of Art 499 A monograph by Senator Benedetto Croce, Editor of "La Critica." MUTATIONS IN HEREDITY 518 GEOGRAPHICAL BOTANY 571 MODERN CYTOLOGICAL PROBLEMS .... 596 THE IDEALS OF AN EXPERIMENT GARDEN . . 615 Four inaugural lectures by Professor Hugo de Vries, Direc- tor of the Hortus Botanicus and Professor of Botany in the University of Amsterdam. PHILOSOPHICAL LANDMARKS, BEING A SURVEY OF THE RECENT GAINS AND THE PRESENT PROBLEMS OF REFLECTIVE THOUGHT ... 620 Three inaugural lectures by Sir Henry Jones, Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Glasgow^ and Hibbert Lecturer on Metaphysics at Manchester College, Oxford. 'i m list of inserts VOLUME TWO "4: »*1 Photogravures of Rafael Altamira y Crevea /«"*«^ P''^^ Emile Borel Benedetto Croce Hugo de Vries « « Henry Jones 265 347 430 518 620 1 Cv-i] f t ^^^m THE INAUGURAL LECTURES "^ i T THE PROBLEM OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY THE THEORY OF CIVILIZATION THE METHODS OF EXTENDING CIVILI ZATION AMONG THE NATIONS' First Lecture THE PROBLEM OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY IN all the dominions of science, and especially in those re- lating to the human subject and dealing with first prin- ciples, there are questions-I will not say of eternal standing and controversy (because to say "eternal" is to anticipate an issue of which, in view of the future's uncertainty, we are not authorized to speak), but indeterminate questions which from the beginning of the known history of scientific thought down to the present have been treated by the different schools of thinkers very differently. Seen thus through the medley of systems and opinions, these questions give the im- pression of something which is insoluble and by all our pro- cesses of knowledge unattainable, something in regard to which it is useless to devote time and energy, since the solu- tion arrived at will not give universal satisfaction, a sign that it is not truly scientific,— and in this, indeed, is explained the position of those individuals (by no means few in num- ber) who, intent on the scientific requirements of precision 1 Three lectures presented at the inauguration of the Rice Institute, by Professor Rafael Altamira, late Professor of the History of Spanish Law m The University of Oviedo, Director of Elementary Education m the Spanish Ministry of Public Instruction. 1:2653 THE RICE INSTITUTE and exactitude, exclude such problems from the sphere of science and disdain and abandon their investigation. In spite of such exclusion, the thinking classes of humanity (which are not limited to the professional scientists) persist In stating these problems and in asking questions relating to them or derived from them. These inquiries demonstrate that the problems themselves are a part of an inherent and natural curiosity within us, and are a necessity inseparable from the human spirit— at least as it has been constituted up to the present. We can say no more than this, for it should not be forgotten that all our observations regarding our own nature are based on what has emanated from a period of human life which may seem long, but which is short when considered in comparison with what that life may be pro- longed to in the future. Our hypothesis, given the present nature of our intelligence, can never, however fecund the imagination, exceed the finite number of occurrences which embraces the known reality. As this limitation to actual ex- perience is common to all the orders of our reason, it Is clear that we are obliged always to work upon the basis of our mind as it now is and has for some time presumably to con- tinue. The curiosity which belongs to our minds as to-day consti- tuted, then, inevitably causes at one time or another the same questions to be raised, and Impels even the professional scientists to formulate them, notwithstanding the futility of previous efforts. But If all this Is certain. It Is not less so that some of them, although lacking solutions unanimously accepted, begin to show, amid the medley of opinions in regard to them, a certain general orientation or certain points of common acquiescence which signify their advance toward a more scientific basis, a surer and more satisfactory ground than that hitherto occupied. It is this which Is occur- [266] BOOK OF THE OPENING ring with the question of the Philosophy of History, and to signalize and determine In regard to this question that gen- eral orientation and those points of acquiescence seems to me a service that would be of Indisputable utility. It will be useful. In the first place, as a basis of future In- vestigation, as a basis of real progress on the road to a solu- tion,— on a road which Is, properly speaking, scientific,— since progress In the knowledge of things depends on the clarity and security of what has already been established. But It win also be useful for another reason, a consideration of a social character which professionals are In the habit of overlooking. I refer to the Influence exerted by their doc- trines on the masses among whom these doctrines become translated into lines of opinion and of conduct. For a scien- tist that which alone Is of importance and alone Is worthy of attention Is the truth or the error of a theory, and from this standpoint he may, and does, neglect all theories which appear to him untrue, discarding them from that which merits his attention. Thus, In the Philosophy of His- tory a providentialist will reject and disqualify the doctrines of a rationalist or those of a positivist, and vice versa, but neither one nor the other will be able to prevent these con- flicting doctrines from influencing large numbers of people and guiding them in not a few questions of their lives. With equal reason the contrary positions of those who admit a Philosophy of History and those who deny such a thing collide with and annul one another, but both are powerless before the fact that many people will accept one position or the other; and as, in the long run, that which matters is that which Influences the masses, the conflicting theories which claim the solution of these indecisive questions come to pos- sess for the sociologist, for the practical man, and for the historian himself a value which Is at best only equally pro- [^673 ^v».-* -■-,- -jt^ THE RICE INSTITUTE portioned to the scope of their diffusion and to the force of the conviction they produce. All, then, which may tend to eliminate divergences, discover points of contact, or, better expressing it, to intensify in the public mind the consciousness of common affirmations in what has arisen from distinct starting-points and systems,-affirmations which have not, perhaps, been realized by the majority,-is preparing the way for an ever greater homogeneity in thought and action. Now, of late years, in the sphere of the Philosophy of History, owing to the discussions which the actual statement and formulation of the question has produced, there has been a fairly concrete determination of factors and a clarifi- cation of ideas relating to the subject. Neither movement has descended to the great sphere of those who are non- specialist but cultured sufficiently to produce in it a favorable change of the same character; but this same lack of corre- spondence between the scientific position up to date and the sediment of antiquated and already scientifically rectified ideas which have passed down into the masses as accepted knowledge renders all the more necessary that labor of diffu- sion whose first effect has to be the clear determining and sizing up of fundamental opinions and authorities. The ne- cessity is all the greater in so far as one may consider in- cluded in the masses the large number of persons whom, at first sight, we should qualify as cultured, persons who have obtained university degrees and who undoubtedly possess wide information and clear intelligence. Thus, I have heard my book "The History of Spain and the Spanish Civiliza- tion" described as a work of historical philosophy, although it is simple and unmistakable narrative, simply because it contains, with the usual chapters on political history, others on what has been called Kultiirgeschichte, or internal his- tory. [268] BOOK OF THE OPENING This very common error signifies not just a vagueness in the conception of the Philosophy of History (vagueness there is as well, and in due course we shall examine it), but an absolute disorientation in which it is impossible to form any argument whatever or even make one's self intelligible to those laboring in the fallacy, for the simple reason that while employing the same name, they imply something wholly different. Let us begin, then, by rectifying this error, that it may once and for all be deleted from the public mind. Every history-book is pure narrative if it limits itself to re- lating facts. Although it may embrace in entirety every sphere in the whole life of a state, including the history of its thought in the various orders of the sciences and in those treating of human questions, it is not a book of Philosophy of History. It may be the work of an historian who does not believe that science possible or regards it as dissevered from his professional mission: his ideas in this respect will not in the least have been invalidated. Equally common with this error, and perhaps more so, there is another one more difficult of eradication and of graver consequences for the reason that it comes near, ap- parently, to the actual field of philosophy itself instead of being plainly and at a glance outside of it. This is the error in which, in the name of philosophy, Is inferred every generalization regarding historical facts. To those laboring in this error everything of a general character that may be gleaned from an individual history of concrete facts-the character of an institution in a given epoch, the dominant and central current in a series of events, the distinctive feat- ure of the history of a state, the trajectory and orientation of an order of ideas-is Philosophy of History. But as, apart from such works of erudition as are purely concrete and monographic, every historian must generalize without de- 1:^69] i'^^-ij^-* ^ «-,. '-I. ■ : rJ^ , ,-, *>■ » T^y. THE RICE INSTITUTE parting from his own material of facts, it may be deduced, according to this criterion, that there will scarcely be a his- tory-book which is not philosophical. A book which sum- marizes in a great compendium, a great "synthesis," as it is commonly but erroneously expressed, the facts of a period, of an age, or of a state, and popular lectures which epitomize the great results of detailed investigation, would be Philos- ophy of History when, in general, they are rigorously limited to the field of what is narrative— that is to say, purely his- torical. The celebrated lectures, for example, on the "His- tory of Civilization in Europe," by Guizot, do not in any way possess the philosophical character, although their eloquent expression and the reflections and opinions often to be found in them which do not cover a ground that is, properly speaking, historical, added, moreover, to the lax and careless criticism of contemporaries to whom all this justly came as something new, led to the lectures being desig- nated by many as philosophical. Generally speaking, one may afiirm, on the contrary, that every generalization about facts, while it remains a generalization, and however ab- stract be its character, is not philosophical. What always result from it are facts, very general, very comprehensive, but, in the end and in the long run, facts. Laws themselves, or the course they follow in a more or less extended period, are likewise facts, although of an abstract character. They express what is the line and orientation of individual hap- penings; they do not explain them philosophically or, to be more precise, metaphysically, I have now just enunciated what, in my opinion, is a basal quality in the Philosophy of History; but, to avoid confu- sion, it will be necessary to define it. Every explanation of facts is not a philosophic explanation. Naturally it is not so w^hen it treats of causes which are directly or indirectly his- [270] i BOOK OF THE OPENING torical— that is to say, determines temporal origins and precedents, the factors behind an appearance and effect, the necessity of a phenomenon in a given moment. No one will describe as philosophical the explanation of the collapse of the Invincible Armada, an explanation which is entirely con- fined to the most concrete facts and as historical as any in the world; nevertheless many other analogous explanations of greater or less significance than the above are still described with manifest equivocation as philosophical. The explana- tion of the Hellenic genius and culture as a consequence of oriental origins, of such and such Influences derived from the geographical situation of that people, is equally not of a philosophic character. All such explanation moves entirely amid temporal causes and on a ground which is purely his- torical, however vast and general Its embrace of the concrete facts and data. For the explanation to assume a philosophic character It must treat not of temporal but of permanent causes and must Inclose facts in a metaphysical impulsion and causality outside of the field of history. It is not without purpose that the science under consideration Is called Phi- losophy of History (of human history. It is clear), which means that it is a philosophic science and ought to be treated according to Its nature and not on historical lines. The antagonism between the Philosophy of History and the His- tory of Philosophy, which has been shown and explained by certain schools of thinkers, defines thoroughly the distinctive character of each of these sciences, notwithstanding that the terms employed in them are identical: the different relative position of both terms In each of the two cases signalizes plainly the opposition in question. It is necessary, then, to abandon all false conceptions of the science concerned with these reflections in order to place ourselves In the actual field with which it corresponds. Once 1:271] THE RICE INSTITUTE settled there, the discussion of the problems belonging to this science becomes disentangled because we know now the value of the words employed and are no longer in the plight of discussing indefinitely and without understanding one an- other two things which have nothing else in common but the name we give them, a name which is applicable only to one. With this point settled, it is now possible to propound the first question of the Philosophy of History, which is precisely that now most under discussion in our times- to wit, the pos- sibility of the science in question. In any case this would have to be the first question to be discussed and to be solved; for, what would be the use of fantastically pursuing the prin- ciples of a science devoid of all reality-that is to say, impos- sible? We should be involved in a labor that is not only useless but pernicious, through the false ideas that would be disseminated. Before examining this question and expressing in regard to it, if necessary, a personal opinion, it is important to sepa- rate it from another which is often confounded with it, the one prejudging the other with its own solution. It is one thing to question the possibility of a Philosophy of History, be what it may the field of science in which it is established, and it is another thing to inquire if historians as such are capable of creating it, or even merely if its existence concerns or ought to concern them. The distinction between these two questions is all the more necessary in so far as many treatises have dealt only with the second of the two, and presumed, in the solution of it, to have solved the first and fundamental question. In reality, the second question, as It is commonly propounded, is beside the point. If the Philosophy of History, given that It Is possible, is a philo- sophic and not an historical science, it clearly follows that it devolves not on the historian but on the philosopher to for- [272] BOOK OF THE OPENING mulate and clarify it. It is legitimate and comprehensible on the part of the historian to declare himself as such incompe- tent; to refuse to employ his energies in the investigation of an aspect of human history which does not concern him; and to demand the requisite time and energy for what does. For this reason it is a strong position which has been adopted by those who, under the title of historians, refuse to busy themselves with that problem, and even regard it as per- nicious that it should be mixed with those peculiar to history; basing their opinion either on the supposition that the char- acter of historical knowledge fundamentally prohibits a philosophical explanation, or on the supposition that the actual position of historical science does not as yet authorize it.i Observe, however, that the majority of those of this opinion admit that outside the sphere of history, in the field of other science, the problem is legitimate and is one that may be formulated and considered. If he wishes to abide in his own sphere, it is not the professional historian who will study it, but of the results of the investigations which others have accomplished he will be able to take advantage.^ It is clear of course that this does not exclude a historian from studying the Philosophy of History, just as he may be interested in astronomy or any other science, nor can It be denied that in the fact of his being a historian his prepara- tion In the study of the problem is the more adequate for a deep penetration into a given one of its aspects.^ The natu- 1 An exposition of the situation of that question to date is to be found in my tok '"tions of Modern History" (Madrid, 1904), Introduction and ^^/5ne'of"the scientific weaknesses in many authorities on the PhHosophy of History who would be styled classical-and even of not a few mode n ph - ^sophers-consists in their not being or not havmg been sufficiently At.- S that they do not see the problem in its essential historical per pec- ive and that they have failed to fulfil that exigency which Dilthey ( Em- es^'n^ni de Gentenvissenschaften'') formulated, saying: 'The thinker who akes fs his obkct the historical world, ought to be intimately acquainted with tht immediate material of history and should be entirely the master of his medium." « THE RICE IiNSTITUTE ral supposition, in fact, is that it will be the historian who will be interested in that problem because the constant vision of the historical material will continually produce in him a desire for an explanation transcending the mere facts them- selves; and, in any case, as a man of intelligence he will be brought up against the problem, though he may not embark on the solution of it. Nor, moreover, in the preceding affir- mations relative to the independence of position between the scientific sphere and the philosophical is there any denial of the intimate bond which unites them, and in virtue of which not only does the philosopher require, as was said, to be master of historical matter, but the historian will find in philosophy a force which, although it is not his business to create it, will help him in the handling of his data. Now, it is quite another thing to state the objection in regard to a Philosophy of History to the philosophers them- selves, basing one's position on the present status of our knowledge of the history of mankind. Such an objection- distinct from that embodied in this argument against the pos- sibility merely of the ''historians'' creating a Philosophy of History— may be based on an affirmation of that strict inter- dependence in which, we affirm, both terms are to be found. Kohlen has expressed it in a decisive manner with reference to the Philosophy of Law: "Without a universal history of law a true juridic philosophy is as impossible as is a philos- ophy of humanity without a similar history of mankind and a philosophy of language without linguistics." This, then, denies for all men the possibility of a Philosophy of History, although only so long as it fails to fulfil that fundamental requisite of previous acquaintance with the facts in all the amplitude necessary that it may be possible to philosophize about them; and, to my mind, this is the strongest objection 1:274] BOOK OF THE OPENING that can be opposed to the present possibility of a Philosophy of History. As a matter of fact, it is only by the force of habit and the suggestion exerted by those books (that is to say, the doc- trines elaborated in them and the systems formulated, which give the false appearance of something perfect and conclu- sive) that we say and even believe that we are acquainted with the History of Humanity. Certain it is that consider- able in range as is our historical information, and although that information has augmented so vastly in one century in regard to the above branch of history in particular, and become perfected in certitude and thoroughness, there still remains much for us to learn, still many points of obscurity and vagueness, many facts and theories in suspense; and that on a basis so imperfect any philosophic structure will be flimsy, collapsing at the least pressure. For, if we do not possess our facts securely and in entirety, how can we build upon them anything stable or secure? To the immense force embodied in this argument is due the most useful and fruitful of the results which modern criticism has produced in the discussion of the problem now before us. By dint of this argument has been demonstrated the inconsistency between systems relating to the Philosophy of History constructed a priori by writers who, in not a few cases, are ranked among the great. This failure was merited, as merited is the smile with which, to-day, we regard, for example, that infantile endeavor to inwrap the history of mankind in periods or ages of development which limited the future and closed up the eternity of life. In drawing up a clear table of all in these systems which was warrantable and final, the criticism of the professional historians has constituted a service to science of immense value, clearing the road so that it should be unobstructed by pseudo-scientific— though some of them "m THE RICE INSTITUTE colossal— structures which would render it difficult to make the labor of the future step by step and in certainty. It is true, however, that it has produced also a pernicious skep- ticism in many people who, with the precipitancy so natural and difficult to check in human nature when a definite conclu- sion is arrived at and a judgment passed, have confused the breakdown of the Philosophy of History as interpreted by certain authors with the total collapse of the whole science. To convince the public of the error of assuming the second issue as a consequence of the first is in fact one of the duties of men of science in the social aspect of their labor. Let us return now to the starting-point of these considera- tions. To deny the present possibility of a Philosophy of History because we do not as yet know enough of the history of mankind is not to deny its possibility absolutely and for- ever; agreed, however, on this point, the affirmation which has led us to it reappears and confronts us. We are still at grips with the fundamental problem. In short, if it is proved that it is definitely impossible for us to arrive at that initial historical knowledge which has to be the basis of a scientific philosophy regarding it, or if it is true, as many believe, that historical knowledge is incapable of scientific qualities and even of precision and of certitude, then to philosophize about it will be eternally impossible. The problem, therefore, is transferred to another ground and obliges us to discuss pre- viously all those questions alluded to, and which in our days cover, as is known, an extensive literature. From the dis- cussion as to the degree of generalization which is possible in regard to facts about humanity (a discussion maintained on the extreme wing by Xenopol, who denied that there could be any generalization), to the transference of history wholly and solely into the field of science, the series of minor problems presented in the different opinions upheld by the BOOK OF THE OPENING specialists to-day require to be tackled and cleared up in order that we may either be free of all incubus in the affirma- tion of a Philosophy of History or else abandon the dream of its possibility. It would be long and wearisome here and now to enter on this task which I have already elsewhere accomplished.! j ^in refer only to the conclusion I there arrived at, and take my stand upon it under the plea of a personal opinion. The doctrine may be thus epitomized: In the present situation of our knowledge relating to these questions, and of the opinion of men of science respecting them, there is a decided weakness to be observed in the ar- guments employed to deny the scientific character (the possibility of such) in history, either because the general con- ception of science renders it possible to-day to state the prob- lem with a different meaning to that of Aristotle, or because it is not so certain as is commonly believed that history is confined purely to the observation of individual facts, form- ing itself into a narrative without any generalization (of a more or less abstract character, that is, as all generalizations are), in which each fact conserves its unique and differential characteristic and only on the strength of it is mentioned. For myself, personally, however, the crux of the problem is not in whether historical knowledge conforms or not to the Aristotelian definition of science, and whether it is suscep- tible to abstractions of greater or less amplitude, but in whether it can attain those qualities of truth, clearness and certainty which distinguish scientific from vulgar knowledge. If to the scheme and elaboration of true, evident and certain knowledge which has as its objective the facts about human- ity in time and space (and derives from that objective its own internal coherence) is begrudged the denomination 1 In the book mentioned previously, "Questions of Modern History," Chap- ter III, No. 3. 1:277: ■# THE RICE INSTITUTE ^'scientific/' the question at issue is solely the question of a name. What matters is that our knowledge of man and of the manifestations of society in past ages shall arrive, by means of a rigorous employment of the critical methods of investigation, at being as certain as our knowledge about Nature and the facts concerning her, though neither one nor the other, either to the observer or to the experimentalist, delivers the totality of its abundant and (from day to day at least) mysterious contents. The objection, then, which, if valid, would make it impos- sible forever, through lack of a foundation, to philosophize about the history of mankind, possesses no scientific author- ity for opposing an insuperable barrier to this philosophic aspiration; but it does serve most effectively to moderate impatience and to check precipitancy in the task of solving the main problem, showing the connection between this problem and many questions of importance still under dis- cussion, revealing also its complexity and suggesting that even on the strong basis of a personal conviction rooted in the feeling that a right solution is arrived at, we are to pre- serve the judicious cautiousness which is characteristic of the truly scientific mind, and which safeguards against the pos- sibility of error and makes us respectful toward contrary opinions. All that may avoid that suspicious simplification of a problem in easy terms— only subjectively arrived at while the problem itself is divested of many elements in- herent in its complexity and which we fancifully qualify as incidental— and that provides us with the maximum quantity of proofs in support of our opinions by probing them and developing them with every kind of verification and analy- sis, will become a guarantee in support of our conclusion and of the doctrinal fabric we erect on it. It is for this rea- son that I have been explaining and examining the principal [278:1 I BOOK OF THE OPENING objections to a Philosophy of History and the errors and confusions of thought in regard to it which draw into a dis- tinct field— and one conducive to confusions— the interpreta- tion of the name. Over and above all this cautiousness and reservation, how- ever, stands out one fact which even the most decided an- tagonist of a Philosophy of History has to recognize, not only as a reality but as a thing of importance and significance. This fact is the persistence in the human mind— in every man who thinks at all about the world and about life— of those fundamental interrogatories in regard to the actual problem of the philosophy in question. It is true that, in view of the potential immensity of future history and the paucity of that at our disposal (as was observed not many months ago by your compatriot Profes- sor Sloane^, the persistence in humanity or in great masses of it, of a given idea or preoccupation does not in itself al- ways signify that the notion or ideal in question is consub- stantial with our nature, since it may well be a survival, a vibration from primitive stages of thought not yet modified, and to which, in fact (in that relative value of time), w^e are chronologically very near. For this reason it is not a plau- sible argument in support of the necessity of an idea or a belief that for many centuries down to the present a more or less considerable number of people have supported it and held it to be something fundamental. The future may wholly disillusion us. But if we ascertain that a definite idea or an ideal exists throughout mankind and is the stronger in a man according to his degree of culture — in an inverse rela- tion to other spiritual phenomena, which exist principally on a sentimental basis and are rooted above all in the uncul- 1 "The Vision and Substance of History," address delivered at Buffalo, New York, December 27, 191 1. Published in "The American Historical Review," January, 1912. 1:279;] \ 'I THE RICE INSTITUTE tured masses or where culture is inclpient-we have a very powerful argument in favor of its essential necessity for us. It is this which occurs with the problem of the Philosophy of History. Be it with a clear understanding of their meaning, their classification in the Encyclopedia of the Sciences, or be it without ever suspecting the relationship they bear to that, great masses of people are to-day, as in the first stages of civilization, formulating questions which correspond to the fundamental problems of our science; and each individual unit in those masses answers these questions from the point of view of a religion, a system of philosophy, or simply that of a common sphere of culture which finds reflection in him- self or in which he has been educated. It is true that many people pass through life without ex- periencing a moment in which those questions flash before their consciousness, because the material occupations of the daily struggle for existence leave no room for attention to other questions. It is equally true that among those who have broken free from this material incarceration, and even among those who move by custom in an intellectual circle, these questions pass often enough like swiftly flying sparks rapidly extinguished, or do not acquire that standard of im- portance which is given to a question as the result of deep preoccupation. For a long time, owing to doctrinal consid^ erations arising from the predominance of certain philo- sophic systems (philosophic although some of them dis- countenance philosophy), there has existed an indifference and an apathy on the part of many people in regard to those questions. Although there has been a reaction in this re- spect, it is a fact that the number is still large of those who fail to appreciate their urgency— a fact, however, which depends on general causes traceable to the conditions of our modern life. The feverish activity, the superficiality and [2803 BOOK OF THE OPENING show in which the majority exist, cause our moments of pri- vacy and meditation, of communion of the spirit with itself and of self-examination in regard to life, to become more difficult and rare. Distracted by the outside spectacle, we lose the habit of self-examination and become deaf to the promptings of the soul, and often enough we pass through life in ignorance of the exalted curiosity within us. At times, in moments of brief solitude and thought, these questions suddenly appear to us, but the intellectual effort required in pursuing them, and the time they would demand, make us shy and half afraid of them, with the result that we suppress them and continue as though in ignorance of their presence, until, in another moment of doubt, anguish, discouragement or pessimism in which the mind has nothing to fall back upon or other resources but its own, they reappear before us, without, however, our ever possessing the hope of findmg time or opportunity for their consideration and their answer. Such a state of inattention to the problem is not enough, then, to deny that it exists; this state of mind, on the con- trary, continually affirms the problem as a presence. When- ever we wish to hear its voice, it is with the utmost clearness that the voice echoes, and this in itself will be enough to guide us in the circumstances. The historian derives a knowledge, or what he believes to be a knowledge, of the principal facts concerning the history of mankind; he traces the rise and fall of the great empires; he describes in its separate stages the process of civilization, its oscillating and, at times, contradictory movement, the advantage to one state of the labor of another which it re- sumes and carries on, the things which have been accom- plished in modern times, and the trajectory and law of development of institutions and aspirations regarded as fundamental in importance ; and then, over and above all 1:2813 THE RICE INSTITUTE this remain those same great, disquieting questions which embody the whole program of the Philosophy of History: Where and toward what is mankind traveling? Is there a goal of which, at present, it is ignorant, but toward which is moving the central current of its history? Is it being im- pelled toward that end by something beyond and transcen- dental to it? What is its significance and value in the whole, in the general process of the universe? Is it the creature of chance, or has it an orientation and direction? And if it has, can we deduce that movement through such of the facts about humanity as we have knowledge of? Does there exist in the actual conditions of its life some other foundation than the corner-stone of history? And, following from all this, what state is it which marks or is to mark the triumph of that history, the culminating situation most nearly ap- proaching and conforming to the purpose of the universe? Is it possible to define and predict for the future some main path for man, or is the Philosophy of History ever restricted to the limits of the present? Of the utmost clarity for every one engaged in the investigation of those questions which history, deeply contemplated, raises, must be the real and logical hierarchy which exists between them. Not all are on the same level, not all are equally far-reaching, and if I may use a phrase which is unscientific and inexact but which well reflects what would be thought by an uneducated person (that is to say, by the majority of people), they are not all equally philosophical, but some more so and others less. This question of a hierarchy and of a relative importance possesses a greater significance than would at first sight be imagined, because if we regard it as a proper and well- founded one, it at once brings us to the point as to whether or not the professionals, the writers who have propounded scientifically the problem of the Philosophy of History, have [282] BOOK OF THE OPENING grasped in fact the whole and entire problem, or whether they have limited themselves merely to the study of some one or several of the questions it embodies, and perhaps to some of them which, compared with those embracing the main object of the science, would be called secondary; and more than this, we are even led to the question whether it may not be the case that, while preoccupied with what they re- garded as the real problem, they were not confining them- selves, through an error of perspective, to aspects of history quite general and comprehensive in themselves, but above which they have never risen, never attaining a transcen- dental vision in the true philosophic field to which they were aspiring. I am not far from thinking that it has been thus in the majority of cases, at least with those great systems which have attempted a fundamental revolution in the Philosophy of History. I do not allude by this to the observation, continually reiterated by the critics and some of the most recent exponents in the matter, that the majority of these systems, if not all of them, losing sight of the complex nature of the problem, have given an ingenuous explanation of the History of Mankind to which is owing their failure or insufficiency. I refer to that which, apart from the degree of comprehensiveness in the problem they embrace, it is impos- sible to ask in regard to whether those systems embark on the true problem of the Philosophy of History, on which problem depends a series of others to be called consequences, or whether, on the contrary, it is not from one of these self- same "consequences'' or minor problems that they have arisen, the minor being mistaken for the greater problem in whose solution rests that of all the others. That this equivo- cation is clear in Montesquieu, in Rousseau, in Voltaire ever so much more so, and in other authors of an analogous sci- entific standing in relation to the Philosophy of History,— THE RICE INSTITUTE that they failed to get abreast of the question and seriously tackle Its solutIon,-no one will deny. But even with the great masters of the school, the same doubt is legitimate, and the decision may be actually against them. Will it be said that Herder, notwithstanding the discrimination with which he subordinated to the more general standpoint those secondary questions which were almost the only preoccupa- tion of his predecessors in the century, actually raises in his problem of the factors and issues of the History of Mankind the real and basic question of the Philosophy of History? Was it approached by Kant in his own explanation of human progress— that is, the solution which is offered to the conflict between individual liberty and the general welfare-in the State? After this is there no room, even when the Kantian solution is accepted, for questions regarding the metaphys- ical problem of the plan of history, questions above and beyond the antagonism of individual liberties among them- selves—that is to say, questions of a more general and comprehensive character, by the side of which the above is subordinate and over concrete? And In spite of the incon- testable grandeur of the conception of Hegel, are we not left, perhaps, with the impression that in reality it lowers and depreciates the problem and denies it what should be a higher point of view, In which the development of the moral conscience, of freedom, and of the functions of the State be- comes subordinated? The observation of history and its mode of development, and the Interpretation of It exclusively from the viewpoint of a standard of ethics, notwithstanding a metaphysical quality, is yet something which too nearly ap- proaches a broad but, in certain respects, very concrete vision of historical development which allows a vaster and remoter problem to float above it. Yet clearer is this in Comte and his disciples, and in Marx and his, the character of whose BOOK OF THE OPENING philosophies is purely an analysis of the factors behind the phenomena of human history, factors which only explain these phenomena in a secondary manner. Even in the acutest and most comprehensive of these systems the mind is not left satisfied as when one has set hands on the real solution to a problem; it feels (and I say it without wishing to depreciate the value of those investigations and the clear light they have thrown on the movements of mankind) that there is some- thing still wanting, something greater which remains unan- swered, and which, if answered, would respond more fully to aspirations, properly speaking, philosophical. I regard as scientifically legitimate this dissatisfaction of the mind even with the profoundest and minutest analysis of human progress. I am also of opinion that the problem of the Philosophy of Human History ought not to be wholly limited to the two questions formulated by Herder,— on the value of that history and the conditions in regard to its de- velopment,-since, although, in the consideration of the latter question, there may have been a glimpse of the ulti- mate and basic problem, the systems soon settle down into a mere analysis of conditions and a generalization about the facts of history which is secondary to the main problem That which cannot be described as an explanation of human facts by other facts of a like nature (they may be as general and fundamental as you like, but that does not affect their nature) cannot be described as history; and thus, what has by some schools of thinkers been called the ''anatomy'' and the ''physiology" (or the "psychology,'' from another stand- point) of human action, is not Philosophy of History.^ 1 It Is in not passing from that narrow standpoint that those claiming to have construed doctrines and systems of a Philosophy of History have been able to introduce and discuss the question of the anticipation of future his- tory In the concrete conception of this question it has been attirmed: Hu- manity, in the future, will act in such and such a way, and attain such and such standards of civilization and development." The question is neither THE RICE INSTITUTE And now, in conclusion, there remains this culminating question: Does there exist any actual reality and basis cor- responding to that aspiration of ours towards a transcenden- tal explanation of what is a greater problem than all those scientifically formulated until now in the so-called Philos- ophy of History, or is it a pure whim and caprice of the spirit that is never to be satisfied? To this question I do not believe we can provide at present a scientific answer; but I should point out that neither our present nor permanent impotence regarding the solution of what is an idealistic problem can banish that problem from the mind, which con- tinues to formulate it as an aspiration that is ineradicable and to which it is forever hopeful of finding a solution. And lastly we should remember, in order that the logical statement of the problem may leave no loophole of uncer- tainty, that the questions in which we embody the main sub- stance of the Philosophy of History do not, in their formulation, prejudge an affirmative answer, nor is such an answer an ineludible necessity for their existence. Although our answer to all these questions were in the negative, they would continue to be problems present in our minds— so long, that is, as the answer is not indisputably a scientific one; and even if it were, it would, none the less, be legiti- mate material for a Philosophy of History as real and settled as if it answered in the affirmative those same inter- rogations which for the majority of men correspond to a desire, latent but ineradicable, to see explained in an or- dered, rational and scientific method, according to the gen- eral plan of the whole universe, the Life of Man. permissible nor can it be included in the field of the Philosophy of History. Thus, Meyer is right (in his "History of Antiquity") when he judges that such predictions are impossible, since in that which is generally referred to, the individual element predominates, escaping all prognostication; and affirms, always from that standpoint, that history only allows of comproba- tion, and not of any fixing of the future. BOOK OF THE OPENING For this reason the essential necessity of a Philosophy of History depends neither on a special solution of its problems nor on the actual possibility of a solution being afforded them. It arises principally from the presence of the prob- lem in our minds and from the corroborated fact that the highest expression of what, as concerns our history. Is called progress, consists in the awakening of humanity to the ideal- istic quality behind its actions, of the things it is accustomed to perform In ignorance of their value and significance; and In the guidance of his life by man, ever increasingly, through the medium of that consciousness and with an ever clearer vision of the ''why and wherefore'' of things. To assist, by due attention to this problem, in promoting the study of it, and, some day (whenever that may be), the solution of it, is more reasonable and human than to bang the door upon it with an a priori negative against its possibility, or than to belittle and discard it. 1:2873 :1 I I \ THE RICE LNSTITUTE Second Lecture THE THEORY OF CIVILIZATION HAVING tackled the main problem of the Philosophy of History, we should now ascertain what practical issues have arisen from the study of those would-be philo- sophic problems undertaken by the specialists, and what, in this connection, deserves further attention. We saw, it will be remembered, that all these so-called sys- tems of a Philosophy of History, all the interpretations of this science to which the above name has been arrogated, have been limited, in reality, to the scope of history, tran- scending this field only in brief moments of the investigation or in theological conceptions which we are not concerned with. But, although none of the systems in question may have afforded a real basis for the science they proposed, they have served, on the other hand, in no small measure as a means of deepening our conception of history itself and of widening our vision of it, while revealing all that is em- braced in what is called historical material, determining the more important and decisive factors which (some of them in distinct periods or epochs, others at all times) are at play in the action of mankind. In spite of the exaggerations which in most of these systems are conspicuous, and in some notorious, it is an undeniable fact, once having discarded the false, unilateral pretension common to nearly all of them and transferred them to their own sphere of history, in which such of their investigations as are of value may be developed, that to the science of historiography they have rendered immense services, at once widening its horizon and BOOK OF THE OPENING revealing the complexity of human labor which each one of them has studied in an aspect not infrequently as real as it was hitherto unrealized. We can appreciate the positive fruits of these investigations on observing the great differ- ence between our method to-day of conceiving and writing history and that which prevailed some centuries ago ; and even, it may be said, between the historians of the seven- teenth century and those of the nineteenth. The method- ologists, advancing theoretically ahead of the historiograph- ers (the latter exerting themselves to fulfil the exigencies of the former and turning to account the suggestions obtained from the "philosophers" of history, or at times actually raising systems of their own by way of experiment and illus- tration-^.^., Taine), have paved the way for our modern conception, ever becoming wider and profounder, of human history. And this labor, which has enabled us to elucidate man's past with ever increasing vividness and with a keener penetration of its meaning, is a solid basis on which we may hope to find an answer to several of the questions which are suggested to us in the contemplation of that past. Starting, then, from such a basis, with all due prudence and a rigorous employment of those critical methods of investigation which are essential if one is to avoid wandering into fantasies (fan- tasies, though, not necessarily philosophic in pretension), we shall be able often enough to arrive at conclusions of real scientific value, while other hypotheses will serve as a scaf- folding for subsequent investigation. And as this field em- braces what is positive and certain, and all that we are inter- ested in, deriving from a great portion of the moral and political applications of historical knowledge, it is our busi- ness to approach and examine it rather than sacrifice It to the lure of a higher and remoter explanation, which, even if possible, In no way excludes the above study nor renders it 1:2893 I ■h THE RICE INSTITUTE useless. Within purely terrestrial alms and limitations of which we ourselves are cognizant-that is to say, human aims, of human interest-while equally, also, in our legiti- mate' anxiety to understand more fully the way in which, from one moment to another, a community conceives its task and function in the world and tackles and solves the prob- lems which are its own, what is of immediate consequence is the investigation of all those historical elements which may afford us the knowledge we require and establish our con- clusions; for, in the long run, that in the study of history which descends among the crowd and interests it, is the criti- cal estimation in which, as a result of historiography, each historical epoch and entity is held, and the estimation of the general movement of mankind in regard to the question of social development or ^'progress" as we define it, though with error, since a meaning is, in this connection, attributed to the word which implies actual betterment, improvement. Clearly such a point of view will be a very subjective and un- certain one, since it entails that each epoch judges past ages according to its own social and moral criterion, and this criterion is not eternally the same; but there is no other standpoint open to us, nor can there ever be another, with the result that our only course is to reconcile ourselves to the manner and circumstances in which these questions must be considered and in which they have attracted us. If we are bent on verifying history ever more widely and more pre- cisely, it is not for the simple esthetic pleasure of knowing things, of reading or hearing narratives as children read and are told stories, but for the object of explaining to ourselves why men have acted in such and such a manner, of apportion- ing their responsibility and forming our opinions about their conduct. Whether or not we are conscious of this object, it is this which is the initial force behind our curiosity regard- [290] I BOOK OF THE OPENING Ing history, our researches either aiming at an explanation and justification of that particular national or political ag- gregate to which we may belong, or a criticism of the others foreign to It; and the judgments and appreciations which are left over in our minds from these researches are factors which determine the conduct we pursue In our own private sphere of action and in our relationship with other minds. From a broader and more disinterested standpoint, above mere national distinctions, we are desirous, also, of learning the road humanity is taking in what we suppose to be a definite trajectory toward a more perfect state; what actual advances have so far been achieved; and what are the surest means, such as the experience of history has confirmed, for guaranteeing and augmenting this improvement. And here. In this higher sphere, that which in the other province of con- crete criticisms and estimations regarding given communities amounts to a conflict between national Influences and inter- ests, is now a conflict of general theories about life, of dis- tinct methods and systems of organization, a conflict for priority between such and such factors in the life of man which, on the supposed justification of history, claim, in re- gard to that life, the right to be made the controller of It.^ And this practical Issue which men deduce from historical investigation adds a new value to it over and above what it represents In the sphere of pure speculation, and Is one of the motives on which Its study may be justified against those combating it, in the name of a common utilitarianism which Is eternally In doubt but forever reappearing. The investigation which is proposed here embraces the two points of view referred to, responding to the suggestion of the theme taken by Dr. Edgar Odell Lovett, President of the Rice Institute, for the present inaugural celebrations. We shall discuss first of all, as a general question, the prob- [29O in THE RICE INSTITUTE lem of the history of mankind, following this with a special investigation into the Spanish backgrounds of American his- tory. The general problem of human history, as we shall inter- pret it, is the problem of "civilization," or, as it is also ex- pressed, of "progress." Is the process of human civilization something continual and indefinite? Is civilization a thing which is permanent, transmissible, and which grows in succes- sive stages? What is the actual stage of civilization we of this era have arrived at, taking the criterion of humanity in general, or of those we regard as the most highly developed groups of it? These are the first questions which the prob- lem raises. By what means is civilization produced? What, in consequence, is the procedure to be adopted in order to insure and further it? These are the questions which imme- diately follow. Now, as regards both series of questions the answer is naturally to be sought in history, since civilization is an his- torical fact. This historical fact, however, has been trans- lated in our minds into a conception, or, to define better this appellation of "civilized" which we apply to certain ways and customs, certain principles of life and conduct adopted by men in their relations with one another (as distinct from other ways which we should not describe as civilized), into an idealistic criterion— a classification, that is, of the par- ticular conception and ideal we stand for. It is thus that the first question to be considered and settled is the question of the exact categorical meaning we shall agree upon for the word in which are embodied all those different principles and customs— that is to say, the first question to be answered is: What is civilization? As regards the common meaning of the word, the vague acceptance accorded it, such as is usually [292] I 1 BOOK OF THE OPENING accorded words, and which admits of their use in conversa- tion and even in books without the necessity, on each occa- sion, of explaining them, the answer to the above question would appear simple. Yet, nevertheless, as occurs in so many other cases when one endeavors to fix the meaning of a term, there is not merely a variation in the acceptance of this word among different people,-a variation, let it be noted, singularly conspicuous among professionals and specia'lists,-but often enough an utter contradiction. A rapid inquiry into the principal interpretations of the word "civilization" will enable us to become master of this difficulty on which, sooner or later, one inevitably stumbles. ... We will discard, at the outset, that acceptance of the word, common in modern historiography and prevalent as early as the eighteenth century, according to which the his- tory of civilization {Kulturgeschichte) is held in contraposi- tion to "political history," or which also makes the term "history of civilization" synonymous with the internal his- tory of communities in opposition to what is external history, and comprehensive only of political facts, or rather that sec- tion of political facts most superficial and least permanent in character.* Such a contradistinction is illogical because there is no justification for it in fact. The history of man has not evolved in this fashion, divided into two funda- mentally separate branches of equal magnitude; and, more- over, there are no grounds for maintaining that many— or, in fact, any-of the facts of political history are extraneous and immaterial to the sphere of civilization. . . . Rid, how- ever, of this illogical distinction, we are still faced and obstructed by the twofold difficulty that among the defini- tions of civilization offered under the title of scientific there 1 On this question also reference should be made to the book previously mentioned. i THE RICE INSTITUTE are scarcely two that coincide/ and that the criterion by which a community judges its own and other civilizations is not common and the same for all-at least, that is, when it is a question of fixing the basic and essential characteristic of the civilized state. As a first group of opinions may be mentioned those ac- cording to which '^civilization*' designates, inexclusively, the general situation in any country which has graduated through a certain phase of development in Its intellectual and mate- rial life,— the requisite development in question being fixed as the Invention of the use of Iron, or the discovery of the art of writing, or any other analogous event prior to which man would be described as without culture, as "barbarous" or "savage." Dismissing, however, the doubts and uncer- tainties raised by this artificial limit, all that need be em- phasized Is the general standpoint shared by all the opinions in this category, and In virtue of which such expressions are used as "the civilization of Egypt" or "the civilization of Greece," terms embracing in totality the life of each, inclu- sive of all phases, good or bad, concomitant or not with true "civilization" In the modern acceptance of the word. Thus the historian who with this criterion and terminology de- scribes the civilization of Greece will not exclude as a phase and feature of It either the slave system or the Greek re- ligion, though the one appear to him unjust and the other false. Diametrically opposed to this Interpretation of the term Is the category of opinions which, starting from a given dog- matic conception of civilization, partly ethical and In part material, excludes from the scope of the word anything which 1 It is unnecessary to formulate here a list of these definitions; any one can find them out from the well known writers on the subject,— to quote, for ex- ample, several tendencies: Guizot, Burke, Gumplowicz, Henry George, Kidd, MetchnikofiF, Tolstoy, etc. i BOOK OF THE OPENING is not adjustable to this conception; so that out of what is called the civilization of a given people, or of man In gen- eral, would be abstracted as uncivilized and barbarous many phases-not invariably the same-which according to the other terminology would be left included. In this group may be included all those authors who hold to be essential, before a people or a person may be called civilized, either a certain development in regard to material conditions or a certain standard of attainment respecting moral relationship and conduct. It is clear, of course, that such a category of opinions becomes divided into an Infinity of sub-groups, ac- cording as the writer judges that It is impossible to regard as compatible with the ideal of civilization-being typical only of the barbarian or savage-the lack (according to his view) of justice and morality in such and such orders of life, or the need of a given religious faith, or the absence of such and such Ideals, or of certain conditions of culture, comfort, hygiene, etc. And this diversity of opinion becomes still further complicated when, as often happens, It Is not merely that human manifestations are split up into two categories, but further than this, that one or more of them, in a certain grade of development, are fixed upon and requisitioned as an indispensable necessity without which no historical epoch or community can be said to have been civilized,— the claim being that without this given factor all other phases of life, material and spiritual, advanced as their development may be, are at a discount and Insufficient In themselves to warrant for those who represent them the description of "civilized." Most of the interpretations in question refer to cardinal necessities in the moral, juridical or Intellectual order; there being others, however, for whom the favored sphere Is the material, more or less associated with a certain social and juridical organization. [295] THE RICE INSTITUTE Now, In the truly scientific mind all these distinct stand- points and suggestions do not at all awaken the alarm usually produced in those who, for lack of a personal opinion, de- pend upon the opinions of others, fluctuating and distracted amid the variety afforded them. The scientific mind, on the contrary, accepts as its definition nothing other than what is naturally suggested by a clear grasp of fact— to wit, that civilization is a status of human life constituted of several and fundamental and integral elements (embracing alike In- tellectual, moral, artistic, anthropological and social develop- ment, with the development of mind and character), all being necessary In that they respond to conditions and exigencies of human life that are also fundamental; further, that their respective development is not parallel and uni- form, either in the general history of humanity or in the individual history of each realm, and that what Is properly speaking the conception of civilization Is a standard and ideal of life according to which we appreciate every his- torical actuality and gauge the status and situation of every phase and order of the life of nations. Our basis Is the con- ception of a perfected existence, and it Is in relation to this conception that we signalize grades of perfection and devel- opment, of approximation to the Ideal. Now, for ourselves, for the nations of America and their offspring in America this Ideal Is the Ideal of European civilization in what it possesses that is common and inherent among all the nations which have collaborated In It through the ages. But now, above and beyond this there exist other communities which It cannot be denied have attained a high level of ''progress" in other directions, and which cannot therefore be ostracized from civilization— communities whose standard and ideal differ consciously from ours In many fundamental aspects. Such is the case with China, for [296] 4 BOOK OF THE OPENING example; and It is the truth, however much one hesitates to recognize it through attachment to our own special manner of regarding things, that in this fact is demonstrated beyond doubt the existence of different historical directions of civili- zation, or at least of two— namely, European and Asiatic. The greater or lesser probability of the former ultimately absorbing the latter, apart from the fact that It is a moot question whether the probability embraces an absolute ab- sorption or only a partial substitution in given phases of activity, does not invalidate the fact that there have existed, and exist to-day, these two fundamentally distinct directions, and ought to create in us a certain caution in venturing on dogmatic assertions. Returning again, then, to the question of the Integral ele- ments of which civilization is constituted, there are two things we must observe: first, that these elements respond to different manifestations or types of human development; and, secondly, that our researches are not limited to merely ascertaining the existence of such elements, or even their degree of development, but their adaptability, their qualifica- tions for fulfilling the Ideal of life aspired to. And, more- over, it should be noted that the Importance of the elements In question as inherent properties of the human species Is not enough to satisfy us, but that we insist emphatically on the question of their relative importance, their situation In a hierarchy and order of necessity, either in recognition of a factor which Is higher than the will of man, or as an opera- tion preparatory to uniting the best efforts of men in devel- oping and perfecting In a self-conscious plan that element which, of all human manifestations, is most highly prized and estimated, and regarded perhaps as the basis of the rest. And It Is of course undeniable that, from the distinct stand- points adopted In this problem result distinct social, political 1:297:] , "JK r^ 1 K I ■ .tJ»».-.. , *- -^>K!'1fcr^ THE RICE INSTITUTE and educational criteria and distinct views of history, past and present, and of the achievements of man in general or given countries in particular. But observe, now, the difference between the problems and divergences here raised and those resulting from the admission or non-admission of such and such phenomena into the sphere of civilization. In the present case there is nothing of that contradiction and confusion resulting from mutually destructive exigencies of inclusion and exclusion, for in this case we admit the reality and necessity of all. What is proposed is to determine a scale of importance or a hierarchy between the factors of civilization. All we have to do is to compare, for example, the position of Ruskin, who maintained that Art is the most important element in life, with that of Marx, or the position of those who regard intellectual development as the main factor on which every- thing depends, with that of the advocates of the moral or religious factor in place of the intellectual. This question of hierarchy is the cardinal question, indeed, which the problem of civilization raises, because it affords at the same time the key for our judgments of both the present and the past and the solution of the question as to what sort of rational influence and guidance is to be exerted by the will and intelligence of man in the directing of his life along a certain route, or the adoption of a given organization and regime. It will be said, without doubt, that this is not, prop- erly speaking, an historical question, but rather a political one (in that it embraces the organization of life), or pedagog- ical, in the higher and wider acceptance of the word.* There 1 Some schools, however, have considered it as, actually and strictly speak- ing historical: for example, Marx, who does not affirm his theory of the predominance of the economic factor as a rational necessity which »««« " be granted, but as a fact and a reality which has always existed, and which from this historical basis derives its real essentiality. [298] I BOOK OF THE OPENING is no denying, however, that any one who approaches this question is obliged to seek in history many of his data for the solution of it, and that its solution is bound inevitably to react on his outlook upon history. At least no one can be indifferent to this question. The question as to whether it is the egoistical and utilitarian principle, in the material ac- ceptance of these terms, which is to triumph in the world, or the ethical and altruistic; the question as to whether our present life embodies in itself its own aim and culmination, or has to be directed toward a posterior and ultra-terrestrial goal, in relation to which it is merely a transitory and pre- paratory phase to be regarded as such and nothing else; the question as to whether the world of the future has or ought to be "Greek'' in character or "Carthaginian," interpreting these names, for the moment, in the idealistic signification which a tradition, whose reliability it would be out of place to discuss here, has given them across the centuries, is one that ought to be the concern, and in fact is the concern, of everybody, and in the solution of which that experience which is offered by history in the shape of the positive issues which characterize two main directions of civilization is a guide of considerable importance. For this reason, in the theoretical argument conducted between educationalists, politicians, theologians, and philosophers, full and compre- hensive knowledge of the civilizations of the various nations as inspired by one or other of the ideals In advocacy, or by a proportionate conjunction of them. Is a basis that Is Indlspen- sable, bringing us away from problems which are In the melt- ing-pot of other sciences to the strict field of history-ltself a fresh comprobatlon, let it be noted, of the organic relation- ship, close interdependence and essential Intrinsic unity in which all departments of human thought are Included. A true understanding of man's labor in the world, and of the prac- [299] m THE RICE INSTITUTE tical issues and effects of each of the great human divisions of civilization, without the admixture of prejudice and fiction, without the substitution for corroborated truth of unscien- tific suppositions, is thus an exigency which is more than merely historical, which transcends the proper limits of his- tory and brings us into the arena of man's highest preoccupa- tions in relation to the future; while it is clear, of course, that if there is much in history which, after an impartial segregation of what is definite and trustworthy, is left over as uncertain, that section of historical knowledge which Is a secure and arguable basis can only possess a relative value and a limited application,— this, indeed, being the first point which It Is both the right and the duty of the historian to confess and discuss before such as apply to him, in the Inter- ests of other sciences, for the material and data which are his monopoly, and in regard to which he alone is qualified to speak. . . . Hence, then, the paramount importance of a comprehensive and scientific history of civilization; for this reason, also, all the investigations of historians, properly described, and of sociologists, economists, pedagogues, psy- chologists, etc., respecting the factors which, as such, have really actuated and are actuating the life of man,— respect- ing their manner of operation, their mutual action and reaction, their hierarchy and, finally, their Issues and effects, — are indispensable in the attainment of a real and thorough understanding of human history, and demand, therefore, the most rigorous exactitude as regards scientific proof. So long as they lack the security of corroborated truth, there can of course be no deductions regarding them — a fact which should be remiembered by such as are Impatient for categorical con- clusions. The other question which stands out with the above as of cardinal importance is that of the persistence and continu- BOOK OF THE OPENING ance of civilization. We know, as a fruit of modern criti- cism and research, that the theory of continuous progress is, at any rate, a false one; that history offers repeated instances of reaction and decadence now on the part of one particular community, now in a whole group of such communities (those, even, of an entire continent). We know also that there have been highly advanced civilizations that have dis- appeared from the world without any transmission or ab- sorption into other communities distinct from those that embodied them, civilizations whose thread has broken and whose labor has remained for centuries and centuries burled and abortive; and In the contemplation of these facts It is only natural that uneasiness should gain possession of us with respect to the future. Is It not possible that the future may witness regressions such as that of the Middle Ages-a reac- tion which embraced all the most civilized races of the world? Is there not a possibility that the entire labor that man, up to the present, has accomplished, may one day be annihilated, swept from the face of the earth and lost as a heritage for future ages? Ought we not take into ac- count the intervention of geological upheavals such as those which fiction-writers have depicted in stories— without, of course, any scientific value? Moreover, in the background (it is useless to deny it) there is always this same awful specter, the possible annihilation of the whole human race itself, some sudden uprooting of its entire records, a pos- sibility which chills the spirit of those who contemplate it, and engenders a skeptical feeling of futility-the futility of a struggle upward toward a better life which is ultimately to better no one, which is doomed to be abortive. It Is enough, indeed, to recall the possibility that, apart altogether from climatic aberrations or the destruction of large parts of the earth's crust, this discontinuance may, none the less, occur. « I 1' HI THE RICE IiNSTITUTE as has happened in times past, without the factor of geo- graphical changes. Against these potentialities of the future we cannot thor- oughly tranquilize ourselves or remove misapprehensions without a thorough investigation of the following historical questions : the conditions which are normally favorable to the diffusion and transmission of the distinct civilizations repre- sented in the different communities, and the difference or resemblance to be noted between present conditions and past; the object being to ascertain whether, in the existing situation, there are not certain new conditions which render less possible, and perhaps impossible, a repetition of those reactions and recessions in the progress of great masses of humanity (masses embracing, apparently, the most impor- tant branches of the race) which have imperiled or delayed during immense intervals the general labor of mankind, and entailed endless recommencement and repetition. After- ward as a practical issue of this, we ought to determine the actual safeguards necessary in order that this function of transmission may be better guaranteed for future genera- tions. In regard to the first question, modern science already pos- sesses certain positive knowledge resulting from the concrete investigation of given historical instances of the transmis- sion process, as also from the criticism and speculation which has been accorded the phenomenon in connection with the comparative method of investigation, especially in regard to the legitimacy of deducing and presupposing the fact of a transmission (without previous knowledge or detailed in- vestigation of the case) from the simple fact of a coincidence of institutions. 1 It should not be forgotten, however, that 1 The same may be said of the Theory of Imitation of Tarde, which can only be applied with great caution. Imitation is a phenomenon of diffusion. [302] BOOK OF THE OPENING for historians there are still many doubts and uncertainties in the verification of this phenomenon with relation to events that are of great historical importance, the study of which cannot yet be considered as exhausted or reduced to definite conclusions. A definite though general theory, of wide application apart from the specific differences of each par- ticular case, cannot strictly be established except after a series of monographic studies of other data in connection with this process, extending over as wide a field as possible and necessitating what has still to be a long and complicated labor before generalizations will be permissible. While fully appreciating the great importance and inter- est of these investigations, we must observe, however, that for our own particular purpose— In connection, that is, with the problem we are here consldering-they lose much of that interest when we come to the second of our questions— namely, the question of the difference or resemblance be- tween past conditions and present in regard to the facility with which the issues and achievements of civilization may be transmitted and secured as permanent; for, if we could be certain that existing conditions, over and above being m.ore favorable to the process of transmission, actually guar- antee and safeguard for humanity in general all the labors realized in its service, then our conclusions In regard to the first question are, for all practical purposes, at a discount. In effect, without further parley, It is actually the case that, from what we know of the past and from our observations of the present, there are enough grounds for affirming as a definite conclusion that existing conditions are, indeed, far more propitious than at any other period of history; on this there is no longer any serious doubt. And with the reassur- ance the fact brings us, we may satisfy our qualms, confident that what we are accomplishing to-day will not be wasted in [303] . _iix [■■ill iiiiiiii THE RICE INSTITUTE the future, and that the fruit of present labors will be reaped by our successors. We are aware, also, that this security is due chiefly to the development of material civilization, which, indeed, possesses here one of its foremost vindica- tions and highest claims to attention and furtherance; for, in augmenting and facilitating the means of communication between communities, it is not only approximating but at the same time solidifying them in a bond of mutual interests for- ever widening and forever becoming more closely associated and interlaced, rendering thus more feasible and rapid the diffusion of that culture which, from being self-centered and destructible as in the old days, is evolving now into the uni- versal and the permanent. The fact of life's present uni- formity, of the expansion and domination of a common type, and even of the same forms and details in many branches of activity, is sufficient evidence for this contention ; and although it may be resented and deplored from another— an idealistic — standpoint, in so far as it threatens us with a monotonous sameness throughout life, destructive of the personal char- acter of each given people, it stands out among the facts of history as one of the most important and significant circum- stances in the question at issue. Concomitantly with this immense attainment, modern times have witnessed also a wide and fruitful labor of assimilation which applies both to the modern world and the ancient. For, in regard to the former, the modern aspect, material civilization, while it spreads and implants a fixed form of life and a series of common industrial appliances disseminated from their point of origin over the face of the globe, at the same time, and as an inevitable issue of this centrifugal movement, gathers in and abstracts from each individual person or community of persons the fruits of the original genius of the individual, further developing thereby the whole— that is to say, making [304] BOOK OF THE OPENING it forever richer and more complex, and facilitating the reciprocal action and reaction of the one upon the other. In regard to the former aspect, the amazing renovations in his- torical knowledge and the resurrection of so many peoples buried for centuries from human ken, and for this reason useless in the advancement of man's labor, have enriched quite suddenly, or in a space of time so short that it is almost negligible as such, the heritage of modern civilization, and enabled us to reap the richest fruits of defunct civilizations of the past, which we have incorporated in our own— to the extent, that is, of all that Is of use to us, whether in the shape of some practical element of utilitarian service or some edu- cational contribution toward our imagination, taste or ideal- ity. We have only to compare what at the end of the eighteenth century was known of Greece, Egypt, the oriental civilizations, and even of Rome itself, as regards the art, industry, literature, science and jurisprudence of these coun- tries, with the information now at our disposal, to appreciate the immense advantage which In many matters we possess over our predecessors. The classical restoration movement initiated in the Renaissance has, in these days, developed and augmented in a manner unhoped for and amazing; and if to this we add the deeper and more extensive penetration we have realized into so many other epochs of the past, and from which so much, until now buried and forgotten, has returned to enrich our civilization,— medieval literature, primitive art, the pre-Renaissance philosophies, etc.,— we realize in how great a measure, in the past unparalleled, modern civilization embodies the civilization of all history and is truly universal, truly the civilization of man. And this stupendous achievement, let It be added. Is due to the historians, the disciples of a school of study whose practical value Is so often superciliously denied. 1:305:] THE RICE INSTITUTE But now, when all this is said, with all the hope and reas- surance for the future which it brings, we cannot deny, after an analysis of our feelings on the subject, that we are not equally at ease on all the issues it embraces. Although it is true there is no longer any doubt as to the persistence of everything which signifies material progress and of that com- mon heritage, scientific and literary, which now seems defi- nitely embodied in our life, we are not equally certain as to the continuance of other elements of our civilization more closely dependent on changes of thought and conduct. The material progress we have realized is so intimately asso- ciated with primordial necessities of human life and with appetites— or, if you prefer, aspirations— inseparable from human nature, such as the competitive stimulus and the com- mercial factor, the craving for economic profit and material comfort, that renunciation of these things seems to us impos- sible outside the hypothesis of some general mental aberra- tion in mankind. Nor is the retainment of all the learning and culture elaborated through the centuries, and of the beauties of literature and art, a cause for anxiety in so far as such a process of retainment is purely passive in character, while the inspiration of these beauties and that culture is practically inextinguishable in the human species. But in everything that is influenced by opinion such as is not secured on the bedrock of the experimental sciences, or in which other factors are at work in the form of speculative concep- tions whose foundation is rational and not empirical, or of feelings of another order from the appetites and aspirations previously referred to, a good deal of misgiving, despite the optimistic outbursts persistently indulged in, has to be con- fessed after considering matters impartially and scien- tifically. Who, for example, has not felt the possibility that the unmistakable advances we have realized as regards social 1:306:] BOOK OF THE OPENING and political organization, in the general province of law and the moral conception of life, may not, after all, be doomed to immolation before some sudden metamorphosis of human thought and opinion, as illogical, according to our present judgment, as you like, but not without precedent in the history of many countries,-embracing, moreover, widely extended areas? What meditative mind has not experi- enced, at one time or another, uneasiness over the possibility of the general orientation of modern thought being finally supplanted by another, to the entire subversion of our basic conception of the world; or of our literature and art sinking into a decadence in which they will be rendered extravagant and impotent? With these considerations we are brought to another ques- tion that is associated with this theory of civilization- namely, that as to whether all the orders of our life are following a necessarily ascendent path-that is to say, a course of indefinite improvement, considering their history as a whole and discarding mere temporary setbacks; or whether there are not certain orders which are exceptions to this rule, different and distinct in character from those sub- ject to a continuous progress; whether, moreover, there are not others whose point of culmination (in man) has now already been attained and will not be exceeded, perhaps not even equaled, in the future. And, as a natural consequence of the comparisons and contrasts necessitated by this study, there follows yet another question which is repeatedly oc- cupying thinkers-namely, the question of a proportion or relative development between the distinct reaches of human activity, or, broadly speaking, between these two (to be taken as embodying the two main divisions of the facts of civilization) : the moral order and the material. Coming to a closer consideration of the first of the two [307:1 I' THE RICE INSTITUTE questions raised, we shall see that while historical investiga- tion has enabled us to determine the existence, across the ages, of a fundamental current which, in spite of temporary deflections, has always, in the long run, triumphed, mount- ing now higher and higher in the conquest of Nature and the applications to human necessities of her elements and forces, expanding in the sphere of social organization and in the direction of popular liberties, as also in artistic manifes- tation of a certain order,— yet, on the other hand, we cannot say the same of all the provinces of, for example, art, nor of all the orders of scientific research, and still less so of the problem of moral conduct, especially as regards certain of its most important branches. How many times has it been asseverated that Greek art, in certain branches, is insuper- able, and that none of man s subsequent creations are to be compared with it,— not excepting those of this modern era, despite the higher reaches of modern culture and its bound- less sources of nutrition from the past? Who is not aware that, in spite of the great progress of philosophy since the Renaissance, its present situation is still fundamentally in- separable from the doctrines of the Greek philosophers, whose thought we have not, in many things, so much as widened? How often have we not been told that music in the great German classics was carried to its apex, both tech- nical and ideal? Who can deny that modern literature is far from monopolizing all the greatest productions of literary art, and that many of the great masterpieces in this line have been the work of the ancients— a fact implying that the line of development which this departure is following is not sub- ject to the same law which is guiding other orders and un- mistakably urging them still forward? And finally, who can escape the bitter confession that moral development is still exiguous, that customs are not improving all around, and BOOK OF THE OPENING that the higher ethical doctrines remain untranslated into action in the practical life of the majority? Let it be observed, however, at the outset, that there is a strong possibility of error in these affirmations and compari- sons, owing to the influence of a traditional tendency, still prevalent, in which the "classical" is seen as a type and standard handed down to us from the past as something per- fect and insuperable, by which we have unduly limited the future, with all its hidden possibilities— possibilities in the way of new departures in the sphere of art, thought, origi- nality and culture. In face of this doubt and uncertainty arising from indefinite and what are for us mysterious pos- sibilities of new departures and new doctrines, a past status of perfection loses the importance it would otherwise possess could it be definitely stated that never in the future will this standard either be superseded or equaled. It would be sufficient, as regards art and literature, that the future should produce things of equal supernal beauty to the great mas- terpieces of the past, although the ideal which inspires them and the means and medium of their expression may be dif- ferent. Furthermore, it should be remembered that the only con- clusion of any practical value which is to be drawn from the fact— supposing it to be a fact— that in certain human de- partments of thought the goal of achievement has been ar- rived at in past ages-i.^., Greek sculpture-would be that certain branches of progress are more easy of development than others, and have thus been exploited and exhausted, while others are still in the process of development. The im- mediate consequence of this conclusion in its influence on our conduct, as one of the educative results of knowledge, would be that we should dedicate the greater part of our energies henceforward to developing all that is relatively backward, 1:309: k ••i h THE RICE INSTITUTE withdrawing such energies to a great extent from the fully exploited branches whose pursuit, it would seem, can only be attended now with lesser results. Perhaps, indeed, in certain modern propensities, in certain orientations of the main body of humanity to-day, which seems to be cultivating by choice precisely those branches which are only imperfectly developed, there is a vague but effective consciousness of this necessity. What is of real and actual gravity, however, is the fact of the enormous disproportion between the highest results which have been achieved in the ethical department and those of the other orders. This is an historical fact which is evident, even without any special study of the matter, to any- body, and on the strength of which we may divide the mani- festations of human life into two groups: one in which are embodied all those branches which, it may be said, have on the whole expanded and developed and are continuing to develop in a conspicuous manner, or else have already in the past attained their apex of perfection, though to-day in a state of collapse and effeteness,— manifestations belonging to the artistic and intellectual sphere, or representing the material civilization which has resulted from man's dominion over nature and from the applications of science, and also to certain aspects of social organization; w^hile on the other hand is the group which embraces the element of moral con- duct and certain other directions of social and juridical or- ganization, phenomena which either have not developed in any perceptible degree or are obviously behindhand com- pared to the phenomena included in the first group. It would be superfluous to reopen here the discussion which years ago, when the literature of the Philosophy of History was flourishing (that literature which dazzled and misled so many people, while it offered little that was of real [3103 BOOK OF THE OPENING scientific value), raised such impassioned argument owing, perhaps, to the radical form in which it was planted and the rash manner, disregardful of requisite historical data, in which it was approached,— the discussion of the question: Is there or is there not such a thing as moral progress? Such absolute questions it will be a matter of common agreement to discard as fruitless because no one doubts the fact to- day that, in certain aspects of his moral conduct, social and individual man has actually advanced, and that the practical ideal which is being realized in the higher circle of society is superior to that which prevailed in such circles some cen- turies ago. And simultaneously, in the juridical sphere, in the strict meaning of the term, accepting the common dis- tinction between morality and law, — a distinction which is not necessarily exact, — it is equally beyond doubt that justice is, on the whole, becoming more and more actual in many of the human relations it affects. But by the side of this twofold conviction which we possess it is equally unmistakable that the moral and juridical order still, in many of its phases and even in the most advanced communities, embraces what is immoral and unjust, and that the majority of individuals are likewise immoral and unjust in many features of their lives. The discouraging impres- sion which these facts produce in us is not so much suggested by the evils they infer as by their exposure of the inefficacy of doctrines and ideals proclaimed and effusively embraced by millions of human beings many centuries ago. It is com- prehensible that there are certain sciences which have not at all times realized the perfection and development they have now attained, because the advance of these sciences has fol- lowed from the grasp of certain truths which have only lat- terly been realized; but the ethical and juridical ideal. In its application to social and individual life, has been realized In [311] THE RICE INSTITUTE « many of its fundamental aspects since immemorial time,— yet, nevertheless, it has produced only the most exiguous effects relatively to the situation which preceded its adoption or to its exigencies as an ideal. This inefficacy or extremely limited efficacy of the moral ideal is what disheartens the sincere observer and at times causes him to despair of the province of morality, even theoretically admitting the devel- opment attained in the other provinces of life, or at least to demand why it is that this element is to be found in what is perhaps an immense inferiority to others, and is, at all events, held in less importance among the problems of life. This situation is explained, according to modern theories, on the hypothesis that moral advancement is not solely de- pendent on the advancement of ethical ideas, but also on other factors belonging to other orders— factors which in most cases have made their appearance long after the actual ethical ideal. A good illustration of this doctrine is Buckle's instance, in connection with war, of the decline of the warlike spirit in humanity. For Buckle, as is known, the three great causes of this change have been : the invention of gunpowder, Adam Smith's book on the "Wealth of Nations," and the use of steam in land and maritime communication; that is to say, three factors wholly distinct in origin and character from the moral sentiments which, at first sight, would have seemed to be the principal causes of this momentous change. In like manner, other authors, of philosophic affiliations very different from those of Buckle, have shown that in the abolition of slavery in Europe and in the betterment of the juridical situation of the land-laboring classes, moral motives represented only an exiguous influence, while eco- nomic motives, on the contrary, were paramount.^ These 1 For all that is to be learned from Spain in this matter, reference should be had to the standard work of Eduardo de Hinojosa: "The Feudal System and the Agrarian Question in Cataluna," Madrid, 1905. [3123 BOOK OF THE OPENING and many other historical examples appear to establish the theory of the school in question, according to which moral progress is made dependent on scientific development, or on the changes at work in other very distinct orders of life,— a theory according to which the relatively backward situation of the moral order is explained by this observation of two facts— the fact, primarily, of this same dependence of posi- tion and the fact of the personal and intransferable quality of moral actions. "Whereas intellectual acquisitions," says an exponent of the theory, "are transmitted scrupulously from one generation to another and the attainments of the moral faculties are not transmissible, in that every one must practise goodness for its own sake, by the nature of it good- ness is essentially personal and private, and even the good which is realized by the purest and most diligent philanthropy is of limited duration and can only benefit a comparatively small number of people. The actions of the bad produce a transient evil; those of the good, a good which is equally unenduring: it is only the discoveries of the great thinkers which subsist eternally, survive the ruin of empires and the fluctuation of beliefs, follow and are added to each other in succession, and stand alone immutable amidst the ephemeral and fugitive, serving as landmarks In the progress of hu- manity." There is of course obvious exaggeration in some of the above affirmations, for neither is the moral element so changeable as is suggested,— a certain sediment always hav- ing persisted and affirmed itself through history,-nor can it be said that nothing of what Is attained in this order can be added to previous attainments in the way that intellectual advancements are recorded and accumulated; nor even is there entire justification for the theory that the effect of a moral effort can only be passing in duration, for such an [313] \j THE RICE INSTITUTE effort, when it becomes crystallized in a social labor or social institution or in a reform of customs, may be prolonged through great periods of time and become incorporated in the general conduct of a people almost finally and unalterably, descending and extending to an immense number of human beings. These discrepancies, however, do not invalidate the general truth of the theory as regards the intervention of non-moral factors— factors, that is, of a different physical and spiritual order— in the achievement of advances in the actual domain of morality, nor the force of the theory as an explanation of this same disproportion in development which we are concerned with— this albeit that it is not a matter of such certainty that the inevitable action of the intellectual over the moral implies an absolute subordination of the lat- ter to the former, in so far as the influence exerted by the human intelligence over human conduct does not invariably signify the actual suggestion of new lines of conduct, but represents in many cases merely the thought and reflection granted certain principles of life defended by the moralists, — reflections that have resulted in a conviction of the essen- tial necessity of the principles in question ; — intellectual progress, in the strict meaning of the term, thus, apart from all it represents in its own sphere, being converted through this relationship into a means for serving and furthering the end of most importance— the object, that is, of moral prog- ress. The fallacy in the argument that because intellectual advancement, as is contended in this theory and in fact ad- mitted by us, is the impulse of civilization, it has for this reason to be considered the measure and criterion of it, is evident when we consider that progress does not consist merely in the declaration of principles or in the act of men- tally appreciating them, but in their practice and realization — assuming, that is, that the first and basic necessity in life is [314] BOOK OF THE OPENING goodness; the contradiction, moreover, between belief and conduct, between thought and action, is sufficiently glaring in our lives to save us from the error of deducing the purity of the latter as an inevitable issue of the truth and beauty of the former. But now, so far as our main question is concerned,— the actual question under discussion, -the fact remains, whether we hold this theory to be valid or regard the two spheres in question— the scientific and the moral— as independent, or at least independent in many of their aspects, that we are still left with the same doubt as we started with, though em- bodied in two forms. On the first hypothesis-that of our accepting the theory— it is necessary to ask: Up to what limit will scientific development be able to influence the moral conduct for whose growth it is responsible? In the second case we are faced always with this question: Is the present disproportion between the development and evolution of both spheres to be permanent; will it, in time, become dimin- ished, or is It to be augmented still further in the future? And in either case, what is the impression, optimistic or pes- simistic, that we are left with after the study of all. In this connection, that history up to the present has afforded us? But now again, it is not impossible— in fact, it is very probable— that the question is still imperfectly stated owing to the need of a further discrimination. In short, are we so very certain that all the actions usually comprehended in the sphere of moral conduct belong to the same order and des- tiny? Does not historical observation, on the contrary, suggest that there are two distinct classes of manifestations in this order whose difference may be said to have found expression in the distinct directions they have taken across history? This very obvious distinction, already noted in a preceding argument, that exists between certain features, on [315] -If w. THE RICE INSTITUTE the one hand, of social morality, embracing determined aspects of human relationship— orders that have developed in moral status, and become purified, possessing what is per- haps an inexhaustible capacity for continued purification and development— moral attainments such as honor, tolerance, veracity, impartiality, etc.,— between these and other feat- ures of social and individual morality, as far as the distinc- tion is possible, which are plainly making no headway and in which the element of evil is as prevalent to-day as cen- turies ago, is surely a powerful argument in favor of the theory that there is one branch of our moral life which is capable of development and another in which all progress seems impossible, or at least has seemed so up to the present. That this is the case is, in my opinion, beyond doubt: I be- lieve that the experience of history demonstrates with the utmost clarity that there are moral inclinations in our nature which can actually be checked— which have, indeed, been suppressed among certain communities, with a resulting transformation in popular customs ; while, on the other hand, there are others, always precisely the same, which, subsisting as they do in passions apparently ineradicable, dominated and subdued by only a limited number of people, not in each case the same elements, have not been subject to this rectification and continue as sources of evil. Such is the case with envy, anger, cupidity, ambition and the craving for luxury, and a whole series of other tendencies elemental in our nature whose products in the form of misery and pri- vation are utterly horrifying as represented to us by modern sociologists, psychologists and criminologists, such abomina- tions in our days scarcely being considered possible. These, then, are the actual facts of the case, the results of historical investigation, and beyond the field of these facts, on any scientific basis, we cannot venture; for every predic- 1:316] BOOK OF THE OPENING tion is merely a hypothesis, a problematical supposition with relation to an uncertain future. Human aspiration, how- ever, does not resignedly surrender to a simple recognition of the facts as they now are and have been in the past— in a recognition, that is to say, of history. Hope ventures into the belief that it will also be possible to rectify, finally, that which has seemed incorrigible, to subdue those forces which up to the present have been irrepressible, and so to subdue them that the change shall constitute a social triumph, in- corporated as a definite conquest in the civilizations, first of the most advanced communities, and finally of all. Such a labor, in fact, if we come to think of it, embodies the car- dinal problem of education, and it is on the appreciation of this problem in the alternative attitude of optimism or pes- simism that depends an important difference in the prevail- ing scholastic system. ^'Education will do everything!'' or, "Education is subject to impassable limits in human nature generally and in each individual case in particular!'' Such are the two conflicting statements. The second bases itself on the concrete data of experience, the first on a generous confidence in the perfectibility of human nature and the efficacy of method; and so inspiring is the conception it awakens in us of the future that it has won the powerful sup- port of great men like Goethe and Guyau. Although the main course of pedagogy is to-day following another direc- tion, refusing to admit the omnipotence of education, it is certain, for the moment, that any absolute and categorical answer to the question will be problematical. This question the advances of psychology, social and individual, may enable to be answered in the future. At present the most we can do is to formulate the problem. But this same uncertainty and doubt which arise, on the one hand, from the weakness of our hypothesis respecting [3173 I <}^ THE RICE INSTITUTE the future, and, on the other, from the results of our study of the past, serves at any rate to bring us to grips with the urgent and dominating question: What is it that is of most importance in life? If mankind is not improving morally, what value is there in the other branches of his progress? For what do they serve but as a merely superficial satisfac- tion and a delusive mask to the virtual wretchedness in which the immense majority of individuals live? Let us now fearlessly approach this question, which, al- though, like others we have been dealing with, is apparently disassociated from an investigation properly speaking his- torical, is as a matter of fact essentially allied to such a study. The question is inevitably associated with the ideal of life which ranks the ethical factor (and quite rightly so, no doubt) at the head of all, maintaining that, as compared with this, material or purely intellectual advantages are of little value; while, for another thing, it presupposes that all the elements, both material and spiritual, of human life have necessarily to be equally perfectible. As a result of this double supposition every deficiency in the moral order fos- ters, it is clear, discouragement, pessimism or censure, with all the perplexities that historical data awaken with regard to the disproportion between the march of the two orders. But the question to be considered is whether, while admitting the first supposition (for me it is beyond doubt, and in fact I believe most firmly that the main value and significance of our advances in the intellectual sphere and the material con- sists in such assistance as they provide for the juridical and moral element in its task of facilitating a real understanding of the world and the subdual of natural impulse) , there is not a great error in the second. Would it not appear certain that, distinguishing as we do between two spheres or groups of actions and relationships in that province of civilization [318;] i BOOK OF THE OPENING whose backwardness we are discussing, we should confine ourselves, without embarking on the impossible, to the per- fecting of those elements which are perfectible, according to our evidence from history, while on the other hand recog- nizing, and resigning ourselves to the admission, that there are other elements which lack this capacity of growth, and in respect of which the only feasible course, with human na- ture as it is, is to limit their scope for evil, redeeming the maximum number of individual cases, and, in short, dimin- ishing the deplorable influence they exercise (it bemg im- possible to suppress them), as is being done to-day with many of them by means of legislation, police, prisons and reformatories such as are worth the name, and even medical treatment in its particular province ? If we were to take this course and bow to the inevitable, we should be relieved once and for all of the warring pre- occupation over an impossible ideal, over the incompatibility between a belief in this ideal and our utter failure to accom- plish it; and this relief, freeing us from the despair which is born of failure, would enable us to direct the best of our energies toward what is feasible, discarding from the field of historical investigation problems which have ceased to be problems. And then, indeed, our whole theory of civiliza- tion, springing from a recognition of the facts of history and the undoubted progress realized in the majority of our ac- tivities, as also of the fundamental orientation which the whole of human history seems to contain below the surface of its racial differences,-an orientation which is not preju- dicial to the original genius, necessary as long as harmless, of each social entity and group,-would have as a practical result for the present and the future the ever intenser appli- cation of those means and processes by which, up to the pres- ent, progress has been realized, especially with the object of n3i9a I THE RICE INSTITUTE accelerating the march of those phases of progress which are behindhand, and of maintaining the equilibrium In which the development of one order will not be sacrificed to that of another, either in dragging humanity into a life of egoism for a more or less considerable number of people merely voluptuous and sybaritical, or in depreciating intellectual and material evolution in favor of an esthetic ideal and moral standard, to which mankind is to be converted, incompatible for society with all the other achievements it has realized. Well, now, if we reflect on the aspirations of contem- porary civilization as they are manifested and expressed, we shall see, as was mentioned before, that all these manifesta- tions affirm the resolve to secure and conserve the material civilization now flourishing, to augment and at the same time disseminate It, embracing the widest number of people and thus converting it from the monopoly of the few into the heritage of the majority, and, If possible, of every one; also, that this same centrifugal tendency Is to be observed in the sphere of intellectual culture, forever seeking to penetrate more widely the masses at the same time that it is perfecting the conditions of the higher investigation which is reserved for the chosen few, but open to humanity in general in the glory of Its issues and conclusions. And concomitantly we shall observe that, alike in the flower of humanity and In the surging masses, there is a cry and clamor for the ethical basis to life, a demand for the reign of justice in the sphere of jurisprudence, of the good in the sphere of morality, these being the things which are our only guarantee against the tragedy of a life of hatred, tears and curses,— in search of these things, however, always in the consciousness, given an impartial recognition of experience, that there is a surplus of evil still undominated, which is probably indomitable, and which embodies the unavoidable lot of human Imperfections, human limitations, which are defiant of human will. [320;] BOOK OF THE OPENING » Third Lecture THE METHODS OF EXTENDING CIVILIZATION AMONG THE NATIONS WE were saying in the preceding lecture that the gen- eral problem of human history-or, in other words, of civilization-embraces two classes of questions. The first of these we have endeavored to answer in the before-men- tioned lecture. The second, although it has been the subject of many previous allusions, we shall now answer more di- rectly, in order to arrive at the treatment of the concrete question in reference to Spain. We must bear in mind that our object is to ascertam by what methods civilization is evolved, and what is, in conse- quence, the best course to adopt in order to strengthen and advance it. . Passing over the beginnings of history, when each family or human group (if we admit the polygenetic theory) or the family nucleus (if we accept the monogenetic theory) either must have been self-taught and have had to select for itself the most important lessons which nature offered, or must have arrived at the principles involved through the inventive power of human intelligence, there is no doubt that the in- stances of autodidacticism, collective and individual, are the exception, and that when they do appear they have but a limited field of development and leave no lasting impression if they remain in the isolation in which they were conceived. The general law of civilization, as in education (and, strictly speaking, are they not the same?), is reciprocal influ- ence and mutual teaching. Those who teach others are at 1:321:1 THE RICE INSTITUTE the same time taught. There is a continual ebb and flow of suggestions, corrections, imitations and reflected experiences, by which each individual profits more or less according to his power of assimilation and reaction. This law fulfils itself in each group, acting between individual and individual, be- tween individual and group, and vice versa. The same process takes place between group and group, although it may be possible that during the centuries one group, or a combination of groups, has become isolated and has con- tinued to develop an acquired impulse by virtue of the con- tinuous growth of human powers and the more than geometrical progression of their advance. The latter seems to have been the case in primitive America. This law takes effect without the knowledge of those it influences, and even against their will, as happens, for in- stance, between hostile peoples separated by mutual hatred and respective interests,^ or as occurs with those peoples who attempt to isolate themselves from their neighbors (as though this could be accomplished even should all the laws of the world seem not only to sanction but to command it under a thousand penalties). Aside from the fact that this law invariably works itself out naturally, man applies it reflectively. He civilizes individuals through education (schools, academies, etc.). Nations he civilizes sometimes by imposing upon them a regime which influences the great majority {e.^., the process of Romanizatlon of the provinces in so far as this result was intended and sought after by the Romans themselves), sometimes through Individuals, these individuals being chosen, as in the modern method of award- ing scholarships for study and travel, to learn at first hand the history and customs of peoples who are considered more 1 For example, in the case of Mussulmans and Christians in medieval Spain, vho, notwithstanding their constant warfare, influenced each other to a great extent. "m. BOOK OF THE OPENING advanced, in order that the knowledge thus acquired may be diffused throughout the student's own country. In this way the civilization of each group continues to pro- gress impelled by that which each group receives from the other groups and by that which originated within the group itself. The absence of either of these two factors would dis- turb the equilibrium of the civilizing process, since to mflu- ence and to teach, a people must have created somethmg, and even that people which has created nothing equal to the productions of others, must have in its mental composition an original element on which to base and mold mto charac- teristic form those qualities borrowed from its fellow bemgs. A people lacking this original element (which in its turn will convert a people into an active factor in the common work of civilization) becomes weakened and atrophied as does a disused organ. Since civilization and education are essential factors in every case, this question immediately arises: Is it right to impose civilization by force? In education this question is presented in the discussion concerning "obligatory learning imposed upon the child, although he may not desire it be- cause his resistance to it (if he does resist) is the result of his Ignorance of the fundamental Importance of education m his life. Had the child as clear a conception of its value as the adult man usually possesses, he himself would ask that he be educated and would demand this as a right, in the same way that he would demand the fulfilment of his right to be provided with the necessities of his material life, for which, in his earliest years, he could only ask by signs and cries (at times he even refused them), but which, nevertheless, were not denied him because of this. Let us now consider the problem in its bearing upon the relations among peoples. Probably ever since humanity has If, I THE RICE INSTITUTE existed and groups of men have fought among themselves for a thousand causes more or less clear, in the discussion of the motives which led to aggression men have resorted, whenever the circumstances offered a semblance of justifica- tion, to the argument that this aggression was entered upon in the interest of culture and education. In some cases this interest manifested itself in connection with religion {e.g.^ in recognizing as a duty the conversion of infidel nations, pagans, etc., and their introduction to the true faith) ; in others, the argument had to do with the general welfare of humanity, which was being jeopardized by the existence of peoples ignorant, backward, fanatic, opposed to all innova- tion, etc., incapable of developing with intelligent effort the resources offered by their own soil,— peoples, in short, whose continued unproductivity justified the interference of the rest of mankind; others alleged that humanity was imperiled by the existence of peoples stubbornly opposed to the recogni- tion of those fundamental rights of man without which com- munity life and social relations are impossible. This latter argument is of recent origin; indeed, it is the child of our own epoch, and has come to replace almost entirely the argument of religion, just as that of religion replaced to a certain extent the argument of the superiority or inferiority of peoples and individuals which was used to explain slavery in classic times, and which was even advanced by certain philosophers of the Renaissance w^hen referring to the American aborigines. Apparently we have before us a theory analogous to that on which obligatory education is based. Nations, like chil- dren, must be taught to realize the importance of their mis- sion; if they fail to educate themselves voluntarily, others must intervene in their affairs in order to raise them to the level of culture they are capable of attaining. Thus, the 1:324] 1 ' BOOK OF THE OPENING most civilized discharge a tutelary function, aiding and co- operating toward the common good. Of the two forces working in humanity, one to advance all civilization, the other to bring about the sovereignty and independence of individual states, the former is, in the theory, the stronger- the usefulness of the latter being destroyed when it serves, as it does here, merely to maintain a group of men outside the established order and conditions of civilized life. If this theory were correct, we should have an example of a method of civilization distinct from the two common to humanity: viz., individual effort and the normal and pacific influence of others (if this influence is not rejected or delib- erately sought after) . It would be, simply, the employment of the coercive method when the voluntary method was not spontaneously followed, and all that would remain for us to discuss would be whether this method may righttully be employed, or whether, on the contrary, there is included among the prerogatives of a people's liberty the right to remain indefinitely barbarous, uncivilized, or backward and markedly inferior to the majority who feel the impulse to- ward civilization,-the right, in short, to be an obstacle pre- venting the growth of this civilization in strength, its acquirement of new methods and its extension over the en- tire world. . But even if we accept the theory simply as such and with- out raising any difficulties, history provides us with this extremely powerful argument against it : If obligatory educa- tion presupposes a compulsion, this compulsion is not used to abuse the child, to diminish his rights, to take possession of what is his,-in other words, to do him harm,-but to por- tion out to him a benefit in a form equally good. The theory referred to, as has already been noted in pointing out its origin, is only applied to peoples in the form of conquest. I 1 ^1 v THE RICE INSTITUTE And, even supposing that it is not a disguise for the mere desire for mastery, the form through which it manifests it- self usually bears in its train conditions which render the theory worthless. In fact, those who have recourse to it as an excuse to interfere in the life of a nation, to seize its ter- ritory and to direct its affairs, are not in the habit of deciding upon this course for the good of that nation (this is the fact, no matter what naine may be given to the intervention), but egotistically for their own benefit (to take advantage of the natural and industrial wealth of the vanquished nation, to provide room for expansion, or through pure delight in domination, etc.) ; or at least these considerations take first place, while the task of education is left very much in the background, or is confined to mere contact with that in which the conqueror is superior; that is to say, the tutelary mission of cooperation and of the regeneration of the less developed neighbor is subordinated to the acquisition of those things which contribute peculiarly to the advantage of the con- queror, or at least it does not occupy the preeminent position w^hich befits it; and instead of a work of love, of concord, of mutual effort, it becomes a work of hatred, of violence, and of plunder more or less dissimulated. If it should be objected that in such a case the end justifies the means, since in the end the less advanced, conquered people,— the Roman provinces, for example, — assimilating the advantages of the new civilization, will rise to the level of its conqueror,— if this objection is presented, we may answer that neither is this always the case (for there are many inferior peoples who have never risen to the level of their conquerors, but have been absorbed by them and so lost their own identity), nor is violence, ordinarily carried to bloody limits, the proper road to education. This deplora- ble result is brought about sometimes through lack of tact on [326] BOOK OF THE OPENING the part of the "educator,'' sometimes through resistance on the part of those whom he is attempting to educate. It will suffice to recall in this connection the thousands of victims of the Roman conquest in the Iberian peninsula,-victims who cannot be forgotten even in the light of the superior culture which was finally forced upon the descendants of those sacrificed. And as it was effected then, so it has continued to be effected through all history, and so it is still effected in our own times. The question, then, immediately arises: Is it possible to accomplish this by another method? Is it possible to bring into the field of what is considered the more advanced civil- ization any nation whatever, without stirring up a conflict animated by that very resistance to improvement which is the result of their ignorance, and without this conflict degener- ating into bloody disputes and plunderings? Or, in other terms, is it possible to educate in the same way (that is, through the action of love and kindness) as one would a child who fails to lend himself willingly to education, a peo- ple which does not desire progress? In my opinion this question cannot be answered in the abstract. We lack suf- ficient historical data to give a well-founded answer, for all the material which we do possess is based on contrary pro- ceedings : the conqueror has always commenced by troubling and molesting, and has thus given a motive for the resis- tance. Some exceptions which we might recall, but which came to nothing (I have in mind the attempt of the Padre Las Casas in Cumana), have usually followed bloody con- flicts, and it is impossible to say what they might have ac- complished by themselves if they had been employed from the start. That very division of mankind into peoples stub- born and warlike and peoples docile and submissive in the case of intervention, which the conquerors have been accus- M I THE RICE INSTITUTE tomed to make, is in itself suspicious. We cannot be certain that the first classification was not often an excuse for the violent proceedings which the invaders themselves initiated. There is, moreover, a factor in the problem v^^hen dealing with nations which greatly complicates the question and forces it into the field of violence, although this may not be the intention of the one who intervenes. This factor is the total or partial loss of independence which the intervention of a foreign power always presupposes, and which, no mat- ter how slight it is alleged to be, bears down upon and hampers its victims, the more severely the nearer they find themselves to that state of civilization in which liberty is fastidious and does not even recognize the ideal restrictions which separate and distinguish it from free will and the most absolute personal autocracy. In the case of the child forced to attend school there is a loss of independence as he under- stands it; but his protests may be overruled and his struggles are so insignificant and ephemeral that they leave no traces. The protest of a people, on the contrary, is not so easily overcome, and is strong enough to bring about the violent conflict whose suppression serves to accentuate the hatred and increase the tyranny. Since even the slightest interfer- ence, actuated by the most generous purpose, brings with it some limitation of a people's sovereignty, — if this limitation is felt keenly enough by the people interfered with, will all the advantages that accompany it be strong enough to smother the desire to reconquer their former complete free- dom? Moreover, the self-esteem, the national pride of a people is far stronger than that of an individual; it reasons less and often fails to recognize the superiority of a neigh- bor; consequently, as soon as a people whose affairs are under the direction of another begins to comprehend its own powers and is admitted to the same rank of civilization as D28] BOOK OF THE OPENING that of the nation which is intervening with the intention of teaching, it will oppose this design with all that feeling of repulsion to which the self-respect of a nation is susceptible when it is troubled by the mere suggestion that it needs the guidance of another and is incapable of working out its own salvation. And it is to be remarked that this fact, natural in the psychology of the group and repeated in history, has been dignified in a theory which, idealizing it, has strengthened and raised it from the rank of an almost instinctive move- ment of reaction to the category of a recognized necessity, some of whose principles admit of no discussion. This is the position of Fichte when he names independence as a fun- damental and essential condition of all culture, since civiliza- tion truly serviceable to a people must be the outgrowth of their own effort and not something borrowed or taken over ready-made from others.^ Except for a very few and limited examples of missions and governors in the history of our own civilization, we lack, I repeat, such data concerning loving guardianship over a people as we possess concerning the affectionate teach- ing of a child; but this deficiency does not authorize the statement that, generally speaking, the humanitarian pro- ceeding would not be possible. That of which we may be certain is, that humanity, taken as a whole, does not know how to use it. It has seen the wisdom of dealing gently with the child, but it has not yet arrived at this method of dealing with the people of another country when that country is open to domination. This his- torical law, true in ancient times, true in the Middle x^ges, 1 History, however, sometimes argues with examples contrary to this state- ment-r.F., the Romanization of a great part of Europe, which produced ex- tremely beneficial results, notwithstanding the fart that it was accompamed by donnination. The truth is that Fichte theorizes concernmg peoples already civilized. 1:329:] A 1 ( THE RICE INSTITUTE true in the epochs of great discoveries and of colonial ex- pansion, still reigns in the world to-day. And furthermore, notwithstanding certain advances in the laws of war, usually more theoretical than practical, illusory promises in the reports of the international conventions and frequently con- tradicted by reality, we note a retrocession in the ideas rela- tive to this point, or a new and unsympathetic assertion (dissembled in form and not very explicit in its outward manifestations, but very clear and definite as a rule of con- duct) concerning the incorrigibility of certain human groups, of their unfitness for civilization, and of the advantage of making them disappear as one would an obstacle which stands in the way of progress. At least there is a general indifference to the fact of their disappearance, even in the case when this is brought about by violence and has exceeded the limits of a natural movement for self-defense on the part of the superior group. These sentiments, I repeat, are the dominant ones which in the end direct the decisive acts of statesmen, and those which triumph beneath racial roman- ticisms which, in some places, have wished to bind the pres- ent life with native atavisms open to much question when considered historically, but worthy of respect from the humanitarian point of view. The question, then, in its practical aspect is answered day by day; and it will be some time at least before any one will be able to change Its trend, however fervid and however reasonable may be the propaganda against it. Precisely here lies the problem— in the fitness of one or the other line of conduct. Which of them has reason on its side? Which should prevail in the system of relations between people and people, state and state? Do there exist, in truth, peoples incapable of advancing civilization, refractory to the de- mands of modern life; peoples whose mere existence in or BOOK OF THE OPENING out of a country is at least a dead weight upon the progress of that country, if not actually an active factor of disturb- ance and degradation, the suppression of which is a neces- sity ? It must be observed that the judgment of incorrigibility or inadaptability is rendered by the very group which is pro- moting or predicting the annihilation of that which it con- siders a disturbing element. This judgment, always open to suspicion, since the giver is at one and the same time judge and party to the suit, is perhaps hasty as well, when we con- sider that it Is applied to those who have as yet experienced no attempted education. If the condemnatory sentence should come as the consequence of a systematic series of efforts sufficiently extensive and intensive to educate the people or the race qualified as a disturbing factor, there would still be room for discussion concerning the logical exactness of the conclusion, but one could never deny the fact that this conclusion had some foundation, and that be- fore arriving at it other methods had been tried. But, as we have previously asked, which one of those peoples who have planted colonies among inferior races can lay claim to hav- ing actually made an attempt at such an education, instead of offering a ''civilization" produced through alcohol, decep- tion, abuses, and through that contempt which bars from communion with the superior race those men considered as lower in the scale of humanity? The above consideration, just as It stands, would be suffi- cient to make us suspend judgment respecting the justice of that policy of domination in the relations among peoples; but we could strengthen It still further by observing that^ in history this judgment of inferiority has not only been applied to barbarous and savage human groups, but also to those who enjoyed a well-developed civilization; not infrequent [330 ( (i i I I THE RICE INSTITUTE are the cases in which a warlike chauvinism, the smoldering hatred of nation for nation, also applies this judgment to a nation which is almost upon the same plane of development as the one which condemns it and passes this opinion only because the latter nation does not consider the other as be- longing to the same "race," or because a gulf of century-long wars separates them and provokes their ill-will, or simply because exciting contempt for any foreign accomplishment was considered a good method for assuring patriotism. Even laying aside these cases of actual injustice, of judg- ment blinded by passion, and also those other cases in which the condemnatory sentence is notoriously hasty and is not based on positive facts, there will still remain a few concern- ing which the question reappears in all its vigor. Around it the two opposed criteria of humanity will continue to con- tend—the sentimental and optimistic, which abhors all violent suppressions, and the utilitarian and pessimistic, which believes that such suppression is justified in the service of civilization and on the grounds of the positive inability to advance in culture which it presupposes in certain human groups. That is to say, that even on the firm ground of sociology and law, laying aside all the selfishness, all the deceits and tricks of justice which are produced by special interests ever against our wills, and all the illogical precipi- tancy of judgment, this question may safely be formulated, or rather, in fact, we do formulate it to-day and answer it at each step without scruples, and hence we must consider it as not to be set aside in our minds,— the question as to whether there actually exist people who, because they are refractory under any attempt to guide and educate them, should be eliminated from modern social life, if not by a quick, violent method, then by neglect of their cultural necessities and the absorption of their revenues. This recognition of our pres- D32] BOOK OF THE OPENING ent attitude of mind toward a question of such importance should serve us as a touchstone for investigation and judg- ment of past conditions. If humanity to-day, with all its progress and culture, is still doubtful on this particular pomt, and what is worse, in actual practice still continues to apply the system of domination and fails to recognize tutelary education, or else does not apply it when it should, how can we be surprised that in other centuries humanity less cul- tured, harsher, and more implacable toward man, less influ- enced by the principles of fraternity and solidarity, should usually have proceeded in the same manner and fulfilled its duty of transmitting civilization either by subordinating it to its own interests, or imposing it by force, or judging that not the conquered people were worthy of it, but rather the con- queror In the dissemination of colonies which conquest itself brings about? Undoubtedly the fundamental work for a knowledge of actual human history is a thorough investiga- tion as to how each people, on coming into contact with an inferior race, has understood its relations with that race in the light of its duty toward civilization, and how it has ef- fectually realized them (favoring now one system, now the other) . This investigation up to the present time has been undertaken only in a fragmentary manner (that is, with reference only to certain peoples, and, strangely, to certain definite classes of culture and of social life), and often in a spirit of partiality which sought only faults, not facts. The Kulturgeschichte, aspiration of the theorists of the Renais- sance, cultivated in the learned manner by many historians of the eighteenth century and reduced to a system by those of the nineteenth, is still in the main a collection of general laws whose ideal interrogatory lacks many of the questions which might explain its processes and give significance to the material on which it is based. One of these questions-and D33;] V 1 / THE RICE INSTITUTE one of the most important— is that which we formulated a moment ago. While this question remains unanswered with that fullness which its conception demands and with the sci- entific accuracy which would exclude passion and injustice, we have no right, even from the most rigorously sentimental and humanistic point of view, to judge any people upon this phase of their conduct, because we would lack the exact and complete knowledge of what they had accomplished, and, consequently, the ability justly to compare this with what the rest of mankind had achieved. This is the case of Spain considered as a colonizing coun- try. Since Las Casas published his "Destruccion de las In- dias" (1552), Spaniards and foreigners^ have discussed not only the problems proposed by Las Casas — as, for instance, the right of conquest in America (the justice or injustice of the war), the personal liberty of the aborigines, and espe- cially those acts of violence, unauthorized even by war itself and which more than anything else aroused the pity and the just spirit of the famous friar,— but also our entire colonial policy and even our ability as a colonizing people, in so far as colonization is to be regarded as an aid to the progress of the colonizers, which is the consideration that preoccupies those who regard the problem from this point of view. Let us put this question aside since it has no immediate relation to the problem of civilization which is now occupying our attention. Although this is interesting to economists and to ^ The defense of Spain's colonial policy in America has been very incom- plete. Neither Vargas Machuca nor Solorzano nor Nuix, etc., has dealt for the most part with more than one aspect — i.e., the slaughter of the Indians, their slavery through the abuse of agents, and other matters connected with the accusations of Las Casas; and even this they have usually done with ar- guments which, judged by our modern standards, at times rather make things worse, although such arguments carried great weight at the time they were advanced, because they were in accordance with the legal opinion of the age, a circumstance which we must never fail to take into account. As an example of this type of argument we may take that of evangelization and that of the power of the Pope, which Vargas Machuca employs, etc. [334;] BOOK OF THE OPENING those who with scientific reasoning deduce from every mani- festation of a people's character the salient points of their psychology and their fitness for social life, it lacks interest for those who, like us, are putting a very different question -one referring not to the effect of colonization upon the colonizing country, but on the country colonized. In this respect it is not particularly interesting to note those cases in which the Spaniards of the sixteenth and seven- teenth centuries, as sons of their epoch and educators m its ideas, acted as did the world at that time (and as is done even to-day quite frequently) toward the persons and pos- sessions of the natives, their political independence and pe- culiar civilization, more or less advanced. That which is both interesting and necessary is to note and weigh, after a detailed and calm investigation, the true extent of this pro- ceeding, or, in other words, of this contempt for the Indians and the abuse of their lives and possessions, in order that we may be able to say whether the cases in which this occurred were such, in number and consequence, as to warrant our considering the Spanish conquest and colonization as a unique and extraordinary example of a cruelty and arbitrari- ness unequaled in history, or, on the contrary, an exam- ple of the manner in which human groups which consider themselves more advanced have always treated those infe- rior to them. And while we are considering those charges unfavorable to Spain, it is equally interesting and necessary to ascertain and scrupulously to judge those actions, laws, sentiments and ideas which counteracted to a certain degree, or attempted to counteract, the usual method of formulating and carrying into effect a system of treatment for peoples of different rank in the scale of culture and civilization, peoples of different religion, etc., etc. The accurate and complete verification and comparison of these two opposed points of D35l [ THE RICE INSTITUTE view will enable us to form a just and impartial judgment upon Spain's early proceedings with regard to the countries which she conquered or colonized. This verification of data, however, has not yet been carried out, although it has been suggested and even initiated in certain historical and polemic works, modern and ancient.^ The same reaction which is visible to-day in the works of so many authors, not Spaniards, against that exaggeration, admitted and encouraged for centuries, concerning Spanish cruelty as an essential part of our methods of colonization, proves that the matter is not yet fully understood nor the final judgment upon it rendered. The thousands of com- ments dealing with American history which have not been read and, consequently, not been used in historical investiga- tions are sufficient argument in favor of a just and prudent hesitation in pronouncing this judgment. There is to be considered, however, a second division of this purely historical problem which is occupying our atten- tion at present. This division deals with the actual benefits conferred by Spain upon the countries she colonized. Mis- taken or not, from the point of view of politics, the com- parison of the Indies (Spanish possessions in the New World) to Spanish territory, the consideration of their in- habitants as Spanish subjects, which influenced the laws given to them in the same manner as it influenced those given the people of the Spanish peninsula, the frequent transplan- tation of Spanish institutions to America, the participation in public duties allowed these very natives, etc., etc., are facts which merit consideration as evidence that Spain gave to the new countries she had conquered the same political and administrative system by which she herself was governed, 1 A resume of all that is known on this subject to-day may be found in the author's "Historia de Espana y de la Civilizacion espanola," Vol. II, sees. 574, 575. 588; Vol. Ill, sees. 676, 677, 678, 695, 696, 697, 698; Vol. IV, see. 811. 1336-2 BOOK OF THE OPENING and not a distinct and inferior system.' She also followed this identical policy with regard to her culture, establishing in her colonies the same system of education which the mother country possessed and which experienced the same fortune and vicissitudes as did the latter. In this respect there never existed a system of exceptions (we refer to the classical period of colonization), but rather one of perfect equality. For the native races and the half-breeds Spain even went to the extent of founding special centers of educa- tion and means of obtaining it (as, for example, in Cuba, Mexico and Chile) . If she did no more, and if she did not always succeed in that which she attempted, this failure was due either to the fact that the problem of popular education, as far as the native was concerned, did not at that time pre- sent itself with the same clearness and urgency as it does to-day, since culture was then the patrimony of a select class,^ or because in the mother country herself they either knew no better how to deal with the subject, or if they had at one time known, the decadence of education had greatly reduced this knowledge. Failure was never due, however, to lack of interest in offering to the colonies all that Spain herself pos- sessed of culture and of education.^ When the Spanish governor failed to observe the general rules of the original policy in reference to government and instruction in the colonies, curtailing the rights of the Creoles to hold public offices and reducing their opportunities of seeking prosperity through the liberal professions^ because 1 For references on this subject, see the references quoted in the preceding ^""'concerning the aristocratic and narrow field of education.one may con sul.^he author's "Historia de Espaiia y de la Civilizac.on espanola, Vol. III. "3 •■Hhtoria de Espaiia y de la Civilizacion espanola," Vol. Ill, sec. 774: Vol. IV. 1:3373 THE RICE INSTITUTE he distrusted the use to which they might turn those advan- tages, the situation changed and the conflict with these descendants of the Spaniards themselves, not with the native Americans, declared itself. This conflict, for the causes in- dicated above and for many others extremely complex, was at its bitterest during the nineteenth century with respect to those colonies which remained in the possession of Spain until the close of that century. This change, which was so late in appearing, has, nevertheless, not been thoroughly studied either in its scope or causes, and consequently it is impossible ever to estimate, with any degree of exactness, its historical importance and bearing upon the problem of this paper. Finally, the study of Spain as a colonizing power would be incomplete, from the point of view from which we are now considering our question, without a realization of the dis- coveries and contributions drawn from the opportunities afforded by her colonies and added by Spain to the general fund of the world's culture. The services rendered in this respect by her geographers, cosmographers, naturalists, philologists, navigators, etc., make a considerable item which justice demands that we place to the credit of Spain in the general work of civilization— that is, in the list of contribu- tions which each people owes this work in proportion to the resources with which its history show^s it to have been en- dowed. The just consideration of this point must wait, as does all that precedes it, until historical investigation has ascertained the number, quality, and significance of the facts relating to it. Let us now return to the general question from which this digression, or rather this practical application, has led us and which most concerns us since it relates to the fundamen- tal structure and scientific purpose of these lessons; in other [338;] BOOK OF THE OPENING words, let us return to our study of the ways in which civili- zation is communicated or initiated or encouraged among peoples which either fail to possess it at all or possess it m a tentative and elementary state. Without discussing agam all the points which we have examined, let us accept the law, just as history past and present shows it, that the peoples superior in culture, wealth and power, and animated by the desire to extend their influence over the world, always mter- vene in the affairs of other nations which they consider m- ferior. This interference, however, is undertaken under the pretext or with the sincere intention of aiding a more back- ward people toward progress through the infusion and transplantation of all the means of culture and of comfort, of the methods and standards of conduct which had aided the intervening nation in becoming a principal factor m all the history of the world during the epoch of its greatest power And let us imagine the most favorable case- namely, that in which compulsion is limited to the indispen- sable (a case in which force is used simply to bring the nation under tutelage to submit patiently to the educative action in all its branches), and where this compulsion is actuated solely by purposes of kindness, cooperation and aid. Even then a new problem of unquestionable importance would arise because it concerns the future civilization of the world. This problem is that of the relation which the distinctive characteristics of the educating and educated nations should bear to each other, not so much In the field of politics as in the more fundamental and important field of the culture and philosophy which each nation represents. The problem is neither useless nor purely hypothetical. On the contrary, it deals with a very common reality which repeats in ethical relations that which constantly appears in the relations of Individuals, especially where these relations 1:339:] \ THE RICE INSTITUTE enter the field of education. In all grades of instruction there are educators who understand their function as simply one of causing absorption. This interpretation of their duty is some- times due to a sincere pedagogical opinion, sometimes to a vanity which considers its own culture ultimate perfection and for that reason worth imposing upon others and repeat- ing without the slightest variation or amendment. Such in- structors consider that they have faithfully performed their task if they have reduced to the same pattern the minds and characters of their pupils, giving them a single model and smothering in them all manifestations of originality and individuality in order that no one shall either mar or improve the picture. In this same way there exist "absorbing" peo- ples who understand their duty toward civilization not in the sense of an obligation to arouse and stimulate the free spirit of others, so that through original and unhampered impulse they may attain, in their own way, the highest ends of human endeavor, but in the sense of imposing upon others their par- ticular conception of life and manner of complying with its demands; thus replacing with their own spirit that of the nation they desire to advance — that is, practically crushing this nation out of existence by destroying its national spirit and replacing it with that of the educator. Historical ac- curacy compels us to admit that not merely some but the majority of colonizing and civilizing nations proceed in exactly this manner. We must also admit that those who have entered foreign territory with the frank desire for con- quest have been more justified in so proceeding. This im- pulse of absorption, this lack of consideration for the mentality and character of other human groups, sometimes results from the instinctive and irrepressible force of the civilizing spirit, which, endowed with overabundance of strength, wherever it appears destroys everything less power- D4on BOOK OF THE OPENING ful even without the deliberate purpose of so doing ; at other tim'es it emanates from the excessive and inflated estimation which a nation holds concerning its own accomplishment, and from the corresponding contempt which it entertains for the accomplishment of others, in which, indeed, it perceives only those things which call for reform or abolition. In any case, however, the spirit of absorption springs from a lack of sociological and educative orientation caused by ig- norance, or at least by the lack of a realization, so complete that it is formulated and applied in a line of conduct, that education produces nothing of worth while it is limited to transferring from one mind to another formulae and bits of second-hand knowledge, as one pours water from one vessel into another, but is only productive of results when the pupil's own intelligence is stimulated by examples, by sugges- tions and bv the assistance of his own judgment, which has been 'encouraged to attain a higher degree of ability to com- prehend life and the manners of satisfying humanity's needs, both material and spiritual. It is interesting to note that this neglect or faulty compre- hension of the educational duties of one people toward an- other has been increasing and growing more prevalent as civilization has advanced. The enormous difference between the civilization of the Greeks and Romans and the primitive, barbarous state of the other European nations which they colonized and ruled explains, on the one hand, the contempt of the former for their colonies, and, on the other, the ad- miration which the inferior nations felt for the superior, and their eagerness to assimilate the higher culture of the latter. But we must also notice that the Greeks and Romans (we restrict ourselves to the history of European civilization) deliberately refrained from attempting to surpass or restrain any characteristic manifestation on the part of the nations n34i:] THE RICE INSTITUTE which they colonized and dominated, except, of course, as these manifestations might relate to politics and government, because this would have concerned their sovereignty. For the rest (religion, mode of living, private and even, in part, public law— all those things in which the distinctive charac- teristics of a people are most clearly shown) they had the greatest respect, or, one might say, since "respect" does not exactly convey my meaning, the greatest indifference. By virtue of this indifference each people was enabled to pre- serve and perpetuate these important institutions in their original form and purpose. Rome had to attain the height of her power in order that Romanization as an absorbing force (certainly not repugnant to those subjected to it) might extend to matters originally left untouched, but in which, as a matter of fact, the dominated peoples possessed little that was definitely opposed to the innovation of the conquerors. Only religion was exempt from this uniformity (and perhaps also a part of customary law), although this freedom was without great advantage to those nations whose religion was really less advanced than the Roman paganism, and, more particularly, than the philosophy which was gradually replacing this paganism. Christianity changed the aspect of affairs by transferring the process of absorption to the religious side of the ques- tion. The Germanic peoples, Romanized more or less thor- oughly and rapidly and upholding in the field of law the principle that each nation should possess a code suited to its own peculiar conditions and demands, represent only as regards religion the uncompromising uniformist attitude of mind which, notwithstanding the indifference of the Mussul- mans in the majority of cases and the spirit of practical compromise which some Christian nations maintained to- ward them and toward the Jews for many centuries, was [3423 BOOK OF THE OPENING imposed from the twelfth century, and which grew con- stantly more bitter and severe until the early part of the present age. In other things, however, the conquerors and the colonizers returned to the practice of the Greeks and Romans, and did not insist upon the suppression of the cus- toms and manners peculiar to the inferior peoples as long as these did not infringe upon the question of religion and, as goes without saying, upon the matter of their own sover- eignty. Either they left their subjects in freedom upon all other subjects (without this neglect in any way preventmg the realization in history of that spontaneous assimilation of superior culture which penetrated everywhere, and which, through imitation, communicated to the inferior race that part of itself which they were capable of adopting), or they made them their legal equals, placing within their reach, as they did in Spain, all the means of culture and progress which the mother country possessed. It must be observed, too that all this was worked out with peoples in a very primitive state of civilization both socially and intellectually, or even in a state of manifest barbarity. But to-day the doctrine has taken a new turn, and it is applied in dealing with all classes of peoples. The endeavor of those who uphold it would be to eradicate from within the limits of their political dominion every type of civilization and manner of living which differs from their own, andto replace them with a new expression of their own doctrine of intransigency, which, if it spares religion, affects other phases of life as essential and characteristic, and which is, after all, no more than an expression either of colossal vanity or of inconceivable short-sightedness with regard to the way humanity has progressed and can still continue to progress. The effective mode of progress which, in obe- dience to a psychological law stronger than human will, the 1:343:] THE RICE INSTITUTE peoples of all ages have followed, working together for the perfection of civilization as a whole, in spite of humanity's tendency toward jealous anger and the formation of distinct and self-sufficient groups, is not one in which a single phi- losophy of life and manner of giving expression to mental and spiritual qualities forces into one mold, with deplorable monotony and unjustifiable tyranny, the various activities of peoples; rather is it one In which each people develops its own culture to the highest point, extracting from each men- tal trait and quality all that it offers of essential and valuable In order thus to enrich the complex whole of life with cus- toms varied and distinctive (in so much as they are unique and represent the peculiar aptitudes of each people). To proceed in any other way— that Is, against this principle of consideration of complete and unhampered cultivation of the individuality of each people— is to impoverish civilization. There exist, without doubt, examples of the above-mentioned mode of progress, notably In industrial applications of the great scientific principles— that is to say, applications of our knowledge of natural forces and their laws which, through their very generality, are applicable to all and which all are equally free to use. This also Is the case with universal, humanity-wide principles of education and moral conduct. But, on the other hand, there are many quahtles of the spirit, or appertaining to it, which fail to develop in all peoples or In all individuals. Each one has been or is master or master artisan In one or various lines of progress, and his accom- plishment Is offered, in the course of centuries, as a model and spur to others who would not know how to surpass It, and who need, from time to time, to stimulate their energies by contact with an achievement which through Its very nature has attained the highest degree of perfection of which humanity Is capable. Each particular ''civilization'' of those 1:3443 BOOK OF THE OPENING Wch arrive at productive maturity has contributed its char- " is ic Item This contribution is the outcome of the taTernc oTthe most fundamental, most distinctive quah- f the people or the peoples which produced it, and it 'nral^ys endure as a model for the later civilizations, : I T„ .need by .heir own id.osyn.rasies, ma, .dvance • ^-ff.r^nf- lines In this manner civilization has „a.„«s fac,„. ;^;t;r:::.''p :j^" « ':Ltl' ic T»«itudes which are died forth by human needs, from 11 . elnrary to .h. high.sr, have no. been and never will be »ni..d in on. spiri.. national or ,nd,v,d„al, b„. d„. tributed among many. ., This being the case, what would c.v.uzat.on gam if even nf these contributing factors were destroyed? And one of these contrio g destroyed m •^"* Z: ,rltiraom'n-.H: world, subiecin, i. r: litrX WW* Lnld carry wi.h it ""'o;;- -"^ a very sman p u„rnane What will he do, of him if he is to be worthy and humane, vv n then without the collaboration of those who can supply the song of a happy man? Our '■""f 'S"'!"" ' " "tsk of (achat we do no. lack any ~'''''7''''" " ^J" Bn bringing .og.th.r .he riches, var.e.y » = -' ™;',^_ l^ :,::T£:rwrm:::rea;hrn,ea^h people, 113451 I THE RICE INSTITUTE understand Its unavoidable duty and grave responsibility toward the cultivation and perfection of its own distinctive note in the great harmony of civilization. In other words, each people must learn not to flee from the task set before it, nor to fail in that assistance which other people expect from it. It is also necessary to establish a continuous and sys- tematic spiritual communion among nations in order that they may understand and mutually aid each other, that each one may learn from the rest the lessons they are best fitted to teach, and that in this way the work of national civiliza- tion may be converted into a truly human work in which all groups and all individuals may cooperate, each contributing the best and most valuable part of its culture, and each bear- ing always in mind the way in which his contribution will most benefit others. Only in this manner should civilization spread, perfecting and enriching itself, — civilization, with the present and fu- ture of which we are rightly concerned, and the laws of which historians and sociologists do not investigate from mere curiosity alone, but rather in order that their know- ledge of these laws may enlighten and guide mankind in all its present and its future actions. Rafael Altamira. n3463 \ MOLECULAR THEORIES AND MATHEMATICS AGGREGATES OF ZERO MEASURE MONOGENIC UNIFORM NON-ANALYTIC FUNCTIONS— THE THEORIES OF CAUCHY, WEIERSTRASS, AND RIEMANN^ First Lecture MOLECULAR THEORIES AND MATHEMATICS 2 HOW could I fail to call up the memory of the illus- trious scientist for whose death, so cruelly premature, France and the whole world are mourning? When Henri Poincare was invited by President Edgar Odell Lovett to deliver an address at this scientific celebration, his acceptance was conditional on the state of his health. A few months later, he finally declined the invitation, promising, however, to send his lecture in writing. I cannot remember without emotion the last conversation I had with him on that subject. I was still hoping that his decision was not final ; but, after giving me some friendly advice about my lectures and the journey, he told me with what deep regret he had to give up the thought of ever visiting the United States again, and I felt, for the first time, how serious was the condition which justified his refusal. A few weeks afterward he was gone. In spite of the difficulties of such a task, I should have con- sidered it a pious duty to devote this address to an appre- elation of his work; no subject could be more suitable, in this Institute consecrated to science, than the life and works of this noble champion of disinterested research; but my eminent friend Mr. Vito Volterra had, as you know, formed 1 Three lectures presented at the inauguration of the Rice Institute by Fn,ile Bore Professor of the Theory of Functions in the University of Pans. ^■^Translat'ed ?rom the French by Professor Albert Leon Guerard of the Rice Institute. _ ^ [1347 3 THE RICE INSTITUTE the same plan; and no one among you will regret that I resigned to him the privilege of carrying it out. The relations between the mathematical sciences and the physical sciences are as old as these sciences themselves; it is the study of natural phenomena which led man to set for himself the first problems, out of which, by means of abstrac- tion and generalization, the sciences of numbers and of space have grown in all their splendid complexity. Conversely, through a sort of preestablished harmony, certain mathe- matical theories, after being developed apparently far from the real, were often found to provide the key to phenomena which the creators of these theories did not have in mind. The most famous instance in point is the theory of conic sections, an object of pure speculation among the Greek geometers, but whose researches enabled Kepler, twenty centuries later, to formulate with precision the laws of the motions of the planets. In the same way, in the first half of the nineteenth century, it was the theory of imaginary exponentials which made it possible to go deeper into the study of vibratory motions, which was found to be of such commanding importance in physics and even in the field of industry; it is to this study that we owe wireless telegraphy and the transmission of energy by polyphase currents. More recently still, we know how useful the abstract theory of groups proved to be for the study of the ideas, so profound and so new, which have been put forward to explain the results of the capital experiments on relativity made by your illustrious compatriot Michelson. But these illustrations, however important they may be, are special and relate to particular theories. How much [3483 BOOK OF THE OPENING more striking is the universal adoption of the forms imposed on scientific thought by the genius of Descartes, Newton, Leibnitz! The use of rectangular coordinates and of the elements of differential and integral calculus has become so familiar to us that we might be tempted at times to forget that these admirable instruments date only from the seven- teenth century, and in the same way the theory of partial differential equations dates only from the eighteenth cen- tury: it was in 1767 that d'Alembert obtained the general integral of the equation of vibrating chords. It was the study of physical phenomena which suggested the notions of continuity, derivative, integral, differential equation, vector, and the calculus of vectors, and these notions, by a just return, have become part of the scientific equipment neces- sary to every physicist : it is through them that he interprets the results of his experiments. There is evidently nothmg mysterious in the fact that mathematical theories constructed on the model of certain phenomena should have been capable of being developed and of providing a model for other phe- nomena ; this fact, however, deserves to hold our attention, for it implies an important practical consequence; if new physical phenomena suggest new mathematical models, mathematicians will have to study these new models and their generalizations, with the legitimate hope that the new mathematical theories thus evolved .vlll prove fruitful in their turn in providing the physicists with useful forms of thought. In other words, to the evolution of physics there should correspond an evolution of mathematics which, with- out giving up the study of classical and well established theories, should develop in taking into account the results of experience. It is in this order of ideas that I should like to examine to-day the influence which molecular theories may have on the development of mathematics. r349:] rt fi THE RICE INSTITUTE II It was in the hypothesis of the continuity of matter that, at the end of the eighteenth century and in the first half of the nineteenth, what may be termed classical mathematical physics was created; one may take as types of the theories thus constructed hydrodynamics and elasticity. In hydro- dynamics every liquid was considered by definition as homo- geneous and isotropic; it was not quite the same in the study of the elasticity of solid bodies: the theory of crystalline forms had led physicists to admit the existence of a periodic network— that is to say, of a discontinuous structure; but the period of the network was supposed to be extremely small compared with the elements of matter physically considered as differential elements; the crystalline structure therefore led only to anisotropy, but not to discontinuity; the partial differential equations of elasticity as well as those of hydro- dynamics imply that the medium studied is continuous. Yet the atomic hypothesis, the tradition of which goes back to the Greek philosophers, was not abandoned; apart from the confirmation which it found in the properties of gases and in the laws of chemistry, it was by means of that hypothesis that certain phenomena, such as the compressi- bility of liquids or the permeability of solids, had to be explained, in spite of the apparent continuity of these two states of matter; but this hypothesis was placed in juxtaposi- tion with the physical theories based on continuity: it did not affect them. The rapid advances in thermodynamics and in the theories of energy contributed to maintain this sort of impenetrable partition between the physical theories and the hypothesis of the existence of atoms, however fruitful this might prove to be in chemistry. For most of the physicists of half a century ago the problem of the reality of atoms BOOK OF THE OPENING was a metaphysical question, in the original acceptance of the term, a question beyond the domain of physics; it mat- tered little to science whether atoms existed or were simple fictions, and one might even doubt whether there was any sense in affirming or denying their existence. However, thanks especially to the labors of Maxwell and of Boltzmann, the explicit introduction of molecules into the theory of gases and solutions was proving its fruitfulness; and Gibbs created the new study to which he gave the name Statistical Me- chanics. But it is only within the last twenty years that all physicists have been compelled, by the study of new radi- ations on the one hand, and by the study of the Brownian movement on the other, to consider the molecular hypothesis as indispensable to natural philosophy. And more recently a more thorough study of the laws of radiation has led to the unexpected hypothesis of the discontinuity of energy, or of motion. It does not come within my subject to expound the experimental proofs which make these hypotheses seem more and more probable every day; the most striking experiments are perhaps those which have made it possible to observe the individual emissions of the a particles, so that we are actually able to apprehend one of the concrete units with which the physicist builds up the sensible universe, just as the abstract universe of mathematics can be built up by means of an abstract unit. In order definitely to formulate their hypotheses and to deduce therefrom consequences that can be experimentally verified, the theorists of modern physics make use of mathe- matical symbols; these symbols are those which were ere- ated on the basis of the notion of continuity; no wonder, therefore, if difficulties sometimes appear, the most recent of which is the contradiction, at least in appearance, between the hypothesis of the quanta and the older hypothesis that \ THE RICE INSTITUTE phenomena are governed by differential equations. But these difficulties of principle do not prevent the success of what may be called partial theories, by which a certain num- ber of experimental results, in spite of their apparent di- versity, can be deduced from a small number of formulas which are coherent among themselves; thus, for many of the phenomena of physical optics, the formulae are the same in the mechanical theory of Fresnel and in the electromag- netic theory of Maxwell; in the same way, the formulae used by electrical engineers are independent of the diversity of theories concerning the nature of the current. If I have made it a point to call your attention to this use of the mathematical instrument as an auxiliary to the partial physical theories, although it does not lie within my sub- ject, it is in order to prevent any misunderstanding: it seems to me beyond doubt that for a long time to come— perhaps as long as human science itself shall endure— it will be under this comparatively modest form that mathematics will prove of greatest use to physicists. This is no reason why we should take no interest in the general mathematical theories for which physics has provided the models, whether we have to deal with speculations on partial differential equations suggested by the physics of the continuum, or with statistical speculations pertaining to the physics of the discontinuum; but it should be clearly understood that the new mathemati- cal theories which may be suggested by the discontinuity of physical phenomena cannot have the pretension of entirely replacing classical mathematics; these are only new aspects, for which it is proper to make room by the side of the older views, so as to increase as much as possible the richness of the abstract world, wherein we seek for models which will make us understand concrete phenomena better and foresee them more accurately. D50 BOOK OF THE OPENING III It is frequently a simplification in mathematics to replace a very large finite number by infinity. Thus the calculus of definite integrals is frequently more simple than that of sum- mation formula, and the differential calculus is usually sim- pler than that of finite differences. In the same way, we have been led to replace the simultaneous study of a very lar-e number of functions of one variable by the study of a continuous infinitude of functions of one variable; that is to say, by the study of a function of two variables. By a bolder generalization. Professor Vito Volterra has been led to define functions which depend on other functions-that is to say, in the simplest case, functions of lines, in considering them as the limiting cases of functions which would depend on a great number of variables, or, if one prefers, on a very great number of points of the line. These various generalizations have rapidly secured per- manent recognition in mathematical physics; the use of inte- gral equations, the classical types of which are the equation of Volterra and the equation of Fredholm, has become cur- rent Although these theories are well known to all, it may not be idle to recall their origin by means of a particularly simple example ; we shall thus better understand their sig- nificance from our present point of view. Let us consider a system composed of a finite number of material points, each of which can deviate only by a small amount from a certain position of stable equilibrium. The differential equations which determine the variations of these deviations from their position of equilibrium may be con- sidered, under certain hypotheses and to a first approxima- tion, as linear in respect to these deviations. If, moreover, 1:353: II THE RICE INSTITUTE we introduce the hypothesis that the system conforms to the law of the conservation of energy, the differential equations assume a very simple and classical form, from which the fact can easilv be deduced that the motion may be considered as the superposition of a certain number of periodic motions. The number of these elementary periodic motions is equal to the number of degrees of freedom; it is three times the number of the material points, if each of these points can be arbitrarily displaced in the neighborhood of its position of equilibrium. The periods of the simple periodic motions are the specific constants of the system, which depend only on its configuration and the hypotheses made concerning the forces brought into action by its deformation, but which do not depend on the initial conditions: positions and velocities. These initial conditions determine the arbitrary constants which figure In the general integral and which are two in number for each period : the intensity and the phase. Now let us suppose that the number of material points becomes very large, and let us Identify each of them with a molecule of a soHd body— a bar of steel, for Instance; if our hypotheses are still verified— and this Is admitted in the theory of elasticity- their consequences also will remam true; we shall then have a very large number of character- istic constants, each of these constants defining a proper period of the system. Let us Increase to infinity the number of molecules; the system of differential equations. Infinitely great in number, Is then replaced by a finite number of par- tial differential equations, whose fundamental properties are obtained by passing to the limit. In particular, the proper periods can be determined, and this remarkable result is established— that these periods can be calculated with pre- cision and without ambiguity if we take the precaution of defining them by commencing with the longest; there is only [354:1 BOOK OF THE OPENING a finite number of periods superior to a given interval, but this number increases indefinitely when the interval tends toward zero. ,. , • . t The reasoning which has just been outhned is the type ot those to which the substitution of continuity for discontinuity leads- in reality, the considerations based on the existence of molecules play but an auxiliary part in them ; they put us on the track of the solution, but this solution, once arrived at, satisfies rigorously the partial differential equations of Lame, equations which can be deduced just as well from theories of energy as from molecular hypotheses. The molecular theory has therefore been a valuable guide for the analyst in suggesting to him the course to be followed in studying the equations of the problem, but it is eliminated from the final solution. On the other hand, we know that this solu- tion is but an imperfect representation of reality; we obtain an infinitude of proper periods, instead of a very great num- ber of them; the actual number, however, is so great that we ought not, perhaps, to feel any scruple in passing to the hmit and considering it as practically infinite. If, however, one bears in mind that the difficulties of the theory of black radiation arise precisely from the very short periods, and that these difficulties are not yet solved in an entirely satis- factory manner, one will perhaps come to the conclusion that one could not be too careful about anything which relates to these very short periods. This is probably the reason why such a physicist as Lorentz has thought that the considerable analytical efforts required by the study of the propagation of waves, when molecules are explicitly introduced into it, were not superfluous. However this may be, even if the substitution of the infinite for the finite is entirely legitimate in certain problems, it may be interesting to propose to one s self, from a purely mathematical point of view, the direct n35s:i THE RICE INSTITUTE study of functions or equations depending upon a great but finite number of variables. IV The first difficulty which presents itself, when one wishes to study functions of a very great number of variables, is the exact definition of such a function— I mean its individual definition— making it possible to distinguish the function thus defined from the infinitude of other analogous func- tions. It is true that there exist general properties common to all the mathematical entities of a certain category, indepen- dent of the numerical value of the coefficients; for instance, every definite quadratic form (that is to say, one always positive) is equal to the sum of the squares of as many inde- pendent linear functions as the number of the variables which it contains. One has at times attempted to deduce physical consequences from mathematical facts of that kind; I must confess that I cannot help being skeptical about this sort of reasoning ; it may seem rather strange that one should be able to deduce anything exact from such a general notion as that of a surface of the second degree (let us say, for fixing ideas, a generalized ellipsoid) in a space having a very great number of dimensions. Let us insist a little on the difficulty there is in knowing such an ellipsoid individually: its equation may be supposed to be reduced to a sum of squares by an orthogonal substitution— that is to say, the axes remaining rectangular. Such an ellipsoid then requires, for its complete definition, the knowledge of what we may call the squares of the lengths of its axes— that is to say, the knowledge of as many positive numbers as the space consid- ered has dimensions. The question of knowing whether one can consider as given so many numbers, when a man's life- time would not suffice to enumerate a small part of them, is 1356-2 BOOK OF THE OPENING a question which is not without analogy with that of the legitimacy of certain reasonings of the theory of ensembles, such as the one by which Professor Zermelo Pretends to prove that the continuum can be well ordered, and which supposes to be realized an infinitude of choices mdependent of any law, and yet uniquely determined. Opm.ons may differ on the theoretical solution of these difficulties and this is not the moment to reopen this controversy but from the practical point of view, the answer is not doubtful: it is not possible effectively to write the numerical equation of an ellipsoid whose axes are as numerous as the molecules con- stituting a gram of hydrogen. , In what sense then is it possible to speak of a numencally determined ellipsoid possessing a very large number o dimensions? From an abstract point of view, the simplest method for defining such an ellipsoid consists in supposing that the lengths of the axes are equal to the values of a cer tain function which is simple for the integral values of the variable; one may suppose them to be all equal (in which case one will say that the ellipsoid is reduced to a sphere) , one may also suppose that their values are the successive integral numbers in their natural sequence, either starting from number one or from any other given number; or that they are equal to the inverses of the squares of these inte- gers etc. In other words, we suppose that the lengths of the 'axes are all determined by the knowledge of a for- mula simple enough to be actually written, whereas it is no possible actually to write as many distinct numbers as there '' Another method, to which we are naturally led by the analogies with the kinetic theory of gases, consists m sup- posing that the values of a function of the axes, such as the square of the lengths of the axes, or of the.r inverses, etc., 1:3573 THE RICE INSTITUTE are not individually given, but that we know only the mean value of this function, and the law of the distribution of the other values around this mean. We propose, under these conditions, not to study the property of a unique and well defined ellipsoid, but only the most probable properties of the ellipsoid, knowing only that it satisfies the required con- ditions; we can also say that we study the mean properties of the ensemble of the ellipsoids defined by these conditions. Here again we may observe that the probable ellipsoid or the mean ellipsoid is completely defined by the knowledge of the mean value of the law of deviations. If this law is the classic law of probabilities. It Includes only two constants; if we were led to Introduce a more complicated law, this law might In all cases be explicitly written. The two pro- cesses that we have indicated are therefore equivalent from the analytical point of view; it would evidently be the same with all other processes that could be imagined, and in par- ticular with the combinations of these two. In a word, a figure which depends on an extremely great number of parameters can be considered as numerically de- terminate only If these parameters are defined by means of numerical data sufficiently few In number to be accessible to us. It is for this reason that the study of the geometrical figures In a space possessing an extremely great number of dimensions can lead to general laws If we can exclude from this study such of these figures as, humanly speaking, can- not possibly be defined Individually. Here are, for example, some of the results to which the study of ellipsoids leads us. In working the equation In the form of a sum of squares, the second member being reduced to unity, the coefficients are equal to the reciprocals of the squares of the axes. If the mean of the squares of these coefficients is of the same order of magnitude as the square Dssn BOOK OF THE OPENING of their mean, one will say that the ellipsoid Is not very irregular. The modes of definition concerning which we have just spoken lead to ellipsoids which are not very irregu- lar, since one does not systematically Introduce Into those definitions functions purposely chosen in a complicated man- ner. On the contrary, one gets a very irregular ellipsoid in equating to a constant the vis viva of a deformable system composed of a very great number of molecules, this vis viva being written under the classic form of the sum of the vis viva of translation of the total mass concentrated at the cen- ter of gravity, increased by the sum of the vires viva of the molecules in their motion relative to this center of gravity. The great Irregularity comes from the fact that the products of the total mass by the three components of the velocity of the center of gravity are extremely great in comparison with the other terms. When an ellipsoid is not very irregu- lar, several of Its properties make it possible to assimilate It to a sphere, which may be called the median sphere; the sur- face of the ellipsoid is almost wholly comprised between the surfaces of two spheres very close to the median sphere; on the other hand, if a point Is arbitrarily chosen on the ellip- soid. It is infinitely probable that the normal at this point passes extremely close to the center. This geometrical study of figures with a very large num- ber of dimensions deserves, I believe, to be thoroughly in- vestigated; It brings out the abstract basis of the theories of statistical mechanics and physics-that Is to say, it en- ables us to distinguish, among the propositions to which physicists are led, those which are a consequence of physical hypotheses from those which are derived only from statis- tical hypotheses. But, apart from its physical usefulness, this geometrical study of spaces having a very great number of dimensions offers an interest of its own; it is to the [359!] THE RICE INSTITUTE molecular theories that we are indebted for this new branch of mathematics. V We can, however, ask ourselves whether it is legitimate to consider as bound up with the molecular hypothesis a theory which, after all, should depend exclusively on a smal .lumber of constants. To say that an ellipsoid with a great number of dimensions is entirely defined by five or six con- stants, amounts to saying that all the consequences which we shall deduce from its study can be expressed by means of these five or six constants. Can we not suppose, then, that an analytical mechanism could be devised, enabling us to arrive at these same consequences, expressed by means ot the five or six constants, without its being necessary to bring in the equation with a very great number of terms-that is to say, without its being necessary to make use of the molecu- lar hypothesis. . This objection deserves careful consideration, although it reminds us of the controversy between the energetists and the atomists, a controversy in which the advantage seems decidedly to have been on the side of the atomists. It may be answered, in the first place, with an argument of fact: it matters little that we might conceive the possibility, without making use of molecular hypotheses, of combimng among themselves the consequences of these hypotheses; the impor- tant point is to know whether this possibility is realized at present, or if, on the contrary, the calculations based upon molecular hypotheses are the simplest, if not the only, mode of deduction. If the latter alternative be correct, and it seems difficult to deny that it is, molecular hypotheses are therefore at present very necessary indeed, and that alone ought to be of consequence to us. n36o: BOOK OF THE OPENING Under this modest form, which leaves room for future contingencies, this reply seems peremptory; but I believe that many physicists would think it is not categorical enough. It must be noted, however, that the question is independent of the experimental proofs of the reality of molecules. Even if we should succeed in seeing, by means of an instrument more powerful than a microscope, the molecules of a solid body, it would not follow, however valuable this knowledge might be, that one should have to use it in order to account, in the simplest possible manner, for the properties of that body; in a similar way, the possibility of seeing an isolated microbe under the microscope is not an indispensable condi- tion for the attenuation of the viruses and the use of vac- cines; or again, in the reproduction of a masterpiece by photogravure, it is not the individual knowledge of the points constituting the negative that interests us.' From an abstract point of view, if we admit that any human theory must be expressed, in last analysis, by means of a finite and relatively small number of data, it seems difficult to deny the possibility of entirely constituting the theory, without introducing hypotheses which imply the exis- tence of elements more numerous than human imagination can conceive. But the recognition of this abstract possibility cannot prevail against the importance of the services ren- dered by molecular theories in linking together apparently unrelated phenomena; so it is permissible to consider these reserves on future possibilities as purely theoretical. 1 Xl,;, JnHiviHual knowledge of pomts has a part in the processes for trans- mitting the nKative to a distance ; but in this case these pomts however numerous are none the less finite in number and accesstble to our ob-rvat,on^ Lre^ici^tL^'ibf ;?^e^"arrr;asi air.';u: z "5ts :rc^'rt ^ : ^r fons wMch would rehire too much time to be kno,v. -^n-u^ua y ; b t in fact these elementary v brations have nothmg to do with musical sestnetics an excellem composer'^mav be ignorant of their existence, and an excellent physicist may be a wretched musician. D60 \] THE RICE INSTITUTE Is it possible to go still further, and to do away even with this kind of reserve? In order to answer this question we should have to examine in detail all the phenomena which are explained by means of molecular hypotheses, and to try to ascertain whether an extremely large number of param- eters is indeed necessary to such explanation. Among the discontinuous phenomena whose experimental lawsare well known, the most characteristic are those of spectra m series; we know that the positions of the spectral rays are deter- mined with a very great precision by formula the first and simplest of which, due to Balmer, includes the difference of the reciprocals of the squares of two integers. This is perhaps the most remarkable example of the intervention of the inte- ger in natural law; if laws of this kind were more numerous and better known, one might possibly be led to name arith- metic and the theory of numbers among the branches of mathematics which can be connected with molecular physics. Can one, by induction, admit that the formula of Balmer is exact, not only for small integers concerning which the ex- perimental verification is rigorous, but for many other larger integers concerning which this verification is impossible? And if such be the case, is it not one of those discontinuous phenomena whose explanation requires a very large number of parameters? It does not seem so: on the one hand, the formula with the variable integer contains in fact but a small number of constants; on the other hand, the attempts made for explaining the presence of this integer by hypotheses of physical discontinuity have led to the placing of this dis- continuity within the atom itself; there is consequently no need of a ven' large number of atoms : one alone is sufficient, whose structure depends only on certain parameters, on magnetons in the theory of Ritz, parameters the number of which is far from being of the same order as the number of the atoms. BOOK OF THE OPENING This remark leads us to consider another category of phe- nomena, to which we have already alluded, and in which the atoms or corpuscles are observed individually. Does not the explanation of these phenomena require atomic hypotheses? It seems difficult to deny it without being paradoxical. Let us note, however, that such phenomena as the emission of the a particles are susceptible only of a globate explanation; it is not possible to foresee with accuracy any particular emission, but only a mean number; scientifically speaking, therefore, this mean number alone has any existence; the phenomenon which consists in the emission of one a particle does not present the characters which permit of rigorous experimentation: one cannot either foresee it or reproduce it at will ; it is only the study of the trajectory after the emis- sion that offers these characters; and in fact this study re- quires only such a limited number of equations that one can write them all. The atomic hypotheses would enable us to foresee each individual emission, if one could in fact calcu- late with reference to an extremely great number of equa- tions; but that is not possible, and so far as the globate prevision is concerned the atomic hypothesis is not, at least a priori, necessary. We touch here upon the borders of science, since we reach phenomena accessible to our observation, and which depend upon causes too numerous for us ever to know them with precision in their full complexity. Science remains possible only for mean values which can be calculated with precision by means of data accessible to observation. It is well understood, I hope, that I do not dispute the legitimacy and usefulness of molecular theories; my remarks as a mathematician cannot attain physical reality; at the bot- tom, they do not go farther than this: all the calculations we shall ever be able really to effect will comprise only a rather limited number of equations actually written; if we [363] S\ T THE RICE INSTITUTE write one equation, and if we add that we consider several billions of analogous equations, we do not, in fact, calculate these unwritten equations, but only the written equation, tak- ing into account perhaps the number of these unwritten equa- tions, a number which also has been written. Every mathe- matical theory, therefore, reduces itself to a relatively small number of equations and calculations, which involve a relatively small number of symbols and numerical constants; it is therefore not absurd a priori to suppose that one might conceive a physical model containing also a relatively small number of parameters and leading to the same equations. As long, however, as this model has not been imagined— and perhaps it will never be— the analytical or geometrical re- searches on functions of a very large but finite number of variables will offer some interest for the physicists. VI We have already observed that it is an ordinary proceed- ing in mathematics to replace a very large finite by an infinite. What result does this method yield when it is applied to physically discontinuous phenomena, whose complexity seems bound up with the very large number of molecules? Such, for instance, are the phenomena of the Brownian movement, which is observed when very fine particles are in suspension in an apparently quiet liquid. These phenomena fall within the category of those we were mentioning a moment ago, of which none but a statistical foreknowledge is possible. Is it possible to construct an analytical image of such phe- nomena? Professor Jean Perrin^ has already called atten- tion to the fact that the trajectories observed in the Brownian 1 Jean Perrin, "La discontinuite de la matiere," Re^'ue du Mois, mars 1906. See also Jean Perrin, "Les Atomes," Alcan 1913. [364] BOOK OF THE OPENING movement suggest the notion of continuous functions pos- sessing no derivatives, or that of continuous curves pos- sessing no tangent. If one observes these trajectories with optical instruments of increasing perfection, one sees, at each new magnification, new details, the curvilinear arc that we could have traced being replaced by a sort of broken line the sides of which form a finite angle with each other; this remains the case up to the limit of the magnifications at pres- ent possible. If we admit that the movement is produced by the impact of molecules against the particle, we must conclude that, with a sufficient magnifying power, we should obtain the exact form of trajectory, which would present itself under the form of a broken line with rounded angles, and which would not be perceptibly modified by a still further magnification. But the analyst is not forbidden to put off indefinitely in his thought the realization of this final state, and thus to arrive at the conception of a curve in which the sinuosities become finer and finer as one uses a higher magnification, without ever obtaining the final sinuosities : this is indeed the geom.etrical image of a continuous function not admitting of a derivative. We obtain also a curve of a similar nature, sufficiently interesting to arrest our attention, when we study the func- tion which Boltzmann designates by H and Gibbs by 17, and which represents, in the case of a gas, the logarithm of the probability of a determinate distribution of the velocities of the molecules. Each collision between two molecules gives a sudden variation to this function, which is thus represented by a staircase curve, the horizontal projections of the steps corresponding to the intervals of time which separate two collisions, the number of the collisions undergone by a mole- cule being some billions per second (that is to say, of the [365:] mi THE RICE INSTITUTE order of magnitude lo^), and the number of molecules of the order of magnitude lo^^ (if we consider a mass of a few grams of gas), the total number of collisions per second is of the order of magnitude ic^^; such is the number of steps projected on a portion of the axis of the abscissas equal to unity, if the second is taken as the unit of time.^ What the physicists consider is the mean behavior of the curve. They replace the serrated curve by a more regular curve having the same mean behavior in the time intervals, which are very small in comparison to the second, but very great in com- parison to lO"^^ of a second. These diverse considerations bring interesting suggestions to the analyst, on which I should like to dwell for a moment. In the first place, referring to the continuous curves with- out derivatives of which the Brownian movement has given us the image, should the passage from the finite to the infinite lead to a curve all of whose points are points of discontinu- ity, or to a curve which admits an infinitude of points of dis- continuity, but also an infinitude of points of continuity? For a proper understanding of the question, it is necessary briefly to recall the capital distinction between denumerable infinity and continuous infinity. An infinite ensemble is said to be denumerable if its terms can be numbered by means of inte- gers. Such is the case for the ensemble composed of terms of a simple or multiple series; we can also cite as a denu- merable ensemble the ensemble of the rational numbers. On the other hand, the ensemble of all the numbers comprised between o and i, both commensurable and incommensurable, is not denumerable: we say that this ensemble has the same power as the continuum. If we define a discontinuous func- 1 This discontinuity supposes evidently that we consider the duration of a collision as less than the mean interval of two collisions (in the whole mass), a hypothesis difficult to admit. The schema^ to which this hypothesis leads is not less interesting from the analytical point of view. [366;] BOOK OF THE OPENING tion by a series each term of which admits a point of discon- tinuity, the ensemble of these points of discontinuity is de- numerable, as are the terms themselves. Can we determine a function which shall be totally discontinuous— that is to say, one whose points of discontinuity shall be all the points of a continuous ensemble, and not merely those of a denumerable ensemble? It would seem to be easy to imagine such a func- tion. Such is the oft-studied function which is equal to i if x is commensurable and to x if x is incommensurable; this function is indeed discontinuous, as much so for the com- mensurable values as for the incommensurable values. If we look a little closer, we perceive that the discontinuity is not the same in these points: we must note, in fact, that the commensurable numbers occupy infinitely less space in the axis of the x's than do the incommensurable numbers; the ensemble of these commensurable numbers is of dimension zero— that is to say, it can be confined within intervals whose total extent is less than any number given in advance. Speak- ing in more concrete terms, if we choose a number at ran- dom, the probability that it will be commensurable is equal to zero.i \Ye therefore conclude that the function equal to X for the incommensurable values of the variable is, on an average, continuous for these incommensurable values, what- ever its values may be for the commensurable values— that is to say, if we choose in the neighborhood of an incommen- surable value, for which we study the continuity, another value taken at random, it is infinitely probable that this value taken at random will also be incommensurable; it is then infinitely probable that the variation of the function will be infinitely small when the variation of the variable is small. 1 To eive one's self a number at random, one may agree to choose at ran- dom the successive figures of the decimal fraction which is equal to it ; the probability that this decimal fraction will be finite or periodic is evidentU equal to zero. [367] THE RICE INSTITUTE This remark enables us to understand that it has not been found possible to define analytically a function all the points of which are effectively points of total discontinuity; it is only in points determined according to the definition of the function, and playing a particular part in this definition, that the function Is actually discontinuous on an average. The passing from the finite to the infinite, when we are concerned with the discontinuity of functions, is, then, not effected after the manner which is most usual in classical mathematical physics, in which matter is supposed to be con- tinuous, and in which the finite is replaced by the continu- ous; we are led to conceive a different process, which seems, besides, more in harmony with the molecular conception, and which consists in replacing the very great finite by the denu- merable infinite. This is the way In which the analytical generalization of such curves as the H curves presents itself from this point of view. Let us consider a number written In the form of an Intermlnate decimal fraction, and let us imagine that the figures which follow the decimal point are grouped in suc- cessive periods, each period containing many more figures than the preceding period. To each period we shall cause to correspond one term of a series, this term being equal to zero If in the corresponding period the ratio of the number of even figures to the number of odd figures is comprised between 0.4 and 0.6; while if this ratio Is not comprised be- tween these limits, the term corresponding to the period is equal to the term of the same order of a certain convergent series with positive terms. It is clear that, if the lengths of the successive periods increase rapidly, it Is infinitely proba- ble that a small number of periods only will furnish terms different from zero; consequently, the series which corre- sponds to the decimal number will be terminate; this termi- 1:3681 BOOK OF THE OPENING nate series has a certain sum, which remains the same as long as the decimal number varies so little that the last one of the periods which gave a term to the series is not modified; at least in the interval thus defined it is extremely probable that the function corresponding to the decimal number preserves this constant and well determined value-that is to say, is represented by a horizontal line; however, there are in this interval, as in every interval, particular decimal numbers for which certain periods of high order, perhaps even an infini- tude of such periods, are irregular from the point of view of the distribution of even and odd figures; there are then intervals which are extremely small, and, on an average, extremely rare, but nevertheless dense everywhere, in which the curve runs up above the horizontal line which in general represents it. In one of these points, which we may call maxima of the curve, it is extremely probable that, if we take a value in the neighborhood of the variable at random, the function will diminish-that is to say, that this point has, on an average, the character of a maximum in a point. In the preceding example the maxima are represented by intervals narrower and narrower, but finite; in modifying slightly the definition, one can obtain a curve which would coincide everywhere with the axis of x, except in points not filling any interval; it is sufficient to agree that, m the series which we have just defined, we replace by zero every term which is followed by an infinitude of terms equal to zero ; the new series can then be different from zero only if the terms of the first series are all, after a certain place, different from zero. . , i j The study of analytical models thus obtained leads us to go deeper into the theory of functions of real variables, and even to conceive new notions such as the notion of average^ derivative, naturally suggested by the physical example ot n3693 THE RICE INSTITUTE the function H.^ Besides, it is necessary to observe that in the study of these functions the notion of continuous en- semble is often combined with the notion of denumerable ensemble; for example, it is easy to see that the ensemble of decimal numbers whose figures are all odd presents certain characters of the ensemble of all the decimal numbers ; it has, as we say, the same power as the continuum,^ but it is, how- ever, of zero dimension. We may also connect with these considerations the theory of denumerable probabilities— that is to say, the study of probabilities in the case in which either the infinitude of trials or the infinitude of possible cases is denumerable— a study lying between the study of probabilities in the finite cases and the study of continuous probabilities. VII In spite of the interest of problems relating to functions of a real variable, it is the theory of functions of a complex variable which, since the immortal discoveries of Cauchy, is really the center of analysis. The analogy between the theory of the functions which Cauchy has called monogenic functions and which are often called analytical functions, and the theory of Laplace's equation which is verified by poten- tials, is undoubtedly one of the most fruitful analogies in analysis. We know all the advantage Riemann has derived from the theory of potential and from physical intuition in his profound researches upon the functions of a complex variable. ^ Emile Borel, "Comptes Rendus de rAcademie des Sciences de Paris," 29 avril 1912. If in a decimal number all of whose figures are odd we replace the respective figures i, 3, 5, 7, 9 by the figures o, 2, 3, 4, we may consider that number as any number whatever written in the system whose base is 5. D703 BOOK OF THE OPENING It is therefore natural to ask one's self what new ideas can be brought by molecular theories into this domain of complex variables. Here again we shall be led to replace the very large finite number by the denumerable infinity: it is easy to form series each term of which presents a singular point," the ensemble of the terms of the series thus possessing a denumerable infinitude of singular points. These singular points may, for instance, be so chosen that they coincide with all such points among the points inside of a square whose two coordinates are rational. The most simple series that we can thus form presents itself under the form of the sum of a series of fractions each of which admits of only one pole which is a simple pole. The physical interpretation, in the domain of reality, of such a series leads us to con- sider the potential of a system composed of an infinitude of isolated points, the mass concentrated in each of these points being finite (which leads us to admit that the density in each such point is infinite, if the point is considered abstractly as a simple geometrical point without dimensions) . We sup- pose, of course, that the series whose terms denote the values of the masses is convergent, which amounts to saying that the total mass is finite, although concentrated in an infinitude of distinct points-for example, in all the points whose two coordinates are rational numbers. _ The potential with which we are now concerned is in the case of a plane what we call a logarithmic potential ; we could reason similarly in three-dimensional space : we should then have the Newtonian potential properly so called. The hypothesis that the attracting masses are simple ma- terial points without dimensions is difficult to accept from the physical point of view; one is thus led to perform the analytical operation which consists in dispersing this mass into a small circle (or a small sphere) having this point for C37i:i \ .i THE RICE INSTITUTE center, without changing the potential outside of this circle (or sphere) ; we shall call this circle (or sphere) the '^sphere of action" of the point which coincides with its center; we shall choose its radius to be proportional to the mass concentrated at its center, so that, if the series formed by the masses converges with sufficient rapid- ity, we may arrange things in such a manner that the radii of the spheres of action also form a very rapidly converging series, and yet that the maximum density of the attracting m^ass be finite. It is also easy, if we admit that v/e can dis- pose arbitrarily of the distribution of masses and densities, to arrange things in such a way that the distribution in each sphere of action, as well as its derivatives, is reduced to zero over the whole surface of the sphere; the distribution of the density is thus not merely finite, but continuous throughout space. The hypothesis which we have made concerning the con- vergence of the series the terms of which are the radii of the spheres of action, implies the convergence of the series the terms of which are the projections of these spheres on any straight line whatever; if, therefore, in this series, we sup- press a certain number of the first term, the rest of the series can be made less than any number fixed in advance. From this we conclude that in an interval, however small it may be, taken on the straight line on which we project the spheres, we can find an infinite number of points which belong at the most to a finite number of such projections— namely, those belonging to the spheres S which correspond to the first terms of the series, and which were suppressed in the series in order to make the remainder less than the interval con- sidered. If we consider a plane perpendicular to the straight line and passing through one of these points (this point being chosen, as is possible, distinct from the projections of the BOOK OF THE OPENING centers of the spheres S, finite in num.ber, concerning which we have just spoken) , this plane will at most intersect a finite number of spheres S, without going through their centers, but will be exterior to all the other spheres of action. It is possible to modify the distribution of matter within the spheres S which are finite in number and intersected by the plane in such a manner as to replace these spheres by smaller ones which do not intersect the plane, this operation not modifying the potential outside of the spheres, and the den- sity remaining finite, since the operation relates to only a limited number of spheres. To sum up. It Is possible to find a plane perpendicular to any straight line whatever, cutting out of this line any segment whatever given in advance, and such that In all the points of this plane the density shall be zero. Since our potential function is defined by a density everywhere finite and continuous, this potential satisfies the equation of Polsson, which reduces itself to the equation of Laplace wherever the density is zero-that is to say, in all the points of the planes which we have just defined. It was not idle to insist upon this point, for these planes may traverse regions of space In which the given material points are everywhere dense-as are, for example, all the points whose coordinates are rational numbers. We might have feared that there would be no free space between points so closely pressed together, so to speak; we have just seen that this fear was unjustified. The theorem of the theory of en- sembles which is necessary and sufficient for demonstrating this result In a rigorous manner Is the following: // on a segment of a straight line we have an infinite number of par- tial segments {in this particular case, the projections of the spheres of action) whose total length is less than the length of the segment, there exist on that segment an infinite num- ber of points which do not pertain to any of the partial seg- 1:373] THE RICE INSTITUTE merits. This formulation is almost self-evident, and besides, it would be easy to demonstrate it rigorously. In the case of the plane we shall replace the spheres by circles and the plane perpendicular at a point of the segment by a perpendicular straight line; we can easily prove that, even in the region where the singular points are everywhere dense, there are points at which an infinite number of such lines intersect, on which the density is zero; at these points the logarithmic potential function satisfies Laplace's equation in two variables. If we study in a similar w^ay the function of a complex variable with poles dense in one region, we define an infinite number of straight lines of continuity, inter- secting in all directions, the function admitting of derivatives w^hich are continuous on these lines, and the derivative hav- ing the same value in all the directions in each of the points of intersection. To express this fact we shall use the word created by Cauchy for designating functions which admit of a derivative independent of the argument of the increment of the variable; these functions may be called monogenic, but they are not analytical, if we reserve for the word "ana- lytical" the very definite meaning which it has possessed since the labors of Weierstrass. Without lingering on the physical analogies suggested by the existence of planes which do not intersect the spheres of action of the attracting masses, I should like to insist a little upon the nature of the mathematical problems arising out of the existence of these monogenic but not analytical functions. We know that the essential property of analytical functions is that they are determinate in the whole domain of their existence, when their values are given in one portion, how- ever small it may be, of that domain. Is that property a con- sequence of analyticity— that is to say, of the existence of the Taylor series with radius of convergence differing from zero [374] BOOK OF THE OPENING ^or of monogeneity-that is to say, of the existence of the unique derivative? This question was meaningless as long as it was possible to confound analyticity with monogeneity; on the other hand, it takes a very clear signification as soon as we have succeeded in constructing non-analytical mono- genic functions. I cannot enter to-day into the detail of the deductions which have led to the solution of this problem;^ here is the result : it is, indeed, monogeneity which is the essential char- acter to which the fundamental property of analytical func- tions is due; this fundamental property subsists for the non- analytical monogenic functions as soon as we specify clearly the nature of the domains In which these functions are con- sidered. I have proposed to call the domains satisfying these distinct conditions "domains of Cauchy." A domain of Cauchy Is obtained by cutting off from a continuous domain domains of exclusion analogous to the spheres of action just mentioned, domains which may be Infinite In number, but whose sum can be supposed to be less than any given number (just as the spheres or circles of exclusion just considered, whose radii once chosen we can multiply by any number less than unity, while we are free to Increase the upper limit of the density at the same time as we decrease the radii of exclu- sion). The series formed by these excluded domains should, evi- dently, be supposed to be convergent; moreover, we ought to suppose that Its convergence Is more rapid than that of a determinate series which it is not necessary to write here. Under these conditions, which refer only to the domain and not to the function, every function which in Cauchy's domain 1 See Emile Borel, ''Definition et domaine d'existence des fonctions mono- eenes uniformes" { ournal of the International Congress of Mathematicians Cambridge, England, 1912) ; ''Les fonctions monogenes non-analytiques {Bulletin de la Societe Mathematique de Trance, 1912). [375] THE RICE INSTITUTE satisfies the fundamental equation of monogeneity possesses the essential property of the analytical function; we can cal- culate it throughout its domain of existence by the knowledge of its derivatives at one point (the existence of the first derivative involves the existence of all the derivatives, at least in a certain domain which forms part of the Cauchy domain), and this mode of calculation implies the conse- quence that, if the monogenic function be zero on an arc however small, it is zero in every point of the domain of Cauchy; two functions, therefore, cannot coincide on an arc without coinciding throughout their domain of existence, in the generalized sense. I cannot develop the consequences of these results from the point of view of the theory of functions; but I should like, in closing, to submit to you some reflections which they suggest concerning the relations between mathematical and physical continuity. VIII Most of the equations Into which we translate the physical phenomena have certain properties of continuity; the solu- tions vary in a continuous manner, at least during a certain interval, greater or less in length, when the given quantities vary in a continuous manner. Besides, this property Is not absolutely general, and It might happen that the theories of the quanta of emission or absorption may lead us to give more importance than heretofore to exceptional cases; but to-day I do not wish to enter upon this discussion; I limit myself to the general property, verified In a large number of cases. When we seek to interpret this property In the theory of the potential and of the monogenic functions, we should ex- pect. If for simplification we confine ourselves to the real functions of a single variable, to find a sort of continuous [376;] BOOK OF THE OPENING passage between such of these functions as are analytical in the Welerstrasslan sense and those which are entirely dis- continuous. Now, this Is precisely what does not occur un- less we consider non-analytical monogenic functions; as soon as a function ceases to be analytical it no longer possesses any of the essential properties of analytical functions: the discontinuity Is sudden. The new monogenic functions per- mit one to define functions of real variables which might be called quasi-analytical and which constitute in some way a zone of transition between the classical analytical functions and the functions which are not determined by the know- ledge of their derivatives in a point. This transitional zone deserves to be studied: it is oftentimes the study of hybrid forms which best teaches us about certain properties of clearly defined species. We see that the points of contact between molecular phys- ics and mathematics are numerous: I have only been able to point out. In a rapid manner, the most important among them. I am not competent to ask whether the physicists will be able to derive Immediate advantage from these analogies; but I am convinced that mathematicians can only gain by in- vestigating them more thoroughly. Mathematical analysis has ever been rejuvenated by contact with nature; It is only because of this permanent contact that it has been able to escape the danger of becoming a pure symbolism, revolving in a circle about Itself; thanks to molecular physics, the speculations on discontinuity will assume their full sig- nificance, and will develop in a truly fruitful manner. And while it is impossible to foresee the exact applications of these researches, it is not unlikely that the mental habits they foster will not prove useless to those who desire to under- take the task, that cannot long be deferred, of creating an analysis adapted to theoretical researches in the physics of discontinuity. THE RICE INSTITUTE Second Lecture AGGREGATES OF ZERO MEASURE i WE say that a linear aggregate E is of measure zero if, when we are given a number e arbitrarily small, we can inclose all the points of E within intervals whose sum is less than e. For an aggregate of two dimensions we have a similar definition, replacing the intervals by the rectangles. Moreover, we see that we may speak of squares instead of rectangles, because if we are given a rectangle we can find a finite number of squares of which the total area differs as little as we please from the area of the rectangle, and such that every point within the rectangle is also within one of these squares. We could also replace squares by circles without altering the generality of the definition. Aggregates of measure zero play a very important part in the theory of functions of a real and of a complex variable. It is therefore useful to be able to compare the different aggregates of measure zero among themselves. This com- parison is aided by the concept of regular aggregates. In the first place, then, we shall define regular aggregates and the fundamental points of these aggregates, and we shall show that every regular aggregate is equivalent to another regular aggregate of which the fundamental points are chosen in a special manner, for example, as the points with rational coordinates. Finally, we shall consider the classifi- cation of aggregates of measure zero, with given funda- mental points. This classification will be based on the asymptotic decrease of the intervals (or squares) of exclusion. ^ Translated from the French by Professor Griffith Conrad Evans, of the Rice Institute. [378] BOOK OF THE OPENING An aggregate of measure zero is said to be regular when It can be defined in the following manner : Let ^1, ^25 •••j ^n) "'be a denumerahle infinity of points^ said to he fundamental points. To each integral number h let us make correspond an infinity of squares Cf\ C'i\ •••, C^n\ •••, of which the areas form a convergent series^ such that the square C^^ incloses in its interior C^'^^^ and approaches A^ when h increases indefinitely. Let Ef^ be the aggregate of points inside of the squares Cn\n= i, 2, •••)• The aggregate of points contained in all the Ef, is a regular aggregate (which is evidently of zero measure). Every aggregate of zero measure can be considered as part of a regular aggregate. In other words, if J is any aggregate of measure zero, we can define a regular aggregate E of zero measure, such that every point of A belongs to E. To prove this proposition let us imagine a sequence of num- bers €1, €2, •••, €„, decreasing and tending to zero, the series 2e„ being supposed convergent. Since the aggregate J is of measure zero, we can define an aggregate J^^^ of squares (with sides parallel to the axes) the sum of whose area is less than e^, and such that every point of J is inside one of these squares J^^\ We define first the squares J^^\ then the squares A^^^ ; if there are portions of these squares A^^^ which are outside all the squares J^^\ we can suppress them as useless. In order to proceed in a perfectly definite manner, we consider the first of the squares J^^\ say Ji\ and oper- ate successively on the portions of the successive squares J^^^ which are inside J[^^ ; we continue in the same way with J2\ being careful each time to omit the portions already considered, etc. These operations lead us to con- sider rectangles, each of which may be replaced by an enumerable infinity of squares (in particular cases a finite number). It is suflficient, in order to form the squares ac- cording to a definite law, to construct successively the [379] THE RICE INSTITUTE greatest possible square inside the rectangle, taking as the vertex nearest the origin of coordinates that vertex of the rectangle which is nearest the origin of coordinates. If among the squares so defined there are some which contain no point of the aggregate A we suppress them. We may assume the squares to be arranged in the order of de- creasing size (if two of them happen to be equal in size we shall arrange them according to the relative values of the abscissas of their centers ; and if these abscissas are equal, according to the value of their ordinates). In the same way we arrange the squares A^"^^ (after the required transforma- tions), and so on. We define an aggregate B of squares which will con- sist of all the squares A^^\ and besides a certain number of the squares A^'^\ A^^\ •••. In the same way B^^^ will include all the squares A^^^ and, besides, a certain number of the squares A^^\ •••. It is clear that the sum of the squares B^^^ is less than Ef^ + E^+i + ••• is finite no matter what h may be and ap- proaches zero when h increases indefinitely. Since all the squares A''^^ will be part of the B^^\ every point of A is in- side of one of the squares B'^^K In order that the aggregate E defined by the B^^^ may be regular we must be able to number the B^''\ B^^\ Bf, •••, Bl,^\ .-, in such a way that ^r'^ shall be less than B'J:\ We achieve this result in the following manner. Consider first the squares A^^\ if there are any, whose area is greater than €2 (we know that there are none whose area is greater than €1, since the sum of all the A^^^ is less than €1). We designate these squares as Bi\ B2\ •••, Bn\\ Let us con- sider next those remaining squares A^^^ of which the area is greater than €3, and let us denote them by ^;^+i, ^a,+2> "•) Bp\\ Let us take now the squares A^^^ whose area is greater than €3 ; they are arranged in a definite order, as we have said. If the first of them.is inside one of the A^^^ already numbered, D8on I BOOK OF THE OPENING for example inside Bll\ we shall denote it by 5f \ otherwise we shall denote it at the same time by B^^^^^ and by B^pJ^^, In the same way, if the second of the A^^^ that we take is inside one of the A^^^ already numbered, diiferent from Bl,^\ say B[^\ we shall denote it by B^,^\ If it is not inside any of the A''^^ (it cannot be inside an A^^^ without a number, since its area is greater than €3 and the A''^^ without numbers have areas less than €2), or if it is inside the particular B^^^ which has already been utilized, we shall denote it at the same time by BpX2 and by BpJ+2' In this way we manage to define a cer- tain number of new squares B^^^ which we will call ^^ii, BpJ^.2, •••, Bi^^\ and a certain number of squares B^^^ which in- clude all the A^^^ of area greater than €3. Let us consider now the squares A^^^ of area greater than €4, and let us denote them by 5n,ii, Bl^J^.2, •••, BpJ ; we can proceed in the same way as before for the A^^^ whose areas are greater than €4, and we can then pass on to the A^^^ whose areas are greater than e . Those among them which are in- side of the B^^^ already numbered will have the same num- bers (each number being given of course but one time). The others will be denoted at the same time by B^s\ B^i\ Bf\ We can continue indefinitely in the same way, the e^ ap- proaching zero when k increases indefinitely and each opera- tion involving only a finite number of squares. In this way every square belonging to A^^^ will appear in B^^^ in a deter- minate position. Moreover, it is obvious that Bf^ ap- proaches zero no matter what q may be when h increases indefinitely. It is impossible that certain series B^q\ Bf\ •••, B^p should terminate, because that would mean that no one of the squares A^^'^^^ is inside B'^J^ ; that is to say, that B^^ would inclose no point of the aggregate A, which is contrary to our hypothesis. The aggregates of squares B^^^ define, then, a regular aggregate which includes all the points of A, and our theorem is proved. 1:380 (1) (1) a THE RICE INSTITUTE We notice that in the definition of the regular aggregate E there are certain series ^i'\ 5f\ •-, of which a certain number of the first terms denote squares that coincide among themselves. That, in fact, is no difficulty. We can, how- ever, avoid this circumstance by slightly modifying the defi- nitions of the first Bg of such a series ; if, for instance, B Bf\ 5f coincide, we can replace Bf' by (i +e)Bf\ and 5, by (i 4-Ci)(i -\-€)B^^^^ (we designate by aC a square similarly placed to C, with the ratio a of similarity). These opera- tions multiply the total extent of the squares B^^^ by a factor less than the convergent infinite product n(i +ej,). We notice that the regular aggregate E which we have defined is not necessarily the most simple of the regular aggregates of measure zero which include the J, but it is not important that our demonstration should give us the most simple. The essential thing is to show that there exists one; it is then possible to consider without contradic- tion the collection of all the regular aggregates of measure zero which contain A, and we can choose from this collection if not the simplest (which may not exist, in the same way that the smallest number greater than V2 does not exist), at least an aggregate E whose simplicity is as close as we please to the greatest possible. From now on we shall consider especially the regular aggregates. Such an aggregate is defined by the funda- mental points An, which are limits of the B^^^ when h in- creases indefinitely, and by the magnitudes of the excluding squares B^''^ corresponding to An^ The derived aggregate of the fundamental points is a closed set A\ In the general case this set is composed of a perfect aggregate and a reduc- ible aggregate. The excluding intervals which correspond 1 It might seem desirable to consider also the relative positions of the Jn in these squares ; but by modifying slightly the definitions we can so arrange that every Bi^^ has Jn for its center. [382] BOOK OF THE OPENING to the points of the reducible aggregate have only in common the points of this reducible aggregate itself. Their study therefore gives us nothing new. The really interesting part of a regular aggregate of zero measure is that which is attached to those points of A' which form a perfect aggre- gate. We shall have to distinguish cases according to the nature of this perfect aggregate. We shall limit ourselves, however, to the consideration of the case where the aggregate A' contains all the points of a certain area of simple form. The points An will then be dense within this area.^ All the cases where the area is of a single piece and simply connected may be reduced by conformal representation to the case of the area bounded by a circle. We shall show that if we have two different systems of points An and B„, dense within the interior of equal circles and also dense on their circum- ferences, ^ we can establish between these points a reciprocal continuous one-to-one correspondence in such a way that the ratio between the distance of any two points Aj,, A^ and the distance of the corresponding points 5^, 5, will be included between two limits as close to unity as we please. It will follow from this theorem that we shall be able without loss of generality to suppose that the fundamental points of an aggregate of zero measure, when these points are dense within a certain region, coincide with a given dense aggregate in that region — for instance, with the points of rational coordinates. 1 We shall thus leave aside those aggregates of zero measure which we obtain by assuming that ^ is a perfect linear aggregate which without being Imear yetcontains no area. For example, we could exclude certain fixed areas around the pomts with rational coordinates and take for the An the points with algebraic coordinates which did not belong to the excluded areas. We could also build up in some arrange- ment several similar constructions, or even a denumerable infinity of such construc- tions superposed, and thus obtain regions which would be quite complicated from the point of view of Analysis Situs. u a 2 The case when neither aggregate has points on the circumference can be treated in the same way. [383] THE RICE INSTITUTE II The theorem which we have in view can be expressed as follows : Given two equal circles C and C\ and two enumerable aggregates A and B, of which the first is dense in C and on the circumference C, and the second is dense in C and on the cir- cumference C, and given an arbitrarily small number €, then we can number the points of A and B in such a way that to a point on the contour we make correspond a point on the contour, and that we have, whatever p and q may be, We shall say that in this case the two aggregates are similar by €. In order to prove this theorem we shall assume that the points of the two aggregates are arranged provisionally in a determinate order, and we shall consider successively the first point of A, then the first point of B, then the second point of A, then the second point of B, and so on. Thus we shall not miss any point belonging to either of the two aggregates. To each new point that we consider in one aggregate, we shall make correspond a determinate point in the other; and when the turn of this new point comes we shall omit it. We shall suppose that the centers of the circles C and C do not belong to the aggregates A and B (nothing would be changed if both of them should belong, for we could make them correspond ; and if one of them belonged, but the other not, we could make a conformal transformation, differing little from the identical transformation, which would trans- form the second circle into an equal circle whose center could then be made to correspond to the center of the first n384: BOOK OF THE OPENING circle). In this way we can investigate the two circles by considering them superposed and yet distinct. It is possible now to choose two rectangular axes Ox and Oy in such a way that the diameters parallel to the axes contain no points of A or B, and every line parallel to either of the axes contains at most one point of A and one point of B (because the to- tality of directions of lines which connect the center with points of A or with points of B, or connect the points of A among themselves, or the points of B among themselves, or which are perpendicular to these directions, form an enumerable aggregate). Let us assume an infinite series of positive numbers «i, «2, "•, e„, ••• such that l_e i - ci, and, according to our construction, the ratios of homologous sides are included between i + ci and — ^ — • BOOK OF THE OPENING We continue in the same way, taking alternately a point in A and a point in B, making it correspond to some point in the other aggregate. After n operations we shall have at most (n + 2)2 regions, and the ratio of two homologous dimensions of two regions which correspond will always be included between (l - ei)(l - ^2) •■• (i - e-.) and ^ ^ , ^ , \ (I + ei)(l + «2) ••■ (l + «») and therefore between i - « and I + e. If we continue in this way indefinitely, every point of A and every point of B will have a number, after a finite number of operations, and this number will be at most double the number of the same point in the provisional classification. This final classification satisfies completely the conditions of our theorem. For, if we consider any two points A^, A„ with their corresponding points B„ 5„ the difference of the abscissa x, and x, of J, and A„ when the regional division has progressed far enough (that is, after a number of opera- tions not greater than the larger of the two members p, q), will be equal to the sum of the rectiHnear sides of certain regions, and the abscissas x'„ x\ of B, and B, will be equal to the sum of rectilinear sides of the corresponding regions. We shall have then (I) and similarly (2) Xj, Xq from which follows immediately But this last relation is the statement of our theorem. THE RICE INSTITUTE We might show in the same way the analogous theorem about the angles a and /? which the lines A^A^ and Bj,B^ make with the axis Ox. In fact, we have tan a: = tan/3= so that from equations (i) and (2) we deduce immediately I— e tan a l+e i+e tan/3 i— € If we take the angles a and /3 positive, since they are al- most of the same value, cot /3 -f tan a is greater than or at least equal to 2, and therefore, neglecting e^, we shall have a-0\ < I tan(a-/3) | = tan a tan /3 tan/3 ■ftana < tana tan/3 — I < €. The properties of the correspondence which we have shown to exist between two enumerable aggregates A and J5, which are dense in equal circles C and C\ are worth studying more completely. Here follow some remarks that might be useful in such a study. In the first place we observe that if any partial arrangement of points An, An, -•' approach a limiting point P, there corresponds to it a partial series of points 5„^, Bn^, ••• which approaches a limit P\ The correspondence between P and P' is well defined, — that is, is independent of the partial series that may be chosen. We have in this way a one-to-one correspondence between the points of C and the points of C, Let us agree to call the parallels to the axes, drawn through the points of the aggregate, lines of discontinuity. To any point M not on a line of discontinuity corresponds an homol- ogous point M\ and the transformation of the region in the BOOK OF THE OPENING neighborhood of M into the region in the neighborhood of M' may be written in the form a;' = (A + v)x y = {h-^ V)y, where x, y are the coordinates of M, x\ y' are the coordinates of M', h, k are constants of value between i - e and i + e, and rj and rj' are functions of x and y which approach zero when x^ + y^ approaches zero. The constants h and k are the two ratios of similitude (parallel to the two axes) of the neighborhoods of M' and M. If the points M' and M lie on a line of discontinuity, the ratio of similitude in the direction perpendicular to this line has not the same value on both sides of the line. At a point M which is the inter- section of two lines of discontinuity, there are four values for each ratio of similitude, corresponding respectively to the positive and negative variations of the two coordinates. The ratio of similitude h is thus defined throughout C. It is discontinuous on the lines of discontinuity, but continuous at other points. If we know nothing about the provisional numbering of the aggregates A and B, we can merely say this about the relation between the provisional numbering and the final numbering : that the final number n is at most twice the provisional number p; for every point numbered provi- sionally A p or Bp is chosen after at most 2p operations. We cannot, however, give an upper limit to ^ as a function of n. It will be possible to determine such a limit, provided that we take care to choose the system of provisional num- bering from among those that are sensibly homogeneous. Let us make our meaning clear. By definition, in order to arrange a very large number p of points in a homogeneous manner in a circle C, we shall construct a square grating [389: THE RICE INSTITUTE such that p of its vertices are inside C; if a^ is the length of a segment of the grating, we shall put one point in each square of side 0;^, and l^ in each square of /a^, exactly if / is an integral number, approximately if / is not. Let us write lap = \ and take X as fixed and p variable. Then for every value of p we can calculate the approximate number of points inside the square of side X, a number which may be given asymptotically as p\^/Tr^, r being the radius of the circle C. We shall say that the arrangement of points of the enumerable aggregate Ji, J2, •••, ^p, ••• is asymptotically homogeneous if, for any square of side X, the number X^ of points of index less than p inside this square approaches this same symptotic value p\~/7rr^ when p increases indefi- nitely; i.e., if the ratio irXpr^/pX^ between the numbers X^ and the symptotic value pX'^/wr'^ approaches i as ^ increases indefinitely. We shall say that the arrangement is sensibly homogeneous if this ratio becomes and remains limited by two constants a and /5(q: < I . . THE RICE INSTITUTE fine enough to make a few more squares than points already- numbered, and such that one square includes at most one of these points. There will then be some squares that do not contain such points. In each of these we number one point of the aggregate, by choosing it inside a square con- centric with the first, and twice smaller, taking the point of smallest subscript in the provisional numbering (thus we are sure of not omitting any point). Any system of numbering that satisfies both conditions of homogeneity will be spoken of as normal. It is easy to verify the fact that the methods of numbering habitually used lead to normal arrangements. When the two aggregates that are dense in C and C are numbered normally, it is possible to arrange matters so that the one-to-one correspondence set up between their elements shall be itself normal ; i.e., there exist between the provi- sional numbering, p, and the final numbering, w, inequalities of the form p" < n < p^, where the exponents a and /3 are finite and depend only on the number of dimensions in the aggregate considered, and on the convergent series ^€n which has been used. (In order to be sure that a and ^ are finite, there must be a finite quantity h such that limn^en = o.) We divide the aggregate J into two others, J^ and J^\ still everywhere dense, and the aggregate B, similarly, into B' and B'\ It is then easy to show that the correspondence can be set up in such a way that the points of A^ correspond to those of B' and the points of A'' to the points of B'\ For that, it would not be sufficient of course to apply the general theorem first to J^ and B' and then to J and B, because the correspondence thus set up between two points P and P' inside C and C\ respectively, would not in [392] BOOK OF THE OPENING general be the same by means of the two separate corre- spondences. This procedure we can extend to the case where A and B each consists of a denumerable infinity of aliquot parts, every- where dense. We can establish, for instance, a continuous one-to-one correspondence between the rational numbers in a certain interval, and the algebraic numbers in an equal interval, in such a way that to the rational numbers whose denominators consist of h and only h distinct prime factors, correspond the algebraic numbers which are the roots of an irreducible equation of degree h (for /t = i we get the rational numbers ; if we wish to consider only the irrational algebraic numbers we must take irreducible equations of degree A + i). Ill Let us consider now two regular aggregates of zero measure, of which the fundamental points are precisely the denumerable aggregates A and B inside the circles C and C If we suppose that the squares of exclusion belonging to the corresponding fundamental points have as their sides lines which correspond, it is evident that the two aggregates will correspond point by point in the one-to-one correspondence that we have established between the points P inside C and the points P' inside C In other words, given a regular aggregate of zero measure of which the fundamental points B are dense in C, we can define a regular aggregate of zero meas- ure of which the fundamental points are the elements of an arbitrary aggregate A, dense in C, in such a way that the two aggregates correspond to each other continuously and in a one- to-one manner (the ratio of similitude being contained be- tween I — € and I + e). Hence in order to study regular aggregates of zero measure of which the fundamental points are dense within a certain C393] 1 THE RICE INSTITUTE region, we can without loss of generality assume that the fundamental points are, for instance, the points with rational coordinates. In particular it is easy to prove this important proposition : Every regular aggregate of zero measure of which the fundamental points are dense within a certain region has the order of the continuum. In other words, if we arrange at pleasure the diminishing of the squares of exclusion in the neighborhood of fundamental points, it is not possible to make this diminution rapid enough so that the fundamental points shall be the only ones of the aggregate. For simplification let us consider the case of a single dimension ; the demonstration is in principle the same for any number of dimensions. Let ^„ be the intervals of exclusion belonging to the points ^„. For each value of h we can define a positive function n{n) increasing with n, such that we shall have I measure (y^J) > h{n) On the other hand, if we are given a denumerable succes- sion of increasing functions ^(n), it is possible, according to a theorem of Paul du Bois-Reymond, to construct a function (/)(n) increasing more rapidly than any of the functions h{n) where m and n are integers. Such a number x, whatever h may be, belongs to at least one of the intervals P^^ ; it is therefore an element of the aggregate defined by the points [3943 BOOK OF THE OPENING An and these intervals of exclusion. In order to define the numbers x and show that their aggregate is of the order of the continuum, it is sufficient to investigate a continuous fraction in which the incomplete quotients increase very rapidly. If we write and assume that !3n+l = ClnQn + Qn-l where (/)(w) is the function which we have just defined, we shall have, from the nature of the convergents. X — n Qn < n+1 (Jn+1 Qn < QnQn^l {Qn) But the totality of systems of integers a„ which verify the relations a^ > {Qn) have, themselves, the order of the con- tinuum.^ If we wished to have intervals of exclusion which should decrease rapidly enough so that the aggregate of points defined by them would be composed only of the fundamental points, the i) ; this is possible in virtue of the hypothesis ri> 4.^ r^, from which it follows 00 > 2 V -^ ; the Sl!^ circles are then either inside that ^--4- 2« 2«+^ ^7 2« Cf (including those which touch internally), or outside Ci^ (including those which touch externally). We shall take no account of the interior circles, and we shall denote by An^ the fundamental point of smallest index correspond- ing to the exterior circles ; the circle & will have its cen- ter at Aa^ and its radius the smallest number contained n4063 BOOK OF THE OPENING between — and — such that it does not cut any of the ^ 20. 2^^^ circles Sif^(w > n^) ; it is exterior to the circle Of since it is interior to the circle S^^\ and at the same time exterior to the circles SJ?^ of index less than n^, for these circles are in- terior to Ci^^ because of the method by which n^ was chosen. Similarly the circle Gf etc. is defined and one sees that if the region obtained by excluding the points inside circles C^^ is denoted by C^, and the region obtained by excluding the points inside circles Sf by CJ, all the points of C, belong to C^+i, while all the points of C[^x belong to Ca+i ; the consideration of the regions C^ is then equivalent to that of the regions C^+i and evades the difiiculties which result from intersections of the circles. The points of the circumference of O^'^ are said to con- stitute the frontier of C^ ; the points of C, which do not belong to this frontier are called interior to C^ ; it is impor- tant to observe that we use the word interior here in a dif- ferent sense from the usual one in the theory of W regions. The points of the set C^, situated in the interior of the circle of radius i, form a perfect set, which can be considered as the derived set of the set of its frontier points C)^\ The region C is defined as the set of all points such that each of them is interior to some C^ : the region C is not perfect, for it does not contain the points ^„, which are its limiting points. We know that the set (of zero measure) of points which do not belong to C has the power of the continuum. We shall say that a region D is interior to C, when all the points of D belong to one and the same C^, of fixed index. Among the regions interior to C, we shall consider a little more exclusively the regions Q : every point of C^ is interior to Cg+x. The region C will be said to belong to the class (C) of [407] V THE RICE INSTITUTE Cauchy regions which we are studying here if the numbers r„ are such that, for n sufficiently large, (I) log log log — > n ; n if this condition is verified for two regions C and C\ it is verified for the part common to C and C Together with the regions Cj, and C, we shall consider reduced regions which we shall denote by F^ and F. To a region C corresponds a determinate system of regions Cp, and an infinity of systems of reduced regions ; the following is the definition of one of these systems. Let us suppose numbers p„ given, tending to zero rapidly as n increases indefinitely, but much less rapidly than tn ; more precisely, we shall suppose that (2) -^^^ Pn these two conditions (2) and (3) are quite consistent by virtue of (i).^ The regions F^, are defined by means of pn as the Cj,'s by means of Tn, that is, are limited by circles of radii be- tween — and -^ exterior to each other. The region F Is formed of the set of points interior (In the sense Indicated above) to each F,,. The regions F^ are perfect, F Is not perfect; the set complementary to F has zero measure and the power of the continuum. The set C contains all points of F since Cp contains all ^ (i) (2) and (3) could be replaced by wider conditions : my aim here is to simplify the statement. [4083 BOOK OF THE OPENING points of Tj, : but C contains besides points which do not belong to F. The following theorem is fundamental : If a function of the coordinates of a point P is defined in C and continuous in every Cj„ the knowledge of its values at all points of F involves the knowledge of its values at all points of C. In other words, two functions continuous In C (that is, defined In all C and continuous In every region interior to C) cannot coincide In all F without coinciding in all C; or, finally, a function continuous in C and zero in F is zero in C, In fact, let P be a point of C ; this point belonging to a set Cj, interior to C, It is a limiting point of the set formed by the frontier^ of C^; it is sufficient In order to prove that the function is zero at P, since it is continuous in C^, to show that It is zero on each circumference which constitutes this frontier (the remark has already been made that each of these circumferences is interior to C^+i) ; then, on one of these circumferences (as on every rectifiable curve traced in the plane), the points which are part of F are everywhere dense ; the function being continuous on this curve is then zero throughout this curve if it Is zero at all points of F. When we speak of a reduced region, we shall assume that we consider a determinate region, the p„'s being chosen in a precise way, satisfying the inequalities (2) and (3). It might happen that we had to consider at the same time another region F' defined by numbers p^ ; If (4) P-=Pn we say that F' is of order /? with respect to F ; if /3 is greater than one, the numbers p^ satisfy the inequalities (2) and (3) 1 We neglect points P which would be interior to C in Weierstrass's sense ; for them the proposition is evident, since they are centers of circles inclosing no An in their interior, they are also interior to T in Weierstrass's sense. [409: fl THE RICE INSTITUTE when the Pa's satisfy them: in this case the set T^ is interior to T^, for the excluded circles of radii ^ are larger than the circles of radii ^ (for p„ can always be supposed 2 less than i). Let us remark finally that the points of C, which lie on any curve whatever, a straight line for instance, form a perfect set, defined by contiguous intervals (in M. Baire's sense), which are the chords intercepted on the straight line by the circles. This set may or may not contain intervals : but in every case it is perfect, and consequently a function continuous in Cp and zero at all the points which limit the contiguous intervals is zero at all points of the set at the same time with all its derivatives in C,. II. MONOGENIC FUNCTIONS IN C REGIONS We shall say that a function F{z) is monogenic in a region such as C if : 1°. It is continuous zviVain C (that is, as we have explained, continuous in every C,, interior to C; since the set Cp is perfect, this continuity in Cj, is uniform) ; 2°. At every point P of C, it has a derivative with respect to z, unique and continuous within C. To define the deriva- tive a set Cp of which P is a part is considered, and denoting by ?' any other point of C, the limit of the ratio (5) F(p')-F(p) pp is found when the vector pp' = z' - z tends to zero ; if this limit exists for every value of p, it is evidently independ- ent of the value of p, for all points of Cp belong to Cj,+ g; for this reason this limit can be called the derivative of F{z) [410] BOOK OF THE OPENING within C, that is in every region interior to C. The con- tinuity of the derivative within C is to be understood in the same way as the continuity of the function itself within C : continuity in each C,, interior to C. This hypothesis of the continuity of the derivative is doubtless superfluous ; but it simplifies the argument. Since the set C, is perfect, every function continuous in Cj, is bounded in Cp. Let us mention at once an example of the simplest kind of a C region and of a function monogenic in this region.^ Let us form the series n 00 n n ^ * n Clearly this series is convergent outside the square T of which the vertices are the points 2; = o, i, i, i + i. Inside this square the series has an infinity of poles ; in fact, all the points whose coordinates are rational numbers x ^■^^ y =-. n But if circles having these poles as centers and radii —^ be n considered, the series is absolutely and uniformly convergent at all points outside these circles, whatever the fixed number € may be. The same is true if circles F^J^ with centers at the points ^, ^ and radii y - P Consequently, the points Un for which I X — a n < ,8-1 are such that (13) 2" " 2«-' Let us denote by n, the smallest value of n after which this inequality (13) is satisfied ; all the a„'s inside the circle 1:415: THE RICE INSTITUTE of center x and radius -— r have indices greater or equal to w^; the sum — 2r„ of the radii of the corresponding circles in Cp is then extremely small compared to — Pn^ since the r„'s are much smaller than the corresponding P„'s ; since this sum is extremely small compared to -^^ there exist circles of center x and radius between — : and — and which do 2^ ^ 2* not cut any of the circles O^^ ; a fortiori they do not cut the circles Cn^ whose centers are more distant from x^ for the radii —of these other circles are very small compared with P P — ^ and their centers are further from x than — p. The circle y^ being thus defined, let us consider the func- tion z — X within the region contained between the contour K and 7,; clearly in this region this function is monogenic ; we then obtain the relation the sum on the right-hand side referring to the Ci^^'s which are contained between y^ and K. If M denotes the maximum value of | F{z) \ within Cp the maximum value of f{z) on different Ci^^'s is evidently 2*"^^i¥ ; if ^ -f I is put in the place of q, an infinity of new terms are introduced on the right-hand side, but it is easily seen that the lengths of the paths of integration (circum- ferences of the Ci^^'s contained between 7^ and 7^+1) have a 1:416: BOOK OF THE OPENING sum of an order much less than -^ ; the right-hand side is then a convergent series and lim //(z) dz=fj(.z) dz -XX<^>/(^) ^^ the sign S now referring to all the circumferences CI which limit C,. As for the left-hand side, it follows from the con- tinuity of F{z) at the point x in C„ all the t,'s being interior to C„ that it is equal to 2 iriF(.x). The generalized Cauchy formula follows ■r( \ CF{z)dz_y C F{z)dz From this formula the classical consequences can be de- duced and in particular the fact that monogeneity {existence of the first derivative) within the region C involves the existence of the derivatives of all orders. This formula (14) shows moreover that non-analytic monogenic functions can be put in the form of series whose terms are analytic functions. It is natural then to look for an associative method of con- tinuation applicable to such sums. The problem is nothing else than the problem of divergent series : to each analytic function corresponds a Taylor development convergent in a circle, but divergent outside this circle ; this development is determined by a knowledge of the values of the derivatives. If a series of analytic functions is indefinitely differentiable, its derivatives are expressed linearly by means of the deriva- tions of the terms, and the Taylor series which corresponds to these derivatives is a linear function of the Taylor series corresponding to the diiferent terms of the series. But if the function is not analytic at the point where the series is developed, this Taylor series will be the sum of series whose radii of convergence decrease indefinitely and, in the case we are studying, will have a zero radius of convergence. 1:417:] I THE RICE INSTITUTE The problem of divergent series consists in transforming such a series into a convergent series in such a way that the result coincides with the analytic continuation in the case where this continuation is possible. Thanks to the fine researches of M. Mittag-Leffler, this problem has been resolved for the first time in an entirely satisfactory way ; it should be observed that, if it is desired to use these results for the continuation of non-analytic monogenic functions, they must be interpreted either by the language of divergent series, or by an equivalent language if one prefers not to speak of divergent series ; but in every case by a new language, specially adapted to the real novelty of the results, and not by the old language of Weierstrassian analytic continuation ; that is the only language which may not be used, since it has an absolutely precise meaning, which can- not be modified ; Weierstrass's theory is, in some way, so perfect that it can only be departed from by creating a new language : if, as M. Mittag-Leffler proposed, Weierstrass's language were adopted, M. Mittag-Leffler's series would be only a simplified method of calculation containing nothing more from the theoretical point of view than Weierstrass's theory contains. III. CONTINUATION BY SERIES (M) In order to study continuation by M. Mittag-Leffler's series, or series (M), we suppose that the point is interior to a reduced region F^, of order equal to 2 with respect to Fj, (the circles of exclusion are defined by numbers pj, equal to Vp„) ; evidently then an infinity of straight lines issuing from the point x can be drawn interior to Fp. More precisely, if x belongs to F\ within every given angle having its vertex a:, a straight line interior to F^,/, of con- venient index, can be found ; this index can increase in- C4183 BOOK OF THE OPENING definitely as the angle tends to zero, but is determinate when the angle is given (this follows from the fact that the sum of the angles subtended at x by the circles which limit F / is less than twice the sum of the convergent series "^fpjtiBA and is consequently as small as we please if p' is sufficiently large). We shall suppose, so as not to com- plicate our notation, that p has been taken equal to p' in the preceding argument (the point x interior to Fp is a fortiori interior to F^^ li p' > p). We develop F{z) in a series on one of the straight lines which we are about to define, interior to F^. Each of the terms of the right-hand side of (14) is an analytic function on this straight line and can therefore be developed in a series of Mittag-Leffler or (M) polynomials ; it is enough to show that the multiple series formed of the set of these series is absolutely convergent, in order to show that it represents 2 iriFiz). This series is then formed by means of the derivatives of F{z) at the point x (these derivatives exist, as we have remarked, according to (14) for every displacement on the straight line and in fp), in the same way as the (M) develop- ment of an analytic function is formed by means of the derivatives of that function; we assume, to save writing, that X =0. I remind the reader of the properties of (Af) developments which I have demonstrated in my memoir on series of poly- nomials and rational fractions ("Acta Matematica," I, xxiv). One finds that (IS) ^=2:cnW, G„(2;)'s being polynomials which it is useless to write again and the series 2 \ Gn{z) \ being convergent in the ' star.' A [4193 THE RICE INSTITUTE region S (R, p) is defined as follows : R being > i and p < i, we consider the circle of center o and radius R, the circle of center i and radius p and the tangents to this last circle from o, the points of contact being M and N; the region S(R, p) is bounded by the arc MN less than tt, the continua- tions MM' and A^A^' of OM and ON as far as the circum- ference of radius R and the arc M'N' greater than tt. In this 32 i? . region, puttmg ^ =a , (16) ^ X I Gr.(z) 1 < R'"' Consider an integral along one of the circumferences C^^^ of radius (17) n Lp) Md'^ We develop it on a straight line interior to F,,, that is outside the circumference having the same center ^„ as Cn^ and of radius — • The radius — being very small compared 2r 2 with p„, we shall commit no appreciable error by replacing this integral by the majorant function —, denoting by M the maximum of | ^(2;) | in Cp, 27rr„ being the length of the path of integration (we suppress the factors 2^ which have no influence since p is fixed). If one puts x^a^x^ ( o^ Mr„ Mr^ i ft dn I — X f • If the point x is inside the region S{R,p) defined by the circle of radius — and center Jn and by a circle of radius > i (2 for example) which contains within it all the regions we are considering, the point y = — will be within the region <3„ 1:420] BOOK OF THE OPENING 9n a n a n , and by developing ^ we get the inequality I —X S!G„(.')i<[^J putting X=^; since |^„| is greater than p„ we can write The development (AT) of (17) is, according to (18), when all the terms are replaced by their moduli, less than But according to (2) MrnyK^ >e s ' n a being and if n is large enough -^ > X^ since X = -^ and so ^ Pn Pn > Pn, Mr^,\''<\M\''e-^\ This converges very rapidly to zero when n, and consequently X, increases indefinitely. The absolute convergence of the (M) series is then demonstrated. Now consider two points Xi and X2 belonging to T' ; we can construct two angles Ji and J2 with vertices at Xi and X2, and such that every half-straight line Di within Ai meets every half-straight line Do within J2 at a point Xs within the total reeion considered. We can choose Di and D2 in such a way that these two straight lines belong to the same T^ {p being chosen large enough, but afterwards remaining fixed). It will then be possible to calculate the function at X2 by means of its values and the values of its derivatives at Xi, by forming only two (M) developments, one with the [4213 THE RICE INSTITUTE origin Xi and the other with the origin x^. If the function is zero at x, as well as all its derivatives, these (Af) develop- ments are identically zero and the function is zero at ^2. From what has been said further back it can be concluded that if a monogenic function is zero at every point of an arc, however small (at all points of this arc interior to C), when there exists on this arc at least one point interior to Tj, a limit of points interior to T^, the function being zero at all these points is zero, as well as its derivatives, at one point of r^ at least, and consequently identically zero in T^ (whatever p may be) and identically zero in C. These new monogenic functions possess then the fundamental property of analytic functions. IV. THE LOGARITHMIC POTENTIAL In the preceding work we have considered singular isolated points, corresponding in the physical point of view to the hypothesis of an infinite density at certain points ; a state- ment can easily be given in which the density is everywhere finite. Consider a regular uniform analytic function zero at infinity. If S is a circle such that all the singular points of the function are inside 2, if f is any point outside 2, the integration being taken in the direct sense. Let 2i and ^2 be two concentric circles outside 2, let a be the center of these circles, pi and p2 their radii. Evidently, if p is contained between pi and p2. ia [422] BOOK OF THE OPENING If we multiply this equality by {p2-pT(p-PiT ^nd inte- grate between the Umits pi and P2, the expression becomes F{of\p2-pnp-piy^p ^j_ r- Fja + pen (p. -PTJP- pXpe'^dad^ 2 7r*^° Put £\p2-Pnp-pd''dr = ^H a+pe^'' = x-\-iy. i-a-p Then rrh = -L C( F(x+iy)(p2-Pnp-Piy/^^xdy or puttmg ^—x — ty the region of integration being the ring contained between the circles Ci and C2. We shall define the function (l>{x, y) outside this ring by giving it the value zero ; the whole plane can then be taken as the region of integration. The function (x, y) is bounded and continuous in the whole plane ; its derivatives are also bounded, at least as far as order m on Ci and as far as order n on C2 ; by an artifice analogous to that which we are about to employ, it would be easy to arrange matters so that all the derivatives would be continuous ; in general it is enough to know that the derivatives are continuous as far as some order, fixed beforehand. If the function F(z) has a singular point a, pi can be made to tend to zero and if, further, the product p^F{z) remains finite for z = a, the formula holds for pi = o ; if this product does not remain finite, in the formula we replace (p - piT 1:423] THE RICE INSTITUTE P by e ^ or e~^ etc. Further, in the case of a unique singular point, the circle Ci can be drawn with a radius as small as we please, after the circle C\ has been reduced to zero. It is easy to deduce from this that every regular analytic uniform function, zero at infinity, can be represented in every region D interior to Its region of existence W^ and approach- ing W as nearly as we wish, by an expression of the form (20) /-(f) =e(l, V) = /"/" ^fc y^dxdy the function <^(a:, y) being bounded and, further, zero at all points of D (this hypothesis involves the fact that {x, y) is then zero at all points exterior to all these circles and the function ^(|, rj) is mon- ogenic at these points. If the radii pn are replaced by 6p„, € being as small as we please, the function (t>{x, y) is zero in a more and more extended region; it remains bounded, but its bound increases indefinitely as e tends to zero. We are thus led to consider a priori a function such as (21) and to study it in the region C where 0(a:, y) is zero. It is natural to suppose the region C to be simply connected ; we limit ourselves to the case where this region C consists of JV regions (these regions may reduce to a zero as a limiting case) and of a finite or infinite number of straight lines A, in such a way that any two points can be reunited by a polyg- onal line with a finite number of sides. An important idea is then that of the order of infinity of the function {x, y) tends uniformly to zero as a- tends to zero. By means of this hypothesis, it can be affirmed that the function d{^, 77) is determined in the whole region of its existence by the knowl- edge of its values at any point of this region. This hy- pothesis contains as a special case the condition satisfied n426] m BOOK OF THE OPENING by analytic functions in fV regions, for if a straight line is within fF, the function (t>(x, y) is identically zero at all points whose distances from the straight line are less than a number o-, chosen conveniently. The region C can be reduced to the real axis ; that is the case of the function +00 x»+00 ^+00 x»+aO '^dx dy {x^-^y''){^-x-iy) The Taylor development ^(?) = ^(lo) + (?-?o)^'(^o)+- diverges for any value of fo but is summable (M), whatever fo may be, for every value of |, its sum being equal to the function (9(?). The function ^(|) will be called quasi- analytic. Calculations of double integrals of form (21) lead easily to expressions of the same form ; similarly in differentiating, transforming the double integral by integration by parts, it is only necessary to assume the existence of the derivatives of i{xuyi)dxdyd^cidyi ^+00 y»+« ^+00 ••-ra *^-oo *^-oo *^— 00 •^-00 or smce (f-2)(r-zi) I I (f-2;)(r-2;i) z-zAr-z r-zi' [427] if we put THE RICE INSTITUTE +» /'+" 4,{xi, yi)dxidyi —00 +« y^+so z — Zi i('^i, yO^-yi^yi —00 ^ -x> Z — Zi (24) We can then put in the form of a double integral (24) every polynomial P in terms of one or more functions of (9(J, 7]) and their derivatives; if the regions of existence have a simply connected common region the differential equation obtained by equating P to zero cannot be satisfied in any portion of this region without being satisfied in the whole region C. V. CONCLUSION The results we are establishing suppress the absolutely sharp demarcation established by Weierstrass's theory between real analytic functions and real non-analytic func- tions. I do not wish to develop the consequences of this fact from the point of view of the theory of functions ; I prefer to insist a little on its importance from the point of view of the relations between mathematics and physics. It is a necessary postulate in the application of mathematics to experimental sciences, that sufficiently slight variations in the data ought not to influence the results appreciably ; for, if it were not so, since the experimental data are never known with vigorous precision, one could not foresee any phenomenon. But certain mathematical properties are at least apparently discontinuous, depending for example on [4283 BOOK OF THE OPENING the fact that some number is rational or irrational, the solutions of the equation Thus d'y - + m^y = cos nx are of a different nature according as the ratio ^ is commen- surable or incommensurable. Nevertheless, in this case, if ^ varies continuously, the solution y varies very little in an n interval of variation of x large compared with the length ot the periods. It is not always thus, certainly, but the cases in which there is no continuity have been little studied ; the equation can be given as an example in which the solutions vary dis- continuously as X becomes equal to zero ; but this equation does not come under the Hamiltonian type. It is important to know whether the properties of harmonic functions (that is, of potentials) vary continuously when the definition of the functions itself varies continuously. This has no place in Weierstrass's theory ; the introduction^ of quasi-analytic functions restores continuity ; a distribution of attracting masses infinitely near to Ox leads, if the density is sufficiently slight in the neighborhood of Ox, to properties of the potential on Ox which are not dissimilar from the case where the density is zero in the neighborhood of Ox. Emile Borel. 1:4293 ' #1!^ f' " -■■ -"^ THE BREVIARY OF ESTHETIC ^ I "WHAT IS ART?" IN reply to the question, *'What is art?", it might be said jocosely (but this would not be a bad joke) that art is what everybody knows it to be. And indeed, if it were not to some extent known what it is, it would be impossible even to ask that question, for every question implies a certain knowledge of what is asked about, designated in the ques- tion and therefore known and qualified. A proof of this is to be found in the fact that we often hear expressed just and profound ideas in relation to art by those who make no pro- fession of philosophy or of theory, by laymen, by artists who do not like to reason, by the ingenuous, and even by the common people: these ideas are sometimes implicit in judg- ments concerning particular works of art, but at others as- sume altogether the form of aphorisms and of definitions. Thus it happens that there arises the belief in the possibility of making blush, at will, any proud philosopher who should believe himself to have '^discovered'* the nature of art, by placing before his eyes or making ring in his ears proposi- tions taken from the most superficial books or phrases of the most ordinary conversation, and shewing that they already most clearly contained his vaunted discovery. And in this case the philosopher would have good reason to blush— that is, had he ever nourished the illusion of intro- ducing into universal human consciousness, by means of his 1 A monograph prepared for the inauguration of the Rice Institute, by Bene- detto Croce, Senator of the Kingdom of Italy, Member of several Royal Commissions, Editor of "La Critlca." Translated from the Italian by Doug- las Ainslie, B.A. Oxon., of The Athenaeum, London, England. C430] 4 BOOK OF THE OPENING doctrines, something altogether original, something extra- neous to this consciousness, the revelation of an altogether new world. But he does not blush, and continues upon his way, for he is not ignorant that the question as to what is art (as indeed every philosophical question as to the nature of the real, or in general every question of knowledge) , even if by Its use of language it seem to assume the aspect of a general and total problem, which it is claimed to solve for the first and last time, has always, as a matter of fact, a cir- cumscribed meaning, referable to the particular difficulties that assume vitality at a determined moment in the history of thought. Certainly, truth does walk the streets, like the esprit of the well-known French proverb, or like metaphor, ''queen of tropes'' according to rhetoricians, which Mon- taigne discovered in the babil of his chambriere. But the metaphor used by the maid is the solution of a problem of expression proper to the feelings that affect the maid at that moment; and the obvious affirmations that by accident or in- tent one hears every day as to the nature of art, are solu^ tions of logical problems, as they present themselves to this or that individual, who is not a philosopher by profession, and yet as man is also to some extent a philosopher. And as the maid's metaphor usually expresses but a small and vul- gar world of feeling compared with that of the poet, so the obvious affirmation of one who is not a philosopher solves a problem small by comparison with that which occupies the philosopher. The answer as to what is art may appear similar in both cases, but is different in both cases owing to the different degree of richness of its intimate content; because the answer of the philosopher worthy of the name has neither more nor less than the task of solving in an adequate manner all the problems as to the nature of art that have arisen down to that moment in the course of history; [430 THE RICE INSTITUTE whereas that of the layman, since it revolves in a far nar- rower space, shews itself to be impotent outside those limits. Actual proof of this is also to be found in the force of the eternal Socratic method, in the facility with which the learned, by pressing home their questions, leave those with- out learning in open-mouthed confusion, though these had nevertheless begun by speaking well; but now finding them- selves, in the course of the inquiry, in danger of losing what small knowledge they possessed, they have no resource but to retire into their shell, declaring that they do not like "subtleties." The philosopher's pride is solely based therefore upon the greater intensity of his questions and answers; a pride not unaccompanied with modesty— that is, with the con- sciousness that if his sphere be wider, or the largest pos- sible, at a determined moment, yet it is limited by the history of that moment, and cannot pretend to a value of totality, or what is called a definite solution. The ulterior life of the spirit, renewing and multiplying problems, does not so much falsify, as render inadequate preceding solutions, part of them falling among the number of those truths that are un- derstood, and part needing to be again taken up and inte- grated. A system is a house, which, as soon as It has been built and decorated, has need of continuous labour, more or less energetic, in order to keep it in repair (subject as It is to the corrosive action of the elements) ; and at a certain mo- ment there is no longer any use in restoring and propping up the system, we must demolish and reconstruct it from top to bottom. But with this capital difference : that in the work of thought, the perpetually new house is perpetually main- tained by the old one, which persists in it, almost by an act of magic. As we know, those superficial or Ingenuous souls that are ignorant of this magic are terrified at it; so much so, [1432] BOOK OF THE OPENING that one of their tiresome refrains against philosophy Is that it continually undoes its work, and that one philosopher contradicts another: as though man did not always make and unmake his houses, and as though the architect that fol- lows did not always contradict the architect that precedes; and as though It were possible to draw the conclusion from this making and unmaking of houses and from this contra- diction among architects, that it is useless to make houses! The answers of the philosopher, though they have the ad- vantage of greater intensity, also carry with them the dan- gers of greater error, and are often vitiated by a sort of lack of good sense, which has an aristocratic character, in so far as it belongs to a superior sphere of culture, and even when meriting reproof, is the object not only of disdain and derision, but also of secret envy and admiration. This is the foundation of the contrast, that many delight to Illustrate, between the mental equilibrium of ordinary people and the extravagances of philosophers; since, for example, it is clear that no man of good sense would have said that art is a reflexion of the sexual instinct, or that It is something maleficent and deserves to be banned from well-ordered re- publics. These absurdities have, however, been uttered by philosophers and even by great philosophers. But the innocence of the man of common sense Is poverty, the innocence of the savage; and though there have often been sighs for the life of the savage, and a remedy has been called for to rescue good sense from philosophies, it remains a fact that the spirit, in its development, courageously affronts the dangers of civilisation and the momentary loss of good sense. The researches of the philosopher in relation to art must tread the paths of error In order to find the path of truth, which does not differ from, but is, those very paths of error which contain a clue to the labyrinth. [433] << ^w 11 THE RICE INSTITUTE The close connection of error and truth arises from the fact that a complete and total error is inconceivable, and, since it is inconceivable, does not exist. Error speaks with two voices, one of which affirms the false, but the other denies it; it is a colliding of yes and no, which is called con- tradiction. Therefore, when we descend from general con- siderations to the examination of a theory that has been condemned as erroneous in its definite particulars, we find the cure in the theory itself— that is, the true theory, which grows out of the soil of error. Thus it happens that those very people who claim to reduce art to the sexual instinct, in order to demonstrate their thesis have recourse to argu- ments and meditations w^hich, instead of uniting, separate art from that instinct; or that he who would expel poetry from the well-constituted republic, shudders in so doing, and himself creates a new and sublime poetry. There have been historical periods in which the most crude and perverted doctrines of art have dominated; yet this did not prevent the habitual and secure separation of the beautiful from the ugly at those periods, nor the very subtle discussion of the theme when the abstract theory was forgotten and particular cases were studied. Error is always condemned, not by the mouth of the judge, but ex ore siio. Owing to this close connection with error, the affirmation of the truth is always a process of strife, by means of which it keeps freeing itself in error from error; whence arises another pious but impossible desire, namely, that which de- mands that truth should be directly exposed, without discus- sion or polemic; that it should be permitted to proceed majestically alone upon its way: as if this stage parade were the symbol suited to truth, which is thought itself, and, as thought, ever active and in labour. Indeed, nobody succeeds in exposing a truth, save by criticising the different solutions [434] BOOK OF THE OPENING of the problem with which it is connected; and there is no philosophical treatise, however weak, no little scholastic manual or academic dissertation, which does not collect at its beginning or contain in its body a review of opinions, his- torically given or ideally possible, which it wishes to oppose or to correct. This fact, though frequently realised in a capricious and disorderly manner, just expresses the legiti- mate desire to pass in review all the solutions that have been attempted in history or are possible of achievement in idea (that is, at the present moment, though always in history), in such a way that the new solution shall include in itself all the preceding labour of the human spirit. But this demand is a logical demand, and as such intrinsic to every true thought and inseparable from it; and we must not confound it with a definite literary form of exposi- tion, in order that we may not fall into the pedantry for which the scholastics of the Middle Ages and the dialec- ticians of the school of Hegel in the nineteenth century be- came celebrated, which is very closely connected with the formalistic superstition, and represents a belief in the marvellous virtue of a certain sort of extrinsic and mechan- ical philosophical exposition. We must, in short, understand it in a substantial, not in an accidental sense, respecting the spirit, not the letter, and proceed with freedom in the ex- position of our own thought, according to time, place, and person. Thus, in these rapid lectures intended to provide as it were a guide to the right way of thinking out problems of art, I shall carefully refrain from narrating (as I have done elsewhere) the whole process of liberation from erroneous conceptions of art, mounting upwards from the poorest to the richest; and I shall cast far away, not from myself, but from my readers, a part of the baggage with which they will charge themselves when, prompted thereto by the sight of [435] THE RICE INSTITUTE the country passed over in our bird's flight, they shall set themselves to accomplish more particular voyages in this or that part of it, or to cross it again from end to end. However, connecting the question which has given occa- sion to this indispensable prologue (indispensable for the purpose of removing from my discourse every appearance of pretentiousness, and also all blemish of inutility),— the question as to what is art, — I will say at once, in the simplest ^'^ manner, that art is vision or intuition. The artist produces an image or a phantasm; and he who enjoys art turns his gaze upon the point to which the artist has pointed, looks through the chink which he has opened, and reproduces that image in himself. ^'Intuition," ^Vision,'' "contemplation,'* "imagination," "fancy," "figurations," "representations," and so on, are words continually recurring, like synonyms, when discoursing upon art, and they all lead the mind to the same conceptual sphere which indicates general agreement. But this reply, that art is intuition, obtains its force and meaning from all that it implicitly denies and from which it distinguishes art. What negations are implicit in it? I shall indicate the principal, or at least those that are the most important for us at this present moment of our culture. It denies, above all, that art is a physical fact: for exam- ple, certain determined colours, or relations of colours; certain definite forms of bodies; certain definite sounds, or relations of sounds; certain phenomena of heat or of elec- tricity—in short, whatsoever be designated as "physical." The inclination toward this error of physicising art is al- ready present in ordinary thought, and as children who touch the soap-bubble and would wish to touch the rainbow, so the human spirit, admiring beautiful things, hastens spon- taneously to trace out the reasons for them in external na- ture, and proves that it must think, or believes that it [436] « ii| ^■€ BOOK OF THE OPENING should think, certain colours beautiful and certain other col- ours ugly, certain forms beautiful and certain other forms ugly. But this attempt has been carried out intentionally and with method on several occasions in the history of thought: from the "canons" which the Greek theoreticians and artists fixed for the beauty of bodies, through the specu- lations as to the geometrical and numerical relations of figures and sounds, down to the researches of the aesthe- ticians of the nineteenth century (Fechner, for example), and to the "communications" presented in our day by the inexpert, at philosophical, psychological, and natural science congresses, concerning the relations of physical phenomena with art. And If It be asked why art cannot be a physical fact, we must reply, in the first place, that physical facts do not possess reality, and that art, to which so many devote their whole lives and which fills all with a divine joy, is supremely real; thus it cannot be a physical fact, which Is something unreal. This sounds at first paradoxical, for nothing seems more solid and secure to the ordinary man than the physical world; but we, in the seat of truth, must not abstain from the good reason and substitute for it one less good, solely because the first should have the appear- ance of a lie; and besides. In order to surpass what of strange and difficult may be contained In that truth, to be- come at home with It, we may take Into consideration the fact that the demonstration of the unreality of the physical world has not only been proved in an Indisputable manner and Is admitted by all philosophers (who are not crass mate- rialists and are not involved in the strident contradictions of materialism) , but Is professed by these same physicists in the spontaneous philosophy which they mingle with their phys- ics, when they conceive physical phenomena as products of principles that are beyond experience, of atoms or of ether, [437] THE RICE INSTITUTE or as the manifestation of an Unknowable: besides, the matter Itself of the materialists is a supermaterlal principle. Thus physical facts reveal themselves, by their internal logic and by common consent, not as reality, but as a construction of our intellect for the purposes of science. Consequently, the question whether art be a physical fact must rationally assume this different signification: that Is to say, whether it he possible to construct art physically. And this Is cer- tainly possible, for we indeed carry it out always, when, turning from the sense of a poem and ceasing to enjoy It, we set ourselves, for example, to count the words of which the poem is composed and to divide them into syllables and letters; or, disregarding the aesthetic effect of a statue, we weigh and measure it : a most useful performance for the packers of statues, as is the other for the typographers who have to ''compose" pages of poetry; but most useless for the contemplator and student of art, to whom it Is neither useful nor licit to allow himself to be "distracted" from his proper object. Thus art is not a physical fact in this second sense, either; which amounts to saying that when we propose/ to ourselves to penetrate its nature and mode of action, to - construct it physically is of no avail. Another negation is implied in the definition of art as 'm-( tuition: If It be intuition, and intuition is equivalent to theory^ in the original sense of contemplation, art cannot be a utili--^ tarian act; and since a utilitarian act aims always at obtain- ing a pleasure and therefore at keeping off a pain, art, considered In Its own nature, has nothing to do with the useful and with pleasure and pain, as such. It will be ad- mitted, indeed, without much dlfl^culty, that a pleasure as a pleasure, any sort of pleasure, is not of itself artistic; the pleasure of a drink of water that slakes thirst, or a walk In the open air that stretches our limbs and makes our blood 1:438: BOOK OF THE OPENING circulate more lightly, or the obtaining of a longed-for post that settles us In practical life, and so on, is not artistic. Finally, the difference between pleasure and art leaps to the eyes in the relations that are developed between ourselves and works of art, because the figure represented may be dear to us and represent the most delightful memories, and at the same time the picture may be ugly; or, on the other hand, the picture may be beautiful and the figure represented hate- ful to our hearts, or the picture Itself, which we approve as beautiful, may also cause us rage and envy, because It is the work of our enemy or rival, for whom it will procure advan- tage and on whom it will confer new strength: our practical Interests, with their relative pleasures and pains, mingle and sometimes become confused with art and disturb, but are never identified with, our aesthetic Interest. At the most it will be affirmed, with a view to maintaining more effectively the definition of art as the pleasurable, that It is not the pleasurable in general, but a particular form of the pleasur- able. But such a restriction Is no longer a defence. It Is in- deed an abandonment of that thesis; for given that art is a particular form of pleasure, its distinctive character would be supplied, not by the pleasurable, but by what distinguishes that pleasurable from other pleasurables, and it would be desirable to turn the attention to that distinctive element- more than pleasurable or different from pleasurable. Nev- ertheless, the doctrine that defines art as the pleasurable has a special denomination (hedonistic aesthetic), and a long and complicated development in the history of aesthetic doc- trines: it shewed itself In the Graeco-Roman world, prevailed In the eighteenth century, reflowered in the second half of the nineteenth, and still enjoys much favour, being especially well received by beginners in aesthetic, who are above all struck by the fact that art causes pleasure. The life of this 1:439] I THE RICE INSTITUTE doctrine has consisted of proposing in turn one or another class of pleasures, or several classes together (the pleasure of the superior senses, the pleasure of play, of consciousness of our own strength, of criticism, etc., etc.), or of adding to it elements differing from the pleasurable, the useful for example (when understood as distinct from the pleasura- ble), the satisfaction of cognoscitive and moral wants, and the like. And its progress has been caused just by this rest- lessness, and by its allowing foreign elements to ferment in its bosom, which it introduces through the necessity of some- how bringing itself into agreement with the reality of art, thus attaining to its dissolution as hedonistic doctrine and to the promotion of a new doctrine, or at least to drawing at- tention to its necessity. And since every error has its ele- ment of truth (and that of the physical doctrine has been seen to be the possibility of the physical "construction" of art as of any other fact), the hedonistic doctrine has its eter- nal element of truth in the placing in relief the hedonistic accompaniment, or pleasure, common to the aesthetic activity as to every form of spiritual activity, which it has not at all been intended to deny in absolutely denying the identification of art with the pleasurable, and in distinguishing it from the pleasurable by defining it as intuition. A third negation, effected by means of the theory of art as intuition, is that art is a moral act; that is to say, that form of practical act which, although necessarily uniting with the useful and with pleasure and pain, is not immediately utilita- rian and hedonistic, and moves in a superior spiritual sphere. But the intuition, in so far as it is a theoretic act, is opposed to the practical of any sort. And in truth, art, as has been remarked from the earliest times, does not arise as an act of the will; good will, which constitutes the honest man, does not constitute the artist. And since it is not the result of an [440] P9RB m BOOK OF THE OPENING act of will, so it escapes all moral discrimination, not because a privilege of exemption is accorded to it, but simply because moral discrimination cannot be applied to art. An artistic image portrays an act morally praiseworthy or blamewor- thy; but this image, as image, is neither morally praisewor- thy nor blameworthy. Not only is there no penal code that can condemn an image to prison or to death, but no moral judgment, uttered by a rational person, can make of it its object: we might just as well judge the square moral or the triangle immoral as the Francesca of Dante immoral or the Cordelia of Shakespeare moral, for these have a purely ar- tistic function, they are like musical notes in the souls of Dante and of Shakespeare. Further, the moralistic theory of art is also represented in the history of aesthetic doctrines, though much discredited in the common opinion of our times, not only on account of its intrinsic demerit, but also, in some measure, owing to the moral demerit of certain tendencies of our times, which render possible, owing to psychological dislike, that refutation of it which should be made— and which we here make — solely for logical reasons. The end attributed to art, of directing the good and inspiring horror of evil, of correcting and ameliorating customs, is a deriva- tion of the moralistic doctrine; and so is the demand ad- dressed to artists to collaborate in the education of the lower classes, in the strengthening of the national or bellicose spirit of a people, in the diffusion of the ideals of a modest and la- borious life; and so on. These are all things that art can- not do, any more than geometry, which, however, does not lose anything of its importance on account of its inability to do this; and one does not see why art should do so, either. That it cannot do these things was partially perceived by the moralistic sestheticians also; who very readily effected a transactioii with it, permitting it to provide pleasures that [441] THE RICE INSTITUTE were not moral, provided they were not openly dishonest, or recommending it to employ to a good end the dominion that, owing to its hedonistic power, it possessed over souls, to gild the pill, to sprinkle sweetness upon the rim of the glass containing the bitter draught— in short, to play the courte- zan (since It could not get rid of its old and inborn habits), in the service of holy church or of morality: meretrix eccle- sia. On other occasions they have sought to avail them- selves of it for purposes of instruction, since not only virtue but also science is a difficult thing, and art could remove this difficulty and render pleasant and attractive the entrance into the ocean of science— indeed, lead them through it as through a garden of Armida, gaily and voluptuously, with- out their being conscious of the lofty protection they had obtained, or of the crisis of renovation which they were pre- paring for themselves. We cannot now refrain from a smile when we talk of these theories, but should not forget that they were once a serious matter corresponding to a seri- ous effort to understand the nature of art and to elevate the conception of it; and that among those who believed In It (to limit ourselves to Italian literature) were Dante and Tasso, Parini and Alfierl, ManzonI and Mazzlni. And the moralistic doctrine of art was and Is and will be per- petually beneficial by its very contradictions; it was and will be an effort, however unhappy, to separate art from the merely pleasing, with which it Is sometimes confused, and to assign to It a more worthy post: and it, too, has its true side, because, if art be beyond morality, the artist is neither this side of it nor that, but under Its empire, in so far as he is a man who cannot withdraw himself from the duties of man, and must look upon art Itself— art, which Is not and never will be moral— as a mission to be exercised as a priestly office. [442] BOOK OF THE OPENING fir Again (and this is the last and perhaps the most Important of all the general negations that It suits me to recall In rela- tion to this matter), with the definition of art as intuition, we deny that it has the character of conceptual knozvledge. Conceptual knowledge, in its true form, which is the philo- sophical, is always realistic, aiming at establishing reality against unreality, or at lowering unreality by including it in reality as a subordinate moment of reality Itself. But in- tuition means, precisely, indistinction of reality and unreal- ity, the image with Its value as mere image, the pure ideality of the image; and opposing the intuitive or sensible know- ledge to the conceptual or Intelligible, the aesthetic to the noetic, it aims at claiming the autonomy of this more simple and elementary form of knowledge, which has been com- pared to the dream (the dream, and not the sleep) of the theoretic life, in respect to which philosophy would be the waking. And Indeed, whoever should ask, w^hen examining a work of art, whether what the artist has expressed be metaphysically and historically true or false, asks a question that is without meaning, and commits an error analogous to his who should bring the airy images of the fancy before the tribunal of morality: without meaning, because the discrimination of true and false always concerns an affirma- tion of reality, or a judgment, but It cannot fall under the head of an image or of a pure subject, which is not the sub- ject of a judgment, since It is without qualification or predi- cate. It is useless to object that the individuality of the image cannot subsist without reference to the universal, of which that image Is the individuation, because we do not here deny that the universal, as the spirit of God, Is every- where and animates all things with itself, but we deny that the universal is rendered logically explicit and is thought in the intuition. Useless also Is the appeal to the principle [443] THE RICE INSTITUTE of the unity of the spirit, which is not broken, but, on the contrary, strengthened by the clear distinction of fancy from thought, because from the distinction comes opposition, and from opposition concrete unity. Ideality (as has also been called this character that dis- tinguishes the intuition from the concept, art from philoso- phy and from history, from the affirmation of the universal and from the perception or narration of what has hap- pened) is the intimate virtue of art: no sooner are reflection and judgment developed from that ideality, than art is dis- sipated and dies: it dies in the artist, who becomes a critic; it dies in the contemplator, who changes from an entranced enjoyer of art to a meditative observer of life. But the distinction of art from philosophy (taken widely as including all thinking of the real) brings with it other distinctions, among which that of art from myth occupies the foremost place. For myth, to him who believes in it, presents itself as the revelation and knowledge of reality as opposed to unreality, — a reality that drives away other beliefs as illusory or false. It can become art only for him who no longer believes in it and avails himself of mythology as a metaphor, of the austere world of the gods as of a beautiful world, of God as of an image of sublimity. Con- sidered, then, in its genuine reality, in the soul of the believer and not of the unbeliever, it is religion and not simple fancy; and religion is philosophy, philosophy in process of becom- ing, philosophy more or less imperfect, but philosophy, as philosophy is religion, more or less purified and elaborated, in continuous process of elaboration and purification, but religion or thought of the Absolute or Eternal. Art lacks the thought that is necessary ere it can become myth and religion, and the faith that is born of thought; the artist neither believes nor disbelieves in his image: he produces [444] BOOK OF THE OPENING it. And, for a different reason, the concept of art as in- tuition excludes, on the other hand, the conception of art as ' the production of classes and types, species and genera, or again (as a great mathematician and philosopher had occa- sion to say of music), as an exercise of unconscious arith- metic; that is, it distinguishes art from the positive sciences " and from mathematics, in both of which appears the con- ceptual form, though without realistic character, as mere general representation or mere abstraction. But that ideal- ity which natural and mathematical science would seem to assume, as opposed to the world of philosophy, of religion and of history, and which would seem to approximate it to art (and owing to which scientists and mathematicians of our day are so ready to boast of creating worlds, of fictiones, resembling the fictions and figurations of the poets, even in their vocabulary), is gained with the renunciation of con- crete thought, by means of generalisation and abstraction, which are capricious, volitional decisions, practical acts, and, as practical acts, extraneous and inimical to the world of art. Thus it happens that art manifests much more repug- nance toward the positive and mathematical sciences than toward philosophy, religion and history, because these seem to it to be fellow-citizens of the same world of theory or of knowledge, whereas those others shock it with the brutality toward contemplation of the practical world. Poetry and classification, and, worse still, poetry and mathematics, ap- pear to be as little in agreement as fire and water: the esprit mathematiqiie and the esprit scientifique, the most declared enemies of the esprit poetique; those periods in which the natural sciences and mathematics prev^ail (for example, the intellectualism of the eighteenth century) seem to be the least fruitful in poetry. And since this vindication of the alogical character of art c:445n / THE RICE INSTITUTE is, as I have said, the most difficult and important of the negations included in the formula of art-intuition, the theories that attempt to explain art as philosophy, as re- ligion, as history, or as science, and in a lesser degree as mathematics, occupy the greater part of the history of aesthetic science and are adorned with the names of the greatest philosophers. Schelling and Hegel afford examples of the identification or confusion of art with religion and philosophy in the eighteenth century; Taine, of its confusion with the natural sciences; the theories of the French verists, of its confusion with historical and documentary observa- tion; the formalism of the Herbartians, of its confusion with mathematics. But it would be vain to seek pure examples of these errors in any of these authors and in the others that might be mentioned, because error is never pure, for if it were so, it would be truth. Thus the doctrines of art that for the sake of brevity I shall term "conceptualistic" contain elements of dissolution, the more copious and efficacious by as much as the spirit of the philosopher who professed them was energetic, and therefore nowhere are they so copious and efficacious as in SchelHng and Hegel, who thus had so lively a consciousness of artistic production as to sug- gest by their observations and their particular developments a theory opposed to that maintained in their systems. Fur- thermore, the very conceptualistic theories are superior to the others previously examined, not only in so far as they recognise the theoretic character of art, but also carry with them their contribution to the true doctrine, owing to the claim that they make for a determination of the relations (which, if they be of distinction, are also of unity) between fancy and logic, between art and thought. And here we can already see how the simplest formula, that "art is intuition,''— which, translated into other sym- 1:446:] BOOK OF THE OPENING bohcal terms (for example, that "art is the work of fancy"), is to be found in the mouths of all those who daily discuss art, and is to be found in older terms ("imitation," "fiction," "fable," etc.) in so many old books,— pronounced now in the text of a philosophical discourse, becomes filled with a his- torical, critical, and polemical content, of which I can hardly here give any example. And it will no longer cause astonish- ment that its philosophical conquest should have cost an especially great amount of toil, because that conquest is like setting foot upon a little hill long fought for in battle. Its easy ascent by the thoughtless pedestrian in time of peace is a very different matter; it is not a simple resting-place on a walk, but the symbol and result of the victory of an army. The historian of aesthetic follows the steps of its diffi- cult progress, in which (and this is another magical act of thought) the conqueror, instead of losing strength through the blows that his adversary inflicts upon him, acquires new strength through these very blows, and reaches the sighed-for eminence, repulsing his adversary, and yet in his company. Here I cannot do more than record in passing the importance of the Aristotelian concept of mimesis (arising in opposition to the Platonic condemnation of poetry), and the attempt made by the same philosopher to distinguish poetry and his- tory: a concept that was not sufficiently developed, and per- haps not altogether mature in his mind, and therefore long misunderstood, but which was yet to serve, after many cen- turies, as the point of departure for modern aesthetic thought. And I will mention in passing the ever-increasing consciousness of the difference between lo^ic and fancy, be- tween judgment and taste, between intellect and genius, which became ever more lively during the course of the sev- enteenth century, and the solemn form which the contest between Poetry and Metaphysic assumed in the "Scienza 1:447: THE RICE INSTITUTE Nuova" of Vico; and also the scholastic construction of an ^sthetica, distinct from a Logica, as Gnoseologia inferior and Scientia cognitionis sensitive, in Baumgarten, who, how- ever, remained involved in the conceptualistic conception of art, and did not carry out his project; and the Critique of Kant directed against Baumgarten and all the Leibnitzians and Wolffians, which made it clear that intuition is intuition and not a "confused concept"; and romanticism, which perhaps better developed the new idea of art, announced by Vico, in its artistic criticism and in its histories than in its systems; and, finally, the criticism inaugurated in Italy by Francesco de Sanctis, who caused art as pure form, or pure intuition, to prevail over all utilitarianism, moralism, and conceptualism (to adopt his vocabulary). But doubt springs up at the feet of truth, "like a young shoot," — as the terzina of father Dante has it,— doubt, which is what drives the intellect of man "from mount to mount." The doctrine of art as intuition, as fancy, as form, now gives rise to an ulterior (I have not said an "ultimate") problem, which is no longer one of opposition and distinc- tion toward physics, hedonistic, ethic and logic, but the field of images itself, which sets in doubt the capacity of the im- age to define the character of art and is in reality occupied with the mode of separating the genuine from the spurious image, and of enriching in this way the concept of the image and of art. What function (it is asked) can a world of pure images possess in the spirit of man, without philosophi- cal, historical, religious or scientific value, and without even moral or hedonistic value? What is more vain than to dream with open eyes in life, which demands, not only open eyes, but an open mind and a nimble spirit? Pure images! But to nourish oneself upon pure images is called by a name of little honour, "to dream," and there is usually added to n448: H BOOK OF THE OPENING this the epithet of "idle." It is a very insipid and inconclu- sive thing; can it ever be art? Certainly, we sometimes amuse ourselves with the reading of some sensational ro- mance of adventure, where images follow images in the most various and unexpected way; but we thus enjoy ourselves in moments of fatigue, when we are obliged to kill time, and with a full consciousness that such stuff is not art. Such in- stances are of the nature of a pastime, a game; but were art a game or a pastime, it would fall into the wide arms of hedonistic doctrine, ever open to receive it. And it is a utilitarian and hedonistic need that impels us sometimes to relax the bow of the mind and the bow of the will, and to stretch ourselves, allowing images to follow one another in our memory, or combining them in quaint forms with the aid of the Imagination, In a sort of waking sleep, from which we rouse ourselves as soon as we are rested; and we sometimes rouse ourselves just to devote ourselves to the work of art, which cannot be produced by a mind relaxed. Thus either art is not pure intuition, and the claims put forward In the doctrines which we believed we had above confuted, are not satisfied, and so the confutation Itself of these doctrines is troubled with doubts; or Intuition cannot consist in a simple act of Imagination. In order to render the problem more exact and more diffi- cult, It will be well to eliminate from It at once that part to which the answer is easy, and which I have not wished to neglect, precisely because It Is usually united and confused with it. The intuition Is the product of an image, and not of an incoherent mass of Images obtained by recalling former Images and allowing them to succeed one another capri- ciously, by combining one Image with another in a like capri- cious manner, joining a horse's neck to a human head, and thus playing a childish game. Old Poetic availed Itself 1:4493 ».--—-• „*j:j«5».\ THE RICE INSTITUTE above all of the concept of unity ^ in order to express this distinction between the intuition and imagining, insisting that whatever the artistic work, it should be simplex et iinum; or of the allied concept of unity in variety— th^Lt is to say, the multiple images were to find their common centre unit of union in a comprehensive image: and the aesthetic of the nineteenth century created with the same object the dis- tinction, which appears in not a few of its philosophers, between fancy (the peculiar artistic faculty) and imagina- tion (the extra-artistic faculty). To amass, select, cut up, combine images, presupposes the possession of particular images in the spirit; and fancy produces, whereas im- agination is sterile, adapted to extrinsic combinations and not to the generation of organism and life. The most pro- found problem, contained beneath the rather superficial formula with which I first presented it, is, then: What is the office of the pure image in the life of the spirit? or (which at bottom amounts to the same thing), How does the pure image come into existence? Every inspired work of art gives rise to a long series of imitators, who just re- peat, cut up in pieces, combine, and mechanically exaggerate that work, and by so doing play the part of imagination toward or against the fancy. But what is the justification, or what the genesis, of the work of genius, which is after- ward submitted (a sign of glory!) to such torments? In order to make this point clear, we must go deeply into the character of fancy or pure intuition. And the best way to prepare this deeper study is to recall to mind and to criticise the theories with which it has been sought to differentiate artistic intuition from merely In- coherent imagination (while taking care not to fall into real- ism or conceptualism), to establish In what the principle of unity consists, and to justify the productlv^e character of the 1:450] BOOK OF THE OPENING fancy. The artistic image (it has been said) Is such, when it unites the intelligible with the sensible, and represents an idea. Now ^'intelligible" and "Idea" cannot mean anything but concept (nor has it a different meaning with those who maintain this doctrine) ; even though it be the concrete con- cept or idea, proper to lofty philosophical speculation, which differs from the abstract concept or from the representa- tive concept of the sciences. But in any case, the concept or idea always unites the intelligible to the sensible, and not only in art, for the new concept of the concept, first stated by Kant and (so to speak) immanent in all modern thought, heals the breach between the sensible and the intelligible worlds, conceives the concept as judgment, and the judgment as synthesis a priori, and the synthesis a priori as the word become flesh, as history. Thus that definition of art leads the fancy back to logic and art to philosophy, contrary to intention; and is at most valid for the abstract conception of science, not for the problem of art (the aesthetic and teleo- logical' ''Critique of Judgment" of Kant had precisely this historical function of correcting what of abstract there yet remained in the "Critique of Pure Reason" ) . To seek a sensible element for the concept, beyond that which it has already absorbed in itself as concrete concept, and beyond the words in which it expresses itself, would be superfluous. If we persist in this search, it is true that we abandon the conception of art as philosophy or history, but only to pass to the conception of art as allegory. And the unsurmounta- ble difficulties of the allegory are well known, as its frigid and anti-historical character is known and universally felt. Allegory Is the extrinsic union, the conventional and arbi- trary juxtaposition of two spiritual acts, a concept or thought and an image, where it is assumed that this image must represent that concept. And not only is the individual char- [451] THE RICE INSTITUTE acter of the artistic image not explained by this, but, in addi- tion, a duality is purposely created, because thought remains thought and image image in this juxtaposition, without rela- tion between themselves; so much so, that in contemplating the image, we forget the concept without any disadvantage, —indeed, with advantage, — and in thinking the concept, we dissipate, also with advantage, the superfluous and tire- some image. Allegory enjoyed much favour in the Middle Ages, that mixture of Germanism and Romanism, of bar- barism and culture, of bold fancy and of acute reflection; but it was the theoretic element in, and not the effective real- ity of, the same mediaeval art which, where it is art, drives allegory away from or resolves it in itself. This need for the solution of allegorical dualism leads to the refining of the theory of intuition, in so far as it is allegory of the idea, into the other theory, of the intuition as — symbol; for the idea does not stand by itself in the symbol, thinkable sepa- rately from the symbolising representation, nor does the symbol stand by itself, representable in a lively manner without the idea symbolised. The idea is all reduced to rep- resentation (as said the sesthetician Vischer, if to anyone be- longs the blame of the very prosaic comparison for so poetic and metaphysical a theme), like a lump of sugar melted in a glass of water, which exists and acts in every molecule of water, but is no longer to be found as a lump of sugar. But the idea that has disappeared, the idea that has become entirely representative, the idea that we can no longer suc- ceed in seizing as idea (save by extracting it, like sugar from sugared water), is no longer idea, and is only the sign that the unity of the artistic image has not yet been achieved. Certainly art is symbol, all symbol— that is, all significant; but symbol of what? What does it mean? The intuition is truly artistic, it is truly intuition, and not a chaotic mass of [:452J BOOK OF THE OPENING images, only when it has a vital principle that animates it, making it all one with itself; but what is this principle? The answer to such a question may be said to result from the examination of the greatest ideal strife that has ever taken place in the field of art ( and is not confined to the epoch that took its name from it and in which it was predomi- nant) : the strife between romanticism and classicism. Giv- ing the general definition, here convenient, and setting aside minor and accidental determinations, romanticism asks of art, above all, the spontaneous and violent effusion of the af- fections, of love and hate, of anguish and jubilation, of des- peration and elevation; and is willingly satisfied and pleased with vaporous and indeterminate images, broken and allu- sive in style, with vague suggestions, with approximate phrases, with powerful and troubled sketches: while classi- cism loves the peaceful soul, the wise design, figures studied in their characteristics and precise in outline, ponderation, equilibrium, clarity; and resolutely tends toward represen- tation, as the other tends toward feeling. And whoever puts himself at one or the other point of view finds crowds of reasons for maintaining it and for confuting the opposite point of view; because (say the romantics). What Is the use of an art, rich in beautiful images, w^hlch, nevertheless, does not speak to the heart? And If it do speak to the heart, what Is the use If the Images be not beautiful? And the others will say, What is the use of the shock of the pas- sions, if the spirit do not rest upon a beautiful image? And If the Image be beautiful, if our taste be satisfied, what matters the absence of those emotions which can all of them be obtained outside art, and which life does not fall to provide, sometimes In greater quantity than we de- sire?— But when we begin to feel weary of the fruitless defence of both partial views; above all, when we turn 1:453] THE RICE INSTITUTE away from the ordinary works of art produced by the ro- mantic and classical schools, from works convulsed with passion or coldly decorous, and fix them on the works, not of the disciples, but of the masters, not of the medio- cre, but of the supreme, we see the contest disappear in the distance and find ourselves unable to call the great por- tions of these works, romantic or classic or representative, because they are both classic and romantic, feelings and representations, a vigorous feeling which has become all most brilliant representation. Such, for example, are the works of Hellenic art, and such those of Italian poetry and art: the transcendentalism of the Middle Ages be- came fixed in the bronze of the Dantesque terzina; melan- choly and suave fancy, in the transparency of the songs and sonnets of Petrarch; sage experience of life and badinage with the fables of the past, in the limpid ottava rima of Ariosto; heroism and the thought of death, in the perfect blank-verse hendecasyllabics of Foscolo; the infinite variety of everything, in the sober and austere songs of Giacomo Leopardi. Finally (be it said in parenthesis and without intending comparison with the other examples adduced) , the voluptuous refinements and animal sensuality of interna- tional decadentism have received their most perfect expres- sion in the prose and verse of an Italian, D^Annunzio. All these souls were profoundly passionate (all, even the serene Lodovico Ariosto, who was so amorous, so tender, and so often represses his emotion with a smile) ; their works of art are the eternal flow^er that springs from their passions. These expressions and these critical judgments can be theoretically resumed in the formula, that what gives co- herence and unity to the intuition is feeling: the intuition is really such because it represents a feeling, and can only ap- pear from and upon that. Not the idea, but the feeling, is [454] ■"^ \ 1 I'f 14 BOOK OF THE OPENING what confers upon art the airy lightness of the symbol: an aspiration enclosed in the circle of a representation— that is art; and in it the aspiration alone stands for the representa- tion, and the representation alone for the aspiration. Epic and lyric, or drama and lyric, are scholastic divisions of the indivisible: art is always lyrical— that is, epic and dramatic in feeling. What we admire in genuine works of art is the perfect fanciful form which a state of the soul assumes; and we call this life, unity, solidity of the work of art. What displeases us in the false and imperfect forms is the struggle of several different states of the soul not yet unified, their stratification, or mixture, their vacillating method, which obtains apparent unity from the will of the author, who for this purpose avails himself of an abstract plan or idea, or of extra-aesthetic, passionate emotion. A series of images which seem to be, each in turn, rich in power of conviction, leaves us nevertheless deluded and diffident, because we do not see them generated from a state of the soul, from a '^sketch" (as the painters call it), from a motive; and they follow one another and crowd together without that precise intonation, without that accent, which comes from the heart. And what is the figure cut out from the back- ground of the picture or transported and placed against another background, what is the personage of drama or of romance outside his relation with all the other personages and with the general action? And what is the value of this general action if it be not an action of the spirit of the au- thor? The secular disputes concerning dramatic unity are interesting in this connection; they are first applied to the unity of "action'' when they have been obtained from an extrinsic determination of time and place, and this finally applied to the unity of ''interest," and the interest would have to be in its turn dissolved in the interest of the spirit of [4553 ky«.-j .*-* p - *>i!*^.*'t??WtA*-»t'fe« „:,,•- «k THE RICE INSTITUTE the poet— that is, in his intimate aspiration, in his feeling. The negative issue of the great dispute between classicists and romanticists is interesting, for it resulted in the negation both of the art which strives to distract and illude the soul as to the deficiency of the image with mere feeling, with the practical violence of feeling, with feeling that has not become contemplation, and of the art which, by means of the superficial clearness of the image, of drawing correctly false, of the word falsely correct, seeks to deceive as to its lack of inspiration and its lack of an aesthetic reason to justify what it has produced. A celebrated sentence uttered by an Eng- lish critic, and become one of the commonplaces of journal- ism, states that "all the arts tend to the condition of music"; but it would have been more accurate to say that all the arts are music, if it be thus intended to emphasise the genesis of aesthetic images in feeling, excluding from their number those mechanically constructed or realistically ponderous. And another not less celebrated utterance of a Swiss semi-philos- opher, which has had the like good or bad fortune of be- coming trivial, discovers that "every landscape is a state of the soul" : which is indisputable, not because the landscape is landscape, but because the landscape is art. Artistic intuition, then, is always lyrical intuition: this latter being a word that is not present as an adjective or definition of the first, but as a synonym, another of the synonyms that can be united to the several that I have men- tioned already, and which, all of them, designate the Intuition. And if it be sometimes convenient that instead of appearing as a synonym, it should assume the grammatical form of the adjective, that is only to make clear the difference be- tween the intuition-Image, or nexus of images (for what is called image is always a nexus of images, since image- atoms do not exist any more than thought-atoms), which 1:456] BOOK OF THE OPENING constitutes the organism, and, as organism, has Its vital prin- ciple, which is the organism itself,— between this, which is true and proper intuition, and that false intuition which is a heap of images put together in play or intentionally or for some other practical purpose, the connection of which, be- ing practical, shows itself to be not organic, but mechanic, when considered from the aesthetic point of view. But the word lyric would be redundant save in this explicative or polemical sense; and art is perfectly defined when It is simply defined as intuition. 1:4573 H m^m mim ^ » > ^ i: THE RICE INSTITUTE I- II PREJUDICES RELATING TO ART THERE can be no doubt that the process of distinction of art from the facts and the acts with which it has been and is confused, which I have summarily traced, neces- sitates no small mental effort; but this effort is rewarded with the freedom which it affords of handling the many fallacious distinctions which disfigure the field of aesthetic. These, al- though they do not present any difficulty in thinking out (in- deed, at first they seduce by their very facility and deceitful self-evidence) , yet imply the other and greater annoyance of preventing all profound understanding, and indeed of mak- ing it impossible to understand anything as to what art truly is. It is true that many people, in order to retain the power of repeating vulgar and traditional distinctions, voluntarily resign themselves to this ignorance. We, on the contrary, now prefer to throw^ them all away, as a useless hindrance in the new task to which the new theoretic position that we have attained invites and leads us, and to enjoy the greater facility which comes from feeling rich. Wealth is not only to be obtained by acquiring many objects, but, on the con- trary, by getting rid of all those that represent economic debt. Let us begin with the most famous of these economic debts in the circle of esthetic : the distinction between con- tent and form, which has caused a division of schools even in the nineteenth century: the schools of the aesthetic of the content (Gehalts^sthetik) and that of the aesthetic of form {Formcesthetik). The problems from which these 1:458: Vi BOOK OF THE OPENING opposed schools arose were, in general, the following: Does art consist solely of the content, or solely of the form, or of content and form together? What is the character of the content, what that of the aesthetic form?— It was an- swered, on the one hand, that art, the essence of art, is all contained in the content, defined as that which pleases, or as what is moral, or as what raises man to the heaven of re- ligion or of metaphysic, or as what is historically correct, or, finally, as what is naturally and physically beautiful. And, on the other hand, that the content is indifferent, that it is simply a peg or hook from which beautiful forms are suspended, which alone beatify the aesthetic spirit : unity, har- mony, symmetry, and so on. And on both sides it was attempted to attract the element that had previously been excluded from the essence of art as subordinate and second- ary: those for the content admitted that it was an advantage to the content (which, according to them, was really the con- stitutive element of the beautiful) to adorn itself with beau- tiful forms also, and to present itself as unity, symmetry, har- mony, etc.; and the formalists, in their turn, admitted that if art did not gain by the value of its content, its effect did, not a single value, but the sum of two values being in this case offered. These doctrines, which attained their greatest scholastic bulk in Germany with the Hegelians and the Herbartians, is also to be found more or less everywhere in the history of aesthetic, ancient, mediaeval, modern, and most modern; and is what amounts to most in common opinion, for nothing is more common than to hear that a drama is beautiful in "form," but a failure in "content'^ that a poem is "most nobly" conceived, but "executed in ugly verse" ; that a painter would have been greater did he not waste his power as a designer and as a colourist, upon "small and un- worthy themes," instead of selecting, on the contrary, those 1:459: M THE RICE INSTITUTE of a historical, patriotic, or sociological character. It may be said that fine taste and true critical sense of art have to defend themselves at every step against the perversions of judgment arising from these doctrines, in which philosophers become the crowd, and the crowd feels itself philosoph- ical, because in agreement with those crowd-philosophers. The origin of these theories is no secret for us, because, even in the brief sketch that we have given, it is quite clear that they have sprung from the trunk of hedonistic, moralistic, conceptualistic, or physical conceptions of art: they are all doctrines which, failing to perceive what makes art art, were obliged somehow to regain art, which they had allowed to escape them, and to reintroduce it in the form of an acces- sory or accidental element; the upholders of the theory of the content conceived it as an abstract formal element, the for- malists as the abstract element of the content. What inter- ests us in those aesthetics is just this dialectic, in which the theorists of the content become formalists against their will, and the formalists upholders of the theory of the content; thus each passes over to occupy the other's place, but to be restless there and to return to their own, which gives rise to the same restlessness. The "beautiful forms" of Her- bart do not differ in any way from the "beautiful contents" of the Hegelians, because both are nothing. And we become yet more interested to observe their efforts to get out of prison, and the blows with which they weaken its doors or its walls, and the air-holes which some of those thinkers suc- ceed in opening.— Their efforts are clumsy and sterile, like those of the theorists of the content (they are to be seen in a repulsive form In the Philosoph'ie des Schonen of Hartmann), who, by adding stitch to stitch, composed a net of "beautiful contents" (beautiful, sublime, comic, tragic, humouristic, pathetic, idyllic, sentimental, etc., etc.), C460] BOOK OF THE OPENING in which very coarse net they tried to enclose every form of reality, even that which they had called "ugly." They failed to perceive that their aesthetic content, thus made to enclose little by little the whole of reality, has no longer any character that distinguishes it from other contents, since there is no content beyond reality; and that therefore their fundamental theory was thus fundamentally negated. These contradictory and ingenuous explosions resemble those of other formalistic theorists of the content who maintained the concept of an aesthetic content, but defined It as that "which interests man," and made the interest relating to man to lie in his different historical situations-that is, relative to the individual. This was another way of denying the Initial assumption, for it is very clear that the artist would not produce art, did he not interest himself In something which is the datum or the problem of his production, but that this something becomes art only because the artist, by becoming interested in it, makes it so.-These are evasions of formal- ists, who after having limited art to abstract beautiful forms, void of all content and only to be summed up with contents, timidly introduced among beautiful forms that of the har- mony of content with form; or more resolutely declared themselves partisans of a sort of eclecticism, which makes art to consist of a sort of "relation" of the beautiful content with the beautiful form, and, with an incorrectness worthy of eclectics, attributed to terms outside the relation qualities which they assume only within the relation. *^ For the truth is really this: content and form must be clearly distinguished in art, but must not be separately quali- fied as artistic, precisely because their relation only is artistic —that is, their unity, understood not as an abstract, dead unity, but as concrete and living, whichisthat of the synthesis a priori; and art is a true asthetic synthesis a priori of feeling 1:460 THE RICE INSTITUTE and image in the intuition, as to which it may be repeated that feeling without image is blind, and image without feeling is void. Feeling and image do not exist for the artistic spirit outside the synthesis; they will have existence from another point of view in another plane of knowledge, and feeling will be the practical aspect of the spirit that loves and hates, desires and dislikes, and the image will be the inanimate residue of art, the withered leaf, prey of the wind of imagination and of amusement's caprice. AH this has no concern with the artist or the aesthetician: just as art is no vain fancying, so is it not tumultuous pas- sionality, but the uplifting of that act by means of another act, or, if it be preferred, the substitution of that tumult for another tumult, that of the longing to create and to contem- plate for the joys and the sorrows of artistic creation. It is therefore indifferent, or a question of terminological op- portunity, whether we should present art as content or as form, provided it be always recognised that the content is formed and the form filled, that feeling is figurative feeling and the figure a figure that is felt. And it is only owing to historical deference toward him who better than others caused the concept of the autonomy of art to be appreciated, and wished to affirm this autonomy with the word "form," thus opposing alike the abstract theory of the content of the phllosophisers and moralists and the abstract formalism of the academicians,— in deference, I say, to De Sanctis, and also because of the ever active polemic against the attempts to absorb art in other modes of spiritual activity,— that the aesthetic of the intuition can be called "Esthetic of form." It is useless to refute an objection that certainly might be made (but rather with the sophistry of the advocate than with the acuteness of the scientist), namely, that the aesthetic of the Intuition also, since it describes the content of art as feeling [462] w^. BOOK OF THE OPENING or state of the soul, qualifies it outside the intuition, and seems to admit that a content, which is not feeling or a state of the soul, does not lend Itself to artistic elaboration, and is not an esthetic content. Feeling, or the state of the soul, is not a particular content, but the whole universe seen sub specie intuitionis; and outside It there Is no other content conceivable that Is not also a different form of the intuitive form; not thoughts, which are the whole universe sub specie cogitationis; not physical things and mathematical beings, which are the whole universe sub specie schematismi et abstractionis; not wills, which are the whole universe sub specie volitionis. Another not less fallacious distinction (to which the words "content" and "form" are also applied) separates in- tuition from expression, the Image from the physical transla- tion of the Image. It places on one side phantasms of feeling, images of men, of animals, of landscapes, of actions, of ad- ventures, and so on; and on the other, sounds, tones, lines, colours, and so on; calling the first the external, the second the internal element of art: the art properly so-called, the other technique. It is easy to distinguish Internal and exter- nal, at least In words, especially when no minute enquiry Is made as to the reasons and motives for the distinction, and when the distinction Is just thrown down there without any service being demanded of it; so easy that by never think- ing about It the distinction may eventually come to seem^ to thought Indubitable. But It becomes a different question when, as must be done with every distinction, we pass from the act of distinguishing to that of establishing relation and unifying, because this time we run against desperate obstacles. What has here been distinguished cannot be unified, because It has been badly distinguished: how can something external and extraneous to the Internal become united to the internal [463] / THE RICE INSTITUTE and express it? How can a sound or a colour express an im- age without sound and without colour? How can the bodi- less express a body? How can the spontaneity of fancy and of reflection and even technical action coincide in the same act? When the intuition has been distinguished from the expression, and the one has been made different from the other, no ingenuity of terms can reunite them; all the proc- esses of association, of habit, of mechanicising, of forget- ting, of instinctification, proposed by the psychologists and laboriously developed by them, allow the scissure to re- appear at the end: on one side the expression, on the other the image. And there does not seem to be any way of escape, save that of taking refuge in the hypothesis of a mystery which, according to poetical or mathematical tastes, will assume the appearance of a mysterious marriage or of a mysterious psychophysical parallelism. The first is a par- allelism incorrectly overcome; the second, a marriage de- ferred to distant ages or to the obscurity of the unknowable. But before having recourse to mystery (a refuge to which there is always time to fly), we must enquire whether the two elements have been correctly distinguished, and if an intuition without expression be conceivable. It may happen that the thing is as little existing and as inconceivable as a soul without a body, which has truly been as much talked of in philosophies as in religions, but to have talked about it is not the same thing as to have experienced and con- ceived it. In reality, we know nothing but expressed in- tuitions : a thought is not thought for us, unless it be possible to formulate it in words; a musical fancy, only when it becomes concrete in sounds; a pictorial image, only when it is coloured. We do not say that the words must necessarily be declaimed in a loud voice, the music performed, or the picture painted upon wood or canvas; but it is certain that C464] BOOK OF THE OPENING when a thought is really thought, when it has attained to the maturity of thought, the words run through our whole or- ganism, soliciting the muscles of our mouth and ringing internally in our ears; when music is truly music, it trills in the throat and shivers in the fingers that touch ideal notes; when a pictorial image is pictorially real, we are impreg- nated with lymphs that are colours, and maybe, where the colouring matters were not at our disposition, we might spon- taneously colour surrounding objects by a sort of irradia- tion, as is said of certain hysterics and of certain saints, who caused the stigmata upon their hands and feet by means of an act of imagination ! Thought, musical fancy, pictorial image, did not indeed exist without expression, they did not exist at all previous to the formation of this expressive state of the spirit. To believe in their pre-existence is ingenuousness, if it be ingenuous to have faith in those impotent poets, paint- ers, or musicians who always have their heads full of poetic, pictorial, and musical creations, and only fail to translate them into external form, either because, as they say, they are impatient of expression, or because technique is not suffi- ciently advanced to afford sufficient means for their expres- sion: many centuries ago it offered suflScient means to Homer, Pheidias, and Apelles, but it does not suffice for them, who, if we are to believe them, carry in their mighty heads an art greater than those others ! Sometimes, too, in- genuousness arises from the illusion due to keeping a bad account with ourselves that, having imagined, and conse- quently expressed, some few images, we already possess in ourselves all the other images that must form part of a work, which we do not yet possess, as well as the vital nexus that should connect them, which is not yet formed and there- fore is not expressed. Art, understood as intuition, according to the concept that THE RICE INSTITUTE I have exposed, having denied the existence of a physical world outside of it, which it looks upon as simply a con- struction of our intellect, does not know what to do with the parallelism of the thinking substance and of substance ex- tended in space, and has no need to promote impossible mar- riages, because its thinking substance-or, better, its intuitive act— is perfect in itself, and is that same fact which the in- tellect afterwards constructs as extended. And inasmuch as an image without expression is inconceivable, by just so much is an image which shall be also expression conceivable, and indeed logically necessary; that is, which shall be really an Image. If we take from a poem its metre, its rhythm, and its words, poetical thought does not, as some opine, remain behind: there remains nothing. The poetry is born, like those words, that rhythm, and that metre. Nor could ex- pression be compared with the epidermis of organisms, un- less it be said (and perhaps this may not be false even in physiology) that all the organism in every cell's cell is also epidermis. I should, however, be wanting to my methodological con- victions and to my intention of doing justice to errors (and I have already done justice to the distinction of form and content by demonstrating the truth at which they aimed and failed to grasp), were I not to indicate what truth may also be active at the base of the false distinction of the indistin- guishable, intuition and expression. Fancy and technique are rationally distinguished, though not as elements of art; and they are related and united between themselves, though not in the field of art, but in the wider field of the spirit in its totality. Technical or practical problems to be solved, diffi- culties to be vanquished, are truly present to the artist, and there Is truly something which, without being really physical, and being, like everything real, a spiritual act, can be meta- [4663 BOOK OF THE OPENING phoricised as physical in respect to the intuition. What is this something? The artist, whom we have left vibrating with expressed images which break forth by infinite channels from his whole being, is a whole man, and therefore also a practical man, and as such takes measures against losing the result of his spiritual labour, and in favour of rendering possible or easy, for himself and for others, the reproduc- tion of his images; hence he engages in practical acts which assist that work of reproduction. These practical acts are guided, as are all practical acts, by knowledge, and for this reason are called technical; and, since they are practical, they are distinguished from contemplation, which is theoretical, and seem to be external to it, and are therefore called phys- ical : and they assume this name the more easily in so far as they are fixed and made abstract by the intellect. Thus writing and phonography are united with words and music, canvas and wood and walls covered with colours, stone cut and Incised, iron and bronze and other metals melted and moulded to certnin shapes by sculpture and architecture. So distinct among themselves are the two forms of activ- ity that it is possible to be a great artist with a bad tech- nique, a poet who corrects the proofs of his verses badly, an architect who makes use of unsuitable material or does not attend to statics, a painter who uses colours that deteriorate rapidly: examples of these weaknesses are so frequent that it is not worth while to cite any of them. But what is Im- possible is to be a great poet who writes verses badly, a great painter who does not give tone to his colours, a great archi- tect who does not harmonise his lines, a great composer who does not harmonise his notes; and, in short, a great artist who cannot express himself. It has been said of Raphael that he would have been a great painter even if he had not possessed hands; but certainly not that he would have been 1:467] THE RICE INSTITUTE a great painter if the sense of design and colour had been wanting to him. And (be it noted in passing, for I must condense as I pro- ceed) this apparent transformation of the Intuitions Into physical things-altogether analogous with the apparent transformation of wants and economic labour into things and into merchandise-also explains how people have come to talk not only of "artistic things" and of "beautiful things/' but also of "a beautiful of nature." It is evident that, be- sides the Instruments that are made for the reproduction of images, objects already existing can be met with, whether produced by man or not, which perform such a service- that is to say, are more or less adapted to fixing the memory of our intuitions; and these things take the name of "natural beauties," and exercise their fascination only when we know how to understand them with the same soul with which the artist or artists have taken and appropriated them, giving value to them and indicating the "point of view" from which we must look at them, thus connecting them with their own intuitions. But the always imperfect adaptability, the fugitive nature, the mutability of "natural beauties" also justify the Inferior place accorded to them, compared with beauties produced by art. Let us leave It to rhetoricians or madmen to affirm that a beautiful tree, a beautiful river, a sublime mountain, or even a beautiful horse or a beautiful human figure, are superior to the chisel-stroke of Michel- angelo or the verse of Dante; but let us say, with greater propriety, that "Nature" is stupid compared with Art, and that she is "mute," If man does not make her speak. A third distinction, which also labours to distinguish the indistinguishable. Is attached to the concept of the aesthetic expression, and divides It into two moments of expres- sion abstractly considered, propriety and beauty of expres- [468] BOOK OF THE OPENING slon, or adorned expression, founding upon these the classi- fication of two orders of expression, naked and ornate. This is a doctrine of which traces may be found in all the various domains of art, but which has not been developed in any one of them to the same extent as In that of words, where it bears a celebrated name and Is called "Rhetoric," and has had a very long history, from the Greek rhetoricians to our own day. It persists in the schools, In treatises, and even In aesthetics of scientific pretensions, not to mention in comm.on belief (as is natural), though in our day it has lost much of its primitive vigour. Men of lofty intellect have accepted it, or let it live, for centuries, owing to the force of Inertia or of tradition; the few rebels have hardly ever attempted to reduce their rebellion to a system and to cut out the error at Its roots. The Injury done by Rhetoric, with its idea of "ornate" as differing from, and of greater value than, "naked" speech, has not been limited solely to the circle of aesthetic, but has appeared also in criti- cism, and even in literary education, because, just as It was incapable of explaining perfect beauty, so It was adapted to provide an apparent justification for vitiated beauty, and to encourage writing in an inflated, affected, and improper form. However, the division which it introduces and on which it relies Is a logical contradiction, because, as is easy to prove, it destroys the concept Itself, which It undertakes to divide into moments, and the objects, which It undertakes to divide into classes. An appropriate expression, if appro- priate, is also beautiful, beauty being nothing but the deter- mination of the image, and therefore of the expression; and If it be wished to indicate by calling it naked that there is something wanting which should be present, then the expres- sion is inappropriate and deficient, either it is not or is not yet expression. On the other hand, an ornate expression, if it 1:469:] THE RICE INSTITUTE be expressive in every part, cannot be called ornate, but as naked as the other, and as appropriate as the other; if it contain inexpressive, additional, extrinsic elements, it is not beautiful, but ugly, it is not or is not yet expression; to be so, it must purify itself of external elements (as the other must be enriched with the elements that are wanting). Expression and beauty are not two concepts, but a single concept, which It is permissible to designate with either synonymous vocable: artistic fancy is always corporeal, but it is not obese, being always clad with itself and never charged with anything else, or "ornate." Certainly a prob- lem was lurking beneath this falsest of distinctions, the neces- sity of making a distinction; and the problem (as can be deduced from certain passages in Aristotle, and from the psychology and gnoseology of the Stoics, and as we see it, intensified in the discussions of the Italian rhetoricians of the seventeenth century) was concerned with the relations be- tween thought and fancy, philosophy and poetry, logic and aesthetic (dialectic and rhetoric, or, as was still said at the time, the "open" and the closed "fist"). "Naked" expres- sion referred to thought and to philosophy, "ornate" ex- pression to fancy and to poetry. But It Is not less true that this problem as to the distinction between the two forms of the theoretical spirit could not be solved in the field of one of them, intuition or expression, where nothing will ever be found but fancy, poetry, aesthetic; and the undue introduc- tion of logic will only project there a deceitful shadow, which will darken and hamper intelligence, depriving it of the view of art in Its fulness and purity, without giving It that of lo- giclty and of thought. But the greatest injury caused by the rhetorical doctrine of "ornate" expression to the theoretical systematlsation of the forms of the human spirit, concerns the treatment of lan- [470] BOOK OF THE OPENING guage, because, granted that we admit naked and simply grammatical expressions, and expressions that are ornate or rhetorical, language becomes an aggregate of naked expres- sions and is handed over to grammar, and, as an ulterior consequence (since grammar finds no place in rhetoric and aesthetic), to logic, where the subordinate office of a semeiotic or ars significandi Is assigned to It. Indeed, the logistic conception of language Is closely united and proceeds pari passu with the rhetorical doctrine of expression; they appeared together In Hellenic antiquity, and they still exist, though disputed, In our time. Rebellions against the logl- clsm of the doctrine of language have rarely appeared, and have had as little efficacy as those against rhetoric; and only In the romantic period (traversed by VIco a century before) has a lively consciousness been formed by certain thinkers as to the fantastic or metaphoric nature of language, and Its closer connection with poetry than with logic. Yet since a more or less Inartistic Idea of art persisted even among the best (conceptualism, moralism, hedonism, etc.), there re- mained a very powerful Impediment to the identification oft language and art. This Identification appears to be as un- avoidable as it is easy, having established the concept of art as intuition and of intuition as expression, and there- fore Implicitly its identity with language: always assuming that language be conceived In its full extension, without ar- bitrary restrictions to so-called articulate language and without arbitrary exclusion of tonic, mimetic, and graphic; and in all its intension— that is, taken In its reality, which Is the act of speaking itself, without falsifying It with the abstractions of grammars and vocabularies, and with the foolish belief that man speaks with the vocabulary and with grammar. Man speaks at every instant like the poet, be- cause, like the poet, he expresses his impressions and his [470 *!j! THE RICE INSTITUTE feelings In the form called conversational or familiar, which Is not separated by any abyss from the other forms called prosaic, poetlc-prosalc, narrative, epic, dialogue, dramatic, lyric, mellc, song, and so on. And If It do not displease man in general to be considered poet and always poet (as he Is by force of his humanity), It should not displease the poet to be united with common humanity, because this union alone explains the power which poetry, understood in the loftiest and In the narrowest sense, wields over all human souls. Were poetry a language apart, a "language of the gods," men would not understand It; and If It elevate them, It ele- vates them not above, but within themselves : true democracy and true aristocracy coincide In this field also. Coincidence of art and language, which Implies, as Is natural, coincidence of aesthetic and of philosophy of language, definable the one by the other and therefore identical,— this I ventured to place twelve years ago in the title of a treatise of mine on iEsthetIc, which has truly not failed of Its effect upon many linguists and philosophers of i^sthetlc In Italy and outside Italy, as Is shewn by the copious "literature" which It has produced. This Identification will benefit studies on art and poetry by purifying them of hedonistic, moralistic, and con- ceptualistic residues, still to be found in such quantity in lit- erary and artistic criticism. But the benefit which it will con- fer upon linguistic studies will be far more Inestimable, for It is urgent that they should be disencumbered of physiological, psychological, and psychophysiological methods, now the fashion, and be freed from the ever returning theory of the conventional origin of language, which has the Inevitable correlative of the mystical theory as its inevitable reaction. It will no longer be necessary to construct absurd parallel- Isms even for language, or to promote mysterious nuptials between sign and Image: when language Is no longer con- [472;] BOOK OF THE OPENING ceived as a sign, but as an image which is significant— that Is, a sign In Itself, and therefore coloured, sounding, singing, articulate. The significant Image Is the spontaneous work of the human spirit, whereas the sign, wherewith man agrees with man, presupposes language; or If It be wished, never- theless, to explain language by signs, it recommends us to call upon God, as upon the giver of the first signs— that is, to presuppose language In another way, by consigning it to the Unknowable. I shall conclude my account of the prejudices relating to art with that one of them which Is most usual, because it Is mingled with the daily life of criticism, namely, history of art: prejudice of the possibility of distlnguishng several or many particular forms of art, each one determinable in Its own particular concept and within its limits, and fur- nished with Its proper laws. This erroneous doctrine Is em- bodied in two systematic series, one of which is known as the theory of literary and artistic kinds (lyric, drama, ro- mance, epic and romantic poem, idyll, comedy, tragedy; sacred, civil-life, familiar, from life, still-life, landscape, flower and fruit painting; heroic, funereal, costume, sculp- ture; church, operatic, chamber music; civil, military, eccle- siastic architecture, etc., etc.), and the other as theory of the arts (poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture, music, art of the actor, gardening, etc., etc.). One of these some- times figures as a subdivision of another. This prejudice, of which It is easy to trace the origin, has its first notable monuments In Hellenic culture, and persists In our days. Many sesthetlcians still write treatises on the aesthetic of the tragic, the comic, the lyric, the humorous, and aesthetics of painting, of music, or of poetry (these last are still called by the old name of "poetics") ; and, what Is worse (though but little attention Is paid to these aesthetlclans who are Im- 1:4733 ■■*. THE RICE INSTITUTE pelled to write through solitary dilettantism or academic profession), critics, in judging works of art, have not alto- gether abandoned the habit of judging them according to the genus or particular form of art to which, according to/ the above aestheticians, they should belong; and, instead of clearly stating whether a work be beautiful or ugly, they proceed to reason their impressions, saying that it well observes, or wrongly violates, the laws of the drama, or of romance, or of painting, or of bas-relief. It is also very common in all countries to treat artistic and literary his- tory as history of kinds, and to present the artists as culti- vating this or that kind; and to divide the work of an artist, which always has unity of development, whatever form it take, whether lyric, romance or drama, into as many com- partments as there are kinds; so that Lodovico Ariosto, for example, appears now among the cultivators of the Latin poetry of the Renaissance, now among the authors of the first Latin satires, now among those of the first comedies, now among those who brought the poem of chivalry to per- fection: as though Latin poetry, satire, comedy, and poem were not always the same poet, Ariosto, in his experiments, in his logic, and in the manifestations of his spiritual devel- opment. It is not to be denied that the theory of kinds and of the arts has not had, and does not now possess, its own internal dialectic and its autocriticism, or irony, according as we may please to call it; and no one is ignorant that literary history is full of these cases of an established style, against which an artist of genius offends in his work and calls forth the repro- bation of the critics: a reprobation which does not, however, succeed in suffocating the admiration for, and the popularity of, his work, so that finally, when it is not possible to blame the artist and it is not wished to blame the critic of kinds, the [474] / BOOK OF THE OPENING matter ends with a compromise, and the kind is enlarged or accepts beside it a new kind, like a legitimated bastard, and the compromise lasts, by force of inertia, until a new work of genius comes to upset again the fixed rule. An irony of the doctrine is also the impossibility, in which the theoreticians find themselves, of logically fixing the boun- daries between the kinds and the arts : all the definitions that they have produced, when examined rather more closely, either evaporate in the general definition of art, or shew themselves to be an arbitrary raising to the rank of kinds and rules particular works of art irreducible to rigorous logical terms. Absurdities resulting from the effort to de- termine rigorously what is indeterminable, owing to the contradictory nature of the attempt, are to be found even among the great ones, even in Lessing, who arrives at this extravagant conclusion, that painting represents "bodies" : bodies, not actions and souls, not the action and the soul of the painter ! They are also to be found among the questions that logically arise from that illogic: thus, a definite field having been assigned to every kind and to every art, what kind and what art is superior? Is painting superior to sculp- ture, drama to lyric? And again, the forces of art having been thus divided, would it not be advisable to reunite them in a type of work of art which shall drive away other forces, as a coalition of armies drives away a single army: will not the work, for instance, in which poetry, music, scenic art, dec- oration, are united, develop a greater aesthetic force than a Lied of Goethe or a drawing of Leonardo? These are ques- tions, distinctions, judgments, and definitions which arouse the revolt of the poetic and artistic sense, which loves each work for itself, for what it is, as a living creature, individual and incomparable, and knows that each work has its individ- ual law. Hence has arisen the disagreement between the [475] THE RICE INSTITUTE affirmative judgment of artistic souls and the -g^tive one of professional critics, between the negafon of the former and the affirmation of the latter; and the professional critics pass for pedants, not without good reason, a though artistic souls are in their turn "disarmed prophets"-that is, inca- pable of reasoning and of deducing the correct theory im- manent in their judgments, and of opposing it to the pedantic theory of their adversaries. That correct theory is precisely an aspect of the concep- tion of art as intuition, or lyrical intuition; and, since every work of art expresses a state of the soul, and the state of the soul is individual and always new, the intuition implies in- finite intuitions, which it is impossible to place in pigeonholes as kinds, unless these be infinite pigeonholes, and therefore not pigeonholes of kinds, but of intuitions. And since, on the other hand, individuality of intuition implies individu- ality of expression, and a picture is distinct from another picture, not less than from a poem, and picture and poem are not of value because of the sounds that beat the air and the colours refracted by the light, but because of what they can tell to the spirit, in so far as they enter into it, it is useless to have recourse to abstract means of expression to construct the other series of kinds and classes: which amounts to saying that any theory of the division of the arts is without foundation. The kind or class is in this case one only, art itself or the intuition, whereas single works of art are infinite : all are original, each one incapable of bemg translated into the other (since to translate, to translate with artistic skill, is to create a new work of art) , each one uncon- trolled by the intellect. No intermediate element interposes itself philosophically between the universal and the particu- lar, no series of kinds or species, of generalia. Neither the artist who produces art, nor the spectator who contemplates n 476:1 i BOOK OF THE OPENING it, has need of anything but the universal and the individual, or, better, the universal individuated: the universal artistic activity, which is all contracted or concentrated in the repre- sentation of a single state of the soul. Nevertheless, if the pure artist and the pure critic, and also the pure philosopher, are not occupied with generalia, with classes or kinds, these retain their utility on other grounds ; and this utility is the true side of those erroneous theories, which I will not leave without mention. It is cer- tainly useful to construct a net of generalia, not for the pro- duction of art, which is spontaneous, nor for the judgment of it, which is philosophical, but to collect and to some extent circumscribe the infinite single intuitions, for the use of the attention and of memory, in order to group together to some extent the innumerable particular works of art. These classes will always be formed, as is natural, either by means of the abstract imagination or the abstract expression, and therefore as classes of states of the soul (literary and artistic kinds) and classes of means of expression (art). Nor does it avail to object here that the various kinds and arts are arbitrarily distinguished, and that the general dichotomy is itself ar- bitrary; since it is admitted without difficulty that the proce- dure is certainly arbitrary, but the arbitrariness becomes innocuous and useful from the very fact that every preten- sion of being a philosophical principle and criterion for the judgment of art is removed from it. Those kinds and classes render easy the knowledge of art and education in art, offer- ing to the first, as it were, an index of the most important works of art, to the second a collection of most important information suggested by the practice of art. Every- thing depends upon not confounding hints with reality, and hypothetic warnings or imperatives with categoric imperatives: a confusion which multiple and continuous 1:4773 THE RICE INSTITUTE temptations are certainly apt to induce, whence it is easy to be dominated by them, but not at all inevitable. Books of Hterary origin, rhetoric, grammar (with their divisions into parts of speech and their grammatical and syntactical laws), of the art of musical composition, of metre, of painting, and so on, contain the principal hints and collections of precepts. Tendencies toward a definite expression of art are manifested in them either only in a secondary manner, — and in this case it is art that is still abstract, art in elaboration (the poetic arts of classicism or romanticism, purist or popular grammars, etc.),— or as tendencies toward the philosophical comprehen- sion of their argument, and then they give rise to the divi- sions into kinds and into arts, an error which I have criti- cised: an error which, by its contradictions, opens the way to the true doctrine of the individuality of art. Certainly this doctrine produces at first sight a sort of bewilderment: Individual, original, untranslatable, unclassi- fiable Intuitions seem to escape the rule of thought, which would seem unable to dominate them without placing them in relation with one another; and this appears to be pre- cisely forbidden by the doctrine that has been developed, which has rather the air of being anarchic or anarchoid than liberal and llberlstlc. A little piece of poetry is aesthetically equal to a poem; a tiny little picture or a sketch, to an altar picture or an affresco; a letter is a work of art, no less than a romance; even a fine translation is as original as an original work! These propositions will be indubitable, because logically deduced from verified premises; they will be true, although (and this is without doubt a merit) paradoxical, or at va- riance with vulgar opinions: but will they not be in want of some complement? There must be some mode of arrang- ing, subordinating, connecting, understanding, and domi- 1:478] BOOK OF THE OPENING nating the dance of the intuitions, if we do not wish to be- wilder our wits with them. And there Is indeed such a mode, for when we denied theoretic value to abstract classifications we did not intend to deny it to that genetic and concrete classification which is not. Indeed, a "classification" and is called History. In his- tory each work of art takes the place that belongs to It— that and no other: the ballade of Guido Cavalcanti and the son- net of Cecco Angioleri, which seem to be the sigh or the laughter of an instant; the ''Cornmedia'' of Dante, which seems to resume in itself a millennium of the human spirit; the "Maccheronee" of Merlin Cocaio at the close of the Mid- dle Ages, with their noisy laughter; the elegant Cinquecento translation of the JEneid by Annlbal Caro; the dry prose of Sarpi; and the Jesuitic-polemical prose of Danielo Bartoll: without the necessity of judging that to be not original which is original, because it lives; that to be small which is neither great nor small, because it escapes measure: or we can say great and small. If we will, but metaphorically, with the In- tention of manifesting certain admirations and of noting certain relations of Importance (quite other than arithmetic or geometrical). And in history, which is ever becoming richer and more definite, not in pyramids of empirical con- cepts, which become more and more empty the higher they rise and the more subtle they become, is to be found the link of all works of art and of all intuitions, because In history they appear organically connected among them- selves, as successive and necessary stages of the development of the spirit, each one a note of the eternal poem which har- monises all single poems In Itself. [479] THE RICE INSTITUTE III THE PLACE OF ART IN THE SPIRIT AND IN HUMAN SOCIETY THE dispute as to the dependence or independence of art was at its hottest in the romantic period, when the motto of "art for art's sake" was coined, and as its apparent antithesis that other of "art for life" ; and from that time it was discussed, to tell the truth, rather among men of let- ters or artists than philosophers. It has lost interest in our day, fallen to the rank of a theme with which begin- ners amuse or exercise themselves, or of an argument for academic orations. However, even previous to the romantic period, and indeed in the most ancient documents containing reflections upon art, are to be found traces of it; and philos- ophers of .Esthetic themselves, even when they appear to neglect it (and they do indeed neglect it in its vulgar form), really do consider it, and indeed may be said to think of noth- ing else. Because, to dispute as to the dependence or the independence, the autonomy or the heteronomy of art does not mean anything but to enquire w^hether art is or is not, and, if it is, what it is. An activity whose principle depends upon that of another activity is, effectively, that other ac- tivity, and retains for itself an existence that is only putative or conventional: art which depends upon morality, upon pleasure, or upon philosophy is morality, pleasure, or phi- losophy; it is not art. If it be held not to be dependent, it will be advisable to investigate the foundation of its inde- pendence—that is to say, how art is distinguished from morality, from pleasure, from philosophy, and from all [480] BOOK OF THE OPENING other things; what it is— and to posit whatever it may be as truly autonomous and independent. It may chance to be asserted, on the other hand, by those very people who affirm the concept of the original nature of art, that although it preserve its peculiar nature, yet its place is below another activity of superior dignity, and (as used at one time to be said) that it is a handmaid to ethic, a minister to politics, and a dragoman to science; but this would only prove that there are people who have the habit of contradicting themselves or of allowing discord among their thoughts: dazed folk whose existence truly does not call for any sort of proof. For our part, we shall take care not to fall into so dazed a condi- tion; and having already made clear that art is distinguished from the physical world and from the practical, moral, and conceptual activity as intuition, we shall give ourselves no further anxiety, and shall assume that with that first dem- onstration we have also demonstrated the independence of art. But another problem is implicit in the dispute as to dependence or independence; of this I have hitherto pur- posely not spoken, and I shall now proceed to examine it. Independence is a concept of relation, and in this aspect the only absolute independence is the Absolute, or absolute rela- tion; every particular form and concept is independent on one side and dependent on another, or both independent and dependent. Were this not so, the spirit, and reality in gen- eral, would be either a series of juxtaposed absolutes, or (which amounts to the same thing) a series of juxtaposed nullities. The independence of a form implies the matter to which it is applied, as we have already seen in the develop- ment of the genesis of art as an intuitive formation of a sen- timental or passionate material; and in the case of absolute independence, since all material and aliment would be want- [481;] THE RICE INSTITUTE ing to it, form itself, being void, would become nullified. But since the recognised independence prevents our thinking one activity as submitted to the principle of another, the de- pendence must be such as to guarantee the independence. But this would not be guaranteed in the hypothesis that one activity should be made to depend upon another, in the same w^ay as that other upon it, like two forces which counterbalance each other, and of which the one does not conquer the other; because, if it do not conquer it, we have reciprocal arrest and static; if it conquer the other, pure and simple dependence, which has already been excluded. Hence, considering the matter in general, it appears that there is no other way of thinking the simultaneous independence and dependence of the various spiritual activities than that of conceiving them in the relation of condition and condi- tioned, in which the conditioned surpasses the condition and presupposes it, and, becoming again in its turn condition, gives rise to a new conditioned, thus constituting a series of developments. No other defect could be attributed to this series than that the first of the series would be a condition without a previous conditioned, and the last conditioned which would not become in its turn condition, thus causing a double rupture of the law of development itself. Even this defect is healed if the last be made the condition of the first and the first the condition of the last; that is to say, if the series be conceived as reciprocal action, or, better (and aban- doning all naturalistic phraseology), as a circle. This con- ception seems to be the only way out of the difi^culties with which the other conceptions of the spiritual life are striving, both that which makes it consist of an assemblage of independent and unrelated faculties of the soul, or of inde- pendent and unrelated ideas of value, and that which sub- ordinates all these in one and resolves them in that one, C482] BOOK OF THE OPENING which remains immobile and impotent; or, more subtly, con- ceives them as necessary grades of a linear development which leads from an irrational first to a last that would wish to be most rational, but is, however, superrational, and as such also irrational. But it will be opportune not to insist upon this somewhat abstract scheme, and rather consider the manner in which it becomes actual in the life of the spirit, beginning with the aesthetic spirit. For this purpose we shall again return to the artist, or man-artist, who has achieved the process of liberation from the sentimental tumult and has objectified it in a lyrical image— that is, has attained to art. He finds his satisfaction in this image, because he has worked and moved in this direction : all know more or less the joy of the complete expression which we succeed in giving to our own psychical impulses, and the joy in those of others, which are also ours, when we contemplate the works of others, which are to some extent ours, and which we make ours. But is the satisfaction definite? Was only the man-artist impelled toward the image? Toward the image and toward another at the same time; toward the image in so far as he is man- artist, toward another in so far as he is artist-man; toward the image on the first plane, but, since the first plane is con- nected with the second and third planes, also toward the sec- ond and third, although immediately toward the first and mediately toward the second and third ? And now that he has reached the first plane, the second appears immediately be- hind it, and becomes a direct aim from indirect that it was before; and a new demand declares itself, a new process begins. Not, be it well observed, that the intuitive power gives place to another power, as though taking its turn of pleasure or of service; but the intuitive power itself— or, better, the spirit itself, which at first seemed to be, and in a 1:483] THE RICE INSTITUTE certain sense was, all intuition— develops in itself the new process, which comes forth from the vitals of the first. "One soul is not kindled at another" in us (I shall avail myself again on this occasion of Dante's words), but the one soul, which first is all collected in one single "virtue," and which "seems to obey no longer any power," satisfied in that virtue alone (in the artistic image), finds in that virtue, together with its satisfaction, its dissatisfaction: its satisfaction, be- cause it gives to the soul all that it can give and is expected from it; its dissatisfaction, because, having obtained all that, and having satiated the soul with its ultimate sweetness,— "what is asked and thanked for,"— satisfaction is sought for the new need caused by the first satisfaction, which was not able to arise without that first satisfaction. And we all know also, from continual experience, the new want which lurks be- hind the formation of images. Ugo Foscolo has a love-affair with the Countess Arese; he knows with what sort of love and with what sort of woman he has to do, as can be proved from the letters he wrote, which are to be read in print. Nevertheless, during the moments that he loves her, that woman is his universe, and he aspires to possess her as the highest beatitude, and in the enthusiasm of his admiration would render the mortal woman immortal, would transfig- ure this earthly creature into one divine for the time to come, achieving for her a new miracle of love. And indeed he already finds her rapt to the empyrean, an object of worship and of prayers: And thou, divine one, living in my hymns, Shalt receive the vows of my Insubrian descendants. The ode AW arnica risanata would not have taken shape in the spirit of Foscolo unless this metamorphosis of love had been desired and longed for with the greatest seriousness 1:484] BOOK OF THE OPENING (lovers and even philosophers, if they have been in love, can witness that these absurdities are seriously desired) ; and the images with which Foscolo represents the fasci- nation of his goddess-friend, so rich in perils, would not have presented themselves so vividly and so spontaneously as they did. But what was that impetus of the soul which has now become a magnificent lyrical representation? Was all of Foscolo, the soldier, the patriot, the man of learn- ing, moved with so many spiritual needs, expressed in that aspiration? Did it act so energetically within him as to be turned into action, and to some extent to give direction to his practical life ? Foscolo, who had not been wanting of in- sight in the course of his love, as regards his poetry also from time to time became himself again when the creative tumult was appeased, and again acquired full clearness of vision. He asks himself what he really did will, and what the woman deserved. It may be that a slight suspicion of scepticism had Insinuated itself during the formation of the image, if our ears be not deceived in seeming to detect here and there in the ode some trace of elegant Irony toward the woman, and of the poet toward himself. This would not have happened in the case of a more ingenuous spirit, and the poetry would have flowed forth quite ingenuously. Foscolo the poet, having achieved his task and therefore being no longer poet, now wishes to know his real condition. He no longer forms the image, because he has formed It; he no longer fancies, but perceives and narrates ("that woman," he will say later of the "divine one," "had a piece of brain Instead of a heart") ; and the lyrical Image changes, for him and for us. Into an autobiographical extract, or perception. With perception we have entered a new and very wide spiritual field; and, truly, words are not strong enough to satirise those thinkers who, now as In the past, confound [4853 THE RICE INSTITUTE Image and perception, making of the Image a perception (a portrait or copy or Imitation of nature, or history of the individual and of the times, etc.), and, worse still, of the perception a kind of image apprehensible by the ''senses." But perception Is neither more nor less than a complete judgment, and as judgment Implies an image and a cate- gory or system of mental categories which must domi- nate the Image (reality, quality, etc.); and in respect of the Image, or a priori esthetic synthesis of feeling and fancy (intuition), It is a new synthesis, of representation and category, of subject and predicate, the a priori logical syn- thesis, of which it would be fitting to repeat all that has been said of the other, and, above all, that In It content and form, representation and category, subject and predicate, do not appear as two elements united by a third, but the representa- tion appears as category, the category as representation, in indivisible unity: the subject is subject only in the predi- cate, and the predicate Is predicate only in the subject. Nor is perception a logical act among other logical acts, or the most rudimentary and imperfect of them; for he who is able to extract from It all the treasures It contains would have no need to seek beyond it for other determinations of loglcity, because consciousness of what has really happened, which in Its eminently literary forms takes the name of history, and consciousness of the universal, which in Its eminent forms takes the name of system or philosophy, spring from per- ception, which Is itself this synthetic gemination: and philos- ophy and history constitute the superior unity, which phi- losophers have discovered, for no other reason than the syn- thetic connection of the perceptive judgment, whence they are born and In which they live, identifying philosophy and history, and which men of good sense discover In their own way, though they always observe that ideas suspended 1:4863 BOOK OF THE OPENING In air are phantoms, are facts which occur— real facts— what alone is true, and alone worthy of being known. Finally, perception (the variety of perceptions) explains why the human intellect strives to emerge from them and to Impose upon them a world of types and of laws, governed by mathe- matical measures and relations; which is the reason of the formation of the natural sciences and mathematics, in addi- tion to philosophy and history. It is not here my task to give a sketch of Logic, as I have been or am giving a sketch of Esthetic; and therefore, re- fraining from determining and developing the theory of Logic, and Intellectual, perceptive, and historical knowledge, I shall resume the thread of the argument, not proceeding on this occasion from the artistic and Intuitive spirit, but from the logical and historical, which has surpassed the intuitive and has elaborated the image in perception. Does the spirit find satisfaction in this form? Certainly: all know the very lively satisfactions of knowledge and sci- ence; all know, from experience, the desire which takes possession of one to discover the countenance of reality, concealed by our Illusions; and even though that counte- nance be terrible, the discovery is never unaccompanied with profound pleasure, due to the satisfaction of possessing the truth. But does such satisfaction differ In being complete and final from that afforded by art? Does not dissatisfaction perhaps appear side by side with the satisfaction of know- ing reality? This, too, is most certain; and the dissatisfac- tion of having known manifests Itself (as indeed all know by experience) In the desire for action: it Is well to know the real state of affairs, but we must know it in order to act; by all means let us know the world, but in order that we may change it: tenipus cognoscendi, tempus destruendi, tempus renovandi. No man remains stationary in knowledge, not C487: THE RICE INSTITUTE even sceptics or pessimists who, in consequence of that knowledge, assume this or that attitude, adopt this or that form of life. And that very fixing of acquired knowledge, that "retaining " after "understanding,'' without which (still quoting Dante) "there can be no science," the formation of types and laws and criteria of measurement, the natural sci- ences and mathematics, to which I have just referred, were a surpassing of the act of theory by proceeding to the act of action. And not only does everyone know from experience, and can always verify by comparison with facts, that this is indeed so; but on consideration, it is evident that things could not proceed otherwise. There was a time (which still exists for not a few unconscious Platonicians, mystics, and ascetics) when it was believed that to know was to elevate the soul to a god, to an Idea, to a world of ideas, to an Absolute placed above the phenomenal human world; and it was natural that when the soul, becoming estranged from itself by an effort against nature, had attained to that superior sphere, it returned confounded to earth, where it could remain perpetually happy and inactive. That thought, which was no longer thought, had for counterpoise a reality that was not reality. But since (with VIco, Kant, Hegel, and other hereslarchs) knowledge has descended to earth, and is no longer conceived as a more or less pallid copy of an immobile reality, but remains always human, and produces, not abstract ideas, but concrete con- cepts which are syllogisms and historical judgments, percep- tions of the real, the practical is no longer something that represents a degeneration of knowledge, a second fall from heaven to earth, or from paradise to hell, nor something that can be resolved upon or abstained from, but is implied in theory Itself, as a demand of theory; and as the theory, so the practice. Our thought is historical thought of a hls- 1:4883 BOOK OF THE OPENING torical world, a process of development of a development; and hardly has a qualification of reality been pronounced, when the qualification is already of no value, because It has itself produced a new reality, which awaits a new qualifica- tion. A new reality, which Is economic and moral life, turns the Intellectual Into the practical man, the politician, the saint, the man of business, the hero, and elaborates the a priori logical synthesis into the practical a priori synthesis; but this is nevertheless always a new feeling, a new desiring, a new willing, a new passlonality. In which the spirit can never rest, and solicits above all as new material a new in- tuition, a new lyricism, a new art. And thus the last term of the series reunites Itself (as I stated at the beginning) with the first term, the circle Is closed, and the passage begins again: a passage which Is a return of that already made, whence the VIchian concept expressed in the word "return," now become classic. But the development which I have described explains the Inde- pendence of art, and also the reasons for its apparent de- pendence, in the eyes of those who have conceived erroneous doctrines (hedonistic, moralistic, conceptuallstic, etc.), which I have criticised above, though noting, In the course of criti- cism, that In each one of them could be found some reference to truth. If It be asked, which of the various activities of the spirit Is real, or If they be all real, we must reply that none of them is real; because the only reality Is the activity of all these activities, which does not reside in any one of them in particular: of the various syntheses that we have one after the other distinguished, — aesthetic synthesis, logical synthe- sis, practical synthesis,— the only real one Is the synthesis of syntheses, the Spirit, which Is the true Absolute, the actus puriis. But from another point of view, and for the same reason, all are real. In the unity of the spirit. In the eternal n4893 THE RICE INSTITUTE going and coming, which is their eternal constancy and reality. Those who see in art the concept, history, mathe- matics, the type, morahty, pleasure, and everything else, are right, because these and all other things are contained within it, owing to the unity of the spirit; indeed, the pres- ence in it of them all, and the energetic unilaterality alike of art as of any other particular form, tending to reduce all activities to one, explains the passage from one form to an- other, the completing of one form in the other, and it ex- plains development. But those same people are wrong (owing to the distinction, which is the inseparable mo- ment of unity) in the way that they find them all equally abstract or equally confused. Because concept, type, num- ber, measure, morality, utility, pleasure and pain are in art as art, either antecedent or consequent; and therefore are there presupposed (sunk and forgotten there, to adopt a favourite expression of De Sanctis) or as presentiments. Without that presumption, without that presentiment, art would not be art; but it would not be art either (and all the other forms of the spirit would be disturbed by it), if it were desired to impose those values upon art as art, which is and never can be other than pure intuition. The ar- tist will always be morally blameless and philosophically un- censurable, even though his art should indicate a low moral- ity and philosophy : in so far as he is an artist, he does not act and does not reason, but poetises, paints, sings and, in short, expresses himself: were we to adopt a different criterion, we should return to the condemnation of Homeric poetry, in the manner of the Italian critics of the Seicento and the French critics of the time of the fourteenth Louis, who turned up their noses at what they termed "the manners*' of those in- ebriated, vociferating, violent, cruel and ill-educated heroes. The criticism of the philosophy underlying Dante's poem [4903 BOOK OF THE OPENING is certainly possible, but that criticism will enter the sub- terranean parts of the art of Dante as though by under- mining, and will leave intact the soil on the surface, which is the art; Nicholas Macchiavelli will be able to destroy the Dantesque political ideal, recommending neither an emperor nor an international pope as greyhound of liberation, but a tyrant or a national prince; but he will not have eradicated that aspiration from Dante's poem. In like manner, it may be advisable not to show and not to permit to boys and young men the reading of certain pictures, romances, and plays; but this recommendation and act of forbidding will be limited to the practical sphere and will affect, not the works of art, but the books and canvases which serve as instruments for the reproduction of the art, which, as prac- tical works, paid for in the market at a price equivalent to so much corn or gold, can also themselves be shut up in a cabinet or cupboard, and even be burnt in a "pyre of vanities," a la Savonarola. To confound the various phases of development in an ill-understood impulse for unity, to make morality dominate art, when and so far as art surpasses morality, or art dominate science, when and so far as science dominates or surpasses art, or has already been itself dominated and surpassed by life: this Is what unity well understood, which is also rigorous distinction, should prevent and reject. And It should prevent and reject it also, because the estab- lished order of the various stages of the circle makes it possible to understand not only the independence and the dependence of the various forms of the spirit, but also the preservation of this order of the one in the other. It Is well to mention one of the problems which present them- selves in this place, or rather to return to it, for I have already referred to It fugltlvely: the relation between fancy [490 THE RICE INSTITUTE and logic, art and science. This problem is substantially the same as that which reappears as the search for the distinction between poetry and prose; at any rate, since (and the discovery was soon made, for it is already found in the "Poetic" of Aristotle) it was recognised that the distinction cannot be drawn as between the metrical and the unmetrical, since there can be poetry in prose (for example, romances and plays) and prose in metre (for ex- ample, didascalic and philosophic poems) . We shall there- fore conduct it with the more profound criterion, which is that of image and perception, of intuition and judgment, which has already been explained; poetry will be the ex- pression of the image, prose that of the judgment or concept. But the two expressions, in so far as expressions, are of the same nature, and both possess the same aesthetic value; therefore, if the poet be the lyrist of his feelings, the prosaist is also the lyrist of his feelings,— that is, poet,— though it be of the feelings which arise in him from or in his search for the concept. And there is no reason whatever for recog- nising the quality of poet to the composer of a sonnet and of refusing it to him who has composed the "Metaphysic," the "Somma Teologia," the ''Scienza Nuova," the 'Thenome- nology of the Spirit," or told the story of the Pelopon- nesian wars, of the politics of Augustus and Tiberius, or the "universal history": in all of those works there is as much passion and as much lyrical and representative force as in any sonnet or poem. For all the distinctions with which it has been attempted to reserve the poetic quality for the poet and to deny it to the prosaist, are like those stones, carried with great effortto the top of a steep mountain, which fall back again into the valley with ruinous results. Yet there is a just apparent difference, but in order to determine it, poetry and prose must not be separated in the manner of [492] BOOK OF THE OPENING naturalistic logic, like two co-ordinated concepts simply op- posed the one to the other: we must conceive them in devel- opment as a passage from poetry to prose. And since the poet, in this passage, not only presupposes a passionate ma- terial, owing to the unity of the spirit, but preserves the passionality and elevates it to the passionality of a poet (passion for art), so the thinker or prosaist not only pre- serves that passionality and elevates it to a passionality for science, but also preserves the intuitive force, owing to which his judgments come forth expressed together with the pas- sionality that surrounds them, and therefore they retain their artistic as well as their scientific character. We can always contemplate this artistic character, assuming its scientific character, or separating It therefrom and from the criticism of science, In order to enjoy the aesthetic form which it has assumed; and this is also the reason why science belongs, though In different aspects, to the history of science and to the history of literature, and why, among the many different kinds of poetry enumerated by the rhetoricians, it would at the least be capricious to refuse to number the "poetry of prose," which is sometimes far purer poetry than much pre- tentious poetry of poetry. And It will be well that I should mention again a new problem of the same sort, to which I have already alluded In passing: namely, the connection be- tween art and morality, which has been denied to be imme- diate Identification of the one with the other, but which must now be reasserted, and to note that, since the poet preserves the passion for his art when free from every other passion- ality, so he preserves In his art the consciousness of duty (duty toward art), and every poet. In the act of creation, Is moral, because he accomplishes a sacred function. And finally, the order and logic of the various forms of the spirit, making the one necessary for the other and 1:493 n THE RICE INSTITUTE therefore all necessary, reveal the folly of negating the one in the name of the other: the error of the philoso- pher (Plato), or of the moralist (Savonarola or Proud- hon), or of the naturalist and practical man (there are so many of these that I do not quote names I), who refute art and poetry; and, on the other hand, the error of the artist who rebels against thought, science, practice, and morality, as did so many "romantics" in tragedy, and as do so many "decadents" in comedy in our day. These are er- rors and follies to which also we can afford a caress in pass- ing (always keeping in view our plan of not leaving anyone quite disconsolate), for it is evident that they have a posi- tive content of their own in their very negativity, as rebellion against certain false concepts or certain false manifestations of art and of science, of practice and of morality (Plato, for example, combating the idea of poetry as "wisdom"; Savo- narola, the not austere and therefore corrupt civilisation of the Italian Renaissance so soon to be dissolved), etc. But it is madness to attempt to prove that were philosophy without art, it would exist for itself, because it would be without what conditions its problems, and air to breathe would be taken from it, in order to make it prevail alone against art; and that practice is not practice, when it is not set in motion and revived by aspirations, and, as they say, by "ideals," by "dear imagining," which is art; and, on the other hand, that art without morality, art that usurps with the decadents the title of "pure beauty," and before which is burnt incense, as though it were a diabolic idol worshipped by a company of devils, owing to the lack of morality in the life from which it springs and which surrounds it, is decom- posed as art, and become caprice, luxury, and charlatanry; the artist no longer serves it, but it serves the private and futile interests of the artist as the vilest of slaves. 114943 BOOK OF THE OPENING Nevertheless, objection has been taken to the idea of the circle in general, which affords so much aid in making clear the connection of dependence and independence of art and of the other spiritual forms, on the ground that it thinks the work of the spirit as a tiresome and melancholy doing and undoing, a monotonous turning upon itself, not worth the trouble of effecting. Certainly there is no metaphor but leaves some side open to parody and caricature; but these, when they have gladdened us for the moment, oblige us to return seriously to the thought expressed in the metaphor. And the thought is not that of a sterile repetition of going and coming, but a continuous enrichment in the going of the going and the coming of the coming. The last term, which again becomes the first, is not the old first, but presents itself with a multiplicity and precision of concepts, with an experi- ence of life lived, and even of works contemplated, which was wanting to the old first term; and it affords material for a more lofty, more refined, more complex and more mature art. Thus, instead of being a perpetually even revolution, the idea of the circle is nothing but the true philosophical idea of progress, of the perpetual growth of the spirit and of reality in itself, where nothing is repeated, save the form of the growth; unless it should be objected to a man walk- ing, that his walking is a standing still, because he always moves his legs in the same time ! Another objection, or rather another movement of rebel- lion against the same idea, is frequently to be observed, though not clearly self-conscious: the restlessness, existing in some or several, the endeavour to break and to surpass the circularity that is a law of life, and to attain to a region of repose from movement, so full of anxiety; withdrawn henceforward from the ocean and standing upon the shore, to turn back and contemplate the tossing billows. But I have 11495 3 PR THE RICE INSTITUTE already had occasion to state of what this repose consists: an effectual negation of reality, beneath the appearance of elevation and sublimation; and it is certainly attained, but is called death; the death of the individual, not of reality, which does not die, and is not afflicted by its own motion, but enjoys it. Others dream of a spiritual form, in which the circle is dissolved, a form which should be Thought of thought, unity of the Theoretical and of the Practical, Love, God, or whatever other name it may bear; they fail to per- ceive that this thought, this unity, this Love, this God, al- ready exists in and for the circle, and that they are uselessly repeating a search already completed, or are repeating metaphorically what has already been discovered, in the myth of another world, where the very drama of the only world should be repeated. I have hitherto outlined this drama, as it truly is, ideal and extratemporal, employing such terms as first and second, solely with a view to verbal convenience and in order to indicate logical order:— ideal and extratemporal, because there is not a moment and there is not an individual in whom it is not all performed, as there is no particle of the uni- verse unbreathed upon by the Spirit of God. But the ideal, indivisible moments of the ideal drama can be seen as if divided In empirical reality, like an impure and embodied symbol of the ideal distinction. Not that they are really divided (ideality is the true reality), but they appear to be so empirically to him who looks upon them with a view to classification, for he possesses no other way of determining in the types the individuality of the facts that have attracted his attention, save that of enlarging and of exaggerating ideal distinctions. Thus the artist, the philosopher, the his- torian, the naturalist, the mathematician, the man of busi- ness, the good man, seem to live separated from one 1:496] BOOK OF THE OPENING another; and the spheres of artistic, philosophical, his- torical, naturalistic, mathematical culture, and those of eco- nomic and ethic and of the many institutions connected with them, to be distinct from one another; and finally, the life of humanity is divided into epochs in the ages, in which one or the other or only some of the ideal forms are repre- sented: epochs of fancy, of religion, of speculation, of natu- ral sciences, of industrialism, of political passions, of moral enthusiasms, of pleasure seeking, and so on; and these epochs have their more or less perfect goings and comings. But the eye of the historian discovers the perpetual differ- ence in the uniformity of individuals, of classes, and of epochs; and the philosophical consciousness, unity in differ- ence; and the philosopher-historian sees ideal progress and unity, as also historical progress, in that difference. But let us, too, speak as empiricists for a moment (so that since empiricism exists it may be of some use), and let us ask ourselves to which of the specimens belongs our epoch, or that from which we have just emerged; what is its pre- vailing characteristic? To this there will be an immediate and universal reply that it is and has been naturalistic in culture, industrial in practice; and philosophical greatness and artistic greatness will at the same time both be denied to It. But since (and here empiricism is already in danger) no epoch can live without philosophy and without art, our epoch, too, has possessed both, so far as it was capable of possessing them. And its philosophy and its art— the for- mer mediately, the latter immediately— find their places in thought, as documents of what our epoch has truly been in its complexity and interests; by interpreting these, we shall be able to clear the ground upon which must arise our duty. Contemporary art, sensual, insatiable in its desire for en- joyments, furrowed with turbid attempts at an ill-un- 1:4973 ■( THE RICE INSTITUTE derstood aristocracy, which reveals itself as a voluptuous ideal or an ideal of arrogance and of cruelty, sometimes sighing for a mysticism which is also egoistic and volup- tuous, without faith in God and without faith in thought, incredulous and pessimistic, — and often very powerful In its rendering of such states of the soul: this art,— vainly con- demned by moralists,— when understood In its profound motives and in its genesis, asks for action, which will cer- tainly not be directed toward condemning, repressing, or rearranging art, but toward directing life more energetically toward a more healthy and more profound morality, which will be mother of a nobler art, and, I would also say, of a nobler philosophy. A more noble philosophy than that of our epoch, incapable of accounting not only for religion, for science, and for Itself, but for art itself, which has again become a profound mystery, or rather a theme for hor- rible blunders by positlvists, neocriticists, psychologists, and pragmatists, who have hitherto represented contemporary philosophy, and have relapsed (perhaps in order to acquire new strength and to mature new problems!) into the most childish and most crude conceptions of art. [498] BOOK OF THE OPENING IV CRITICISM AND THE HISTORY OF ART ARTISTIC and literary criticism Is often looked upon by ^ artists as a morose and tyrannical pedagogue who gives capricious orders, imposes prohibitions, and grants per- missions, thus aiding or injuring their works by wilfully de- ciding upon their fate. And so the artists either shew them- selves submissive, humble, flattering, adulatory, toward it, while hating It in their hearts; or, when they do not obtain what they want, or their loftiness of soul forbids that they should descend to those arts of the courtier, they revolt against it, proclaiming Its uselessness, with imprecations and mockery, comparing (the remembrance Is personal) the critic to an ass that enters the potter's shop and breaks in pieces with quadriipedante ungula sonitu the delicate prod- ucts of his art set out to dry in the sun. This time, to tell the truth, it is the artists' fault, for they do not know what criti- cism is, expecting from it favours which It Is not In a position to grant, and injuries which it is not in a position to Inflict: y since It Is clear that since no critic can make an artist of ond^ who Is not an artist, so no critic can ever undo, overthrow, or even slightly injure an artist who is really an artist, owing to the metaphysical impossibility of such an act : these things have never happened In the course of history, they do not happen In our day, and we can be sure that they will never happen in the future. But sometimes it Is the critics them- selves, or the self-styled critics, who do actually present themselves as pedagogues, as oracles, as guides of art, as legislators, seers, and prophets; they command artists to 1:499] THE RICE INSTITUTE do this or that, they assign themes to them and declare that certain subjects are poetical, and certain others not; they are discontented with the art at present produced, and would prefer one similar to that prevailing at this or that epoch of the past, or at another of which they declare they catch a glimpse in the near or remote future; they will reprove Tasso for not being Ariosto, Leopardi for not being Me- tastasio, Manzoni for not being Alfieri, D'Annunzio because he is not Berchet or Fra Jacopone; and they describe the great artist of the future, supplying him with ethic, philos- ophy, history, language, metric, with architectonic and col- ouristic processes, and with whatever it may seem to them that he stands in need. And this time it is clear that the blame lies with the critic; and the artists are right in behav- ing toward such brutality in the way that we behave toward beasts, which we try to tame, to illude and to delude, in order that they may serve us; or w^e drive them away and send them to the slaughter-house when they are no longer good for any service. But for the honour of criticism we must add that those capricious critics are not so much critics as artists : artists who have failed and who aspire to a certain form of art, which they are unable to attain, either because their aspiration was contradictory, or because their power was not sufficient and failed them; and thus, preserving in their soul the bitterness of the unrealised ideal, they can speak of nothing else, lamenting everywhere its absence, and everywhere invoking its presence. And sometimes, too, they are artists who are anything but failures, — indeed, most felicitous artists, — but, owing to the very energy of their artistic individuality, incapable of emerging from themselves in order to understand forms of art different from their own, and disposed to reject them with violence; they are aided in this negation by the odium jigiiUnum, the jealousy [500] BOOK OF THE OPENING of the artist for the artist, which is without doubt a defect, but one with which too many excellent artists appear to be stained for us to refuse to it some indulgence similar to that accorded to the defects of women, so difficult, as we know, to separate from their good qualities. Other artists should calmly reply to these artist-critics: ''Continue doing in your art what you do so well, and let us do what we can do" ; and to the artists who have failed and improvised themselves critics: "Do not claim that we should do what you have failed in doing, or what is work of the future, of which neither you nor we know anything." As a fact, this is not the usual reply, because passion forms half of it; but this is indeed the logical reply, which logically terminates the ques- tion, though we must foresee that the altercation will not terminate, but will indeed last as long as there are intolerant artists and failures— that is to say, for ever. And there is another conception of criticism, which is ex- pressed in the magistrate and in the judge, as the foregoing is expressed in the pedagogue or in the tyrant; it attributes to criticism the duty, not of promoting and guiding the life of art,~whlch is promoted and guided, if you like to call it so, only by history; that is, by the complex movement of the spirit in its historical course,— but simply to separate, in the art which has already been produced, the beautiful from the ugly, and to approve the beautiful and reprove the ugly with the solemnity of a properly austere and conscientious sentence. But I fear that the blame of uselessness will not be removed from criticism, even with this other definition, although perhaps the motive of this blame may to some extent be changed. Is there really need of criticism in order to distinguish the beautiful from the ugly? The production itself of art is never anything but this distinguishing, because the artist arrives at purity of expression precisely by elimi- 1:5013 THE RICE INSTITUTE nating the ugly which menaces to invade it; and this ugliness is his tumultuous human passions striving against the pure passion of art: his weaknesses, his prejudices, his conve- nience, his laissez faire, his haste, his having one eye on art and another on the spectator, on the editor, on the impre- sario—all of them things that impede the artist in the phy- siological bearing and normal birth of his image-expression, the poet of the verse that rings and creates, the painter of sure drawing and harmonious colour, the composer of mel- ody, and introduces into their work, if care be not taken to defend themselves against it, sonorous and empty verses, incorrections, lack of harmony, discordances. And since the artist, at the moment of producing, is a very severe judge of himself from whom nothing escapes,— not even that which escapes others, — others also discern, immediately and very clearly, in the spontaneity of contemplation, where the artist has been an artist and where he has been a man, a poor man; in what works, or in what parts of works, lyrical enthusiasm and creative fancy reign supreme, and in what they have become chilled and have yielded their place to other things, which pretend to be art, and therefore (considered from the aspect of this pretence) are called "ugly.'* What is the use of the sentence of criticism, when the sentence has al- ready been given by genius and by taste? Genius and taste are legion, they are people, they are general and secular con- sensus of opinion. So true is this, that the sentences of criti- cism are always given too late; they consecrate forms that have already been solemnly consecrated with universal ap- plause (pure applause must not, however, be confounded with the clapping of hands and with social notoriety, the constancy of glory with the caducity of fortune), they con- demn ugliness already condemned, grown wearisome and forgotten, or still praised in words, but with a bad conscience, [502] BOOK OF THE OPENING through prejudice and obstinate pride. Criticism, conceived as a magistrate, kills the dead or blows air upon the face of the living, who is quite lively, in the belief that its breath is that of the God who brings life; that is, it performs a useless task, because this has previously been performed. I ask myself what critics have established the greatness of Dante, of Shakespeare, or of Michelangelo: if, among the legions who have acclaimed and do acclaim these great men, there are or have been men of letters and professional crit- ics, their acclamation does not differ in this case from that of youth and of the people, who are all equally ready to open their hearts to the beautiful, which speaks to all, save sometimes, when it is silent, on discovering the surly coun- tenance of a critic-judge. And so there arises a third conception of criticism: the criticism of interpretation or comment, which makes itself small before works of art and limits itself to the duty of dusting, placing in a good light, furnishing information as to the period at which a picture was painted and what it represents, explaining linguistic forms, historical allusions, the presumptions of fact and of idea in a poem; and In both cases, its duty performed, permits the art to act sponta- neously within the soul of the onlooker and of the reader, who will then judge of it according as his Intimate taste tells him to judge. In this case the critic appears as a culti- vated cicerone or as a patient and discreet schoolmaster: "Criticism Is the art of teaching to read," Is the definition of a famous critic; and the definition has not been without Its echo. Now no one contests the utility of guides to museums or exhibitions, or of teachers of reading, still less of erudite guides and masters who know so many things hidden from the majority and are able to throw so much light on subjects. Not only has the art that is most remote from us need of Do3:i 'I THE RICE INSTITUTE this assistance, but also that of the nearest past, called con- temporary, which, although it treats of subjects and presents forms that seem to be obvious, is yet not always sufficiently obvious; and sometimes a great effort is requisite in order to prepare people to feel the beauty of a little poem or of some work of art, though born but yesterday. Prejudices, habits and forgetfulness form hedges barring the approach to that work: the expert hand of the interpreter and of the com- mentator is required to remove them. Criticism in this sense is certainly most useful, but we do not see why it should be called criticism when that sort of work already possesses its own name of interpretation, comment, or exegesis. To call this criticism is at best useless, for it is equivocal. It is equivocal because criticism demands to be, wishes to be and is something different: it does not wish to invade art, nor to rediscover the beauty of the beautiful, or the ugliness of the ugly, nor to make itself small before art, but rather to make itself great before art which is great and, in a cer- tain sense, above it. What, then, is legitimate and true criticism? (/ First of all, it is at once all three of the things that I have hitherto explained; that is to say, all these three things are Its necessary conditions, without which it would not arise. Without the moment of art (and, as we have seen, that criti- cism which affirms Itself to be productive or an aid to production, or as repressing certain forms of production to the advantage of certain other forms, is, in a certain sense, art against art), the experience of art would *be wanting to the critic, art created within his spirit, severed from non- art, and enjoyed in preference to that. And finally, this experience would be wanting without exegesis, without the removal of the obstacles to reproductive fancy, which supply the spirit with those presumptions of historical knowledge C504] BOOK OF THE OPENING of which it has need, and which are the wood to burn in the fire of fancy. But here, before going further, it will be well to resolve a grave doubt which has been agitated and is still agitated, both In philosophical literature and In ordinary thought, and which certainly, where justified, would not only compromise the possiblhty of criticism, of which I am discoursing, but also of reproductive fancy itself, or taste. Is it truly pos- sible to collect, as does exegesis, the materials required for reproducing the work of art of others (or our own past work of art, when we search our memory and consult our papers in order to remember what we were when we pro- duced it), and to reproduce that work of art in our fancy in its genuine features? Can the collection of the material required be ever complete? And however complete it be, will the fancy ever permit itself to be chained by it in its labour of reproduction? Will it not act as a new fancy, in- troducing new material? Will It not be obliged to do' so, owing to its Impotence truly to reproduce the other and the past? Is the reproduction of the Individual, of the indi- vidiium ineffabile, conceivable, when every sane philosophy teaches that the universal alone is eternally reproducible? Will not the reproduction of the works of art of others or of the past be cons-equently a simple impossibility; and will not what is usually alleged as an undisputed fact In ordinary conversation, and Is the expressed or implied presupposition in every dispute upon art, be perhaps (as was said of history m general) iine fable convenuef 7>uly, when we consider the problem rather from with- out, it will seem most improbable that the firm belief which all possess In the comprehension and intelligence of art is without foundation,-all the more, if we observe that these very people who deny the possibility of reproductions in 1:5053 THE RICE INSTITUTE abstract theory— or, as they call it, the absoluteness of taste — are yet most tenacious in maintaining their own judgments of taste, and very clearly realise the difference there is be- tween the affirmation that wine pleases or displeases me because it agrees or disagrees with my physiological organ- ism, and the affirmation that a poem is beautiful, and another a pastiche: the second order of judgments (as Kant shows in a classical analysis) carries with it the uncoercible preten- sion to universal validity; souls become passionate about it; and in days of chivalry there were even those who main- tained the beauty of the "Gerusalemme," sword in hand, whereas no one that we know has ever been killed main- taining, sword in hand, that wine was pleasant or unpleas- ant. To object that works artistically base have yet pleased many or someone, and if not others, their author, is not valid, because their having pleased is not set in doubt (since nothing can be horn in the soul without the consent of the soul, and consequently without a correlative pleasure) ; but it is doubted whether that pleasure were aesthetic, and were founded upon a judgment of taste and beauty. And passing from extrinsic scepticism to intrinsic consideration, it should be said that the objection to the conceivability of the aesthetic reproduction Is founded upon a reality conceived in its turn as a shock of atoms, or as abstractly monadistic, composed of monads without communication among them- selves and harmonised only from without. But that is not reality: reality is spiritual unity, and in spiritual unity noth- ing is lost, everything is an eternal possession. Not only the reproduction of art, but, in general, the memory of any fact (which is indeed always reproduction of intuitions), would be inconceivable without the unity of the real ; and if we had not been ourselves Caesar and Pompey, — that is, that univer- sal which was once determined as Caesar and Pompey and is 1:506] BOOK OF THE OPENING now determined as ourselves, they living in us,— we should be unable to form any idea of Caesar and Pompey. And further, the doctrine that indlviduahty is irreproducible and the universal only reproducible is certainly a doctrine of "sound" philosophy, but of sound scholastic philosophy, which separated universal and individual, making the latter an accident of the former (dust carried along by time), and did not know that the true universal is the universal indi- viduated, and that the only true effable is the so-called Ineffable, the concrete and Individual. And finally, what does it matter If we have not always ready the material for reproducing with full exactitude all works of art or any work of art of the past? Fully exact reproduction is, like every human work, an Ideal which is realised in infinity, and therefore Is always realised in such a manner that It Is ad- mitted at every Instant of time by the conformation of real- ity. Is there a suggestion in a poem of which the full signification escapes us ? No one will wish to affirm that that suggestion, of which we now have a crepuscular vision that fails to satisfy, will not be better determined In the future by means of research and meditation and by the formation of favourable conditions and sympathetic currents. Therefore, Inasmuch as taste Is most sure of the legiti- macy of its discussions, by just so much Is historical research and Interpretation Indefatigable In restoring and preserving and widening the knowledge of the past; not mentioning that relativists and sceptics, both In taste and In history, utter their desperate cries from time to time, which do not reduce anyone, not even themselves, as we have seen, to the effec- tual desperation of not judging. Closing here this long but Indispensable parenthesis and taking up the thread of the discourse, art, historical exegesis, and taste, if they be conditions of criticism, are not yet crltl- 1:5073 \ i THE RICE INSTITUTE cism. Indeed, nothing Is obtained by means of that triple presupposition, save the reproduction and enjoyment of the Image— expression; that Is to say, we return and place ourselves neither more nor less than in the place of the artist-producer In the act of producing his Image. Nor can we escape from those conditions, as some boast of doing, by proposing to ourselves to reproduce In a new form the work of the poet and the artist by providing Its equivalent; hence they define the critic: artifex additiis artifici. Because that reproduction In a new garment would be a translation, or a variation, another work of art, to some extent inspired by the first; and If It were the same, it would be a reproduction pure and simple, a material reproduction, with the same words, the same colours, and the same tones — that is, useless. The critic Is not artifex additus artifici, but philosophus ad- ditus artifici: his work is not achieved, save when the image received is both preserved and surpassed; it belongs to thought, which we have seen surpass and Illumine fancy with new light, make the intuition perception, qualify reality, and therefore distinguish reality from unreality. In this percep- tion, this distinction, which is always and altogether criti-' cism or judgment, the criticism of art, of which we are now especially treating, originates with the question: whether and In what measure the fact, which we have before us as a problem, is intuition— that Is to say. Is real as such; and whether and In what measure, it is not such— that Is to say, is unreal : reality and unreality, which in art are called beauty and ugliness, as in logic they are called truth and error, in economy gain and loss. In ethic good and evil. Thus the '^^ whole criticism of art can be reduced to this briefest proposi- tion, which further serves to differentiate Its work from that of art and taste (which, considered In themselves, are logi- cally mute), and from exegetlcal erudition (which lacks logi- 1:5083 ^ BOOK OF THE OPENING cal synthesis, and is therefore also logically mute) : "There Is a work of art a/^ with the corresponding negative : "There is not a work of art a/* It seems to be a trifle, for the definition of art as intuition seemed to be neither more nor less than a trifle, but it has on the contrary been since seen how many things it included In itself, how many affirmations and how many negations: so many that, although I have proceeded and proceed In a condensed manner, I have not been able and will not be able to afford more than brief mention of them. That proposition or judgment of the criticism of art, "The work of art a is," implies, above all, like every judgment, a subject (the intuition of the work of art ^) to conquer which is needed the labour of exegesis and of fantastic reproduction, together with the discernment of taste : we have already seen how difficult and complicated this is, and how many go astray in it, through lack of fancy, or owing to slightness and super- ficiality of culture. And it further Implies, like every judg- ment, a predicate, a category, and in this case the category of art, which must be conceived In the judgment, and which therefore becomes the concept of art. And we have also seen, as regards the concept of art, to what difficulties and complications it gives rise, and how it is a possession always unstable, continually attacked and ambushed, and continu- ally to be defended against assaults and ambushes. Criti- cism of art, therefore, develops and grows, declines and reappears, with the development, the decadence, and the reappearance of the philosophy of art; and each can com- pare what it was In the Middle Ages (when it may almost be said that it was not) with what it became In the first half of the nineteenth century with Herder, with Hegel, and with the Romantics, In Italy with De Sanctis; and In a narrower field, what It was with De Sanctis, and what it became In the [509: ii THE RICE INSTITUTE following period of naturalism, in which the concept of art became clouded and finally confused with physic and with physiology, and even with pathology. And if disagreements as to judgments depend for one half, or less than half, upon lack of clearness as to what the artist has done, lack of sym- pathy and taste for another half, or more than half, this arises from the small clearness of ideas upon art; whence it often happens that two individuals are substantially at one as to the value of a work of art, save that the one approves what the other blames, because each refers to a different definition of art. And owing to this dependence of criticism upon the con- cept of art, as many forms of false criticism are to be distinguished as there are false philosophies of art; and, limiting ourselves to the principal forms of which we have already discoursed, there is a kind of criticism which, instead of reproducing and characterising art, breaks in pieces and classifies it; there is another, moralistic, which treats works of art like actions in respect of ends which the artist pro- poses or should have proposed to himself; there Is hedonistic criticism, which presents art as having attained or failed to attain to pleasure and amusement; there is also the Intel- lectuallstlc form, which measures progress according to the progress of philosophy, knows the philosophy but not the passion of Dante, judges Ariosto feeble because he has a feeble philosophy, Tasso more serious because his philos- ophy is more serious, Leopardi contradictory in his pessi- mism. There Is that criticism usually called psychological, which separates content from form, and instead of attending to works of art, attends to the psychology of the artists as men; and there is the other form, which separates form from content and is pleased with abstract forms because, according to cases and to individual sympathies, they recall BOOK OF THE OPENING antiquity or the Middle Ages; and there is yet another, which finds beauty where it finds rhetorical ornaments; and finally there is that which, having fixed the laws of the kinds and of the arts, receives or rejects works of art according as they approach or retreat from the models which they have formed. I have not enumerated them all, nor had I the intention of so doing, nor do I wish to expound the criticism of criticism, which could be nothing but a repetition of the already traced criticism and dialectic of ^Esthetic; and already here and there will have been observed the begin- nings of Inevitable repetition. It would be more profitable to summarise (If even a rapid summary did not demand too much space) the history of criticism, to place the historical names in the ideal positions that I have Indicated, and to shew how criticism of models raged above all during the Italian and French classical periods, conceptuallstic criticism in German philosophy of the nineteenth century, that of moralistic description at the period of religious reform or of the Italian national revival, psychology In France with Salnte-Beuve and many others; how the hedonistic form had its widest diffusion among people In society, among boudoir and journalistic critics; that of classifications. In schools, where the duty of criticism is believed to have been successfully fulfilled when the so-called origin of metres and literary and artistic kinds and their representatives has been Investigated. But the forms which I have briefly described are forms of criticism, however erroneous; though this cannot, in truth, be said of other forms which raise their banners and combat among themselves, under the names of "aesthetic criticism" and ''historical criticism." These I beg leave to baptise, on the contrary, as they deserve, pseudo-asthetic criticism (or aesthetlstic), and pseudo-historical criticism (or historlsti- ' THE RICE INSTITUTE cal). These two forms, though very much opposed, have / a common hatred of philosophy in general, and of the con- cept of art in particular: against any intervention of thought in the criticism of art, which in the opinion of the former is the affair of artistic souls; in the opinion of the latter, of the erudite. In other words, they debase criticism below criticism, the former limiting it to pure taste and enjoyment of art, the latter to pure exegetical research or preparation of materials for reproduction by the fancy. What ^Esthetic, which implies thought and concept of art, can have to do with pure taste without concept is difficult to say; and what history can have to do with disconnected erudition relative to art, which is not organisable as history because without a concept of art and ignorant of what art is (whereas history demands always that we should know that of which we nar- rate the history). Is yet more difficult to establish; at the most we could note the reasons for the strange "fortune" which those two words have experienced. But there would be no harm in those names or in the refusal to exercise criti- cism, provided that the upholders of both should remain within the boundaries assigned by themselves, these enjoying works of art, those collecting material for exegesis; and they might leave criticism to him who should wish to criticise, or satisfy themselves with speaking ill of It without touching problems which properly belong to criticism. In order to attain to such an attitude of reserve It would be necessary neither more nor less than that the aesthetes should never open their mouths in ecstasy about art, that they should si- lently degustate their joys, and, at the most, that when they met their like they should understand one another, as animals are said to do (who knows, though, If It be true!) without speaking: their countenance unconsciously bearing an expres- sion of ravishment, their arms outstretched in an attitude of [1512] BOOK OF THE OPENING wonder, or their hands joined In a prayer of thanksgiving for the joy experienced, should suffice for everything. His- torians, for their part, might certainly speak: speak of codices, of corrections, of chronical and of topical dates, of political facts, of biographical occurrences, of sources of works, of language, of syntaxes, of metres, but never of art, which they serve, but to whose countenance, as simple eru- dites, they cannot raise their eyes, as the maid-servant does not raise them to look upon her mistress, whose clothes she nevertheless brushes and whose food she prepares : sic vos, non vohis. But go and ask of men such abstentions, sacri- fices, and heroisms, however extravagant In their Ideas and fanatic in their extravagances! In particular, go and ask those who, for one or another reason, are occupied with art all their lives, not to talk of or to judge art! But the mute ssthetisticians talk of, judge, and argue about art, and the Inconclusive historlcians do the same; and since In thus talk- ing they are without the guide of philosophy and of the concept of art, which they despise and abhor, and yet have need of a concept,— when good sense does not fortunately happen to suggest the right one to them, without their being aware of it,— they wander among all the various preconcep- tions, moralistic and hedonistic, Intellectuallstic and content- Istlc, formalistic and rhetorical, physiological and academi- cal, which I have recorded, now relying upon this one, now upon that, now confounding them all and contaminating one with the other. And the most curious spectacle (though to be foreseen by the philosopher) Is that the sesthetlsticlans and historiclans, those Irreconcilable adversaries, although they start from opposite points, yet agree so well that they end by uttering the same fatuities; and nothing is more amusing than to meet again the most musty Intellectuallstic and moralistic Ideas In the pages of deeply moved lovers of 1:5133 I ItJgf-iiS'tU'jitJ'j THE RICE INSTITUTE art (so deeply moved as to hate thought), and in the most positive historians (so positive as to fear compromising their positivity by attempting to understand the object of theif researches, which chances this time to be called art). / True criticism of art is certainly asthetic criticism, but not because it disdains philosophy, like pseudo-assthetic, but be- cause it acts as philosophy and as conception of art; it is historical criticism, not because, like pseudo-history, it deals with the extrinsic of art, but because, after having availed itself of historical data for fantastic reproduction (and till then it is not yet history), when fantastic reproduction has been obtained, it becomes history, by determining what is that fact which has been reproduced in the fancy, and so characterising the fact by means of the concept, and estab- lishing what exactly is the fact that has occurred. Thus, the two things at variance in spheres inferior to criticism co- incide in criticism; and ''historical criticism of art'' and "esthetic criticism'' are the same: it is indifferent which word we use, for each may have its special use solely for reasons of convenience, as when, for instance, it is desired to call special attention, with the first, to the necessity of the under- standing of art; with the second, to the historical objectivity of its consideration. Thus the problem discussed by certain methodologists is solved, namely, whether history enter into the criticism of art as means or as end: since it is henceforth clear that history adopted as a means is not history, pre- cisely because it is a means, but is exegetic material; and that which enters it as end is certainly history, though it does not enter it as a particular element, but as its constituent whole: which precisely describes the word ''end." But if criticism of art be historical criticism, it follows that it will not be possible to limit the duty of discerning the beautiful and the ugly to simple approval and refusal in n5i43 BOOK OF THE OPENING the immediate consciousness of the artist when he produces, or of the man of taste when he contemplates; it must widen and elevate itself to what is called explanation. And since in the world of history (which is, indeed, the only world) negative or privative facts do not exist, what seems to taste to be ugly and repugnant, because not artistic, will be neither ugly nor repugnant to historical consideration, because it knows that what is not artistic yet is something else, and has its right to existence as truly as it has existed. The virtuous Catholic allegory composed by Tasso for his "Gerusalemme" is not artistic, nor the patriotic declamation of NIccolini and Guerrazzi, nor the subtleties and conceits which Petrarch introduced into his poems; but Tasso's allegory is one of the manifestations of the work of the Catholic counter-reform in the Latin countries; the declama- tions of Niccolini and of Guerrazzi were violent attempts to rouse the souls of Italians against the priest and the stranger, representing adhesion to the manner of that arous- ing; the subtleties and conceits of Petrarch, the cult of tradi- tional troubadour elegance, revived and enriched in the new Italian civilisation; that is to say, they are all practical facts, very significant historically and worthy of respect. We can well continue to talk of the beautiful and of the ugly, in the field of historical criticism, through vivacity of language, or in order to chime with current parlance ; provided that we shew at the same time, or hint, or let be understood, or at least do not exclude, the positive content, both of that beauti- ful and of that ugly, which will never be so radically con- demned in its ugliness as when it is fully justified and under- stood, because in this case it will be removed in the most radical manner from the sphere proper to art. For this reason, criticism of art, when truly aesthetic or historical, becomes at the same time amplified into a criti- 1:5153 THE RICE INSTITUTE cism of life, since it is not possible to judge — that is, to char- acterise — works of art without at the same time judging and characterising the works of the whole life: as we observe with the truly great critics, and above all with De Sanctis, In his "History of Italian Literature" and in his "Critical Essays," who Is as profound a critic of art as of philosophy, morality, and politics; he is profound in the one because pro- found in the other, and inversely: the strength of his pure aesthetic consideration of art Is the strength of his pure moral consideration of morality. Because the forms of the spirit, of which criticism avails itself as categories of judg- ment, although ideally distinguishable In unity, are not ma- terially separable from one another and from unity, under penalty of seeing them vanish before us. We cannot, there- fore, speak of a distinction of art from other criticism, save in an empirical manner, to indicate that the attention of the speaker or writer Is directed to one rather than to another part of his indivisible argument. And the distinction is also empirical (I have hitherto preserved this here, in order to proceed with didactic clearness) between criticism and his- tory of art: a distinction which has been specially deter- mined by the fact that a polemical element prevails In the study of contemporary art and literature, which causes it to be more readily called "criticism," while in that of the art and literature of a more remote period prevails the narra- tive tone, and therefore it is more readily termed "history." In reality, true and complete criticism is the serene historical narration of what has happened; and history is the only true criticism that can be exercised upon the doings of humanity, which cannot be not-facts, since they have happened, and are not to be dominated by the spirit otherwise than by tinder- standing them. And since the criticism of art has shewn Itself Inseparable from other criticism, so the history of art 1:516:] BOOK OF THE OPENING can be separated from the complete history of human civili- sation only for reasons of a literary nature, among which It certainly follows its own law, which is art, but from which It receives the historical movement, which belongs to the spirit as a whole, never to one form of the spirit separated from the others. Benedetto Croce. I D173 MUTATIONS IN HEREDITY GEOGRAPHICAL BOTANY MODERN CYTOLOGICAL PROBLEMS THE IDEALS OF AN EXPERIMENT GARDEN^ First Lecture MUTATIOxNS IN HEREDITY SINCE the publication of the two volumes of my *'Muta- tion Theory" ten years have elapsed. At that time the prevailing opinion was that very small and often even in- visible changes could gradually be increased and accumu- lated, and that this process could lead to specific differences, and even to the production of the characters of genera and larger groups. This conception was the principle of the theory of selection as proposed by Darwin, as well as the starting-point for the hypothesis of orthogenesis, of the di- rect influence of environment, and of many others. It was generally accepted in the teachings of plant improvement in agriculture, and, as a matter of fact, the origin of new va- rieties by leaps and bounds was a fact wxll known only to horticulturists. In opposition to this conception, I tried to show that the origin of new forms complies, in nature as well as in agri- culture, to the mode which was observed to be followed in horticulture, and that the whole evolution of the plant king- dom has been brought about by a long series of successive small leaps. The extraordinarily slow evolution which was 1 Four lectures presented at the inauguration of the Rice Institute, by Pro- fessor Hugo de Vries, Director of the Hortus Botanicus and Professor of Botany in the University of Amsterdam. it^f iA, BOOK OF THE OPENING a necessary consequence of the then prevailing opinion re- quired an almost unlimited duration of time; but the new principle of mutations reduced the biological time to the limits which had been determined by physicists and geologists for the duration of life on this earth. The starting-point for the new ideas was the distinction between two main types of variability: fluctuation and mutation. I had deduced this principle from my interpretation of Darwin's well known provisional hypothesis of pangenesis, and convinced myself of Its truth by means of a series of experiments. On the basis of these theoretical considerations I proposed the muta- tion theory, which means that the characters of all organisms are built up of sharply distinguished units. These qualities may be combined into groups, and in allied species the same units and groups may be met with. They do not pass gradu- ally into one another; transitions fail between them, al- though they may often be observed between the external forms of plants and animals. The changes in the number and the position of these units, as well as those in their relative connections, constitute the domain of mutability. They are the causes of discontinuous variation, or of the sudden appearance of externally visible deviations. The steps are, as a rule, only small ones ; but are inherited as such from the very beginning, without tran- sitions. Apart from these, the different organs and qualities continually vary in number as well as in measure and weight. In doing so they are observed to follow the laws of probabil- ity and to be influenced by external factors; favorable con- ditions may increase them in one way, while unfavorable circumstances may determine their augmentation in the op- posite direction. Such changes are described as fluctuations or as fluctuating variability. On the basis of the Investiga- tions of Quetelet, their laws have been very completely studied. All these phenomena are governed by internal as [519] II / THE RICE INSTITUTE well as by external causes. The Internal ones are given by the hereditary units and determine the nature of the changes which may take place ; while the external factors decide when and to what extent the deviations from the average will occur. As well as fluctuations, mutations are induced by external and internal causes, as I have distinctly pointed out. The determination of these, however. Is far more difficult than In the case of fluctuations. It is only in a general way that my experiments show that mutability may be Increased by favorable conditions of life. In connection with this fact, we may assume that. In nature, the origin of new forms Is not due to a hard struggle, but is promoted by a luxuriant en- vironment and by easy conditions of development. It is true that a struggle for life must be; but this comes In after the new forms have already been produced, and, as It seems, often only after a considerable lapse of time. Such a strug- gle for life demands no greater sacrifices than those which are unavoidable, even under the common conditions of the field; while In the old selection theory the sacrificing of thou- sands of lives was required for every step in progressive development. In the last ten years the principle of character units has gained a firm hold for itself in evolutionary science. It has transferred the problems from the domain of speculation to that of experiment, and has brought the teachings of Mendel (which had been disregarded up to that time) to universal acknowledgment. The generally accepted view of the con- tinuous intergradation of characters Into one another had for a long time been in the way of a broad appreciation of the merits of the principle of Mendel ; but the theory of pan- genesis has led me to experiments in hybridization which fully confirmed the results of Mendel, and clearly showed BOOK OF THE OPENING their high importance. Moreover, the lines of research laid down by Mendel proved to be of easy application to an almost unlimited number of cases, and so the study of the last ten years has turned in the main to them, and thereby to a great extent neglected the direct investigation of the origin of new forms. The theory of mutation is not intended to take the place of the theory of selection of Darwin. It is only one step fur- ther in the development of our appreciation of evolutionary phenomena. The problem of the theory of selection is the explanation of the overwhelming richness of living forms in nature. It has succeeded in bringing this under the grasp of our understanding; but it has the disadvantage of easily conducing to poetical speculations whenever one tries to apply the general views to single cases. In such cases many authors are content with hypothetical descriptions of what the relations of the phenomena may be supposed to be. Con- trary to this method, the theory of mutation deals with the problem of the origin of the material from which natural selection chooses. At the time of Darwin the distinction between fluctuation and mutation had not yet been discov- ered; but as soon as this was the case it was clear that only the latter process could supply the material for further selec- tion. This principle at once got rid of numerous difficulties which up to that period seemed to be Inherent in the teach- ings of Darwin. Among those who supported the new theory in its first years, although with some reserve, I cite in the first place Strasburger, who wrote as early as 1902 "that the forma- tion of species does not start from fluctuating variability, but from mutations," and that especially "for the place of an organism in the natural system the degree of development reached by all the successive mutations is decisive."^ He 1 "Jahrb. f. wiss. Bot," T. 37, 1902, p. 518. \ li THE RICE INSTITUTE was soon followed by the larger part of the botanists, al- though many among them took exception for the adaptation of species to their environment. Among paleontologists, Charles A. White was the first to take publicly the side of the theory of mutation,^ and the most prominent representatives of this science soon adhered to his ideas. It might perhaps be said that in no other domain has the new principle been so rapidly and so gener- ally acknowledged. Here numerous facts are in evident contradiction to the idea of an extremely slow evolution among fossil plants as well as animals. Other facts clearly show ''that the degree of mutability of species has not always been the same during the geological periods of their exis- tence, but is evidently subjected to changes" (p. 638). This sentence corresponds exactly to my conception of periods of mutability. Life before the Cambrian times is wholly un- known to us; but in this period all the main branches of the animal kingdom at once make their appearance, with the exception of the vertebrates only. Only by means of very complicated hypotheses could the old conception explain these broad facts. Among the floras of all times that of the Carboniferous period has without any doubt been by far the richest; it appeared suddenly, and afterward disappeared almost at once. Many types of organisms have escaped the changing influence of natural selection during a long succes- sion of geological times, as, for instance, the genus Unio, which has come to us almost without any modification from the Mesozoic period. In the Tertiary layers of Florida, Dall has pointed out the occurrence of numerous forms which have come over from one period into the succeeding one, and which are still in part among living species. The evolution of the pedigree of the vertebrates during Tertiary times has been an exceedingly rapid one— by far too fast to ^ Smithsonian Report for 1903, pp. 631-640. 1:522:] BOOK OF THE OPENING be compatible with the old view of slow improvement. The same conclusion holds good for birds, for fishes, for phanerogamic plants, and for quite a number of smaller groups. All in all, the geological facts plead against a slow and for a relatively rapid evolution, thereby justifying the conception of modification by leaps. Such were the argu- ments of White, but it would take me too long to cite them in all their details. In the domain of zoology the old and the new conception are still sharply opposed. The new^ ideas easily comply with the celebrated theory of Hubrecht concerning the evolution of the pedigree of the vertebrates, and the author of this view has more than once vigorously supported my ideas. On the other hand, Plate is still among the adherents of the validity of the unmodified theory of selection. In the field of agriculture the new conceptions are found to be in full harmony with the experience of Hjalmar Nils- son, the director of the Swedish agricultural experiment sta- tion at Svalof. By means of elaborate experiments this investigator has shown that a selection of fluctuating differ- ences has no value at all for the improvement of agricultural plants, especially cereals; and that all breeding of new races must start from a careful choice of the best among the ele- mentary races, which are found in the present cultivated varieties. The unexpectedly large results which this method has rapidly produced have gained for it a general acknow- ledgment in agricultural circles, and the principle of slow improvement of races has since been replaced almost wholly by that of the choice of single mother-plants ("enstaka moderplanterna'') and of the cultivation of pure races from their seed. But still there is always much discussion and much opposi- tion, and therefore it may be useful to give a short review of the main arguments which seem to plead against the new 1:5233 % '4 THE RICE INSTITUTE theory. Before doing so, I might, however, point out two volumes which, from different points of view, deal with almost all the questions which are still open in this field and give a fair appreciation of the arguments brought forward by different authors. One of them is a German treatise on ^'Abstammungslehre^' by Buekers^; the other, a volume in French on "Transformations brusques des etres vivants," written by L. Blaringhem.^ The first of these two books deals mainly with the questions from a critical point of view, and is very exhaustive in this respect; while Blaringhem supports his opinion by a thorough study and accurate de- scription of a number of new mutations which occurred in his cultures. Some authors have asserted that the theory of mutation has been deduced from the doctrine of hybridism. Others have pretended that my experiments with the evening primrose of Lamarck were its starting-point. Both these opinions are erroneous from the historical point of view as well as from a logical one. The mutation theory originated from the hypothesis of pangenesis.^ This hypothesis sug- gested to Darwin the principle of the units which he called gemmules. Every one of these represented, in his opinion, a visible part of the organism, even of a single cell. According to my conception, the units correspond to the qualities by the cooperation of which the whole character of the organism is built up. Each of these units may express itself in different parts of the individual. It is from this conception, as stated above, that I derived the hypothesis of the two main types of variability. In order to control this deduction by means of experiments, I studied, on the one hand, variability itself; and, on the other, hybridism. The 1 Dr. P. G. Buekers, "Abstammungslehre," Leipzig, 1909, § 354. 2 "Bibliotheque de Philosophic scientifique," Paris, E. Flammarion, 1911. 8 See A. A. W. Hiibrecht, in "Popular Science Monthly," July, 1904, p. 222, and v. Haecker, ^'AUgemeine Vererbungslehre," 2® Aufl., 1912, p. 287. 1:524: ■I BOOK OF THE OPENING first of these two groups of experiments included over a hundred different species, some of which showed signs of mutability, while by far the larger number did not. A small degree of the propensity to produce new forms was observed in Linaria vulgaris, Dahlia variabilis, Chrysan- themum segetum and Dracocephalum moldavicum. Among all the species studied by me, I found, however, only a single one which showed the new quality in quite a large degree, producing new types almost every year, and thereby stimu- lating to an extensive as well as intensive study. I supported this inquiry by a critical review of the numerous facts scat- tered through the literature in the fields of agriculture, hor- ticulture, teratology and other sciences; and, almost at the same time, the whole range of observations which pleaded for a sudden origin of cultivated varieties was exhaustively collected by Korshinsky from the horticultural literature. Another widely distributed error is the opinion that the theory of mutation is opposed to the principle of selection. It is even asserted sometimes that the theory of selection should have been replaced by it. I have already pointed out that the real service done by Darwin to evolutionary sci- ence lies In the proposition of his principle of explaining the development of the organisms from one another, in its main lines as well as in Its details, on the basis of well ascertained facts only. His means to reach this aim were the struggle for life and the survival of the fittest— or. In one word, natural selection. The question whence the material for this selection was derived was of course duly and fully dealt with; but our knowledge of the phenomena of variability was at that time still in Its Infancy, and far from being adequate to the demands Darwin made upon It. This was the reason why he did not succeed in convincing his contem- poraries. It is only on this weak point that the theory of \\ THE RICE IiNSTITUTE mutation has to come In. Its aim Is not to be sought in the explanation of the different forms of life. It starts from the principle that the changes which find their expression in variability are intrinsically connected with the germ-plasm; that they are provoked within this substance before fecunda- tion, either in one or both of the sexual elements, and come to light only afterward, during the development of the new individual. Although evidently dependent on external fac- tors, such as nutrition, etc., they are not each related to these in such a manner that it would already be possible for us to explain this dependency in its details. The older and some of the still prevailing theories consider that the changes take place first in the growing or even in the adult organs, and are only transferred afterward to the sexual cells. From a general point of view, the chances of a new idea finding adherence often depend In a great degree on its ap- plicability to other fields of inquiry besides its own experi- mental domain. General considerations are often more decisive than pure facts. In this respect the mutation theory has the great advantage of easily complying with the most widely divergent conceptions of the phenomena of adapta- tion. It may be combined with these even more intimately than the older views, as I shall show later on. The empirical basis of the new teachings is the distinction between fluctuation and mutation. The first is the ordinary form of variation, often called individual, gradual or con- tinuous variation, and well known to Darwin himself. It is almost always and everywhere active in a lesser or in a greater degree. Mutation, on the other hand, is a rare and most sporadic phenomenon only rarely occurring in groups, but by means of It new types are seen to arise suddenly, sharply, although often not widely distinct from the parental type. With this proposition many authors have since ex- 1:526] BOOK OF THE OPENING pressed their agreement, and In one of the newest manuals Karsten summarizes the now prevailing conviction by saying, "Spontaneous variation or mutation is sharply distinct from fluctuation, since It proceeds by leaps and at once produces hereditary differences."^ And even the most ardent oppo- nent of my view— Plate— in concluding his lecture on "In- heritance and the Theory of Descent," says that "phyletical evolution Is discontinuous in the changes of the determinants, although ordinarily continuous In Its external display" ;2 and in doing so he evidently concedes the main point in dis- cussion. Fluctuations are quantitative variations, but mutations are of the qualitative kind. Under the influence of selection, the first do not produce constant races which become Indepen- dent from that selection, while the products of mutation are at once of an hereditary nature and constant. This prin- ciple has brought the study of elementary species into the first rank of biological interest. The investigations of Jor- dan, de Bary and many others had not succeeded In con- vincing biologists and systematlsts of the truth that the species of LInnasus are in reality collective entities, and that the real units of nature are the so-called small species. It Is quite evident that it is impossible to observe the origin of such a collective species, since the conception is partly, at least, of an artificial nature. But now the origin of the small species has become an object of direct Inquiry. One of the oldest objections against the theory of descent has thereby been surmounted forever. Even in the field of pure descrip- tion the new ideas have their influence. It is conceded that even the so-called type specimens might not be homogeneous 1 Nussbaum, Karsten unci Weber, "Lehrbuch der Biologic fur Hochschulen," Leipzig, 191 1, p. 295. . ,, 2L. Plate, "Festschrift zum sechzigsten Geburtstage Richard Hertwigs, Bd. II, 1910, p. 607. \i . « f. ^.m',.*!^-*.* «»., THE RICE INSTITUTE come suppressed by the shade of the trees; but in the end the struggle among the willows, alders, and poplars themselves ends in favor of the latter, to which then elms are seen to add themselves. All over the world struggles of this kind may be seen. Some species are crowded out, others conquer lesser or larger parts of the soil; but none of them is ever seen to become changed in the process. It is true that, in many cases, the duration of the struggle is too short to allow of any chance of specific adaptation. But then there are many other cases, as, for instance, our Dutch dunes, where the process has taken at least six or seven centuries, and w^here nothing has ever been seen in the way of direct influence or slow adjustment to the changing con- ditions. The first Invaders are often seen to be supplanted by others. The first are those which occur In the vicinity and possess the best means of dispersal by wind or by birds. Their number may steadily increase, but, sooner or later, other forms may come in— perhaps from distant regions— which prove to be better fitted for the conditions of that locality. Then the struggle for life becomes more intensive, until gradually an increasing number will be crowded out and the flora will become poorer and more uniform. As a rule, the more highly specialized forms will then prove to be the least fit, while coarser types, with less obvious adap- tations, will comply more easily with the prevailing condi- tions and so become the ultimate conquerors of the soil. Harshberger describes the flora of the Rocky Mountains, giving lists of their plants grouped according to their prob- able origins. The whole flora is a young one: some species Invade the region from the east, others from the west, but all of them without showing visible changes in the way of adaptations to their new environment. There are, how- [586] BOOK OF THE OPENING ever, many plants restricted to this region which. In all probability, have been differentiated since the close of the glacial period, the territory having been glaciated at that time. How this differentiation was brought about, and under what conditions, it is of course impossible to tell; but the assumption that the life-conditions were then the same as they are now seems to me the least probable one could propose. I conclude this enumeration of well known cases of migra- tion without visible changes by alluding to the case of water- plants. As a rule, they have a wide dispersion- far wider ordinarily than their congeners that live on the land. The most curious Instance is, perhaps, the carnivorous species Aldrovandia vesiculosa^ which Is highly adapted to the catching of Insects, small crustaceans, and other small swim- ming animals of our pools and ponds by means of Its leaves. It seems to show no relation whatever to its environment In these structures, being In no degree better fitted for life In water than all the other species with which It is found grow- ing together and which lack this presumed weapon In the struggle for life. Its area necessarily consists of isolated spots, such as lakes, moors, and pools. Notwithstanding the great difficulties of transportation, which w^ould seem to be in the way of Its distribution. It is found all over Eu- rope, in Germany, France, Italy, Hungary, and Russia. Moreover, it is observed in eastern Asia, the Indian Archi- pelago, In Australia, and even In the central parts of Africa, almost every single locality lying at enormous distances from all the others. It Is exposed to great differences of climate and soil, and especially In its biological surroundings and competitors. But all these Influences have not been able to change It in the least. Everywhere it Is simply the same highly specialized form. • i: i THE RICE INSTITUTE In all these cases we clearly see that the capacity of ac- commodation to a new environment does not depend upon the possibility of assuming new characters under the influ- ence of the new factors, but solely on the degree of plasticity. This, howev^er, is a latent quality which was already inher- ent in the species long before it was brought under the new influences, and which, therefore, must have been acquired independently of them. Although it may be regarded as a quality by itself, it has evidently nothing to do with the ques- tion of the production of new characters under the direct influence of environment,— I mean, with the origination of such qualities, in response to the requirements of this en- vironment, as would fit the plants under consideration to it. How the plasticity has been brought about is another ques- tion, which has to be considered by itself, without mixing it up with that of its usefulness long after its origination. Migration and rapid dispersion without changes of spe- cific characters are perhaps most clearly illustrated by those fungus-pests which have come either from America to Europe, or from Europe to the new continent. Many dreaded diseases of cultivated plants afford instances. Among them, those of the potato and the grape-vine, Phy- tophthora infestans and Oidium Tuckeri. Among insects, the Phylloxera is perhaps the best known instance, while the Colorado beetle does not seem to be well suited for Euro- pean orchards. Few migrating plants have been so closely followed in their movements and so thoroughly studied in all their physiological and morphological properties, in order to find the means of successfully combating them, as these pests. Any slight change in their specific characters, any production of new races especially suited for the new conditions, would surely have been discovered and widely studied and described. Nothing of the kind has occurred, n5883 ■, I W^^-m «»n»«-Ji»r-ir».«. mnm -m BOOK OF THE OPENING however, and no real adaptation has taken place. The rapid spreading has been the result of previously existing charac- ters but it has not had any relation to the origination of new forms. As an instance of the rapid spreading of a fungus-disease I choose the rust of our Malva and the other genera of the same family, as studied by Eriksson {Puccinia Malva- ceariim). It came from South America and reached Spain in 1869, this being the first invasion of Europe. Three years later it was observed near St. Armand, in a northern department of France, and in the next year— 1873— it was found spreading all over that country, in England, and also in Germany. In the next two or three years the number of its stations rapidly increased, and it migrated to Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Finland, and Greece (i 876-1 890). Australia was among the first countries to be infected; Africa and North America, among the last (1885). Wherever it has penetrated, it has soon become a dreaded pest, impeding the culture of malvaceous plants in a most troublesome degree. Once more, these instances show that migrations are not, as a rule, accompanied by specific changes. Such may occur during the traveling-period of a species, quite as well as during any other times of its existence; but then there is no single reason to consider them as the consequence of the changed conditions of life. The same conclusion will be forced upon us, now, as we come to the consideration of those cases where the climate and other environmental con- ditions must have changed without, or almost without, corre- sponding migrations. Battandier describes the probable origin of the present flora of the Sahara desert. Originally, this region must have had an ordinary degree of rainfall and moisture, and [589] THE RICE INSTITUTE constituted as fertile a country as any of the surrounding parts of northern Africa. Then, for some reason or other the rainfall must slowly have diminished, taking centuries, or even the larger part of the quaternary period, to reach the conditions which now prevail. The consequent changes in this flora must have been correspondingly slow, and must have consisted mainly in the disappearing of the larger part of the species: first of those which were dependent on the higher degree of moisture; then of others, until at the pres- ent time only the most drought-resisting forms are spared. Battandler sees no reason for assuming that any specific changes were brought about by this great process; on the contrary, he points out the fact that a large number of the species of this arid region are what we call monotypic genera, each genus consisting of a single species. If there had been any degree of adaptation during this whole period of increasing dryness, new species would have been pro- duced, most likely, from those forms which, by their own inherent capacities, would be the very last to be threatened with extermination. Those genera would, therefore, have produced quite a number of smaller or even of larger species, adapting themselves more and more to the changing condi- tions and stocking the desert, In the same way as other des- erts have been stocked, from adjoining countries. They have not done so, and from this we may conclude that the single species, of which each of the genera consists, have not undergone any change in the direction of drought resistance, but have simply been those which happened to be the best fitted for the life In the desert. A thick epidermis, a small display of leaves, long and deep roots, were the main quali- fications for this choice. All species w-hlch were not so endowed must have disappeared; for only those which en- joyed these properties could resist, in the long run. [S90] BOOK OF THE OPENING The swamp cypress, Taxodium distichiim, Cercis sUiquas- trinn and many others, have been found fossil in the upper tert'ary deposits. So far as their remains admit of a con- clusion, they have not undergone any specific change during this long period of their existence. Climatic conditions have, however, very much changed, including, perhaps, the great- est differences in temperature that can ever have exerted an Influence upon the vegetable Inhabitants of this world. The biological environment has changed in about the same mea- sure, since most of the species with which they had to com- pete in the beginning have now disappeared and been sup- planted by others. In this case it is once more clear that environmental changes do not necessarily change specific characters. And from this we may conclude that either adaptations have wholly different causes, or at least that there is only a fortuitous, and no real, causal connection between the two large groups of phenomena. Darwin's proposition that the changes took place independently of the question of their being useful or not, and that the external influences simply furthered the first and thereby extirpated the useless, seems still to be the best and most natural ex- planation of the great phenomena of biological evolution. Local varieties and geographical races are often adduced as proofs of the direct Influence of external factors. A cer- tain number of species, growing in Europe as well as in America, show small differences which hardly reach the degree of ordinary varieties. Hairiness, size and form of the leaves, and other minor points constitute the differen- tiating marks {Veronica scutellata, Circaa lutetiana, etc.). Many varieties are distinguished as australis, arctica, bore- alis, or as var. montana, alpestris, pyrenaica, and so on. Often such varieties show beautiful adaptations to the local conditions under which they grow; but in no case Is It pos- 1:591] THE RICE INSTITUTE sible to tell whether they have acquired these during their migration or during their stay in the new environment, or perhaps previous to their being subjected to the influences in question. In reality, such cases have no value at all as proofs; they may be explained as easily in one way as in the other. A most interesting line of research is suggested by these considerations. It is to bring the descendants of the most extreme migrations of one and the same species together and to cultivate them under the same climate and, if possible, in the same biological environment. Three cases are possible. In the first one we may happen to choose plastic species, the individuals of which may live under very different conditions and do well. Brought together, they will lose their differ- ences and assume the same form and structure. Many of them will do so even if only rhizomes or cuttings are trans- ferred; others from seed, in the very first generation; and only a few, as it seems, will need one or two generations before the temporary influence of the locality from which they were taken will be wholly lost. The second case refers to those species which, through their coarse organization, hardly need any plasticity to comply with the most diverse conditions. Such seems to be the nettle {Urtica dioica), which follows man on his travels all over the earth, and which has often indicated to explorers of new countries the spots which had already previously been visited by others. Our third case Is that of the local varieties and geographi- cal races. They must be expected to keep up their differ- ences, at least in the beginning. But by continuing the ex- periment it is probable that some of them will yield valu- able facts for a decision between the opposing theories. If the external conditions have a direct influence on specific or varietal characters, changing these in a gradual way so as BOOK OF THE OPENING to make them fit for their environment, It must be expected that the differences beween our local varieties will slowly but surely disappear by cultivating them on one and the same spot. If such direct influence does not exist, two results may be expected: either the varieties will keep their differences Indefinitely, or they may show atavistic changes which will reduce them to one and the same type. Such changes will then, however, be sudden and without a visible relation to the environment. Of course they must have external causes as well as internal, the external determining the moment at which the event will happen, and probably consisting in a combination of quite a number of factors. The factors being the ordinary ones, the combination may be temporarily a new one and thereby produce an effect not previously seen. However, it is so often fallacious to Indicate probable results of biological experiments that It seems better not to extend this discussion. Its only aim is to show an easy way In which. In my opinion, experimental proofs concerning the production of new forms of plants may certainly be hoped for. Local varieties and endemic species are not necessarily distinguished from their nearest allies by characters that bear the stamp of an adjustment to the special environment. They may have originated quite independently of any adap- tation. This important fact has been pointed out by Willis on the ground of his observations on the flora of Ceylon. On this Island about one third of all vegetable species are peculiar to It, not being found anywhere else. They are endemic, and, at least for the majority of them, we must assume that they have originated on the very spots where they are now found, and probably not sufficiently long ago to allow us to assume that climatic and biological conditions were at that time different from what they are now. So here 1:5933 THE RICE INSTITUTE we have a most desirable opportunity of studying specific characters in relation to the environment under which they did originate. Moreover, the endemic species of Ceylon belong to genera which are represented in its flora by one or more common species widely spread on this island and in neighboring countries, and which, therefore, may in many cases be presumed to be the ancestors from which the en- demic types of to-day have sprung. The result of this inquiry has been illustrated by a minute study of two species of Coleiis. C. barhatus is a quite com- mon type on Ceylon, but C. elongatus, which is nearly related to it, is found only on Mount Ritigale, a mountain which is relatively rich in species which do not occur anywhere else on Ceylon or outside of it. Willis enumerates the differ- entiating marks of the two forms in a table, and clearly shows that they can have no imaginable relation to the differ- ences in environment. Thus the marks which separated the new C. elongatus from the old C. barhatus are not the effect of any adjustment to its new habitat. They are quite inde- pendent of any such process. The same holds good for numerous other species belonging to the most widely diver- gent genera and growing on different isolated mountains. Nowhere could he discover any proof that the special char- acters of the endemic types could have been brought about in response to the demands of the local surroundings. Cockayne, in his studies of the endemic species and va- rieties of New Zealand, comes to the same conclusion; and lately Gerbault discovered two striking mutations of Viola scotophylla on the territory of Saint-Ouen-de-Mimbre in the department of Sarthe in France. Both of them occurred in a small number of individuals among the normal specimens of the species, and their particular marks showed no rela- tion whatever to their environment. Many other authors 1:594] BOOK OF THE OPENING have adduced observations of the same kind, showing that, as a fact, new forms may w^ell arise without any response to external factors. Briefly summing up the results of this discussion, we see, in the first place, that migration is far too rare a phenome- non to account for the evolution of the vegetable kingdom, and that where it occurs, it proceeds without visibly chang- ing the migrating forms. In the same way, geological changes of climate may have been accompanied by the pro- duction of new forms; but there is no evidence that this has occurred in such a way as to provoke directly useful changes. On the other hand, the characters of local and endemic types do not betray any definite relation to their special environ- ment,— at least in the best studied instances. All in all, the facts which are at present available plead against the hypoth- esis of a direct adjusting influence of environment upon plants, and comply with the proposition of changes brought about by other causes and afterward subjected to natural selection. Personally, I assume that the species-making changes occur by leaps and bounds, however small ; but this point has not been referred to in the discussions of this lecture. Hugo de Vries. [595] THE RICE INSTITUTE Third Lecture MODERN CYTOLOGICAL PROBLEMS THE modern study of the structure of living cells and of their different parts and organs marks a definite period in the history of biological science. An increasing number of students are turning their efforts to these ques- tions, and the methods of research are continually develop- ing themselves. Foremost among botanists are Strasburger and Gregoire; among zoologists, Wilson and Boveri; but many other celebrated names would have to be added. This whole line of thought has come under the influence of the idea of Roux, which states a distinct parallelism between the life-history of growing and dividing cells and the phenomena of heredity. A large part of the work now being done in the field of cytology goes to support these views of Roux, and to show the exact coincidence, even in minute details, of the facts observed in cells and of the processes we would expect to find in them on the ground of this hypothesis. Text-books and reviews give adequate information on these subjects, and the extensive material of facts is, in all its de- tails, easily available to the student. In this work the attention is focused on the questions con- cerned with the nucleus, with its structure and the process of its division. Under this influence, the study of the outer parts of the protoplasm has been somewhat neglected. They ask for different methods; fixed and stained material is hardly suitable for them. The arbitrary division of the whole protoplasm into nucleus and cytoplasm, although very easy in the study of the former, is only too liable to diminish the interest of the latter. For this reason, I shall try to give here a short survey of [596] BOOK OF THE OPENING cytological questions not directly connected with the present main lines of study. On most of these points the available facts are still insufficient for a definite judgment, and authors differ in their appreciation of the facts, according to their own partial experience or to the text-books they are using. The great principle of all natural science is that of gen- eralization. Without it, all our knowledge would be only imperfect and partial; in fact, how small is the number of cases studied, in comparison with the almost unlimited array of instances really occurring in nature! Generalization is at once a right and a duty; without it, the applicability of well proved facts would be so limited as to be hardly of any use. It is the best guide in almost all special researches, and if Darwin's theory of evolution were measured only by the number of new facts to the discovery of which it has shown the way, it would still occupy a foremost place in the history of scientific investigation. From this point of view, the student who is not contented with following the acknowledged lines of work, but wishes to enlarge the field of his investigations, has to start from the well established facts brought forward in the best studied parts of his field of research, to use them as the basis for broad generalizations, and then to control the results these last will yield when applied to special cases. In this lecture, therefore, I will try to indicate some of these broad generalizations and show which fields of inquiry they open and to which suggestions they lead, hoping in this way to direct the interest to some points which have been wholly neglected and to others which are misunderstood by lack of the right guiding principles. Many valuable sugges- tions may be derived from the work of older investigators; these have lain dormant for long periods of years, have been lost from view, but have not, therefore, lost their usefulness. [597] k\ vl %1 I THE RICE INSTITUTE My first and main point is the hypothesis of panmerism. The different parts of the Hving protoplasm multiply them- selves by division, and in the large number of well ascer- tained cases this is their only way of originating. The one does not produce the other; each organ reproduces only itself. For the nucleus this fact is now one of the best estab- lished of the whole field; experience and theory agree in leaving not the least doubt concerning its general validity. Boveri's great discovery of the individuality of chromo- somes shows its validity for these bodies especially; histori- cally considered, it shows, at the same time, the difficulty in gaining a general conviction even for such a clear and simple conception. The golden rule simplex sigillum veri is gener- ally slow in its working ! In the second place, we have the work of Schmitz, Schimper, and Arthur Meyer on the great group of the leucoplasts and their derivatives. The amyloplasts which produce the starch-grains from sugars, the chlorophyll bodies mto which they may change by assuming a green color, the chromoplasts which in so many cases are clearly derived from these, follow the rule established for the nuclei. They multiply by division, are in most cases easily seen to do so, and no other way of their originating has as yet been demon- strated beyond a doubt. The number of well studied cases is so large that the exceptions, if such there are, may well be regarded as only apparent and in need of a careful re- investigation. From these two cases we may turn our attention to the ectoplasm, or ectoplast, as it should rather be called. It is multiplied in the division of cells, the larger part of the ectoplasm of the two daughter-cells being simply the two halves of the same organ of the mother-cell. Doubts exist only in regard to the origin of the new parts lying along the 1:5983 BOOK OF THE OPENING division-plane. This origin is best known from the study of quite a number of investigators in the case of Spirogyra. Here the ectoplasm is folded inward, the fold going all around the cell and steadily increasing toward its center until the division is complete. The new parts clearly originate from the old one, no new ectoplasm being independently produced. If we now take this case as a prototype and try to apply it to all other cases of ordinary cell-division in plants, no serious obstacle is encountered. The division always starts from the old cell-wall; sometimes from all sides, at other times beginning at one point and slowly ex- tending from this. Evidently this is a difference of only secondary importance. Even in embryo-sacs, which divide their nuclei a great many times before cell-division begins, the nuclei are known to distribute themselves in a single layer along the ectoplast, and the division takes its first start from this, proceeding inward toward the central vacuole. The only well ascertained exception to the general appli- cability of the principle of panmerism to the ectoplasts is in the case of the origin of the ascospores as studied by Har- per. We should expect the original nucleus, from which all the nuclei of the spores in the same ascus are ultimately de- rived, to be surrounded by its own protoplasm, having its own ectoplast, which would be derived in the ordinary way of cell-division from the ectoplast of the ascus itself. No such structures have as yet been described, although the ob- served facts do not exclude their possibility. The case may be the same as that of the spermatozooids of phanerogams, which were for many years taken to be nuclei only, until Guignard discovered their thin layer of outer protoplasm. The most difficult case seems to be that of the vacuoles. Since Went first showed them to exist in meristematic and in sexual cells, which were formerly held to consist of solid pro- [599] THE RICE INSTITUTE toplasm only, their general occurrence in young cells Is almost universally conceded and the net-structure observed in these elements is recognized to be due to their presence. They are well known to divide and also to combine into larger vacuoles with the definite differentiation of the growing cell. Many authors, however, assume that, besides multiplying by division, they may also originate directly from the ordinary cytoplasm. It is easy to see them dividing In living cells, but to observe their independent origin might be extremely diffi- cult, and convincing proofs have not as yet been given. Some authors have supported their opinion from observations on the origin of vacuoles in the Myxomycetes; but then they have confounded the real water-vacuoles with the so-called food-vacuoles, which are parts of the ectoplast pushed in- ward with the food particles and surrounding these. The least known part of the cell is, beyond doubt, the granular plasm, which in so many plant cells is seen to flow along the cell-wall. Before discussing this point, however, I wish to consider the current conception concerning the way in which the nucleus exercises its influence on the surrounding parts of the protoplast. From numerous observations it is evident that such relations must exist. Tangl and Nestler studied the movements of the nuclei in response to wounds, and showed that they precede and regulate the cell-divisions which lead to the production of a new layer of cork, shutting off the injured parts of the tissues. Many other similar cases have been described by Haberlandt, but the most interesting are the experimental researches of Gerassimow on Spiro- gyra. This author discovered that by means of sudden re- frigeration with ether or chloroform dividing cells of this alga may be induced to contract the connecting fibers of their nuclei in such a way as to bring both of the nuclei into one cell. The division of the cell itself is not hindered by this [600] BOOK OF THE OPENING process, and at the end of it we have one cell with two nuclei and one without such an organ. Both may be kept alive for weeks, but their functions are seen to be different. The nucleated cells grow and divide almost In the same way as normal ones, but the enucleated elements lack this property. They continue to produce organic food from the carbon dioxld of the surrounding water, heap It on in their chloro- plasts, and increase their osmotic pressure accordingly; but there is hardly any sign of their being able to use this food for further growth and differentiation. From these facts we conclude that the ectoplast, in order to maintain the exten- sion and growth of the cell-wall, must derive something from the nucleus. If this latter be cut off from a cell by a cell- wall, no such derivation is any longer possible. The induce- ment derived from the nucleus may continue to work for a short time, as in the experiments of Klebs on plasmolytic cells of Spirogyra. Here the protoplast may be divided into two parts; the one containing the nucleus will make a new cell wall and continue to grow, while the other half may sur- round itself by a thin layer of cellulose, but soon must stop Its production. No cell-division occurs in the cells without a nucleus, and their further behavior shows that probably all their functions may last only a limited time. At the end deterioration and death are the result of the impossibility of being affected by the nucleus. Continuance and regulation of the functions of the outer organs of the protoplasts thus depend on the activity of the nucleus. Something is given off which stimulates and directs the work of the other organs. It is possible, however, in very rare cases to observe this influence directly. The best Instance Is that of the origin of the blepharoplasts in the spermatozooids of the common liverwort, Marchantia poly- morpha, studied by Ikeno. In the mother-cells of these [601] / f.t-i-sW— .<|i«^#«i*.-'Mfc***»»— ' THE RICE INSTITUTE organs he saw, shortly before the last divisions, small sepa- rate granular bodies lying in the nuclei. Such bodies are lacking in the nuclei of ordinary vegetative cells, and also during the divisions that lead to the production of the mother- cells. After appearing in these, these granular bodies soon leave the nuclei and take their places at the poles of the nuclear spindle. Here they stay until the divisions have finally led to the formation of the spermatozooids, and in this last phase they are moved toward one of the ends of the cell, where they combine with the ectoplast and grow along with this, producing that part of this organ from which the cilia will be protruded. They then take the name of blepharo- plasts. Thus we see that a main part, at least, of these organs is directly derived from the nucleus, and we may confidently assume that the ectoplasm, without this acquisi- tion, would not of itself be able to build up the cilia. From these and numerous other facts we may derive the conclusion that the means by which the nuclei stimulate and direct the functions of the other organs of the protoplast consist in the giving off of material particles which combine with those organs, multiply themselves within them, and thus determine their functions. It is probable that the larger part of them is given off during the resting stage, and not during mitosis. Many authors— and among them, in the first place, Conklin— have observed the excretion of material particles from the nucleus. They are often stained in the same way as the chromatin, and not rarely exceed by far the quantity of these substances found at the same time within the nuclei. This shows that before leaving them they are produced in such quantities as may well support the view of their great importance in the regulation of hereditary char- acters. Leaving the study of the many possibilities concerning the i;6o2 3 BOOK OF THE OPENING properties of these material bearers of characters to those interested in the hypothesis of intracellular pangenesis, we have here only to consider the question as to how these par- ticles may be conveyed from the nucleus toward the organs they are destined to supply with the means of further activ- ity. Here we are struck by the fact that in so many cells the nucleus is the center of the flowing movements of the granu- lar protoplasm. The hairs of Cucurhita and those on the stamens of Tradescantia are the best known instances: the currents are seen to radiate from the nucleus in almost all directions. In other cases there is only one rotating current, and it goes along the nucleus or even may carry this around the cell, as in VaUisneria. From such cases we may derive the supposition that these currents must be the ways, and even the means, for the transportation of the material bear- ers of the hereditary characters. From their place of origin they may reach any point of the living part of the cell, every single leucoplast or chloroplast and every more or less dif- ferentiated part of the ectoplast. It is a curious fact that in the large cells of Spirogyra the starch-producing parts of the spiral bands of chlorophyll are often directly combined by fine threads with the central nucleus. Their special dif- ferentiation, part of which is directed toward the accumu- lation of albuminous substances, would lead us to expect such a connection. Beyond all doubt, the transportation of these pangens is not the only function of the flowing protoplasm. In many cases it is evident that it serves for the transportation of nutrient substances, and in one of the best known instances— that of Chara and Nitella—k would seem obvious that this is their main function. The big and beautiful starch grains which these plants heap up during the summer in the lower parts of their stems — often concealed in the mud of the 1:603] ^ n THE RICE INSTITUTE ponds, and serving as reserve material for the winter—are evidently derived from the activity of the upper parts and branches of the stems. The only means for this extensive transportation of nutritive material is evidently given in the currents of the protoplasm, and these flow exactly in the direction which this conception would lead us to expect. The rapidity of these currents is such that if there were no cell walls across the tube, the visible particles would be trans- ported at a speed of about one meter per twenty-four hours. This would amply suffice to bring the products of the activity of the chlorophyll to the bottom of the pond. The movement of the protoplasm in Chara and Nitella, just quoted, was formerly considered as one of nature's greatest curiosities. It is more in the line of modern re- search to consider it as an extreme instance of a general rule. Everywhere in the plant kingdom where vascular organs for transportation are absent, these currents assume this func- tion. This fact is most evident in hairs in general, and espe- cially in the root-hairs. In the latter, as was shown by Jonsson and others, the granular protoplasm is almost al- ways seen to flow from the top of the hair toward Its base and backward, thus affording a tangible conveyance for all the substances absorbed by the hairs. In many tissues these mov^ements may also be seen taking place easily in watery parts, but with some difficulty in drier organs, such as the bark of woody species. Even in the merlstematic condition the protoplasm seems never to be at rest, at least under favorable conditions, but always more or less clearly flow- ing. Some authors, it is true, have not succeeded in control- ling these facts, and have even been led to consider the movements In such tissues as due to accidental causes, as, for example, the Injuring of the cells In the making of the micro- scopical preparations. This, however, must be distinctly [604] BOOK OF THE OPENING considered as erroneous, the phenomena being far too gen- eral for such an explanation and requiring a too special dif- ferentiation of the protoplasm to allow the suggestion of an accident. Outside of the vascular tissues, the flowing of the proto- plasm is the only intensive means of transportation of nu- trient material. Diffusion is too slow, by far, for this end. From the celebrated experiments of Graham on liquid dif- fusion, Stephan has calculated the time one milligram of common salt (NaCl) would require to ascend from a solu- tion of ten per cent., through a vertical column of water, to a height of one meter. He found that it would take three hundred and nineteen days. Cane-sugar is much slower and would need two years and seven months for the same height, under the same condi- tions; while with albuminous substances the experiment would last about fourteen years. Such velocities are evi- dently Inadequate for the movements of soluble substances In plants; moreover, the differences in concentration are almost always much smaller than in Stephan's examples. If one takes a glass tube of over one meter in length, filled with water and initially containing some crystals of a colored salt {e.g., sulphate of copper) at its base, it is easy to show that It takes more than a year for the salt to reach the upper parts In a visible quantity. The experiments of Janse with Caulerpa have shown the great importance and high degree of differentiation of the protoplasmic currents in these big unicellular algae. Pollen- tubes show the same phenomenon In their living parts, and the same may be seen everywhere else. In young roots there Is an almost continual circulation of the protoplasm in the cells of the cortical tissues, conveying the absorbed sub- stances from the root-hairs, through the endodermis, toward [6053 ^i THE RICE INSTITUTE the vascular bundles. In the endodermis these substances are taken up and brought under that osmotic pressure which will bring them upward by means of the great current of fluid in the vessels of the xylem. It is commonly assumed that the flowing protoplasm is a living part of the cell and produces its movement through its own organization. Hofmeister was among the first to work out this idea, but it is to Engelmann that a definite theory of this action is due. He compared the flowing proto- plasm with the movements of muscles, assuming contractile elements in it which would be analogous to the visible sar- cous elements of the muscles. In changing their capability for imbibition of water in response to stimuli, these con- tractile elements would increase in breadth, but decrease in length. Such a polarity might also be deduced from other observations, as, for example, those of the changes of the refraction of light in some particular instances. The ex- planation of the circulating and rotating movements of the granular protoplasm, based on this principle, requires the assumption of a regular periodic contraction of these parti- cles. But when we try to apply it to specially observed in- stances, great difliculties are met with and new hypotheses almost always must be sought in order to surmount them. A really satisfactory conception of the whole mechanism can hardly be reached on the basis of this principle. Leaving it, w^e come to the opposite extreme and must assume that the flowing protoplasm is not a living part of the cell, but only a more or less viscous fluid. The source of its movements must then be looked for outside of it, partly along the ectoplast, partly along the tonoplasts or walls of the vacuoles, where the currents pass between these. We are led to the hypothesis of invisible tracks on which the impulse for these currents must be produced. This hy- 1:6063 BOOK OF THE OPENING pothesis seems not as yet to have attracted much attention, but it has the advantage of explaining the observed facts on the basis of analogous observations, without requiring for them a new fundamental theory. It simply brings the flow- ing of the inner granular protoplasm in line with other cases of protoplasmic movement. In order to elucidate this conception we may take as an example the observations of Max Schulze on the movements of diatoms. He studied them in water to which a small amount of finely divided carmin was added. The most strik- ing case is that of a diatom lying on one of its flat sides and turning the other upward. When particles of the carmin, in sinking, come in contact with the central line of this side, they are seen to move along it until they reach the end of the cell, then turn backward and proceed along the same line. Other particles may sink, but not touch this central line directly beside them; these will show no movement. From these and other observations, Schulze decided that there must exist a narrow band of outer protoplasm, which, although as limpid as water and thereby invisible, would be the pushing force and actually carry the particles that fell on it. This same track of protoplasm would suflice to ex- plain the ordinary movements of the diatoms when they slide along larger algas, or along one another (as in the case of Bacillaria), or upon the glass slides in microscopical prepa- rations. It is well known that they can move only when they touch other objects by one of their faces, and that they are always at rest when lying on their side. The energy de- veloped in these movements is sufficiently judged of by the size of the cell and the rapidity of their gliding, but Schulze showed that they are even capable of carrying much larger weights with them. The assuming of analogous tracks of active protoplasm [607] THE RICE INSTITUTE in ordinary cells would seem to give a sufficient basis for the explanation of the phenomena of circulation and rotation. The tracks would be active, the currents passive and pushed by them. It would be an easy matter to explain the undulat- ing movements on the tracks by comparing them with mus- cles, cilia, and other widely studied objects. If the tracks are active and the flowing parts passive, we should expect the velocity to be the greatest for those parts which are directly in contact with the tracks and to diminish with increasing distance. Such differences in velocity are well known in many cases, but have been studied most accu- rately by a great number of investigators in the case of Nitella. According to Nageli, Dutrochet, Goppert, Cohn, and others, the outer layers of the mighty current in the large cells of this alga are seen to be the fastest in their move- ments, the velocity decreasing toward the central vacuole as well as toward the limits of the current, which are indicated by the absence of one of the longitudinal rows of chlorophyll bodies. With decreasing vitality the current stops first along these sides, thereby becoming narrower, and the central parts, which ordinarily are the quickest, are also the last to retain their movement. It is clear that the whole of the protoplasmic fluid is pushed by the activity of a stratum of outer protoplasm clothing the layer of the chlorophyll bodies on the inside and following the direction of the spirally ascending lines of these organs. Similar observations have been made by Vesque for the root-hairs of Hydrocharis, and by Heidenhain and Jiirgensen in the leaves of Vallisneria. These hypothetical pushing tracks would have to be con- sidered as living organs of the cell with the same right as chloroplasts and other visible parts. They may be assumed to be morphologically constant, but very variable in their degree of activity, and changing the direction of their move- BOOK OF THE OPENING ment, from time to time, as in the case of the diatoms just quoted. One of the best instances for their study is afforded by the tentacles of Drosera at the time of digesting insects or other albuminous food. Then the large vacuole, with its deeply stained red contents, is seen to become excessively contracted and at the same time divided into numerous smaller ones. A great space Is produced between the ecto- plast and the tonoplasts— a space which Is probably used for the rapid transportation of large quantities of albumen. Freed from the greater vacuoles, the currents of the flowing protoplasm become more easily visible and small vacuoles of different forms and sizes adhere to them like drops of a red liquor and are clearly moved along them. Here the con- ception of semi-solid pushing tracks sticking to the ecto- plast at once suggests itself; it affords a simple and easy explanation of all these most curious phenomena which make the study of these tentacles a very attractive one. Semi-solid tracks of the kind described seem to play a large part in the differentiation of cells, and especially in the production of their ultimate form and of the structure of their walls. This principle is most beautifully illustrated by the description, given by Dippel, of the evolution of the spiral threads in the elaters of the liverworts. He studied especially the cases of Marchantia polymorpha and Fega- tella conica. These elaters are long and narrow cells with a double spiral which suddenly extends on the opening of the fruit, and thereby flings out the numerous spores lying be- tween them. In the young fruits the elaters are still small, filled with protoplasm, and with a smooth cell wall. Numer- ous vacuoles are seen within the granular substance. Gradu- ally these arrange themselves along the ectoplast, taking definite positions and leaving between them tracks of the granular protoplasm which combine together to constitute [6093 THE RICE INSTITUTE a double spiral band. Soon after, this band becomes the prototype of the ultimate spiral of the elater, exactly indi- cating the line along which this latter will be produced. But it still consists only of protoplasm. This is easily seen when the contents are isolated from the cell-wall by means of plas- molytic contraction; for the inside of the wall is still wholly smooth, without the least indication of a spiral structure. Then the deposition of cellulose begins along the outside of the tracks, while the currents of the fluid plasm follow these on their inside. In this way the final spiral is laid down against the wall, and after this is completed the proto- plasm will be disorganized and ultimately disappear. Thus the structure of the wall may be considered simply as a copy of the corresponding structure of the protoplast. Analogous phenomena have been observed in the evolution of the net- coverings of the inside of many vessels, and in other cases. This intimate connection of the ectoplast and its conduct- ing tracks of flowing plasm with the differentiation of the cell-wall leads us to consider this organ also as a living part of the whole protoplast. Unfortunately it is almost always so very thin that no definite structure can be seen, but in the rare cases of greater thickness such a structure be- comes evident and is well known. The best instances are the Myxomycetes, where Strasburger and others have studied it, and the swarm-spores of some algse, where a connection of the structure of the ectoplast with the bases of the ciHa may be observed. The question of the semi-permeability of the ectoplasm is not directly connected with that of its living condition. The task of regulating the diffusion of soluble substances into the protoplast, and from this outward, need not necessarily be confided to the whole ectoplasm, since an extremely thin outer layer would be quite sufficient for it. We may even 1:6103 BOOK OF THE OPENING suppose the ectoplast clothed with a kind of precipitation membrane, but it is an open question whether such a supposi- tion would suffice to explain the phenomena of permeability. I can only allude to Overton's theory, which assumes the outer layer of the ectoplast to be impregnated by a mixture of cholesterin, lecithin, and allied substances, and the pro- cesses of permeation to be regulated by the solubility of the different substances in this mixture. The facts given by Kuster and others agree in the main with this idea, but show deviations in detail which, however, may be due to a lack of sufficient knowledge of all the chemical compounds which really constitute the cholesterin-lecithin layer. A chief function of the ectoplast is the lengthening of the cell wall during the period of growth. The stretching force, of course, is given by the osmotic pressure or turgor of the cell sap, but it is the cell wall that regulates the extension in so far as it makes some parts extensible and others not. This problem has been m.ost thoroughly studied by Errera in the case of a mold, Phycomyces nitens. Here it is clear that in the same cell the young growing parts are extensible, while the older ones are not. Extensibility depends mainly upon the presence of colloidal pectinous substances in the cell-wall, and may be increased locally and temporarily by the changing of these into soluble compounds. This inver- sion is ascribed to the intervention of enzymes, which, in their turn, must be exuded in distinct places and at the proper times by the ectoplast, thereby indicating a differ- entiation of this organ which may be considered as wholly analogous to that described in the example of the elaters of liverworts. I must now return to a consideration of the tonoplasts or walls of the vacuoles. As already pictured, these also must be considered as living parts of the cell, as organs whose ( THE RICE INSTITUTE main function is the accumulation of soluble matter in the cell sap, partly as food material and partly as the source of osmotic pressure. These tonoplasts may be clothed on their inner side, towards the cell sap, by a semi-permeable layer analogous to that on the outside of the ectoplast; but facts which would allow of a discussion of this hypothesis are for the present hardly available. The function of the tonoplasts is a double one. One re- lates to the exosmosis, the other to the endosmosis, of the constituents of the cell sap. In regard to the first process, they behave, so far as we now know, according to the laws governing diffusion through semi-permeable walls. These processes seem to be wholly of a physico-chemical nature. Far different from this is their behavior as affecting endos- mosis. In this case the soluble substances are taken from dilute solutions and heaped up, the concentration steadily increasing until it exceeds that of the surrounding fluids suf- ficiently to conquer the resistance of the cell wall and extend it. The source of osmotic force thus really lies in the vital activity of the tonoplasts which produce the required con- centration; the solution within the vacuole is only the means of transferring this force upon the processes of turgidity. Pulsating vacuoles, especially those of Euglena, are per- haps the most demonstrative instances of the living condi- tion of the tonoplasts, and numerous authors have thor- oughly studied their movements. The life-history of these tonoplasts has gained a new and most attractive chapter by the discovery, made recently by Stomps, of the part they take in the mechanism of nuclear division. Until a short time ago, the most fantastic views concerning this mechanism prevailed, but Stomps has shown that almost the whole process may be easily explained by [6123 BOOK OF THE OPENING simply assuming that the same properties and forces are at work in the nuclei that we know to be active in the tono- plasts. At the time when division is almost terminated and the daughter-nuclei pass over into the resting condition, the chromosomes themselves are changed into a reticular condi- tion. This change is prefaced by the appearance of small vacuoles within them. They may be seen lying in a longi- tudinal line in the midst of the chromosome. In increasing, they push the chromatic substances asunder until they are reduced to knots and points in the angles between the vacu- oles, thus producing the foamy or reticular condition. Every single chromosome is thus changed into a net, and the whole nucleus is only the combination of the sundry nets, the net being nothing else than the optical section of the foam. The outer parts of the outer layer of all these small vacuoles sur- round the mass of chromatic substances and are continuous. By their confluence the membrane of the nucleus, the origin of which was hitherto wholly unknown, is produced; it dis- appears when the vacuoles afterward contract and resume their central position. i\LMOST all of the points reviewed in this lecture are thor- oughly in need of renewed investigation. Many conclusions rest on too small a number of well observed facts. Quite a large number of phenomena, until this time studied in only a few plants, may be taken up in other species, thus giving the expectation that new sides of the problems will come into consideration. Points which it is difficult to elucidate for some forms may easily yield to examination in others. All such work should, however, be guided by broad considera- tions, starting from the principle that the main task of living protoplasm is to change one form of energy into another. The initial forces should in every case be compared with 1:613:] THE RICE INSTITUTE the resulting ones, and the mechanism by which the changes are produced should be clearly explained. This mechanism is governed by the hereditary characters of the species in question, and, from this point of view, will escape our analy- sis for a long time to come. But, apart from this highest of all problems, so much remains to be done, that the study of the cytoplasm outside of the nucleus well deserves to claim the interest of a great number of investigators. n^H] BOOK OF THE OPENING Fourth Lecture THE IDEALS OF AN EXPERIMENT GARDEN i THE future of the human race depends, in a large mea- sure, on the improvement of our food-stuffs. Our present crops do not produce what they might if better cared for, nor what they will obviously be required to do a relatively short time hence. The population of the whole world is rapidly increasing— far more rapidly than the production of even the first material necessities of life. Ten years ago Sir William Crookes pointed out that the pro- duction of wheat, although regularly increasing, gradually falls back when compared with the fast-growing demand of the continually augmenting population of the earth. After half a century, perhaps earlier, it will not be possible to supply the necessary food with our present agricultural plants and our now prevailing methods of culture. Life will become difficult, the struggle for life will become more and more intense. Of late, Herbert J. Webber, in a strongly convincing arti- cle, has emphasized the same argument. Although there is no immediate concern, since the world will comfortably sup- port a much larger population, the future of our race is in obvious danger from the wasteful methods now employed in the utilization of the world's resources. Forests and mineral deposits are slowly disappearing. The easily avail- able coal-beds are almost exhausted; more coal will have to be sought for at far greater depths, or perhaps under the bottom of the ocean. All sources of supply are rapidly diminishing. Of all these, the main ones are our agricul- ^A popular lecture, illustrated with many lantern slides, delivered under the auspices of the Rice Institute, at the Majestic Theater, Houston, as a part of the programme of the opening festival. 1:6^5] THE RICE INSTITUTE tural plants, and these, fortunately, are capable of a high degree of improvement which may enable them to answer to the increasing demands for a very long time. In the United States one half of the soil is now being cul- tivated, and only half of this is really improved land. It is true that the aridity of the other parts and the difficulty of irrigation are the main causes of this condition; but if we could produce a sufficient number of varieties that would yield paying crops in the arid regions, a most desirable prog- ress would be secured. Considerations of this kind are going far to place the im- provement of agricultural plants in the foreground of public interest. The aims and methods of this improvement are, however, twofold. The first necessity is to make better yielding or more resistant or specially adapted races out of our present crops, and to increase their production by this means, year by year. This is the task of the agricultural experiment stations, and good work is being done on a large scale in this line all over the cultivated world. This plant improvement is based on two generally recog- nized principles. One is the selection of elementary species, and the other is hybridizing. All of the great crops, such as corn, cotton, tobacco, wheat, rice, and almost all others, consist of impure races, of mixtures of better and minor varieties, of sharply distinguishable forms, some of which are far more promising than others as to yield, degree of resistance, adaptation to different soils and climates, etc. Selection consists in the choice and isolation of such types, in the estimation of their worth under given conditions, and in the multiplying of their seed in order to produce new and valuable commercial races. The elementary forms are very numerous in almost all of the old races, often coming up to a hundred and more. c:6i6] BOOK OF THE OPENING But it is obvious that their number is limited, and that as soon as all of the best ones have been isolated, this source of improvement must become exhausted. Exactly the same thing is the case with hybridizing. It consists in the combination of the valuable characters of dif- ferent varieties and species into one and the same plant. If properly conducted, constant commercial races may be de- riv^ed from such crosses, and some of our best wheats, many kinds of grapes, and a large number of other agricultural plants owe their origin to the application of this principle. But it is evident that here also, some day, a limit must be reached. It may last fifty years, perhaps a century or more, but in the end all or almost all of the valuable hybrids which can be made will have been produced. Nothing really new Is acquired: it is only new combinations of given quali- ties, and to such work there must always come an end. Resuming this discussion, we may say that selection and hybridizing, which are our present means of improving ag- ricultural plants, are both, from their very nature, limited methods. They find their ultimate barrier in the giv^en qualities of the existing races : on the one hand, in the limited number of useful types In their mixtures; on the other, in the limited number of possible combinations of the now existing qualities In allied forms. Or, In one word, they are both based on the principle of exhausting the present possibilities. What are our descendants to do when the end has been reached? The demands of the population will in all proba- bility go on Increasing rapidly, and the agriculturist will find It Impossible to keep pace with them. No doubt most of you will answer that the present work of Improvement may last for one or two centuries, or even more, and that there- fore the question is of no immediate concern. 1:617] h THE RICE INSTITUTE Doubtless this is true so far as practice goes. Practice may leave this side of the problem to science, but the duty of science is to foresee the coming necessities and to develop its methods in such a way as to be able to provide the means of answering them as soon as they are felt in practical life. Opposed to the necessities of the present time, which only ask for the exhausting of present possibilities, science has to provide the means of answering to the future necessities of mankind, or, shortly, to prepare future possibilities. Here we must direct our eyes to the instruction which nature is giving us. Plants and animals have not always been the same on this earth. From the lowest forms they have gradually developed to their present high condition. We must try to learn to imitate the work of nature on this line of improvement. It is definitely without limits. It has proceeded without interruption through millions of years, and has not yet come to rest. We must study the laws of this great process in order to find the means of guiding it in the directions which will answer the future demands of humanity. By doing so we may discover how to produce still more useful races when selection and hybridizing shall have been exhausted. Such are, to my mind, the high ideals of a scientific experi- ment garden; and it is among the duties of our universities and scientific institutes to erect and maintain such gardens for the enlargement of our present field of knowledge and the future benefit of practical agriculture and industry. In producing new forms, nature proceeds by small leaps and bounds, or mutations, as they are now usually called. Many of these, of course, are required in order to pro- duce something strikingly new; but a few, and even often only one of them, may be sufllcient to secure an appreciable amelioration in our agricultural crops. Therefore we wish [6183 BOOK OF THE OPENING to know, in the first place, how these leaps and bounds are being produced, and, in the second instance, how we may govern and guide them. Thus the first aim of the work is only to repeat these mutations. Such a repetition will unveil to us the laws of the process and be our guide in all future work. This first step has now been made, although provisionally only and in a small number of cases. But in all such lines of work the beginning is the most difficult step, and so we may confidently hope that other steps will follow, and that the end may be reached before the time when practical life will urgently ask for new methods of producing the necessary supply of food- stuffs. For about twenty-five years these ideals have guided the work in the experimental garden of the University of Am- sterdam. I shall now try to show you, by means of lantern slides, first, the arrangement of this garden and its different tools for the work; secondly, those plants in which I have succeeded in repeating such mutations as they themselves, or their nearest allies, are known to produce in nature; thirdly, some others which are among the next to be tried in this respect; and, in the last place, a group of plants which pro- duce mutations every year and in a relatively large number, thereby supplying us with most desirable material for con- tinued study in this most interesting field of scientific inquiry. Hugo de Vries. n6i93 I PHILOSOPHICAL LANDMARKS BEING A SURVEY OF THE RECENT GAINS AND THE PRESENT PROBLEMS OF REFLECTIVE THOUGHT! First Lecture WHEN John Milton wrote the ''Areopagitica" and predicted the future greatness of the English people, that people had staked Its life upon Its liberty, and was In danger of losing It. It was In the midst of the unspeakable disasters of civil war. During the centuries which have suc- ceeded Milton's day the English nation has never ceased to struggle against obstructions without and obstacles within. It Is a nation tried to Its uttermost. But, on the whole, and to an extent which Is rare In human affairs, Its history has veri- fied the vision of the poet. Its prosperity In all matters of lasting worth has been very great. It has borne well the weight of Its responsibilities, and. In spite of Imperfections, It has so fulfilled Its mission to mankind that though Eng- land, like Israel, Greece, and Rome, were now to perish. It would, like them, remain for the human race a precious pos- session forever. It may be profitable for you, whose nationality has also ''been welded not In peace but In the storm of battle," to In- quire what was the ground of the poet's assured confidence In his country. What evidence lay there and then before him which would justify his trust In the destiny of his peo- ple? In Its circumstances there was none, for these were 1 Three lectures presented at the inauguration of the Rice Institute, by Sir Henry Jones, Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Glas- gow, and Hibbert Lecturer on Metaphysics at Manchester College, Oxford. n62o3 /^ y^ Z^;^ ^ ^^ /m^ BOOK OF THE OPENING untoward to the last degree. It had neither wealth of ma- terial resources, nor greatness of population, nor weight of armaments, nor vast extent of territory. It was a small and a poor people, without great traditions or high rank among the nations, and inhabiting a portion of a little island. Yet, with rarely paralleled political pride, Milton called upon ''the Lords and Commons of England to consider what Nation it was whereof they were, and whereof they were governors," so that they might match the greatness of their trust. In doing so, he referred solely to the intrinsic character of the people, and indeed to one element therein. He found them "a nation pliant and prone to knowledge." They "prized the liberty to know^ to utter and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties." It was only on this ground that the nation seemed to the poet to be "like an eagle renewing her mighty youth." In his sight she was first among the nations of his time, because she was first in her love of truth; therefore was "she destined to be great and honourable in these later ages." From one point of view we may say that there was noth- ing new in Milton's attitude. The truth to which he gave such stately expression is, in fact, a truism. It is as old as man's first reflection upon his own destiny. Homer teaches it when he makes the Greeks advance to battle in ordered and silent ranks, under wise commanders inspired by Athena, while the Trojans stream out in a confused and shouting mob, driven forward by Ares, the god who is the embodi- ment of animal ferocity and passion. This is the conviction of the wise in "all generations" : that if there be any law in human affairs or any continuity in their confused history, it is that which dwells in man's own soul and secures the victory of the ordering intelligence and the disciplined will over the blind forces that operate in his world. THE RICE INSTITUTE But from another point of view the attitude of Milton may be called unique and even surprising. Stern moralist as he was, and a spirit which was devoted to the service of the Highest, we should have expected him to dwell first upon the ethical or the religious conditions of a nation's welfare. But it is its "proneness and pliancy to know^ledge," and the store it set upon the liberty to know, to which he assigns the high- est value and the first importance. Had he lived in our day, we should have reduced the sig- nificance of his mission and called him an "intellectualist"; for w& are prone to prize faith in some domains, and practice in others, above knowledge, and to regard ''truth" as mere means to a further good. I believe, however, that Milton spoke well and wisely. "The liberty to know" is in fact greater than all other liberties; for it is their condition. Man cannot enter into his inheritance, whether that inheri- tance be natural or spiritual, except through this door. As the beauty of the natural scene is there only to the seeing eye, so the utilities of Nature's forces and the treasury of her resources are open only to him who can comprehend them; and the obligations which are also the opportunities of man's moral achievement exist only for him who adopts them as the convictions of his own mind and the purposes of his own will. Efficient practice, whether on the minutest or on the widest scale, rests upon clear and relevant knowledge. It Is as necessary to the artisan in handling his tools as it is to a statesman guiding the affairs of a nation. The fact which is not comprehended is an outer necessity which limits man's freedom, frustrating his intelligence and obstructing his will. The discoveries and inventions of modern science In all their wide range, and man's whole progress in civilization, bear witness to this truth: it is the intelligence of man which alone [622] BOOK OF THE OPENING can emancipate him. His charter of freedom is inscribed in her own soul. Now it is the main characteristic of our time that It has, at least in one great department, laid this lesson well to heart. We consider no labor too severe or continued, no equipment too costly, which promises, by means of the natural sciences, to secure more Intimate communion between the reason of man and the reason which is embedded In the physical order. It Is only in this way that we can bring its powers to our will. We have learned that the iron-hearted mechanism of nature, which were It not for man's rational endowment would en- tangle him in its vast scheme, can by means of his under- standing of it be changed into the rich possession of his mind and the instrument of his will. Its unchangeable and in- exorable laws, seized by way of their meaning, are made to minister to his purposes and to express his spontaneity. By means of knowledge man stands a sovereign among the natural powers, and he is free, not in their despite, but by their help, for they enlarge the scope of his effective will. This, indeed, is the ultimate and by far the most significant consequence of man's intelligent converse with the outer world, the greatest of all the gifts of the natural sciences to mankind. But it is not that which has attracted our atten- tion. As a rule, we trace the influence of the theoretical dis- coveries of science no further than the practical inventions in which they result; and if we discern, we do not reflectively consider, the manner In which they recoil upon man himself. The achievement upon which in this age we justly pride our- selves Is the Interpretation of Nature's laws, and our conse- quent sway over her energies. We seek little more, and we look no further, as a rule. We forget that It is the indirect, the remote, the unexpected and unsought consequences of man's actions which mean most. It is a law of his life, and a 1:6233 THE RICE INSTITUTE symbol of the generosity of the scheme within which he lives, that he always builds more wisely than he knows. He is guided unconsciously as by an architectonic mind, which comprehends him and his environment, and whose purposes he cannot guess until he beholds them accomplished. It is my purpose to call your attention to this aspect of the scientific enterprise which you are so auspiciously inaugurat- ing here to-day. I would fain indicate the manner in which the natural sciences, for which you are making your most generous provision, must not only extend your mastery over the outer world, but reverberate within your inner selves, en- riching and enlarging the powers of your rational nature. When man's thought sets free the forces of the open world, these take up his deeds and carry them forward to issues which he cannot clearly foresee, and yet which he dare not leave unconsidered. For these also yield their best gifts only to the spirit which can at once obey and control them; and neither the obedience nor the control is possible except in the measure in which they are comprehended. This consequence is seen to follow the moment we discern what takes place when man acquires knowledge of any obiect. It is that the nature of mind is itself exhibited in the process. He cannot enter into closer communion with the natural world by means of the sciences without at the same time both manifesting and realizing the powers of his own soul. Mind, like every other form of energ>% natural and spiritual, shows what it is in what it does. It exhibits itself in its operations. It is by matching his intellectual power against the world and forcing its obdurate facts to yield their meaning that he reveals the splendor of his rational endow- ment. Could we have known the potencies which slumber within him, if we could have known his mind and his ways of life when the phenomena of nature, instead of being open to [624] BOOK OF THE OPENING his thought and subservient to his will, were nothing more than objects of fear and wonder? Or is it not true, rather, that the process by which he has gradually withdrawn the veil from the face of nature and brought to light order among its contingencies, is the same in its other and great aspect as the process of the self-revelation of his own spirit? For knowledge comes neither from mind nor from its object, but from both. It is neither a posteriori nor a priori, be- cause it is both the one and the other, and that always. Truth is neither unveiled by man, nor is it given to him ready-made. It is, In every Item of it, the result of the inter- action of mind and its object. Light springs from the Impact of spirit and nature. Nay, as we shall see more fully here- after, these imply each other, they are elements in one scheme, opposed but complementary aspects of the one real- ity. And it is only In their unity that they have significance, value, or use. I do not anticipate any contradiction when I say that the greatest and by far the most significant of all the conse- quences of man's triumphant progress In his comprehension of the physical cosmos is the light which that process has thrown upon man himself. But its full meaning can be seen only when we consider another and a still remoter conse- quence. Man's more Intimate communion with nature by means of natural science has brought him into closer com- munion with his fellows. Seeking no such end, the sciences have made men, throughout the civilized world, members of one another. They have broken down man's isolation, re- futed his egoism even when it leaves him selfish, made him independent whether they will or no, welded their interests together, and constituted them Into organs of a vast whole to which they give and from which they borrow all the elements of their larger life. Within It they find their In- [625] THE RICE INSTITUTE dividual functions; and, seeking their own ends, they never- theless constitute a vast, complex, and single whole whose elements collaborate even when they conflict, and whose power for all human purposes no man can measure. The first revelation of the potencies which slumbered in man's spirit was made when the reason within him succeeded in holding rational communion with the reason that is em- bedded in the physical cosmos. But this second revelation is greater. We can see his powers in the fullness of their might when he is thus united in one scheme with his fellows, and spirit communes face to face with spirit. Then is the range of his personality in truth extended, and the reach of his mind and will. The blacksmith at his forge, like the thinker in his study, is seen to serve and to be served by the interchanging enterprises of the general mind of his times. For it is no flight of rhetoric, but the simple truth, to say that our Interests now are cosmopolitan. This is Illustrated In the common ways of our daily life: In the food we eat, the clothes we wear, and the tools we use. The same change which has passed over the face of nature has passed over the spirit of man. Science is translating facts into instances of universal laws. It is tearing facts out of their seeming isola- tion. It Is revealing them as temporary resting-places of unresting energies, momentary combinations of forces which have come from the beginning of things and are moving on- ward on an endless way. Nature is no longer an aggregate of disconnected facts, or the scene of contingent happenings. It is the realm of concrete universal laws. These have not supplanted the facts, it is true, nor arrested the happenings; but they have illumined them, showing that they are the mere foci of the world's unresting energies. But the universal in nature is at once the offspring and the parent of the universal In man ; so that he too, by the indirect [626] BOOK OF THE OPENING influence of the sciences, Is being reinterpreted and regen- erated. Man remains, It is true, and must remain, a unique personality. To the end he will maintain his subjective in- tegrity and inviolable privacy; he will look upon the wide world through his own most Individual thought, and act upon it from the secret depths of his own most exclusive will. But the thought and the will which are his own and exclusive are capable of a wide comprehension. He is also being revealed as an individuated organ of a vast whole. He is the intense because the self-conscious focus of the meaning and the use of the world. He is a pulse-throb of a universal mind which sustains the natural order, and operates in him, through him, by him, and, I believe, for him. And this discovery, it seems to me, is the crowning achievement of the modern age. Its interest in the meaning of the outer world, and the conse- quent conversion of its forces Into man's ministrants, have, without man's knowledge or purposed seeking, begun the in- tegration of humanity, and set It forth on an adventure more generous In Its promise than he can compass by his freest thoughts. Now it has seemed to me that if a votary of philosophy has any mission among you to-day, it is to Invite your atten- tion for a little to this vaster and remoter realm of the con- sequences of devoting your thoughts In this institution to the discovery of nature's secrets. For every truth attained breaks out Into a new problem demanding a new solution; every practical achievement brings Into It a new task; and every goal of spirit Is a point of departure on new adven- tures. And It is the peculiar task of philosophy to suggest to the minds of men the regions not yet conquered and the Inheritance not yet gained and secured. The main outlines of our next adventure are becoming obvious. It is to comprehend the laws according to which [6273 THE RICE INSTITUTE this new world of the interconnected wills of men must oper- ate. The demand for knowledge— for knowledge that is systematic, tried, and secure— of this world of man is al- ready felt to be urgent in some directions. I presume that there is no maker or seller of material things among you who does not know that if he is to secure his own economical w^ell-being, he must know something of the world's mind and be able to interpret and anticipate its wants. This problem is infinitely more complex, and the risks of error are incal- culably greater than they were when human society consisted of small, isolated, simple, self-centered and self-supporting units. His success or his failure in his business enterprises comes upon him from the ends of the w^orld, and he must widen the range of his purposes. But what applies to the economic phase of our modern life applies in like manner to all its elements. Control can come only by the way of comprehension, and forces which we do not understand are inexhaustible sources of risks and sur- prises. And who comprehends the social forces of these times? All the civilized nations of the world exhibit the same phenomena. We have emancipated the people; we have awakened their sense of their rights; we have multi- plied their wants and extended the range of their desires; and, in one word, we have ushered in what we can hardly do more than name and fear— namely. Democracy. It is a thing which is to be its own law ; it is to walk in the light of its own convictions; it is to map out the lines of its own welfare; it is to repudiate every authority, political, moral, or religious, which wears a despotic face; it must issue its own impera- tives, and every appeal is to itself alone. The greatest discovery ever made by man was made by the Greeks when, cutting themselves free from the traditions of the ancient world, they alighted upon the conception of a [628] BOOK OF THE OPENING civil state where citizens should be free. The most momen- tous experiment of mankind is that of carrying out their con- ception to its ultimate consequence in a true democracy. But that experiment, conducted among the elemental powers of man's world and involving all the major issues of his wel- fare, is carried on in the bewildering twilight of mere opin- ion. First, appearances are taken for facts; there is little inquiry, and there is less logic or method. The democracies of the world, guided by no prophetic seer and possessing little light of their own, are stumbling along an untried and unknown way to an unimagined goal. They are convinced of their illusions only by suffering their consequences, and they discover the truth only by exhausting the possibilities of error. It is a costly method and an insecure one. Universal unrest verging constantly toward conflict characterizes all their ways. I do not think that we can trust this method much longer. The need for self-comprehension is becoming urgent. The risks of ignoring the problems of the general life of man are growing greater as the democracies wax in magnitude and strength, assert themselves with less and less reserve, and are less and less patient of restraint. And, moreover, a fun- damental discrepancy has arisen between the inner or self- conscious life of recent times and its outward circumstances. Man's knowledge and control of himself have fallen out of step with his knowledge and control of his physical environ- ment. In the case of the latter the boundaries of the nations are overleapt and the exclusiveness of their individualism is multiplied. Scientific know^ledge and inventions and the vast economic resources which issue from them are objects of cos- mopolitan interchange. But our ethical temperament has received no such enlargement or emancipation, and is still narrow and class-tainted and parochial. And this dis- [629] :\ THE RICE INSTITUTE crepancy will bring its penalties. Have you ever known any Instance of incongruence between the Inner and outer con- ditions of a nation's life which has not been fraught with peril? It is this cause which divides a nation against itself and constrains it to have recourse to the violent remedy of revolution. A reinterpreted world is a reconstructed world. It propounds new problems for man. And they are like the riddles of the Sphinx: they must be answered on pain of death; they have no answer except Man himself. Surveying the modern situation as a whole, what is it, then, that we see ? It is the vast extent of the domain which the physical sciences have conquered within so brief a period of the history of the human race that it seems but the hour of the dawn; the great army of explorers in every civilized land, equipped with every instrument which can aid their search, who are year by year and almost day by day pressing its boundaries further; the growing marvel of the practical In- ventions which follow hard upon the theoretic discoveries; the utilities, latent from the beginning of time In the struc- ture of the physical world, which these inventions are setting free ; and, on the other hand, the inexhaustible variety and unconfined range of man's wants and desires which all these things have called Into existence, and which are clamorous for satisfaction; the complex, restless, tumultuous, and yet un- ruled world of Industry and commerce which has been welded together and is designed to meet these wants; the consequent integration of mankind into organized communities; the rise of the great order of national, political states which arc themselves but organs of a still wider humanity, all of them from time to time disturbed and occasionally well-nigh dis- traught by the economic and social collisions of their ele- ments. Such are the results which we must attribute mainly to the devotion and the triumphant progress of modern [630] BOOK OF THE OPENING science. Guided and inspired by them, the multitudinous ac- tivities of Individual minds and wills, each of them perma- nently set upon its own personal ends, have put together a vast social structure with almost as httle conscious purpose as that which guides the coral insects building their reefs amid the ocean's waves. That structure has Its own laws of being and ways of operating, and these are as remorseless as the laws of the physical cosmos. But I believe that they are as beneficent, too, provided they are understood. How, then, can we doubt that man must fit himself for this new world which he has called Into being, or that In order to do so he must go forth on a new adventure? It Is not only that of comprehending the physical world and employing its energies, but of comprehending the master-power which Is the cause of the great change. Side by side with the sciences of Nature, the sciences of man must arise. Man must come back to himself, contemplating the mystery of his own spirit, for In it is the key of the final enigma of the world. But this Is the specific venture of Philosophy, and Philos- ophy has fallen into disrepute. So scanty has been the har- vest of her long toil, as compared with that which the natural sciences have brought triumphantly home, that the general mind of the modern age would turn away from her. Phi- losophy, the mother of all the sciences, has now to plead, and even at times to plead In vain, for permission to erect a hum- ble lodge among the mansions of her daughters. We would prize her gifts beyond all others, could she but bring them within our reach. But we despair of her powers. Even the incomplete, tentative, errant, but slowly progressive Inter- pretation which man alone can give of any object, seems to be impossible for us when our problem Is Man. An obstacle lies across the very threshold of this, the most urgent as well [630 THE RICE INSTITUTE as the greatest of man's spiritual enterprises: it is his diffi- dence when face to face with the mystery of his own being. And, in truth, the mystery is very great. Even his physical structure is revealed by science to be the consummation and the most complex epitome of the cosmic scheme, and all its problems converge in him. And his soul, his mind, his spirit is the self-conscious counterpart of all his world. He is its expression, in him brute force emerges into meaning, and its reality takes upon itself the form of truth. The complexity of the problem is infinite, and the consciousness of Its magni- tude paralyzes the Inquiry of philosophy. Moreover, when we are dealing with spirit and Its mani- festations in any one of the arts or sciences, or In the most complex social world in which all these are sustained, the method which has been so successful In the Investigation of the facts of the outer world cannot be employed, except at the greatest risk and under constant correction. The natural sciences can, without much violence to their object, distin- guish and even isolate its aspects and deal with them sepa- rately. But when we leave the physical sphere, where relations are relatively external and contingent, and ascend stage by stage along the internal relations of organic life to the Intense unity of self-consciousness, In which all differences are at once sustained and overcome, abstraction becomes more and more misleading. There every element depends for its being, function, and meaning upon the whole system of which It Is a part. The problem of the whole comes upon us everywhere, and it seems impossible to attain any truth without grasping It in its totality. It follows that philosophy has no more right to be abstract than a work of art, or to be fragmentary than re- ligious faith. Even the pragmatlst, whose main mission seems to be to maintain that the world is, at least in part, the [6321 BOOK OF THE OPENING playground of contingencies, must make the apparently pre- posterous claim of pronouncing upon its final nature and grasping it as a whole. He also is "a spectator of all time and all existence," and its condemning judge. And it follows that even as an outline the philosopher's version of the universe of reality must fail, and fail In every way. Its principles are mere hypotheses, and nothing is fully demonstrated. The application of the hypotheses to facts is incomplete on every side; they retain their secrets, remain enigmatic, and they seem to conflict with one another and with the system as a whole. And the failure of philos- ophy, w^hlch we might well prognosticate from the magnitude of its task, seems to be more than indorsed by Its troubled and apparently futile history. We are driven to think that the enterprise exceeds our powers, that there is no resource In reason, and that the philosopher must take his seat among humble men, and say, like them, / stretch lame hands of faith and grope ^ And gather dust and chaff, and call To what I feel is Lord of all, And faintly trust the larger hope. And man cannot set aside the enigma. He must persist In the attempt. But the question arises, Why do men persist in the attempt? And the wisest of men, why do they not turn aside from the vast inquiry and "cultivate their gardens"? Can it be that it is impossible for them to do so w^ithout violating their own rational nature? Is there some necessity either In man himself, or in the nature of things, or in both, which he cannot escape, but which constrains him to confront the mystery? Can he not take refuge in his own limitations? What reflective man is ignorant of the answer? 1:6333 THE RICE INSTITUTE Just when ive are safest, there 's a sunset-touch, A fancy from a flower-hell, some one's death, A chorus-ending from Euripides,— And that 's enough for fifty hopes and fears, As old and new at once as Nature's self. To rap and knock and enter in our soul. Take hands and dance there, a fantastic ring. Round the ancient idol, on his base again,— The grand Perhaps! This fact, sustained by the experience of mankind always and in all ages when it is at its best, sustained by its despair no less than by its hopes, by its agnosticism and skepticism no less than by its faith, leads us to look again at the adven- ture of philosophy and its assumed failure. What does it mean? In the first place, it throws a fresh light upon the nature of man. It shows that he cannot escape the sense of his in- finite environment. To shut it out of his mind were to rend his own spirit in twain, for it enters within. The infinite is part of the furniture of his soul. He is like a dweller on a little island in the midst of the open ocean, everywhere within the sound of the thunder of the breakers. If he en- deavors to satisfy himself with a narrow scheme of life, he finds that he is at war both with himself and with the nature of things. He may seek satisfaction, as Carlyle and many others have advised, by lowering his demands and limiting his outlook. His first crude expositions of himself reveal within nothing but animal wants on a large scale, and he may neither see nor desire to find in the world around any- thing except that which promises to stay their hunger.^ But reflection enters if the process of his own rational life Is not arrested within him, and reflection breaks down his com- [6341 BOOK OF THE OPENING placency and dispels the fake show of first appearances. His spirit is launched forth on its endless task. And this is philosophy. It is not the quaint guest of star- struck souls which have forgotten their finitude and are doomed to range along the horizon of existence, peering into the darkness beyond and asking questions of its emptiness. Philosophy is the process whereby man, driven by the neces- sities of his rational nature, corrects the abstractions of his first sense-steeped experience, and endeavors, little by little, to bring to light and power the real— that Is, the spiritual- meaning of his structure and of the world In which he lives. I cannot believe in a destiny so cruel as to condemn man to seek and to return home empty. I even venture to say that the quest is never vain. It Is true that philosophy does not reach its goal. If that goal Is a full and flawless and final scheme. But Is It? Which of the enterprises of the human spirit either has, or ought to have, such a consummation? Not the sciences, not any one of the arts, not any form of man's practical activi- ties. There Is, with regard to every aim which he has sought to attain, the same Incompleteness, Imperfection, and lack of finality, and the same ground for skepticism to seize upon and condemn It. But, In the next place, the skepticism which distrusts phi- losophy Is Itself philosophy, and a philosophy which has not been careful to examine Its own assumptions. Let me In- dicate a few of these as we pass on our way. In the first place, It Is evident that skepticism cannot con- demn except by reference to a standard or criterion, and that standard must Itself be capable of justification, whether through carrying It within Itself or as a means to that which does so. It must itself, in fact, assume an Absolute, and a knowledge of it. That which pretends to be true, even [635] THE RICE INSTITUTE though it be negative, bears within it a reference to a final end, and in its own place and context to embody it. Hence skepticism cannot condemn a conception which it must as- sume and use in its condemnation. In the second place, the criterion set up by skepticism is not valid. Skepticism places a static goal for a nature which is through and through dynamic. It demands that mind should come to rest in a knowledge that is final. But self- consciousness is a process. To arrest its activity is to extin- guish it. It is active no less in possessing than it is m achieving knowledge. For knowledge or goodness to be, is to be in process of being maintained by the active powers of the intelligence and will: in other words, the moment that men cease to think and to will, these cease to exist. They are in process of being continually produced. The whole world of mind, like the physical cosmos, is the scene of the play of energies which never rest. Its existence is its becom. big ■ it continues through continuous regeneration, and is ever new as well as always old. Both beginnings and endings are fictions. Man's mind lives and moves within a self-inclosed system for which to be is to change, and probably also to evolve, radiating forever into new splendors. And for man to live as spirit is to partake in the process. It is in some other world than that of man's experience that the skeptic should seek a reality that is fixed or a perfection that is In the third place, skepticism has not only assumed for mind an end which contradicts its nature, and is on that ac- count alone irrational as well as impossible: it has also mis- construed the process of knowing. It is represented as self- defeating. Instead of revealing the nature of things as they are, it exhibits them only in their relation to man's means of knowing them, or as they are reflected in the medium of his 1:636] BOOK OF THE OPENING consciousness. This is held to distort them; so that In strict- ness man does not know real things, but phenomenal objects. Mind cannot get into actual touch with reality. It is shut up within a world of appearances; consciousness can deal with its own contents and see only the pictures on Its own walls. And, further, every attempt which philosophy has ever made to establish a relation between ideas and facts, or phenomena and real objects, has failed. And Its failure is necessary and Inevitable, for It Is manifestly Impossible for reason to estab- lish any relation between what Is and what cannot be In consciousness. This suspicion of thought, "this disease of subjectivity," has penetrated deeply Into the modern mind, and skepticism has assumed many forms. It Is at times the positivism which affirms necessary ignorance of final causes; It Is at others an agnosticism which endeavors to stop short of both affirmation and negation; It Is at other times an In- tultlonlsm which on occasions and for rare moments comes Into touch with reality In a way that Is Inexplicable and miraculous; It is at other times a dogmatism of either the in- telligence or of the will that Is a resolve to affirm when we cannot know, a pragmatism or a pluralism. In all cases it relegates those things which man most desires to know Into a region which lies beyond the reach of his Intelligence, or It attributes to subconsciousness, or to mere feeling, or to mys- ticism and intuition, what It denies to the use of man's ra- tional faculties. To deal with these skeptical assumptions with any fullness lies beyond my Immediate purpose. But we may observe In passing, what Is obvious, namely, that the skeptic cannot con^ demn all human knowledge without condemning his own. His pronouncement on the nature of mind, the relativity of Its processes, the phenomenal character of Its objects, the L6371 I THE RICE INSTITUTE unknowable nature of reality, must share the fate of all other knowledge. He must choose between denying the validity of all know- ledge and affirming his own, and in both cases alike his con- clusion is self-contradictory. But, in the next place, his attitude is exposed to other ways of refutation than that of a mere argumentiim ad hominem or a tu quoqtie. The skeptic converts the condition which is necessary to knowledge against the possibility of knowledge, as if that which constitutes it could also destroy it. No doubt knowledge is relative; that is to say, it depends upon the nature of mind as well as upon the nature of things. But is its relativity a defect? What would the skeptic have? Is it a mind which has no affinity with the world of objects, or a world which is divorced from, and independent of, the intel- ligence? The relation of things to mind and of mind to things may be an indication of the fundamental character of both. Indeed, there is no attribute of the real so indispu- table as that by which it interacts with mind, and through and by and only during that interaction exhibits and even realizes its fullness of being. Knowledge, or rather knowing — for there is no such ambiguous reahty as "a world of knowledge" supposed to intervene between consciousness and the facts with which it deals— ^5 the interaction of mind and things, and a living intercourse. And that intercourse is direct and immediate even when we form erroneous opin- ions. Error is the pathological activity of undeveloped minds. We borrow the whole contents of our intelligence from the world in which we live, even our illusions, and we can create neither truth nor falsehood out of the emptiness of an isolated and self-closed mind. On the other hand, the world owes to reason alone the evidence of its existence and the expression of its order and meaning. But we recognize [638] BOOK OF THE OPENING neither that which we borrow nor that which we lend, and we speak of parts of our knowledge as a priori and of parts as a posteriori, as if some truths were fabricated by our- selves without the aid of the world, and others were emitted by the world without the use of mind. Knowing is a joint enterprise in which both are involved. There is, perhaps, no phenomenon of modern thought which demands a closer diagnosis than this ''disease of sub- jectivity," which is not only a cause of the distrust of philos- ophy, but which would paralyze the enterprise of reason in all other directions, if in our practice, which is wider than our theories, we did not set it at naught. It seems to me to rest, in the last resort, like all the forms of modern skepticism, upon unjustifiable dualisms. For we have been separating when we ought only to have distinguished, and converting differences into contradictions. And, on the other hand, we have been assuming that to reconcile differences is to remove them, leaving nothing but flat and stale sameness. We have not distinguished between sameness and identity, nor real- ized that identity can— and, I believe, must— express itself in change and maintain itself thereby. The assumptions arise from the fact that we naturally carry over into our philosophical research the conceptions which we have found useful in our physical inquiries, and endeavor to interpret the phenomena of mind in the same way as objects in the outer world. As in space every part excludes every other, and its continuity allows no diversity: thus only, it is presupposed, can the reality of all objects, in- cluding minds, be maintained. They must, we assume, be kept in isolation. Their relations to one another must be treated as contingent addenda : things into which they may enter and out of which they may live again, without any change in their real being. To be real, they exclude one an- 1:6393 4 THE RICE INSTITUTE other. Interpenetration, the being of one object through and by reason of the being of other objects, is held not to consti- tute but to destroy. The finite and the infinite must stand apart. The will of man, if it is to be free-that is, if it is to be a will-must shut out the world. The subject must have only a negative attitude to objects; nature and spirit, mind and matter, must be absolute opposites. When I endeavor to catch a glimpse of the trend of the thought of the present times, and to define, however gen- erally, the problems in which it finds itself entangled and which it must try to solve, I find that it is occupied with some one or other of these dualisms. The tissue of reality has been torn asunder; and if there be any movement which above all others is indicative of the special mission of the times which are coming, and are already at the door, it is that of healing the rent and of finally refuting all notions of the primacy either of the whole over its elements, or of the elements over the whole. We must find room for the free- dom of both mind and the world in knowledge; for both spiritual freedom and natural necessity in our practice; for both God and man in religion; for both individualism and socialism in our politics; for both the one and the many, the universal and the particular, everywhere; and we must view them as interpenetrable; for there is but one reality, and without Its cooperation with its elements nothing exists or happens. [640] BOOK OF THE OPENING Second Lecture WE concluded the last lecture by showing that both in our thoughts and in our actions we first distinguish and then tend to sunder the contents of reality: our thoughts are always to some degree abstract and our practical pur- poses one-sided. Reality, even at its simplest, has more aspects than we can either recognize or use: It takes all the sciences, each of them taking up Its own set of relations, to explain the qualities of a lump of Iron ore; and most. If not all, of our Industries to extract Its uses. All thoughts and all ends are abstract. But, among the conditions under which man lives, we must reckon as one of the most beneficent that he cannot be satis- fied with abstractions. Both his own nature and the nature of things conspire together to secure him against narrowing the Interests of his life. The reflected elements of reality press for recognition; and the elements which are recognized refuse to yield either their truth or their use, except in their context. They even refute themselves: one-sided truths be- come misleading errors, and one-sided purposes refuse to work. They call forth their opposites, and demand to be complemented and corrected by them and harmonized with them. The world resists being shredded Into parts, and persistently maintains its concrete totality. On the other hand, man's own nature also constrains him to move and to cooperate with the trend toward unity. Abstract experience is a mind divided against itself: it can- not stand. Man must either widen his outlook and extend the range of his purposes in response to the call of circum- stance, or else do violence to his own rational nature by be- 1:6411 THE RICE INSTITUTE coming the bondsman of habit and an automaton. And in either case he makes for some kind of completeness— either the completeness which shuts out or that which lays hands upon and utilizes the environment; and the process of ex- perience always changes him. The final effect of the deeds of his intelligence and will does not lie in the truth attained, or in the purpose realized, but in the recoil of these deeds upon himself. He rises from his acts either with hardened habits and strengthened prejudices, or else with a mind en- riched with new ideas and a more effective will. Nor by any means can he return to his past. Strictly speaking, spirit has no past ; for it always incorporates it with the present. Man gathers his experience into himself; carries it along with him, as an element in his mental structure, assimilated by his living personality. He can sometimes unravel his past out of his present by conscious memory directly demonstrating its presence within him ; and even if he cannot give this direct proof of the existence of the past in the present, he gives in- direct evidence of it either in the automatization of his life and the fixity and reiteration of his mental operations, or else in the added skill and compass of his thoughts and pur- poses. This arrestment of the past and its conversion into a living element in the moving life is the mark and marvel of the rational nature of man, distinguishing him above all other things from other beings, as the condition of his prog- ress. Moreover, it is in this way that he maintains his personal identity. For that consists not In any immutable sameness such as we attribute, rightly or wrongly, to material exis- tence. The self-extenuating space, the succession of the contents of time, each supplanting its predecessor, must be overcome and Its flow arrested If personal Identity Is main- tained. And this Is not possible except by the activity of a 1:642] BOOK OF THE OPENING self-consciousness which retains the past by waking it into the present. Even the sameness or permanence of the outer order implies, as Kant has shown, the reintegrating activity of self-consciousness. Reason in man thus becomes ever more concrete, systematizes ever more fully both Its own life-con- tent and its outer world. Its war with abstractions is per- petual : to lay down Its arms Is to yield Its life. It is not a defect of human reason that It must reach the concrete by way of abstractions : It Is Its nature. Error does not consist In merely entertaining abstractions, but in treating the abstractions as representative of the concrete whole of reality. It arises when man endeavors to fix the abstractions, or to employ them as final characterizations of reality. There Is a true sense in which human knowledge may be said to begin with the particular and the simple, and to make its way toward the universal and concrete— to start from "the Many'' and to seek "the One.'' But there is also a true sense in which knowledge may be said to begin with the in- definite "an undistinguished continuum," and to proceed to articulate and define Its contents— to start from "the One" and to seek "the Many." From the first point of view, our experience is at first a sensuous manifold which has to be connected first Into perceptions, then Into conceptions, and finally Into the organic and hyperorganic Ideas of reason. And, pari passu, the object of experience, nature, at first appears to be the scene of disconnected happenings and to be a loose aggregate of unrelated facts, and eventually to ap- pear as a universal cosmos. From the second point of view, our experience is at first a confused mass of sensations press- ing Into us through the pores of sense, and perceptions arise by distinguishing and articulating. And the object of experi- ence, the world, changes Its character In a corresponding way. Now error arises when either of these views is '■(I THE RICE INSTITUTE adopted against the other, or as the whole truth, and made the basis of a philosophical account of the real. And that it is an error is shown by the necessity of correcting the original hypothesis by means of its opposite. For whichever presup- position we assume at the beginning is nothing but a starting- point from which its complementary opposite must be reached. If the pluralist begins with the Many, particulars he must confessedly synthesize and unite; if the absolutist begins with the One, the indefinite whole he must analyze and articulate. Philosophers may differ as to the nature of real- ity, and their doctrines may range between an absolutism or pantheism that engulfs the many and deletes all differences, and a pluralism or monadism. It is true that neither on the side of its difference nor of its unity is human knowledge complete— that is to say, the distinctions which are made are not clear, differences escape our observation; and, on the other hand, the unity in which they are comprised may have both little compass and little significance. But pure differ- ence and pure sameness baffle the intelligence by their mean- inglessness; indeed, neither can be affirmed or denied except in relation to its opposite. Every judgment, every opinion, false or true, wide or narrow Its influence, implies differ- ences within a unity, and is always a system. The assump- tion of pure particularity which the pluralist makes, and of pure unity or sameness which the absolutist makes, is not valid of the object of knowledge at any stage, from the crudest ordinary consciousness to the completest constructive height of the speculative philosopher. The problem of pass- ing either from the Many to the One, or from the One to the Many, Is insoluble; but it Is also a problem that the human mind is not obliged to ask. It is a problem asked neither by the nature of things nor by the nature of reason. It Is as unnecessary and as Insoluble as the problem of proving that [644] BOOK OF THE OPENING 2x2 = 91. And the way to deal with such a problem Is not to ask it. The several philosophies which ask the question are the ordlnes of abstraction, and their error Is revealed whenever the abstractions are faithfully pressed home. They will then be seen not only to call forth, but to pass Into, their opposltes, and thus to refute their own starting-point. A general survey of the reflective thought of the present day will prove, I believe, that It is engaged upon this task; and Its main province lies In the expllcltness of the assump- tions and the rigor with which they are being followed to their conclusions. At no previous time were the advocates of the Many and of the One so frankly opposed or so evenly balanced, nor their contradiction more direct and full. Ex- cept In one or two instances, pluralism exists in order to com- plete absolutism, and means to have no mission except to maintain the existence of contingency and multiplicity, and it must Itself perish In the hour of Its victory. But the plural- Ism which aims at being constructive Is an unusually interest- ing phenomenon, and much more characteristic of the times than the absolutism which it would refute and supplant. As a matter of fact, the absolutism which Is supposed to begin with a bare "universal" or '*One," and to proceed to evolve the varied contents of experience from that "One," employing an a priori method of mere analysis, need not detain us. Such a method may have been employed by the Eleatlcs, and can be attributed, not without justice, to Spi- noza. It is also supposed by critics to be employed by Hegel and his followers. But it does not concern us at present to determine by whom the theory is or has been maintained, nor under what great names it may shelter Itself; for we are not engaged with the history of philosophy. We need not seek to ascertain whether the Absolute of Hegel stood for an empty One, or for the whole of reality as It Is In all its con- [6453 i 'il THE RICE INSTITUTE creteness in itself and for itself. Only the first, as the abstract Absolute, engages the attention of the pluralist and concerns us. But it concerns us only to be dismissed. I admit at once, and without any reservation, that philosophy cannot begin from such an Absolute; that if it could begin, it could find no way from it to the rich complexity of real being; and that the method of mere analysis and a priori deduction can elicit nothing out of its emptiness. No doubt the psychological history of man's mind may give evidence of a process by which the indefinite mass of its original sensuous conscious- ness is distinguished into elements and sights and sounds, and even the Ego and the non-Ego are practically defined and their differences made explicit. But absolutists are held to be guilty of neglect, or even contempt, of psychological evi- dence rather than of converting psychology into a metaphys- ical absolutism, though I should find great difficulty in admitting its existence elsewhere than in the minds of its critics. But it is not so with the opposite theory, which professes to start with ''the Many" and to seek "the One"; which maintains that particulars are given and universals are found; that experience proceeds from discrete sensations to perceptions, and from perceptions to more general concep- tions, and from those to the still wider "ideas of reason"; and that the object of experience, the whole region of or- dered facts, presents itself at first as the scene of separate, individual occurrences, and an aggregate of things real in their independence of one another, each of them isolated, impervious, exclusive, an object of simple apprehension. The pluralists maintain, in so far as they are logically faith- ful to their fundamental hypothesis, that such is the true or final character of reality. If we affirm its unity as a whole, or the harmony of its elements in virtue of any universal 1:6463 BOOK OF THE OPENING principle or law of being, we go beyond our evidence: we even flout the facts. All the objects of man's thought are finite; even God is one among, or, what comes to the same thing, one above and over above, other beings. Real exist- ence implies singularity. A thing, in order to be, must be itself, must carry within it a private core, which is its own true being, and which remains its very self, whatever rela- tions it may enter into or come out of. All realities are particulars, we are told. Nothing exists beside particulars. There is "no tinity'^ or common element, no real or existential universals, which exist or subsist in addition to the particulars. There are no things-in-general, and no events-in-general. Nothing exists which corresponds to such a general conception as "animal" or "tree" or "man" ; but only this or that animal or tree or man. Nor is there any universal substrate which constitutes them into a class. A class is due to our classification: it is an idea, not a thing. We may, and do, find similarity between different objects: but each of them exists in and by itself, and the similarity is an idea which we form by comparing them with one another. Anything that destroys their intrinsic singu- larity or uniqueness destroys them: for them to be is to be each its own unique self. How, then, do we account for law and order? It is sim- ply and purely the outcome of intelligence. Everything that exists is its own law, an active essence, or character, behav- ing in its own particular way. There are, therefore, no repetitions in the realm of the real, any more than there are similarities, and no absolute fixity. Repetition, enumeration, measurement, mathematics are not possible except by ab- straction, and are not true of any real existences. "All our assertions of identity among reals are at bottom nega- tive, amount simply to saying that we discern no difference." But what comes of this view of the universal laws, which 1647 -2 THE RICE INSTITUTE science seeks to establish, and the uniformity of nature which they postulate ? Does not this doctrine "let contingency into the very heart of things"? Must not a perfectly discrete world be in every part of it unintelligible? The consistent pluralist answers these questions in the affirmative. So far as science deals in universals, it does not touch the reality of things. Thought must start from the particular, but it can- not return to it. Thought gives us only the universal, and universals are only hypostasized epistemological entities. Facts and universals, in short, belong to different orders: the former to the world of objective reality, the latter to the objective world of knowledge. Moreover, they do not even correspond. The universals are not true— that is, they indi- cate no existing realities, as perceptions may do. The so- called laws, and the universal and necessary causes of which natural science speaks, correspond to nothing that exists in reality. There are no laws or necessities or uniformities of nature. These are mere results of our own thinking, concep- tions fabricated by our minds through observing, selecting, summarizing and generalizing the multitudinous, particular occurrences which really take place. "In the real world we can nowhere find that exact similarity which the mathema- tician can readily conceive, and the contention is that it no- where exists." "There are never two beings which are perfectly alike, and in which it is not possible to find an internal difference" ; and, a fortiori, no two events or occur- rences or activities can be identical. There is, to our loose and general observation, an apparent repetition of events, of acts in the world, and we speak of "same causes" and "same effects" ; but sameness and uniformity, together with the con- tinuity and necessity which are assumed to spring from them, are mere thoughts. There are no natural laws, nor any real being corresponding to any concepts the physicist can find it C 648:1 "\ BOOK OF THE OPENING convenient to frame regarding the ultimate constituents of matter. Continuity must destroy particularity. Each real thing has its own unique constitution. Pluralism thus does not hesitate "to let contingency into the very heart of things." "I not only admit it," says Dr. Ward, "but contend that any other world would be meaningless." But there is another application of this pluralism to which I must briefly refer. It is its application to the subjects of knowledge. The particularity, uniqueness, and exclusiveness which is the essential character or true being and essence of natural things, is attributed to minds, and to their experi- ences. Every mind exists, and for itself. There is no con- tinuity between or in them, and each is absolutely impervious. Every mind maintains the absolute isolation of its own being. And the same holds of their experiences— or the same would hold if any general affirmation could be true. The presenta- tions of one man cannot become the presentations of an- other. Every mind is the exclusive owner or retainer of its own truths and its own errors. To every self its own world, to every Ego its own non-Ego. Above all else, we must not play fast and loose with the uniqueness and isolation— with the being in itself and for itself— of personality, or of its ex- perience. How, then, can they agree? How can they disagree? How is any communication between them possible? Not by changing places, not in such a way that "the presentations of one could become accessible to the others." "This is just the most impossible thing in the world. Individuality consists precisely in this impossibility." There is no element com- mon to the several experiences. Each monad mirrors its world "from a unique standpoint of its own." Universal truth, in the sense of a truth that is possessed or attainable by all minds, has to go the way of all other universals; and 1:6493 ^1, THE RICE INSTITUTE if general conceptions are still possible, they are possible only in the sense that every mind has its own private stock ot them. There are thus as many experiences as there are per- sons, and as many sciences as there are scientific men-prob- ably more. And they are all interpretations, equally true or equally false-if, indeed, either falsity or truth can appertain to different worlds where every mind has its own object. Pluralism implies solipsism. ''So far as reality consists in particulars, so far it pertains to each experience for itself alone; and so far the solipsist in theory, and the egoist, a solipsist in conduct, are logically unassailable, even though the proper place to put them be, as Schopenhauer said, the madhouse." But we have just seen that on the pluralistic theory reality consists exclusively of particulars. What, then, can be the meaning of introducing the qualifying phrase "so far"? It is necessary in order to escape from solipsism, and, in other words, to enable the several persons to communicate with one another-communication consisting "in establishing relations between these primary realia." There must be a medium for mutual understanding, and by means of it they must arrive at common knowledge. But what can "common knowledge" mean for the plural- ist? Evidently not that the knowledge which L has is also possessed by M and N. They "cannot change places so that the presentations of one become accessible in their actual entirety to the others." "This is just the most impossible thing in the world. Individuality consists precisely In this impossibility." The knowledge of L, M and N may con- ceivably agree, but no part or element of the knowledge of L can be the knowledge of M or N. Each of them^'^'mirrors the universe from a unique standpoint of his own." Every Ego has its own non-Ego. "Thus, when in place of the Ego 1:650:1 BOOK OF THE OPENING L we have M or N, so too in place of the non-Ego non-L we have non-M or non-N." The mutual independence and isolation of the subjects of knowledge thus carries with it the isolation and mutual exclusion of the objects of their know- ledge. All experience, to begin with, is, we are told, "in- dividual." It is the private knowledge of each person, and it is a knowledge of different objects. When ten men look at the sun or moon, "each of these persons sees a different object." How, then, and in what sense do the ten come to know that the actual object of each is the same individual object for all? How can they hold any communication with one another so as to agree, or even disagree? "Except on the basis of individual experience, communication is im- possible," for it is evident that, first of all, each must have something which he wishes to communicate. The difficulty would seem to be Insuperable. It Is overcome, however, by one author in a very simple way. He assumes just the least possible "common know- ledge" ! "The most that L can Indicate or communicate to M of any part of his own experience is so much of it as Is common to the experience of both." We may be sure that the earliest intercourse Is very slight: just simple Indications, a mere pointing to a particular thing as this or that. But once It Is begun, the process goes on successfully. "We point to other particulars resembling It, other shining, moving, round objects, and so, by suggesting Its likeness to these, take the chance that parallel relations or comparisons will be verified by our fellow-men." Criticism of this view seems to me to be superfluous. It Is directly self-contradictory; and the contradiction Is not In the least removed by admitting as little common knowledge to begin with as possible. For "common knowledge" or "com- mon" anything Is just what pluralism denies. THE RICE INSTITUTE Nor does practice come to the help of theory, as we are asked to believe. I do not doubt In the least that "the case of ten hungry men and a loaf would be an Impressive object-les- son" ; and It ought to be specially Impressive to the pluralist. For he would find It difficult to live up to his theory were he one of the ten. To do so, having his own unique experience of his own unique loaf, he should not object to any of the others eating their own unique loaves-supposing, mdeed, he could be aware of their loaves. A pluralism that Is con- sistent is certainly not supported by practical experience, and there Is absolutely no transition possible from Individual experience, such as it is represented by the pluralist, to that experience which Is universal In the sense that different men understand one another and mean the same things by the same things. , , • , i It would be interesting to observe the manner m which the pluralist repeats, In his final philosophical account of reality as a whole, the same contradictory process as he employs m order to enable his theory to start on its way. For we find that the deity Is introduced as a background of unity, or as some kind of substrate, or is even spoken of as "Immanent." It Is admitted, however, that such a conception of the unity of the whole cannot be "empirically verified." "The plural- ist halts at the Many and their interaction; he declines to go further because he finds no warrant for so doing." But if it is objected that the hypothesis of unity Is of no use unless it can be verified, we are reminded that philosophy is not sci- ence. Science must verify empirically. The facts with which science deals "fall within experience, and this is sure, therefore, sooner or later to furnish a crucial test of the validity" (of its hypotheses) . But philosophy cannot justify its Ideas In this way. It employs another method. It jus- tifies its "ideas" by appealing to "experience as a concrete [652] BOOK OF THE OPENING whole"; "and they are justified In proportion as they enable us to conceive this whole as a complete and systematic unity." But, we ask. Is not the conception of the whole as "a complete and systematic unity" precisely what the pluralist cannot have? For, as we are told in the next sentence, "the plural- ist halts at the Many and their Interaction; he declines to go further because he finds no direct warrant for doing so." He gets his indirect warrant by an appeal to theism— that is, by an appeal to that which cannot be included in his theory because it contradicts it. The pluralist, being also a theist, admits a unity for which he has no warrant In experience, and with which the facts which are held to be given in ex- perience, being a "Many," are directly inconsistent. Plural- ism begins and ends with a contradiction. The failure of pluralism in its application to the objects of knowledge is not less evident than it is in its application to the subjects of knowledge. The relation of the former to one another is as unintelligible and impossible as intercom- munication between the latter. In fact, the problem in both cases is the same; for all objects of knowledge turn out to be in the last resort all subjects of knowledge, and all "things" are held to be persons. "The only things of which we have positive knowledge are subjects with intrinsic qualities, things that are something in themselves and something for themselves." The pluralist admits relations between objects, as he ad- mits the intercommunication of subjects and an experience which is universal. But they are not relations between things, in the sense of existing over and above that which they relate. There are not things here and relations there; in other words, there are no existential universals. What, then, are relations? They are the activities of par- ticulars, "the intercourse, the cooperation or conflict, actual n653 3 THE RICE INSTITUTE or possible, of the Individuals themselves." ^'The passion and action of things must take the place of relation. . . . There are no objective relations other than this livmg action and passion." But we know nothing that is active or passive except minds, and nothing else can be for itself. Hence "the only causes of which we have positive knowledge are minds: these have a nature of their own, and hence can interact, determine and be determined." Plurahsm ends m pan- psychism "The attractions and repulsions of which the physicist speaks only metaphorically, are to be taken literally -that is, as implying impulses Initiated and determined by feeling " 'Tor modern plurahsm the universe Is the totality of monads really interacting." The "Many of pluralism constitutes the class of entelechles or persons in the widest sense-beings, that Is to say, who are something for them- selves, conatlve and cognitive Individuals bent on self-conser- vation and seeking the good." 'They are severally related by their mutual Interaction. ... We have not two distinct and separable facts-first, the Many, existing In isolation and then their Interaction." "The universe Is the totality of monads really interacting, and this Is one fact." "The plu- rality Implies the unity, and this unity implies the plurality- a fact which is an Inexhaustible wonder." Now It Is evident that the crucial question for this doctrine Is the posslblhty of the Interaction of the monads, or the cog- nitive and conatlve persons into which all reality. Including so-called material reality, has been resolved. But we have found already that this Is Impossible, and I shall add only one consideration to those I have already advanced. Let It be assumed that the monad or personality A knows and wills, and also that for It to he Is to know and will. Let it be admitted, further, that monads B, C and D do and are the same. It is plain that the action and passion of A are [654] BOOK OF THE OPENING exclusively its own ; so also are the actions of B, C and D. Is It less plain that in that case the relation or interaction of these several experiences, supposing it does result, is no part of the action or passion of any one of them? The assump- tion that the actions and passions do interact, and that they are experienced as interacting, may be quite true: but for the pluralist it must not only be made gratuitously and dog- matically, but in flat contradiction of the fundamental hypothesis of the particularity and exclusive individuality of every item of the "Many." Moreover, I must ask one more question of the pluralist. Can any particle, monad, person or subject either be active or passive purely from within Itself? The pluralist finds his clue to the nature of all reality in his own mind. Has he known his own mind, either mind or will, entirely apart from the universe in which it exists ? Is action or passion /';/ z^acuo possible ? And is not a mind out of all relation to the w^orld, a self which has no not-self, a vacuum and pure fiction? To will, think, or even feel nothing is neither to think nor will nor feel; and a mind without any "content" is a nonentity. On the other hand, if it has a content, that content, for all the purposes of "conation and cognition," is an object and a non-Ego. But an Ego which has its non-Ego or world as its content or object of experience is not the "particular," exclu- sive Ego of the pluralist. It at least implicitly contains its world ! The Ego, instead of being exclusive and particular, turns^ out to be at least potentially all-comprehensive. The individual mind is the subjective expression and the spiritual focus of the universe. It Is a Many In One; and to explain how this can be is the paramount problem of philosophy. It is an old problem, this of the relation of the One and the Many; and I agree entirely with Dr. Ward when he says that "the solution is not to be obtained by passing over the 1:^55:1 THE RICE INSTITUTE Many at the outset, trusting to deduce them afterward from an absolute One that is reached a priori''; and that *'this method has proved itself illusory; the seeming attainment of the One has meant the disappearance of the Many." If, as he avers, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Schopenhauer, and others less distinguished verily held such an "absolutism or singu- larism," — a question which I do not raise at present,— their recent thought does well in recoiling from their doctrines. I can only say that I have not understood them in this and that way. On the other hand, I find that Dr. Ward admits that pluralism has also "failed to reach a satisfactory solution of the problem of the One and the Many'^ he allows "that no philosophy has ever managed to reconcile these two notions of an infinite power and an infinite variety of limited, indi- vidualized expressions of that power." But I would apply to pluralism, mutatis mutandis, precisely what he says of absolutism or singularism. The solution is not to be obtained by passing over the [One] [Many] at the outset, trusting to deduce [it] afterward from the Absolute [Many]. For the Many is not "given." The pure Many is as much an a priori construct as the "Absolute One," and as little given in experience. And as it is admitted that "Pluralism fails or has so far failed to account for the unity that it in fact involves," then the right and the duty of recoil- ing from the doctrine is as absolute and imperative as the right and duty of recoiling from its opposite. Indeed, the promise as well as the problem of the philo- sophic thought of the twentieth century arises from the ex- posure of the impossibility of both of these abstract theories, and its rejection all along the line, from the most elementary perception to the most comprehensive reflective knowledge of the premises and the methods of both. [:656] >. ... -^.^ fc-ta. *~^s^ BOOK OF THE OPENING Third Lecture NO theory can be satisfactory if it is inconsistent with itself; and none can be satisfactory if it attains self- consistency by merely ignoring or abolishing differences. Pluralism cannot afford to be self-contradictory, and sin- gularism or absolutism cannot afford to affirm empty same- ness. These rival schools, starting from opposite poles and employing opposite methods, would arrive at the same goal. They would admit in their scheme both unity and diversity, and they would reconcile these notions. And reconciliation would, for both alike, mean more than the admission of unity and diversity side by side. The One must be explicable only through the Many, and the Many only through the One. Such is the acknowledged condition and criterion of philo- sophic truth: it cannot contain ultimate incongruities nor be incomplete; it must be a system which is all-comprehensive, and in which all the elements have their own place and function. It ought, it seems to me, to be obvious that the condition and criterion of reality must in these respects be the same for the real. To maintain a different criterion of truth and real- ity is not possible with establishing a fundamental discrep- ancy between them at all points. Reality can as well contain ultimate contingencies as truth can contain ultimate contra- dictions. Pluralism must as a philosophical theory be a doctrine of the universe as a whole, and if its doctrine must be self-consistent its universe must be one. And absolutism, if its "One" is to have meaning, must affirm the real diversity of the real. In a word, on any theory, the destiny of reality must be the same as that of truth. Epistemology and ontol- 1:657:1 THE RICE INSTITUTE ogy, even for those who recoil from saying that "reality is experience," must be two names for one doctrine. For the real gains no expression except in knowledge, and knowledge must have the real for its content. No one will affirm that the concrete truth of the concrete real either has been or can be attained by human knowledge. In that sense no philosophy has ever pretended to be "abso- lute." But we found in the last lecture that such a truth cannot be approached, and that not even the first step can be taken toward it by a philosophy which omits either the One or the Many from its original premises. There is no way either from differences to unity or from unity to differ- ence. Indeed, it might be shown that both pure difference and pure unity are confused and contradictory notions. To endeavor to start from either the one or the other is to start from the abstract and the meaningless. What alternative remains for philosophy? Evidently to start from unity as expressing itself in diversity, or as al- ready concrete. Knowledge must exhibit at every stage- even the first— the essential characteristics of a system. Every object, whether it be that of immediate perception or that of philosophic reflection, whether it be a so-called simple fact or the universe in its totality, must have the char- acter of individuality. This means that it must consist of parts or elements between which there are real differences; but, at the same time, the differences must so complement and sustain one another as to constitute one reality. And that reality is not the mere sum of the parts or elements, nor is it anything superimposed upon them by way of a contain- ing supplement or envelope. For the one can neither be indifferent to the elements nor independent of them; nor are they, on their part, indifferent to or independent of one another or of the whole. The One and the Many must r6583 BOOK OF THE OPENING derive their Intrinsic cliaracter and their very being and function from each other. They must be distinguishable, tor they are different; but they must not be separable, for they constitute a unity. On the other hand, they must be One for they are forms of one reality; but they must not be fused into sameness, for they are different. But this means that individuality belongs both to the whole and also to every real element of the whole or instance of the Many. To deny the individuality of the whole is to disintegrate .t into inex- plicable and unreal differences, every one of which is a surd for thought"; and to deny the individuality of the parts or elements is to reduce unity to emptiness and to make it mean- ingless. Hence, further, the One and the Many must be both dependent upon and independent of each other. 1 hey must exist in themselves, and nevertheless exist only in virtue of their relation to each other in a whole which is at once constituted by them and constitutive of them. But, it may well be asked, does this not also imply that philosophy starts from and deals with a self-contradiction. It depends, I shall try to show, on the meaning of indiv.du- alitv " of dependence and independence, of real being and of relation. In all cases it is the problem of philosophy to explain this apparent enigma. It is not to show that this view of the individuality and reality of the whole and of all its elements is true. We have seen that philosophy postu- lates this view of truth and reality in attempting to be a coherent or systematic doctrine. Nor is the postulate a mere a priori assumption, unsustained by experience. On tht contrary, there is no department of experience which does not contain, or rather consist of, instances of the unity of the diverse, and of the diversity or complexity of the One. 1 tie problem confronts ordinary thought on every side, only it ignores it, and it is presented in every one of the arts and n6593 THE RICE INSTITUTE sciences. Let me exemplify this fact by citing one or two examples. When four voices sing together the notes C E G C, or G C D, or D F A, harmony ensues. Now har- mony Is not mere unison, nor Is It mere multiplicity. It Is a single effect In which all the voices are fused Into unity, but the fusion does not annul the differences nor destroy the In- dividuality of the voice. The Individual harmony consists of individual voices each of which Is enriched by Its relations and Intensified In Its beauty. It Is evident that the same holds of a piece of music as a whole. It consists of sequent movements, the first of which passes away to make room for Its successor, and yet the char- acter of the movements which come last depends upon— that Is, somehow carries within— what wxnt before, and con- tinuity—nay, unity— remains by means of the succession. Every work of art exhibits the same character of being a One in value of the Many, and presents the same problem. A turret depends for Its artistic value upon the place it occu- pies In the edifice; and so does the artistic value of the edifice. Each glv^es and borrows Its significance and worth from the other, and yet each has its own meaning. So It Is also with a picture or a poem. Both the parts and the whole have their Individual being and value, and yet these depend on their relation to one another In the whole. When we turn from the arts to the sciences and to philos- ophy—to systematized knowledge— the same truth holds. The meaning of a statement depends upon its context and all its cognitive value. A statement may be rendered meaning- less by changing Its context; and truth itself becomes error when it Is placed out of ''the appropriate universe of dis- course." Nevertheless the unity of the systematic truth Is not obtained by mere fusion. Every element in it retains Its own [660] BOOK OF THE OPENING value, and makes its own contribution to the whole. When the mathematician, for Instance, proves a theorem in geom- etry he Is engaged In demonstrating one, and only one, truth : e.g., that the angles of a triangle are together equal to two right angles. But the single proof of a single truth somehow consists of many truths, and these are at once independent and Interdependent. They are Independent in that they can- not be done without, and nothing can replace them or per- form their function In the proof; they are Interdependent in so far as none of them has either significance or value except by reference to one another and to the single truth they sub- serve. In short, the testimony of rational experience to the real- ity and the interdependence, to the individuality and to the essential and even constitutive Interrelation of the Many and the One, is universal. The mere Many of the pluralist and the mere One of the absolutist are alike nothing more nor less than fictions. Experience gives no example of them. They are the results of the abstract treatment of experience. It follows, therefore, that the Interpretation of experi- ence, which philosophy Is, must accept this apparent enigma. Its problem Is not to show whether, but how, this can be pos- sible—to maintain the reality both of the One and the Many, and to reconcile in its theory what Is already reconciled in reality. But to maintain this view of philosophy, and to carry it out Into Its results, is to challenge a formidable array of abstractions. For, as we have already seen, the tissue of reality is torn by human knowledge and Its seamless raiment rent asunder. We convert differences into contradictions, and Isolate and fix our distinctions; and, in consequence, we find the differences irreconcilable. The reality and indepen- dence of the Many is assumed to Imply that they are exclu- 1:660 THE RICE INSTITUTE sive; and any degree of community of existence is held, as a matter of course, to destroy their individuality. The sway of abstractions is very wide. Nevertheless I believe, as I have said, that if there be any movement of thought in this twentieth century which spe- cially characterizes its mission and promises significant re- sults, it is that of first exposing and then rejecting these abstract opposites. It is, in one word, to repudiate the categories— what Kant by a new abstraction called the Cate- gories of the Understanding, which are the categories of ex- ternal and of both contingent and necessary relation. It is to reject in toto the vlew^ that the reality or individuality of anything can consist in or depend upon Its Isolation. It Is to discover that to negate Is not to contradict, and that to afiirm is not to reduce into mere sameness. On the other hand, it Is not to say that reality consists of relations; but It is to say that It is not independent of relations, and that if relations are abolished nothing whatsoever remains. It is to hold steadfast to the truth so plainly illustrated in every work of art, which consists at all times of individual parts every one of which has its own character and function, and which nev- ertheless is dependent for both its character and Its function upon the work of art as a whole. For, whether we can ex- plain it or not, a piece of music does consist of individual notes, and not of mere relations; and yet if the relations be- tween the several notes be annulled they are changed, and no music remains. And whether we can explain it or not, every rational judgment, true or false, makes one affirmation, and that affirmation contains a diversity of elements. But if this be the special mission of the philosophy of the twentieth century, it must be admitted that the promise of its fulfilment is, so far, faint. Its exposure of the necessary failure of the one-sided assumptions of both pluralism and [662;] BOOK OF THE OPENING abstract absolutism is incomplete. It has not taken to heart that experience furnishes no example of either mere unity or mere diversity, and that these rival theories have pure fic- tions for their premises. Hence it has not repudiated either the method or the aim of these abstract doctrines. It is con- tinuing the attempt to bring the One and the Many together, instead of proceeding from the presupposition that they al- ways are together. Its process is either synthetic or ana- lytic; synthetic in so far as it seeks to proceed from the mere Many; analytic in so far as it seeks to proceed from the mere One. It does not begin with the conception of system, of reality as a concrete element, nor proceed to observe its growth or evolution, by which unity becomes more deep and significant and the diversity of the parts more clear. Let me illustrate this truth in the first place with regard to knowledge. The subject of knowledge— namely, the finite, rational self— is still regarded as a res completa; and the object which the subject seeks to know is regarded as another res covipleta. The problem of knowledge, there- fore, assumes the form of showing how they can be brought together. And, further, it is assumed, though with a confi- dence sharply shaken, that the way of bringing them together is to resolve the one into the other, or, in other words, to abolish the difference between them. And if we have de- spaired of resolving the subject into its object by the way of materialism, we have, on the other hand, not repudiated the opposite method of resolving the world into the subjective experience of one or more subjects. Subjective idealism is still in vogue, for we say that reality is experience, and in panpsychism the monadism of Leibnitz is being resuscitated, so that all reality Is made to consist of what one may call spiritual points, which have only Intensive magnitude and no ''body" except their own activities. » -A'- " " •-•__ THE RICE INSTITUTE It is true that philosophers now speak of subject-object, and will even admit that spirit and nature are somehow cor- relates; but only the most limited use is made of the concep- tion. And when it is affirmed that reality is experience, "experience" is allowed to remain utterly ambiguous so as to carry either an objective or a subjective reference at will. Or when it is explained, as for instance by Mr. Bradley, ex- perience, and therefore reality, is said to consist of feelings, thought and volitions, and subjective idealism reappears. That little use is made of the conception subject-object beyond the admission that reality is somehow spiritual, is evi- dent from the fact that the psychologist, and also the episte- mologist, not only distinguish but separate the functions of mind and things. The world of reality presents the data for mind, and mind then makes the knowledge. But the world cannot give until the mind takes, and the mind cannot take until the world gives; and there is no priority of any kind, either temporal or logical. The statement that reality is experience is meant to convey their intrinsic correlation. But the statement is allowed to remain vague; and experience is, after all, made to belong exclusively to the subject. It is his living conation and cognition, and the object world is its product; and the idealism which practically all philosophers now profess becomes a doctrine which reduces reality either into phenomena of consciousness, such as thoughts, feelings and volitions, or into spiritual monads, more or less confused personalities. But consciousness cannot be active— that is to say, it can- not be consciousness— except in relation to objects, and the data of knowledge cannot be the results of knowing. Hence the function of the real in the act of knowing must be re- stored, and consciousness, with all its activities, must be its activity as consciousness, and as a consciousness which is in- [664] BOOK OF THE OPENING dividual. We must make room for the function of both mind and the world in knowledge, and maintain that, as sep- arate, they can neither do nor be anything. Knowledge proceeds neither from minds nor from objects. It is the self- revelation of the whole which comprises both, and is both in their interaction. However true it may be that experience is subjective, personal, private to every individual finite spirit, it is still a consciousness which has contents, which exists only by reference to it, and which cannot make it. To account for knowledge we must assume a reality which is wider than either subjects or objects, because it comprehends both, and neither is except in relation to its opposite. To begin with, either is comparable to the process of a mathematician who looks for a product by beginning with one of the factors, starting from either 6 or j in order to arrive at 42. Know- ledge is the result of the interaction of the two aspects of reality which we not only distinguish but separate and then strive to bring together. We endeavor to find a way out of consciousness and into a relation with facts, whereas we are at all, and are conscious, only in virtue of our relation to the reality which comprehends both our minds and the facts. But if this is true we shall cease to speak of the self and the not-self, of subjects and objects, of mind and matter, of soul and body, of spirit and nature, of God and man as first existing apart, and then brought together through the inter- action which reveals itself in knowledge, in the fine arts, in morality and in religion; for that interaction is, as we have seen, impossible unless they are together. Our distinctions must remain and the differences must be real, and the indi- viduality and even the personal privacy of the human spirit be maintained, but they must be maintained within the unity of the real which comprises both the opposites. That the thought of the present day is making toward this [665:1 THE RICE INSTITUTE genuine universal standpoint is not to be doubted. There is evidence of it especially in such doctrines as that of the "natural-supernaturalism of Carlyle," in the spiritual real- ism of Goethe, of Wordsworth; in the indefinite view of the immanence or indwelling of the divine in nature; in the repudiation of materialism by natural science and its clearing consciousness of the abstract character of its hypotheses and task; in the growing conviction of the intrinsic interaction of man and society ; in the growing suspicion of both individu- alistic and socialistic theories, and in the thinning down of the partition between the secular and the sacred, so that man finds his duty, which is his spiritual opportunity and privi- lege in every station, and believes that every service of man may be the service of God. The sense of man's affimty with the universe is deepening in every way, and the universe it- self seems to acquire a spiritual significance because man is an element in it. , . , , -i u The justification of this new attitude which philosophy must furnish is difficult. But psychology on the one side, and logic on the other, are preparing the way for the new meta- physic The former finds no evidence that mind, however spontaneous, can create its own content. Even imagination, when it is more free, only selects and rearranges. If it creates its heaven as it pleases, it must borrow its material, as Hume has shown, from the present world, making its streets of gold and gates of pearl, etc. All knowledge is both relative and anthropomorphic, just because both man and his world are necessary factors in the function of know- ing. If man is and must be spontaneous in his cogmtive and conative activities, it is not because he is separate from the world. In isolation he is helpless. As he cannot lift a hand or move a foot except by means of the resistance which is also the help of the physical cosmos, so he can neither know 1666-2 BOOK OF THE OPENING nor will, and is in fact only a name or nothingness in his iso- lation. The world is not a hindrance to man's "spontaneous" spiritual activities, but their indispensable condition. In truth, his knowledge is the activity of the real in and by him ; but it is his knowledge none the less, for by it he comprises the real. On the other hand, his affinity to and dependence upon his cosmos is also its dependence upon him. The cosmos of the materialist is as inconceivable as the knowing subject or de- tached self of the abstract idealist. If mind is not except in its relation to the object, neither is the object except in rela- tion to the subject. The dependence is interdependence, and the real is never only one of its aspects. It is neither natural nor spiritual if these are considered apart. Nor does the dependence of the world of objects on mind mean that mind, as we know it, makes them, and in making them infects them with its own subjectivity. The objects do not turn out on examination to be nothing but experience, if by experience is meant— as it ought to mean— thoughts, feel- ings and volitions, which somehow become substantiated into these ambiguous realities, hovering between being and non- being, which we call phenomena. There is no such thing as a "world of truth" which stands over against things in them- selves, and mediates between them and minds, being, as Lotze called them, "a replica" of the real. The problem of discovering the connection between ideas and their objects, and all the attempted solutions of the problem by making the former images or symbols or representatives of the latter, or the latter reifications of the former, are as unmeaning and futile as the problem of the relation of the world of fairies to the world of every-day life. There are minds and there are things, and because they are elements of one reality they interact. During their interaction there is knowing, n6673 i THE RICE INSTITUTE and the result of the activity of knowing is to modify the subject which knows so that it can repeat the process, even when the objects which first contributed to it are not present. But there is no such result as a concatenated system of ideas, nor even a single idea that has any permanence or bemg of its own. The relation of minds and of things is direct m the last resort, and the relation between them is constitutive of both. 1 r • But this, it will be said, makes reality depend for its exis- tence upon being known, and at the least derive a new stage of existence and a higher manifestation of itself from and through man's mind. In that case must not the act of know- ing defeat itself? It is the object of knowing to apprehend facts as they are; but that is surely not possible if the act ot knowing changes them. Knowing them changes them, I should answer, and defeats thereby its own purpose, only it we continue to assume the dualistic point of view which, at present, we are endeavoring to repudiate, and continue to treat them as separate existences brought together. But the difficulty does not arise if knowing is neither the function of mind nor of objects as apart, but of the reality which com- prises them both as elements and aspects. From this latter point of view reality may be shown to enrich itself, to allow fuller being, to set free and to realize new potentialities through the cognitive activities we have been attributing to the self, but which belong to it as comprising the self. An illustration may indicate the possibility of the truth of the view I am trying to express. The physicist is supposed to give an account of sound. He tells us that it is wave movement. But the least analysis will show that he professes no such thing. He explains only one of the conditions of sound. Apart from the psychological structure of the human organism, and also apart from the [668] BOOK OF THE OPENING presumably non-physical but psychological structure of his consciousness, there is no sound. Delete any one of these three distinguishable elements — the physical, physiological, or psychical— there would be no sound and the universe would be silent. Sound Is not analyzable Into any one of these factors, nor attributed to any one of them rather than to the others; and when all the elements of a unity are necessary there Is a true sense In which It Is not possible to give priority to any one of them. On the other hand. It Is true that the physical conditions of sound — the wave movements produced by the pressing down of the keys of the organ and the filling of the pipes with wind— gain new significance and value when the organ is played by a great artist and the physical conditions are subordinated to the musical purposes of a great com- poser. The coming In upon the scene of the musician's soul reveals a new range of meaning and beauty which before were dormant In the physical structure of the natural world; and reality as a whole, which has produced and contributed to the Instruction and which comprises the musician, assumes through him a new way of being. And yet, though without him there can be no music, we cannot attribute the musical effect to him alone, as we do knowledge, an experience, to the activities of the subject. Without his context he also Is help- less. The distinction of meum and tuum does not hold. The musician's spontaneous— or, as we say, creative — power is conditioned by the real world as a whole In which he lives and moves and has his being, and at the same time the real world needs him in order to realize the significance even of its natural elements. This illustration suggests the possibility of maintaining that finite minds by their cognitive and conative activities have a more significant function In relation to the world of reality than that of ^'manifesting" or ^'expressing" its mean- [6693 THE RICE INSTITUTE ing in the way of truth; and that their relation to it is more intimate than can be accounted for by any theory which at- tributes their activities to themselves alone, and which makes consciousness contain an idle, epistemological rephca of real- ity If in order that there may be music, or any other of the productions of fine art, reality as a whole comprising the artist must be effectively present, so reality as a whole must be that which thinks and wills. Not that minds in willing and knowing are mere instruments upon which the world of reality plays, or by which it gains better and fuller expres- sion The idea of "instrument" is inadequate to the occa- sion and we obscure the truth and lapse back into dualism when we represent minds as operated upon. It is the mind which introduces the purpose. In the case of both the mu- sician and the scientific man or philosopher the natural ele- ments of the cosmos are in a sense subordinated to their purpose; and yet the purpose is not alien to the natural cos- mos, or superimposed upon it from without. For nature s own potencies are realized in and by them, and in him they acquire themselves a better and fuller way of existence. But in that case we must start from a new hypothesis as to the nature of reality. We must no longer speak of it as either natural or spiritual, nor, in order to account for it, endeavor to make the natural disappear in the spiritual. Nature as merely natural is now discovered to be only a fragment of reality, even of reality as finite minds know it. It is and remains "natural," for it is the condition of the spiritual activities, which condition is fulfilled in the finite minds into which it breaks. The facts which we speak of as given in actual experience are real as manifesting themselves in finite minds. ReaUty has this dual character. It functions in the thinking and volition of men as truly as in the form and the color of plants. Reality has a dual character, or [670:1 BOOK OF THE OPENING rather it is natural-spiritual. We may distinguish but we cannot separate its elements. Hence mind and reality do not need to be brought together, and thought has not the impos- sible task before it of going out of itself to reality. It is by comprising the real : and the real exhibits its full and true nature only in the activities by which truth and goodness are attained. When mind appears on the scene the real breaks into knowledge as well as into music, and into moral lives as well as statutes and stately edifices. It remains natural, but it is a nature with spiritual potencies that break out into actuality in man. He is nothing apart from it. He is con- tinuous with it. He is effective as mind and will in the de- gree in which as subject he is saturated with its truth and purpose. For his purpose is a revelation and liberation of Nature's purpose. He is no external addendum, but her product. But when he appears, being her highest product, he recoils upon her, sublates her lower forms of being, as- similates them with and incorporates them into activities which are his activities without ceasing to be Nature's own. There is a psychological problem for which, so far, no solution has been found. It is that of the relation of soul and body. Psychologists at present propose one of two theories. They suggest a panpsychism which converts all bodies into souls, or a parallelism between them and their phenomena. The former theory introduces more difficulties than it solves, and, so far, has not shown itself worthy of serious discussion; the latter confesses its failure in that it only states the problem and, in fact, offers no solution of it. If our criticisms have any validity, no solution of this prob- lem is possible ; and it is impossible because it contains a surd. It is like the problem of proving that 2x2 = 91, which would baffle all mathematicians; or of inventing a perpetually moving machine, which must baffle the physical inventor; or 1:671:] THE RICE INSTITUTE like saying, "Why should we be moral?", which must baffle the moralist. The mathematician, physicist and moralist who know what they are about will not ask these questions. Nor will the psychologist endeavor to relate-th^t is, to brin^ together in thought-what he assumes to be separate in existence. He will rather take to heart what Aristotle has said of such a dualism. He will regard the soul as the highest expression, the full reality, the evipyeia of the body -not deleting it, nor supplanting It, nor yet subordinated to it as a mere consequence or effect, but rather as that in which the body exhibits and realizes its full being, and in doing so proves Its Intrinsic spiritual potentialities. In man also we find exemplified always, not a soul plus a body, not merely natural or physical and superadded spiritual powers, but one being whose spiritual activities are at once conditioned by, and sublate, or take up, the so-called natural elements. The problem of the psychologist as at present stated is insoluble because he is unjust to his body and Ignores Its function m all volition and thought, attributing cognition and volition to a mind In isolation, mind as merely subjective, of the existence of which there is no least Item of evidence In any experience. Man, like the cosmos. Is nature at its highest and best, and nature is not a dead mechanism and mere opposite of spirit, any more than It is spiritual apart from mind. The beauty and truth and goodness which appear when man is upon the scene are not only his, but nature's also. And spirit does not dwell in it as in a dead husk, but Is its own Intrinsic power. This, it seems to me, is the view toward which recent thought is gradually moving. It Is the theme and the inspiration of the greatest poetry of our time, from Goethe and Wordsworth to Robert Browning, and it is the aspiration of the highest morality and of the most elevated and reflective religious consciousness of the present age. It [672] BOOK OF THE OPENING Is the special mission of philosophy to demonstrate the valid- ity of this view, and make good the truth of the one radiant ideal. There are evidences that philosophy has entered upon this task. But the task Is great and very difficult. It Implies not merely revulsion from the consequences of the abstractions which have hitherto obstructed Its path, but the most fun- damental revolution of all the revolutions of the world of mind. It implies a change of method. It must start from a different hypothesis and must therefore reinterpret every fact in the light of this hypothesis. I must content myself at present by merely indicating the main obstacles which obstruct its path as it enters upon its problem, all of them due to the abstractions which we have substantiated Into contradictory opposltes. The first of these are logical, and therefore metaphysical also, or ontological. 1 acknowledge that it is precisely in its logical doctrine that modern philosophy has made its great- est advance toward the adoption of this point of view, which, in fact, is that of spiritual realism or concrete absolutism. Nevertheless, even at Its best. It is not free from the en- tanglements which issue from the use of the external cate- gories, which Kant called the Categories of the Understand- ing. That it is not content w^ith their use and that it aspires to a better is illustrated by its appeal to intuition. Intuition is found to achieve what lies beyond the power of the under- standing. It grasps things in their veritable unity: it does not obliterate differences, but it makes them harmonious or transparent— to employ its metaphors. It bridges the gulf between knowledge and reality, and brings mind into imme- diate illuminating contact with that which is. But it does this at the expense of all method. Its operations are mystical and miraculous. It explains by means of the unintelligible. n673n \ THE RICE INSTITUTE It has no value except in so far as it expresses discontent with the external methods of "the mere understanding, which, after all, it cannot supplant and must merely supple- ment. The method of intuitlonism is too easy. It is like the optimism which finds that all is right with the world by denying or ignoring its unhappiness and wickedness. It can- not help until it turns back upon the topics of the understand- ing, and reveals the unity within its opposites, and shows it to be intuitive in the double sense that it always grasps unity and is always in actual touch with the real. But owing to the domination of these external categories the judgment is still treated as if it were the result either of a purely analytic or of a purely synthetic process, and reasoning as if it were either deductive or inductive. The predicate is either at- tached to the subject as a new thing, or it is a mere repeti- tion of a part of the subject. In the first case the judg- ment is a mere accretion of elements; in the second, a mere tautology. In the first case it cannot be true; in the sec- ond it can have no meaning. Moreover, both of these processes rest upon a false supposition as to the nature of the relation of the part of the judgment, as well as of the parts themselves. Their agreement is assumed to mean their identical and indistinguishable sameness-bare unity; their disagreement or negation, to be contradiction and repul- sion. In no way, therefore, can either of these theories represent the judgment-that is, any rational opinion-as concrete; and the process of judgment as beginning in the subject with what is already a system, and exposing the na- ture of the system in the course of judging and reasoning, distinguishing its elements and deepening its unity by the same movement. Again, on the epistemological side, the "that," or real CM] BOOK OF THE OPENING being, of the object of knowledge is held to be distinct from its "what," or its qualities; and judgment is made to consist in bringing these together. And, further, as I have already indicated, knowledge itself is separated into forced abstrac- tions, and the content is assumed to come from the data, while the form is supplied by the activity of the subject. The consequence is that knowledge and reality themselves remain in inexplicable opposition, and truth is in fundamental contra- diction with itself. For it is assumed that to agree with or to represent the real as it is, it must cease to be as truth, and be merged in the real, or else be transmuted in an unknowable way by an unknowable Absolute. But such results indicate the need, not of escaping from methodical thought by means of mystic and methodless in- tuition, but of recognizing that thought is always systematic and its object always a One in the Many, and therefore of ceasing to set the dualistic problems which baffle all attempts at solution. The second main obstacle, and possibly the more serious in practice, may be called ethical. It is assumed, to put the matter as directly and concisely as I can, that the ethical world will disappear if man is not the genuine creator of his own actions, or absolutely spontaneous; and, further, that his creative power or spontaneity must mean that he stands apart and absolutely isolated from the so-called outer world. He is a pure subject, as represented by Kant, ontologically separate from all objects, and even from himself when he is the object of his own knowledge— his knowing self falling into the noumenal, and his known self into the phenomenal world. We are jealous, and rightly jealous, of our own in- trinsic individuality, and assume that in order to maintain it we must hold the world, so to speak, at arm's length and ex- trude it. Let the outer conditions, and even our own past history, be what they will, we must at any moment have the [675: ) THE RICE INSTITUTE power of acting upon it and from it in a manner that, for all computation, must be contingent. "Contingency," as we have seen, must be "let into the heart of things." The mner life shuts out the outer world; or if it shuts it in or comprises it, it is only in the form of "experience"-that is, of thoughts, feelings and volitions-and its realities become "phenomena." We have "gone back to Kant," and we still dwell among his contradictions, for we have not gone for- ward from Kant. Now I have no desire to minimize or to obscure In the least degree the privacy of personality, or the subjective and intensely individual character of all experience. On the con- trary, there is no apparent excuse into which I would not follow the solipsist in this direction. All experience is In the fullest sense individual, and there is no such thing as univer- sal experience in the sense that one finite man can think the thoughts or will the volitions of another. Every man's thoughts and every man's volitions are exclusively his own, and no other's; they remain his own even if It be true, as it Is, that other men may know the same truth and will to bring about the same change. When the Idealist, In endeavoring to meet the evident objections to solipsism, affirms that a man's mind is not a particular thing, like his pocket-knife, but has a universal nature, which makes his mind one in Intrinsic structure, sub- ject to the same laws, active in the same manner as all minds, or as mind "as such," I have no concern In contradicting him. But such an argument does not obviate the difficulties of solipsism. However universal In nature a man's mind may be. It does not lose its intensely private and personal character, and all his experiences are his own in a sense that is exclusive. In other words, the subjective, personal, pri- vate character of experience remains, and every mind looks at the world with Its own eyes. Were all men, like the gods, cm:] BOOK OF THE OPENING possessors of the real truth of all reality, their thoughts would still be their own; and were all human wills one with the will of God, they would still be personal wills and the moral perfection would be their own. The reputation of the solipsist Is implied In his own prem- ises. There is no solipsist who in making an affirmative does not consider that his affirmation refers to, and is an ideal construction or representation of, reality. He is expressing his own thoughts of the real, and his thoughts are his own. But, unless he confuses the results of his thinking with that about which he is thinking, and the object which he strives to comprehend with the products of his effort, he will not maintain that the real about which he thinks is also subjec- tive. He cannot at the same time profess that he is express- ing the truth and maintain that he is not dealing with the real. His thoughts, however subjective, have an objective reference, and however personal and private, they are his personal and private conception of that which is. Truth, affirmation, negation, judgment have in every instance this reference to the real. The reference is direct in every ex- perience, and the reference is always to the real — that is, for each mind, to only one real. Hence every solipsist considers that he knows the truth; and It is not possible to affirm or deny except on this presup- position. The question of agreement or disagreement Is subsequent and secondary. What concerns us now is the universal and necessary character of every experience, how- ever personal. The reference of a judgment is not to a pri- vate real; not even when he says, "This is only my opinion." Even that statement Is a statement of a fact. And It is al- leged that the result of the dealing of different minds is a different experience, or as many opinions as there are minds. Still, each mind In every affirmation refers to what Is real, or to what his thought represents or misrepresents. 1:677: s THE RICE INSTITUTE Xor can it be affirmed that each subject refers to a differ- ent reality, a reality infected with the illusions of his own thought. Once more it is the result that may be illusory, or merely phenomenal. And, as we have seen, the results of knowing cannot be the data of knowledge; nor have they any existence except as ways of the activity of the cognizing subject. Phenomena do not constitute a class of existing things, over and above the subjects which know, and the real- ity which the subjects endeavor to know. Thus every experience is bipolar. It is the living relation or interaction of two elements of a reality which is at once spiritual and natural. Knowing and willing is the act of the self by means of this world and of the real world. For no existence can refer to any other. The question of the agreem.ent or disagreement of the dif- ferent experiences, or of any community between them, is subsequent and secondary to the reference of each experience to the real, which every judgment is. And it also concerns reality, which is capable once more of being rightly or wrongly interpreted. And the real is in this and every other case the criterion of what is held to be true or false. So that the reality also is assumed in every experience, in every act of cognition, to be bipolar. It is, and it is capable of express- ing itself subjectively to the knowing mind. Reality, we may perhaps be allowed to say, expresses itself in many self-con- scious foci and in many degrees of accuracy and fullness. But the presupposition of the real— that is, of one single reality— is as inevitable to every subject as the presupposi- tion of his own existence. When the solipsist, therefore, affirms that every subject has his own experience, which is true, he overlooks the fact that the object with which each experience deals or which it endeavors to represent is that which is. No subject can as- sume that there are as many systems of reality as there are [678] BOOK OF THE OPENING interpretations of it; he denies to the experience of others that which is essential to his own and to the very possibility of experience. It follows from this that there is one criterion for all ex- perience, and one ideal. It is reality. It is by constant refer- ence to it that he corrects and extends his own, and affirms or denies the truth of the experience of others: for their expressions of it are also objects for him, and parts of the reality which he endeavors to know. And the reference to the real is a reference to the Absolute-that is, to that which is all in all and exists in its own right. It is by their seeming congruence or incongruence with the presupposed whole of reality that particular opinions are called true or false. But this is as much as to say that reality is held to be a systematic whole, within which each particular fact has its own place and function. If we work to correct another person of error in any judgment, we do so by compelling him to choose be- tween that opinion and his interpretation of that which is real. The admission of a new truth may compel us to revise our conception of the system of reality. ^ A new hypothesis may carry with it a revolution in our view of reality; but the reality which is the aim of our intellectual attempt, and the criterion of the value of its results, is no new reality. It is not true, therefore, that there are as many realities as there are opinions of reality; although there may be as many interpretations of it as there are cognitive sub- jects. On the contrary, each subject is necessarily assumed to be from his own standpoint endeavoring to interpret the world of reality. Experience, false or true, has otherwise no meaning. It is this truth that Spinoza expressed when he said that knowledge is adequate in the degree in which the subject of knowledge contemplates objects stib specie aternitatis. And the moral life of man-that is, his practical life when con- [679] THE RICE INSTITUTE V sidered in the light of its ultimate issues — gives an interesting illustration of this truth. For morality also carries within at all times this immediate reference to the Absolute. The action may be, and always is, particular in one of its aspects. But it is also a particularized universal. The right action is a specific affirmation, and the wrong action is a specific viola- tion, of a Universal Good. The right action may be in itself insignificant— the mere giving of a cup of cold water; but being right, it is what is required in that particular context, and neither gods nor men can improve upon it. It is the particular reification or incarnation of the best. It is doing the work of God, in the language of religion. It is accord with the nature of things. And thereby it acquires inex- haustible worth and power. Hence issues the dignity of an act which we call good, and the splendor which cannot be obscured. Hence also flows the sense of unconquerable strength which the moral agent always feels when he is in his duty. The nature of things is at his back. God is with him. His will is one with the divine. It must prevail. Its language always is, "If God be w^ith us, who can be against us?" Both in cognition and volition, therefore, both in know- ledge and in morality, once we have freed ourselves of the fixed abstractions of the understanding, we find that imme- diate continuity with reality which is our own life; and the service of the true and the good, being the service of what is real, is the service of freedom so perfect that it finds no- where aught that can limit or obstruct it. The service is fuller, the closer and the wider our communion with what is real; and the natural cosmos, in all its wealth, is not a limit but a condition of the life of our own spirit, and the living partner in all our spiritual enterprises. Henry Jones. n68o3 \ \ I / y V ^ «► «•***■■■ 'ppr 't I- "".{.* •e This book is due two weeks from the last date stamped helow, and if not returned at or before that t.me a fine of five cents a day will be incurred. Uitii Hi s-^ i 1 L ^ 1 ■s- ~- 1 U " _l — f-- ■■ i 1 1 ■■-! 1- ■ 1 0032190638 '^-:^ i ^^MS DO HOT * V / 1 --^^( 'm ^ ^ JOLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 0032190638 This book is due hplow. and if not ret two weeks from befo the last date stamped umed at or re that time a fine ot five cents a day will be incurred. - 1 k^l^1 -^^-^^\ ^ • 1 ^ — - +- i « ■ — 1 1~^^ -^ ^'^. fir. X -- i( BR'TTLE DO K07 •••"."••.•jr. --«--* ^ *- Kc;: ;<:^- ^'w *-^- -»■ •- » . ^<, *■ ». ^ S,*- *,♦ _^ *-i *■-.»■» •'"W^^^^J^*- ^ ■• ■ ^ -•, ^ ■ ^ ' '- ', .* , -^ \ J '<- •• >.„^ ■ y*"*-f> •-• ■* .-* -V-.^ . ^-<,>>^-s«^^^^^^-\ >- "-^ *^ ...T' iC^Ctr iOCP .-k -*,**._ V-. *^- --•%•/—*-#**— • S_J -_>■ l^iii.wi'iiw.^ .jiasf. ^r ■■ ^•S \T^'^^ Columbid Utttbtisttp mtbeCttpodtrtuPork 3 LIBRARY GIVEN BY PUBLISHER i I I ,WI» i '||.1.'».i.-li '* -■*'- Hin I i-'IfKairw-* THE RICE INSTITUTE OCTOBER TENTH, ELEVENTH, TWELFTH NINETEEN HUNDRED AND TWELVE Volume Three .u M , *' m > .«im « irt«< w ii Mfc) »i#P n%, ., i|jiw*.»i»> !>««. I i( i ■-•^.a -V' j'«8P»^.- •'■W-''V--**fc' -J^i.-*-. .*,!» THE BOOK OF THE OPENING OF THE RICE INSTITUTE BEING AN ACCOUNT IN THREE VOLUMES OF AN ACADEMIC FESTIVAL HELD IN CELEBRATION OF THE FORMAL OPENING OF THE RICE INSTITUTE, A UNIVERSITY OF LIBERAL AND TECHNICAL LEARNING FOUNDED IN THE CITY OF HOUSTON, TEXAS, BY WILLIAM MARSH RICE AND DEDICATED BY HIM TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF LETTERS, SCIENCE, AND ART Volume III HOUSTON, TEXAS U. S. A. r 3 \i » ^ «,- ;,, -.1— »qi-«,iK'ag -«i*-aw.t i »i- -:a>. CONTENTS VOLUME THREE THE INAUGURAL LECTURES ( CONTINUED ) PAGE THE INTRODUCTION OF WESTERN LEARNING INTO JAPAN 68i An inaugural discourse by Privy Councilor Baron Dairoku KiKUCHi, President of the Imperial Academy and Honorary Professor in the Imperial University of Tokyo. THE STUDY OF POETRY I. The Function of a University 726 II. What is Poetry? 735 III. The Modern World 745 IV. Poetry and Science 755 V. Poetry and Business 763 VI. Poetry and Democracy 770 An inaugural discourse by John William Mackail, of London, England, formerly Professor of Poetrj^ in Oxford University. THE SYSTEM OF THE SCIENCES 778 PRINCIPLES OF THE THEORY OF EDUCATION . 868 Two inaugural lectures by Privy Councilor Professor WiL- HELM Ostwald, late Professor of Chemistry in the Univer- sity of Leipsic, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, 1909. HENRI POINCARE 899 An inaugural memoir by Senator Vito Volterra, Dean of the Faculty of Science and Professor of Mathematical Physics and Celestial Mechanics in the University of Rome. \ CONTENTS PAGE THE ELECTRON AS AN ELEMENT 929 COMPOUNDS OF ELECTRONS 947 THE DISRUPTION OF THE SO-CALLED ELE- MENTS 962 Three inaugural lectures by Sir William Ramsay, K.C.B., Professor of Chemistry in the University of London, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, 1904. THE CORPUSCULAR THEORY OF AURORA BOREALIS 981 An inaugural lecture by Carl St0rmer, Associate Editor of the "Acta Mathematica" and Professor of Pure Mathe- matics at the University of Christiania. THE GENERALIZATION OF ANALYTIC FUNC- TIONS 1036 ON THE THEORY OF WAVES AND GREEN'S METHOD 1085 Three inaugural lectures by Senator Vito Volterra, Dean of the Faculty of Science and Professor of Mathematical Physics and Celestial Mechanics in the University of Rome. LIST OF INSERTS VOLUME THREE Portraitures of Dairoku Kikuchi facing page 681 John William Mackail Wilhelm Ostwald Henri Poincare William Ramsay Carl St0rmer Vito Volterra (( (( (( (( (( « 726 778 899 929 981 1036 Hvi] ^-TM^>m-~- THE INAUGURAL LECTURES r * U* 1 THE INTRODUCTION OF WESTERN LEARNING INTO JAPAN ^ THE FIRST PERIOD THE intercourse of Japan with the West began, In the middle of the sixteenth century, with the coming of the Portuguese ships to the coast of Kyushu (1543). Not long after came the English, the Dutch, and the Spanish. The Portuguese and Spaniards were indiscriminately called Naubari, which means "southern foreigners," as their pos- sessions in Asia lay to the south of Japan, just as in the present day we speak of all white people as Seiyojin, ''men of the western seas.*' At this period the shogunate of the Ashikaga family was tottering toward its fall. The Shogun, or Sei'I-Tai-Sho-Gun (which was the full title, meaning "Generalissimo for the Subjugation of Barbarians"), was the head of the military class and de facto ruler of the country; for the Emperor and the civil lords who formed his court had very little or no real power, although they were reverenced by the people and outwardly treated with honor and deference by the shogun and his followers. The office of shogun had at the time of the first coming of the Portuguese been hereditary In the Ashikaga family for over two hundred years, but in the feeble hands of its latest representatives Its authority had gradually been weakened until the great military chiefs throughout the country paid but little attention to their orders and were continually fighting against one another in 1 A lecture presented at the inauguration of the Rice Institute, by the Right Honorable Baron Dairoku Kikuchi, Rigakuhakushi, M.A., LL.D., Privy Coun- cilor, President of the Imperial Academy, Honorary Professor of the Imperial University of Tokyo. [6813 THE RICE INSTITUTE a struggle for self-aggrandisement. Among them appeared three great men: the first was Nobunaga (of the Ota fam- ily), who deposed the last of the Ashikaga shoguns (1573) and brought the whole of central Japan under his authority. After Nobunaga was killed by one of his own generals (1582), Hideyoshi, another of his generals, better known by his subsequent title of Taiko, extended his power over the whole country. After the death of the Taiko in 1598, lyeyasu, the head of the Tokugawa family, who had been gradually strengthening himself, patiently biding his time under Nobunaga and Hideyoshi, became shogun in 1603 and established his government in Yedo. lyeyasu and his descendants held the shogunate for fifteen generations, and were the real rulers of the land for over two centuries and a half, during which period Japan enjoyed a most profound peace, and learning and the arts flourished under the patron- age of shoguns and daimyos (or feudal lords) . The above brief outline is necessary for a clear under- standing of the environment in which the first introduction of Western learning took place. The Portuguese were wel- comed by the military chiefs principally for the sake of fire- arms, which were first introduced by them, and which of course gave to those possessed of them an immense advan- tage over their enemies. Their use and making were eagerly acquired, and already in 1553 the shogun Yoshiteru had guns made for him at Anato, in the province of Omi, not far from Kyoto. The Introduction of firearms necessarily brought about a change In tactics and fortification, but it is uncertain how much the military chiefs learned In these things from the Portuguese. Not very long after the first coming of the Portuguese, the Jesuit missionaries arrived. They also were well re- ceived by the military lords of Kyushu, several of the most [682] BOOK OF THE OPENING powerful of whom became converts; so that Christianity at first made rapid progress, spreading not only in Kyushu and adjoining provinces, but also in the neighborhood of Kyoto, and later even in northwestern Japan. The shogun Yoshi- teru, mentioned above, is himself said to have been among the converts. Nobunaga also was at first favorable and built for them a church in Kyoto called the Nanbanji, or "Temple of the Southern Foreigners"; but he afterward repented of this, and his successor Hideyoshi issued orders for the suppression of Christianity. It may be mentioned that the motives which influenced both Nobunaga and Hideyoshi were entirely political and not at all religious. lyeyasu, his successor in power, was friendly to foreign- ers, and among others treated a Dutchman named Jan Joost and an English pilot. Will Adams, who arrived in a Dutch ship In 1600, with great consideration; he was eager to learn from them about the world outside of Japan. He and his successors, however, looked with no favorable eyes upon missionaries or their converts, for they were a source of trouble everywhere on account of their Intolerance and quar- relsome attitude toward those of other faiths. They were, moreover, suspected of political intrigue against the sho- gunate and against the country; so orders were Issued ex- pelling not only the missionaries but all Portuguese and Spaniards, and forbidding people to profess Christianity on pain of death or exile. This state of affairs culminated in the breaking out in 1637 of rebellion in Shimabara, near Nagasaki, w^hither had flocked not only Christians driven by persecution from other parts of the country, but also a large number of malcontent and turbulent spirits, followers of lords who had fought unsuccessfully against the Tokugawas. The rebellion was put down early in the next year, and most stringent measures were taken to stamp out Christianity al- r 683:1 THE RICE INSTITUTE together. Already in 1630 an order had been issued by which all foreign books, without exception, were interdicted; for although it was primarily aimed at religious books, it was impossible to make such a distinction without a know- ledge of European languages. In 1635 another order was issued prohibiting all traveling abroad under the penalty of death. Thus, about ninety years after the first arrival of the Portuguese ships, all foreign intercourse was forbidden ex- cept such as was permitted with the Dutch and the Chinese under severe restrictions.^ It is hard to say exactly how much learning had been transmitted by the Portuguese and Spaniards during this period. Among the missionaries were some skilled in medi- cine and surgery, and their method of treating wounds seems to have been especially appreciated; thus an elementary knowledge of *'Nanban" surgery, as it was called, as well as of the warlike art of gunnery, seems to have been acquired by the Japanese from them. A man named Hayashi, who was put to death (1646) for professing Christianity, had acquired some knowledge of Western mathematics and astronomy, which he transmitted to his pupil Kobayashi ; he had translated and published a work on astronomy (1635), which stands second in the list of the translations of Western books Into Japanese, the first being ^^sop's "Fables," trans- lated and published early in the seventeenth century, al- though perhaps neither of these was a translation in the strict sense of the term, but rather a compilation. It is also interesting to note that some of the great military lords used seals bearing their names in Latin letters. There are sev- eral Japanese words of Portuguese and Spanish origin, which bear testimony to the Introduction in those days of 1 The English had previously abandoned the field, and their request to resume intercourse in 1673 ^^^ not entertained. 1:684: BOOK OF THE OPENING various manufactures; such, for example, as biidoro (glass, Portuguese vidro)^ bo tan (button, P. botao)^ biro do (vel- vet, P. veludo)y kappa (rain-cloak, Spanish capa) ^ meriyasu (knit-work, S. medias)^ etc. On the whole, the amount of Western knowledge introduced during this period cannot have been very great. THE SECOND PERIOD Our intercourse with the western world after the exclusion of the Portuguese and Spaniards was through the Dutch, who were permitted to come to trade in the single port of Nagasaki; even here they were confined to a small quarter of the town known as Dejima, and the trade was subjected to rigorous restrictions and placed under the strict surveil- lance of officials of the shogunate. A corps of interpreters was maintained in Nagasaki, the oflice being hereditary in certain families, as was the case in those days with almost all professions; but even they were not permitted to read or possess any foreign books, so that their knowledge of the Dutch language was entirely oral; it was not till 1745 that this prohibition was removed. Once a year (afterward once every four years) the Dutch "capitan," or chief factor, was required to come to Yedo to pay his respects to the shogun; and these visits played an important part in the introduction of Western knowledge into Japan, for scholars In Yedo took advantage of these occasions to "interview,'* usually with oflScial sanction, the "capitan" and those who accompanied him, asking all sorts of questions on all sorts of subjects. It is pathetic in some cases to read of distinguished scholars, in their simplicity and zeal for knowledge, reverently asking questions such as the factors could scarcely have understood; yet as in those days communication between Nagasaki and 1:6851 THE RICE INSTITUTE Yedo was not easy, and as the "capitans" were accompanied by physicians (rarely by such men as Kaempfer, Thunberg, and Von Siebold, who took advantage of their visits to see the interior of Japan), those interviews were really a great opportunity for those who were eager to learn about the West. Although the first three shoguns of the Tokugawa family took such strong measures to suppress Christianity, even going so far as to cut off almost all foreign intercourse and to interdict all foreign books, yet both they and their suc- cessors were patrons of learning and the arts, and were by no means averse to the introduction of useful knowledge from the West. Several of the interpreters and others who had picked up some medical, or rather surgical, knowledge from the Dutch physicians in Nagasaki were appointed phy- sicians to the shogun, an example which was followed by the daimyos. Arai Hakuseki^ (1657-1725), a great Chinese scholar and a trusted adviser of the shogun lyenobu, sixth shogun of the Tokugawa family (i 709-171 1), interviewed at the command of the shogun a Franciscan priest who had arrived in 1709 at Osumi in Kyushu and had been summoned to Yedo, where he was kept in confinement. This priest seems to have been a man of some attainments, and an ac- count of the interviews and their results, supplemented by subsequent interviews with Dutch "capitans,'* was embodied in two books entitled Sairan I gen (17 13) and Seiyo Kibiin ( 1 7 1 5 ) . These books, written by a man of Arai's standing and scholarship, gave certain importance and prestige to their contents—/.^., to matters Western— which they had not hitherto possessed, and thus opened the way for the in- troduction of Western learning. For this reason Arai Hakuseki is regarded as its pioneer. 1 All the names of men are given in the usual Japanese way— i.e., with the family name first. [686] BOOK OF THE OPENING The accession of the eighth shogun, Yoshimune (1716- 1745), gave a great impetus to the introduction of Western learning. He was specially interested in astronomy, and had a celestial globe and a sun-dial made for himself; he also sent to Nagasaki (17 19) for Nishigawa Joken, who had obtained some knowledge of astronomy from Kobayashi (see above), and finally established an astronomical obser- vatory in Yedo in 1744. Up to this time, foreign books being prohibited, the little Western knowledge that had been acquired had been either through oral communications or through Chinese translations, which had filtered through to Japan, Chinese books not coming within the category of prohibited books, for Chinese was the language of scholars in Japan to within very recent times, just as Latin was the language of the learned in Europe of the Middle Ages. But now Yoshimune removed this interdiction on foreign books, excepting those on religion (1720). In 1738 a book on astronomy presented to the shogun by the Dutch challenged his admiration by the excellence of its illustrations, and seek- ing for some one to read the explanations of the plates, he ordered a man named Aoki Bunzo (i 698-1 769) to begin the study of the Dutch language. Aoki learned some Dutch words from the interpreters who came to Yedo with the factor, but not making much headway he went to Nagasaki, where incidentally he was instrumental in getting an order from the government allowing interpreters to read books. He returned to Yedo, having succeeded in learning only some five hundred words, which is very good evidence of the extreme difliculty of the task in those days. I regret that the space at my command does not allow me to enter into an explanation of the various obstacles that lay in the way of such study. The death of Yoshimune in 1 751— he had retired from 1:687] I THE RICE INSTITUTE active lite In 1745— was a blow to the advancement of Western learning; but the impetus given could not be checked. Thus the Observatory, although abolished In 1757, was re-established in 1765. Objects brought by the Dutch began to be sought for as curios and articles of virtu, books among the rest. About this time there also flourished an eccentric and versatile genius called HIraga Gennal; among other evidences of his originality, he In 1770 constructed an electric machine like one which he had seen in Nagasaki. THE THIRD PERIOD But now comes an event of the first importance in the Intro- duction of Western knowledge, namely, the translation and publication of the first work on anatomy in 1774, through the joint eflforts of Maeno, Sugita, and others. Up to this time the only attempt made to read Dutch books had been made by Aokl, who, as already mentioned, succeeded with enormous difficulty in learning several hundred words; some knowledge of astronomy had been acquired through Chinese translations, and the Dutch medicine, so called, had been represented by an empirical practice of surgery. Maeno Ryotaku (i 723-1 803), a physician to the Lord of Nakatsu, was a man of great originality and perseve- rance, and Sugita Genpaku (i733-iSi7)> ^ surgeon of the so-called Dutch school, was a man of kindred spirit. In- deed, most of those who were pioneers in the introduction of Western knowledge into Japan were men of original ideas and advanced views, eager and indefatigable in their pursuit of knowledge, often at the risk of personal inconve- nience or danger. Maeno, Impelled by a desire to read Dutch, but unable to get much assistance from the Inter- preters who came with the Dutch to Yedo, became a pupil of [688] BOOK OF THE OPENING Aoki, who taught him all he knew. Both he and Sugita derived much profit from a Dutch physician who came one year to Yedo. Not content with this, Maeno went to Naga- saki for several months in 1770, and returned with his vocabulary extended to some seven hundred words, and with a Dutch dictionary and a book on anatomy ("Tafel Ana- tomla"). The next year he and Sugita were present at the dissection of an executed criminal in Senju, a suburb of Yedo, where the executions generally took place. Such dissections began about this time to be occasionally made on the bodies of executed criminals, at the request of influential physicians, the knife being usually wielded by the executioner, a member of the low Eta caste (the only caste that existed in old Japan, and now entirely done away with), who pointed out to those present such organs as he happened to know. The fact that such dissections took place is an evidence of the universal spirit of intellectual unrest which distinguished this age, and of which indeed the desire for Western knowledge was one of the manifestations. Up to this time, however, doctors had not dared to question, openly at least, the truth of the old Chinese teaching about the constitution of the human body, but had been enveloped in doubt and per- plexity. On that memorable day Maeno, Sugita, and a few others, comparing what they saw with the figures In the *'Tafel Anatomia" that Maeno had brought from Nagasaki, and of which Sugita by a most happy coincidence had also secured a copy, were greatly impressed by their faithfulness to nature, and then and there they determined to devote their lives to exploring the new domain of knowledge thus opened to their view. The very next day they met at Maeno's house and began the work of deciphering the book — for it was deciphering, and nothing less. To this task Maeno brought his knowledge of some seven hundred words n689: I j f THE RICE INSTITUTE and the dictionary, while some of them did not even know the alphabet; but, nothing daunted, they set to work and toiled for three whole years, until 1774, during which time the band was joined by some new members and deserted by some old ones. The names of the eight who were constant in their devotion to the self-appointed task deserve to be mentioned here, viz., Maeno Ryotaku, Sugita Genpaku, Kat- suragawa Hoshu (i 751-1809), Nakagawa Junnan, Ishi- kawa Genjo, Toriyama Shoen, Mine Shuntai, and Kiriyama Seitetsu. Sugita always wrote out at night what had been deciphered during the day, making corrections and revisions as the work progressed, so that at the end of three years the translation was completed simultaneously with the decipher- ing. The publication of this work, entitled Kaitai Shins ho, or *'New Anatomy," marks an epoch in the history of the introduction of Occidental civilization into Japan; for not only was it a great training and education to those who took part in it, giving them confidence and power, and making them, as it were, the center of the new movement, but it made known to a much wider circle than before the existence of an entirely new system of learning and roused a spirit of inquiry in bolder minds, many of whom joined the pioneers as associates and pupils and became their successors in carry- ing on the work. Maeno was interested in the Dutch language, and wrote several books in order to make its study and translation easier, while Sugita devoted himself more especially to the advancement of the knowledge and practice of the new medicine. From this time on, the introduction of Western knowledge was placed on a firmer basis; for original books became accessible to those who took pains enough — great pains, no doubt, but not to be compared with those of Maeno and his fellows. To this result Otsuki Gentaku (1757- [690] BOOK OF THE OPENING 1827), a pupil of Maeno and of Sugita, contributed very greatly, both by his personal teaching and by his books, among which may be specially mentioned one entitled Ran- gaku Kaieti, or "Introduction to the Study of Dutch" (1788). Many now came to him to get help in reading Dutch; one of his pupils, Inamura Sanpaku, compiled a Dutch-Japanese dictionary containing eighty thousand words, after a Dutch-French dictionary of Frangois Halma, and type-printed thirty copies of it by subscription in 1796. An abridged edition containing thirty thousand words was afterward made by his pupil Fujibayashi, of which one hun- dred copies were printed in 1 8 1 o. Another dictionary based on the same Dutch-French dictionary was compiled at Naga- saki by a Dutchman, Hendrik Doeff, a resident in Nagasaki for seventeen years, with the assistance of Yoshiwo Gonno- suke and other interpreters. This was completed in 18 16, but was not printed until much later (i 855-1 858). It was afterward known as "Doeff Halma" to distinguish it from the "Yedo Halma" of Inamura. Various abridged dic- tionaries were compiled, and some of them printed, all tend- ing to make the acquiring of the Dutch language easier; but those of Inamura and Doeff condnued to be standard works, and as they were both out of print, they used to be copied by poor students, who thereby earned money and at the same time increased their knowledge of the Dutch vocabulary. The so-called Dutch medicine had up to this period been confined, as already mentioned, to the practice of surgery, but Udagawa Genzui (i755~i797)j a physician to the Lord of Tsuyama, seeing the errors of the old Chinese school of medicine, became a pupil and afterward an eminent member of the band of Dutch scholars, and at the suggestion of Kat- suragawa (one of Maeno's co-workers) took up the study of a Dutch work on medicine by one Johannes Gorter. Al- 1:6913 THE RICE INSTITUTE though he had the invaluable assistance not only of Katsura- gawa, but also of Maeno, Sugita, Otsuki, and others, who all earnestly desired his success for the sake of the advance- ment of their cause, he had to contend not only with the difficulty of the subject-matter itself, but also with that of the language, as yet scarcely mastered. It took him nine years to complete the translation of the work, which was published in the tenth year ( 1 793 ) under the name of Naika Sen-yo, or ''Elements of Internal Medicine." This was the first time that the Western system of (internal) medicine was made known to the Japanese. Udagawa afterward wrote several other books on medicine. His adopted son, Udagawa Genshin (i 769-1 834), a pupil of Otsuki, was a very good Chinese scholar, and is said to have been a great help to Inamura in compiling his dictionary. He afterward revised and enlarged his father's work on medicine, and also published in 1806 a book called / Han Teiko, or "Manual of Medicine, '* which was of great service in diffusing West- ern medical knowledge. His mastery of Chinese made him a ready writer and translator— although, indeed, this might be said of almost all of those early pioneers of the new school. Yoshida Choshuku (i 779-1 824), a pupil of Katsura- gawa, being led to the study of original Dutch books by reading Udagawa's Naika Sen-yo, was the first to begin the open practice of Dutch medicine. This gave great offense to the doctors of the old or Chinese school, who insisted that the Dutch system should be confined to surgery, as hereto- fore, and denounced the new medicine as outlandish and vicious; so that Katsuragawa was obliged to scratch Yoshi- da's name off the list of his pupils. Yoshida, however, was very successful, and afterward, on the recommendation of Udagawa, became a physician to the Lord of Kaga. He 1:6923 BOOK OF THE OPENING published in 18 14 a book on the treatment of fever, entitled Taisei Netsuhyo Ron, with a later supplement, and also a work on Dutch materia medica. He had many pupils— among others, Takano Choei and Koseki San-ei. Yoshiwo Joan was the first to call attention to the impor- tance of the study of physics, and as an introduction wrote a book on celestial phenomena called Kwansho Zusetsu (1823). Aochi Rinso (i 775-1 853) was the first to pub- lish a book on physics, Kikai Kwanran (1827), which was afterward amplified by Kawamoto Komin (1810-1871) in his Kikai Kwanran Kwogi (1851). Kawamoto was inter- ested in applied science, and made various experiments; he was successful in taking daguerreotypes and photographs. Aochi's Bankoku Yochi Shiryakti may also be regarded as the first systematic book on geography, although unfortu- nately it was not printed. In 1 833 was published Shokugaku Keigen by Udagawa Yoan (i 798-1 846), adopted son of Udagawa Genshin, containing an exposition of systematic botany after Linnaeus; and in 1839, SeimiKaiso, by the same author, which was the first book on chemistry. We have already seen that the shogun Yoshimune was interested in astronomy and founded an observatory. As- tronomy, however, did not flourish; the knowledge of West- ern astronomy and mathematics, transmitted by Hayashi through Kobayashi to Nishigawa, died out with the last- named scholar. There were attempts at the translation of books on astronomy, such as that by Motoki Nidayu, a Nagasaki interpreter, who was ordered to translate a book on the use of globes, and notwithstanding his ignorance of the subject did accomplish the task (1793) after toiling at it for two years. The truth is that while in medical and allied sciences the translators were doctors who had some knowledge of the subject, or at all events were animated by 1:6933 THE RICE INSTITUTE though he had the Invaluable assistance not only of Katsura- gawa, but also of Maeno, Suglta, OtsukI, and others, who all earnestly desired his success for the sake of the advance- ment of their cause, he had to contend not only with the difficulty of the subject-matter itself, but also with that of the language, as yet scarcely mastered. It took him nine years to complete the translation of the work, which was published In the tenth year (1793) under the name of A^^i^^ Sen-yo, or "Elements of Internal Medicine." This was the first time that the Western system of (internal) medicine was made known to the Japanese. Udagawa afterward wrote several other books on medicine. His adopted son, Udagawa Genshin (i 769-1 834). a pupil of OtsukI, was a very good Chinese scholar, and is said to have been a great help to Inamura in compiling his dictionary. He afterward revised and enlarged his father's work on medicine, and also published In 1806 a book called / Han Teiko, or "Manual of Medicine,'' which was of great service in diffusing West- ern medical knowledge. His mastery of Chinese made him a ready writer and translator— although, indeed, this might be said of almost all of those early pioneers of the new school. Yoshlda Choshuku (i 779-1 824), a pupil of Katsura- gawa, being led to the study of original Dutch books by reading Udagawa's Naika Sen-yo, was the first to begin the open practice of Dutch medicine. This gave great offense to the doctors of the old or Chinese school, who insisted that the Dutch system should be confined to surgery, as hereto- fore, and denounced the new medicine as outlandish and vicious; so that Katsuragawa was obliged to scratch Yoshl- da's name off the list of his pupils. Yoshlda, however, was very successful, and afterward, on the recommendation of Udagawa, became a physician to the Lord of Kaga. He 1:692:] / it BOOK OF THE OPENING published in 18 14 a book on the treatment of fever, entitled Taisei Netsuhyo Ron, with a later supplement, and also a work on Dutch materia medica. He had many pupils— among others, Takano Choel and Koseki San-ei. Yoshiwo Joan was the first to call attention to the impor- tance of the study of physics, and as an Introduction wrote a book on celestial phenomena called Kwansho Zusetsu (1823). AochI RInso (i 775-1 853) was the first to pub- lish a book on physics, Kikai Kwanran (1827), which was afterward amplified by Kawamoto Komin (1810-1871) in his Kikai Kwanran Kwogi (1851). Kawamoto was inter- ested In applied science, and made various experiments; he was successful in taking daguerreotypes and photographs. Aochl's Bankoku Yochi Shiryaku may also be regarded as the first systematic book on geography, although unfortu- nately It was not printed. In 1 833 was published Shokugaku Keigen by Udagawa Yoan (i 798-1 846), adopted son of Udagawa Genshin, containing an exposition of systematic botany after Linnasus; and in 1839, Seimi Kaiso, hy the same author, which was the first book on chemistry. We have already seen that the shogun Yoshlmune was interested in astronomy and founded an observatory. As- tronomy, however, did not flourish; the knowledge of West- ern astronomy and mathematics, transmitted by Hayashi through KobayashI to NIshigawa, died out with the last- named scholar. There were attempts at the translation of books on astronomy, such as that by Motoki NIdayu, a Nagasaki Interpreter, who was ordered to translate a book on the use of globes, and notwithstanding his Ignorance of the subject did accomplish the task (1793) after toiling at it for two years. The truth Is that while in medical and allied sciences the translators were doctors who had some knowledge of the subject, or at all events were animated by 1:693] THE RICE INSTITUTE a zeal for it, astronomy suffered from an utter lack of mathematical knowledge on the part of those who under- stood Dutch. It may here be stated that a system of mathe- matics was being developed in Japan quite independently of Western mathematics, which was not introduced till later on, and even then it was cultivated side by side with, but quite distinct from, the latter. Under these circumstances the Observatory had fallen upon evil days, and the almanac for 1795 failed to predict the total solar eclipse which took place on New Year's day (old calendar). A reform was now imperative, and Asada Goryu (i 734-1799) was sum- moned from Osaka to take charge of the task. He was a man of great originality; a physician by profession, he had devoted himself to astronomy and had made observations with instruments made by himself, and arrived independently at several important results, which he afterward found to agree with those of Western astronomers as stated In Chi- nese books (translations or compilations mostly by Catholic missionaries in China). Asada was too old to come to Yedo himself, but sent his two pupils, TakahashI Sakuzaemon (1764-1804) and Hazama Gorobei (1756-1816), in his place. They were both men of great ability, and under their direction a revised almanac was issued for 1798. Hazama then went back to Osaka. He was a man of some means, always had artisans working for him, and among other In- struments made a barometer and a thermometer, with which he began meteorological observations which were kept up for some time after his death; he also devised an ellipso- graph which Is described by his son. The Instruments used by Ino in his survey were made under the direction of Hazama after European models. TakahashI, Asada's other pupil, was placed permanently on the staff of the Obser- vatory. It was at his suggestion and under his superintend- 1:6943 BOOK OF THE OPENING ence that the geodetic survey of Japan was undertaken by Ino Kageyu (i 744-1 81 8). Ino was well over fifty when he began the survey in 1800, and spent the rest of his life on the survey, so that the maps were almost complete at the time of his death. The wonderful accuracy of these maps, which are still preserved and parts of which have con- tinued to be the standard map down to the present day, bears ample testimony to the skill, patience, endurance, and scien- tific conscientiousness of Ino. TakahashI did not live to see the completion of Ino's survey; he died in 1804, and was succeeded by his son TakahashI Sakuzaemon, junior (1785- 1830), also an able and enterprising man. At the suggestion of Takahashi, junior, a bureau of trans- lation was established in 181 1 In the Observatory, Otsuki Gentaku, Baba Sajuro (1787-1839), a Dutch interpreter of Nagasaki, and Udagawa Genshin being the earliest members of the staff, which included at one time or another most of the eminent Dutch scholars, such as Otsuki Genkan (1785- 1837), son of Gentaku; Udagawa Yoan; Sugita Rikkei (1786-1845), son of Genpaku; Sugita Seikei (1817-1859), son of Rikkei; Aochi RInso; Koseki San-ei (1787-1839); Mitsukuri Genpo (i 799-1 863), grandfather of the present writer; Kawamoto Komin; etc. This bureau of translation was the germ which has developed through several stages of transformation into the present Imperial University of Tokyo. Such a bureau was decidedly a desideratum at that time; for the Russians in the north and the English in the south were beginning to make their presence felt, sometimes in a very unpleasant manner, and the government was de- sirous of obtaining a fuller and more accurate knowledge of the outside world. Already Dutch scholars had written many books and pamphlets, giving information concerning the nations of the world, of which some were printed and \ THE RICE INSTITUTE published, some circulated privately in manuscripts, and some kept secret for official or individual reasons. Such were the Bankoku Zusetsu ("Map of the World, with Ex- planations,'' 1786) by Katsuragawa, the Bankoku Shinwa C^New Talk about Different Countries," 1789) by Morl- shlma (a brother of Katsuragawa), a revision and enlarge- ment of Aral's Sairan I gen by Yamamura Salsuke (a pupil of Otsuki, 1802), Ho Ei Hondo (a warning about the move- ments of the English, 1 807 and 1 808 ) by Otsuki Gentaku, etc., besides many books on Russia and the Russians by almost every one of the above writers and several others. (I men- tion these to show that those pioneers of the new learning were alive to the dangers of foreign attack, and were the first to warn their countrymen of it.) In 1808 several of the interpreters at Nagasaki were ordered to learn Russian and English. One of them, Motoki Shozaemon, wrote an English grammar (1811) and compiled an English-Japa- nese dictionary (1814), neither of which was, however, printed. It was not till 1847 that the study of English be- gan to be taken up seriously in Yedo. About this time Rin Shihei (173 8-1 793) traveled all over Japan from Yezo to Nagasaki, and became convinced of the pressing necessity of coast defense, and of the danger arising from its total neglect. He tried to impress upon his countrymen the mag- nitude and imminence of this danger, and with this object he wrote several books, among others Kaikoku Heidan, or "Talk on the Arms of an Island Country" (1787, published 1791). This book led to his being kept in confinement (1792) for trying "to excite the people to unnecessary un- rest by publishing preposterous opinions based on ridiculous rumors." The arrival of Phllipp Franz von Siebold as physician to the Dutch factory was a great event in the history of the C696] BOOK OF THE OPENING Introduction of Western knowledge; for, besides his exceptional skill in medicine, he was also well equipped scientifically for carrying on the Investigations in natural his- tory for which he had come to Japan. He resided for six years, from 1823 to 1829, in Nagasaki, where he gave clini- cal lectures, and many Japanese doctors and scientists visited him and greatly profited by his instruction and guidance, while he himself also derived immense advantages from their assistance. In 1826 he came to Yedo, where, among others, Takahashi of the Observatory became acquainted with him, and gave him a map of Japan in exchange for some books which Takahashi was most anxious to acquire as likely to give a very good idea of the state of Europe, but which Siebold would not give him on any other condition. Now it was against the law to give a map of Japan to a for- eigner, and this act of Takahashi being afterwards discov- ered, he was thrown into prison, where he died soon after. At the same time an ophthalmologist, Habu Gensekl, was severely punished for having given Siebold, in exchange for some ophthalmological books and instruments, a kimono with the shogun's crest which had been given him as a reward for some special service. Many others suffered in connection with this, and Siebold himself was expelled from the coun- try. This was a very unfortunate occurrence, for Siebold had been a great help to the students of Western learning, and his expulsion was a real blow to its cause, and this act of disloyalty, even though it had been done with good inten- tion, brought reproach on the votaries of the new learning. Among those who received Siebold's instruction in Naga- saki were Ito Keisuke, Ito Genboku, Totsuka Selkai (a pupil of Udagawa Genshin), Takano Choei (a pupil of Yoshlda), and others. Ito Keisuke (i 803-1 901) became an eminent botanist, and in 1901 was raised to the peerage at the age of [697:1 i THE RICE INSTITUTE ninety-eight for his services to the state as scientist. Ito Genboku (i 800-1 871) and Totsuka (i 799-1 876) came to Yedo and practised, taught, and wrote books on the Dutch medicine. They were very successful, Ito afterwards being appointed physician to the Lord of Hizen (1844) and later to the shogun (1858), and Totsuka to the Lord of Satsuma (1842). Takano Choei (1804-1850) was a man of great talent, a very good Dutch scholar, and a facile writer and translator; he also came to Yedo (1830) and began to prac- tise and teach medicine; he translated many books, among which his Igen SuyS, a work on physiology, deserves to be specially mentioned here. But his active nature and inde- pendent spirit did not allow him to lead a quiet life. With his friends, among whom the most prominent were Wata- nabe Noboru ( 1 794-1 842 ) , chief adviser to a small daimyo ; a Chinese scholar and artist (well known by the wow de plume of ''Kwazan"), who, although not himself a Dutch scholar, was convinced of the importance of Western learn- ing; and Koseki Sanei (i 787-1 839), already mentioned as a pupil of Yoshida,— with these and others, Takano held periodical meetings, at which they discussed all sorts of topics, literary, scientific, social, industrial, and political, in the light of Western knowledge. One day, hearing that the government had decided to send away, by force if necessary, an English ship if it should appear in Yedo Bay in accord- ance with the information given by the Dutch, they earnestly discussed the subject and came to the conclusion that those who understood the condition of the outside world should not be silent on such an important occasion. Accordingly, Takano wrote a brochure called Ytime Monogatari ("A Dream"), in which he urged, in the words of a man met in a dream, the unadvisability of such a policy. This brochure C6983 BOOK OF THE OPENING was presented to the officials of the shogun and secretly cir- culated among Takano's friends. Watanabe also wrote some notes which he, however, with his natural modesty and prudence, kept to himself. It was to be expected that the conservative element, among whom we may count the Chinese scholars in general, would look with no favorable eyes upon the instruction in what they regarded as barbarian and outlandish. One of the most persistent and implacable of them was Torii Yozo, a narrow-minded man, who had special reasons to be un- friendly to the advocates of the new learning. He was a cadet of the Hayashi family, whose head was hereditary doyen of the Chinese literati, and on one occasion, as the head of a commission to make a survey of the coast of Izu and Sagami and to report on the best means for its defense, he had the mortification of seeing the report of Egawa Tarozaemon, his second on the commission, accepted in preference to his own. This Egawa was a friend of the new learning, and had the assistance of Uchida Yataro and Tamura Kisaburo, pupils of Takano Choei, who were ac- quainted with the modern method of surveying. The patriotic but somewhat too ardent and imprudent zeal of Takano and others gave Torii a good opportunity of taking a personal revenge and at the same time of arresting the advance of the new movement. Watanabe was ordered to be kept in confinement in the domain of his lord, where he afterwards committed hara-kiri, having reasons to fear that his living might be prejudicial to the interests of his lord. Takano was put into a common prison, whence he escaped at the time of a fire, and after being in hiding for some time, during which he was employed in making translations, was discovered and killed himself in order to avoid further [699] THE RICE INSTITUTE ninety-eight for his services to the state as scientist. Ito Genboku (1800-1871) and Totsuka (1799-1876) came to Yedo and practised, taught, and wrote books on the Dutch medicine. They were very successful, Ito afterwards being appointed physician to the Lord of Hizen ( 1844) and later to the shogun (1858), and Totsuka to the Lord of Satsuma (1842). Takano Choei (i 804-1 850) was a man of great talent, a very good Dutch scholar, and a facile writer and translator; he also came to Yedo (1830) and began to prac- tise and teach medicine; he translated many books, among which his Igen Suyo, a work on physiology, deserves to be specially mentioned here. But his active nature and Inde- pendent spirit did not allow him to lead a quiet life. With his friends, among whom the most prominent were Wata- nabe Noboru ( 1 794-1 842 ) , chief adviser to a small daimyo ; a Chinese scholar and artist (well known by the nom de plume of "Kwazan"), who, although not himself a Dutch scholar, was convinced of the importance of Western learn- ing; and Koseki Sanei (i 787-1 839), already mentioned as a pupil of Yoshida,— with these and others, Takano held periodical meetings, at which they discussed all sorts of topics, literary, scientific, social, industrial, and political, in the light of Western knowledge. One day, hearing that the government had decided to send away, by force if necessary, an English ship if it should appear in Yedo Bay in accord- ance with the information given by the Dutch, they earnestly discussed the subject and came to the conclusion that those who understood the condition of the outside world should not be silent on such an important occasion. Accordingly, Takano wrote a brochure called Yume Monogatari ("A Dream"), in which he urged, in the words of a man met in a dream, the unadvisability of such a policy. This brochure [698] BOOK OF THE OPENING was presented to the officials of the shogun and secretly cir- culated among Takano's friends. Watanabe also wrote some notes which he, however, with his natural modesty and prudence, kept to himself. It was to be expected that the conservative element, among whom we may count the Chinese scholars in general, would look with no favorable eyes upon the Instruction in what they regarded as barbarian and outlandish. One of the most persistent and implacable of them was Torii Yozo, a narrow-minded man, who had special reasons to be un- friendly to the advocates of the new learning. He was a cadet of the Hayashi family, whose head was hereditary doyen of the Chinese literati, and on one occasion, as the head of a commission to make a survey of the coast of Izu and Sagami and to report on the best means for its defense, he had the mortification of seeing the report of Egawa Tarozaemon, his second on the commission, accepted in preference to his own. This Egawa was a friend of the new learning, and had the assistance of Uchlda Yataro and Tamura KIsaburo, pupils of Takano Choei, who were ac- quainted with the modern method of surveying. The patriotic but somewhat too ardent and imprudent zeal of Takano and others gave Torii a good opportunity of taking a personal revenge and at the same time of arresting the advance of the new movement. Watanabe was ordered to be kept In confinement in the domain of his lord, where he afterwards committed hara-kiri, having reasons to fear that his living might be prejudicial to the interests of his lord. Takano was put Into a common prison, whence he escaped at the time of a fire, and after being in hiding for some time, during which he was employed in making translations, was discovered and killed himself in order to avoid further n699l THE RICE INSTITUTE humiliation. Koseki Sanei also killed himself as soon as he heard of the arrest of Watanabe and Takano, and many others suffered in various degrees. Another victim of Torii's enmity was Takashima Shiro- dayu of Nagasaki, who, having learned modern gunnery from a Dutchman, had been summoned in 1841 to Yedo to exhibit his method and skill. Egawa Tarozaemon was the first to enroll himself as his pupil and to receive instruction in the new method. After his return to Nagasaki, Taka- shima was accused of secret intercourse with the Dutch and thrown into prison, whence, however, he was released in 1853 to give instruction in gunnery. The way of Dutch scholars, which had been by no means smooth before these events, was now made still rougher by various restrictions, which, however, could not stop the steady progress of Western knowledge. Among the pupils of Udagawa Genshin were Tsubol Shindo (i 795-1 848), Mitsukuri Genpo (already mentioned), and Totsuka Selkai. Tsubol began to systematize the teaching of the Dutch by prescribing a course In which the reading of grammar had an early and important place. One of his pupils, Ogata Koan (1810-1863), began to practise the Dutch medicine and to teach the Dutch language and medicine in Osaka In 1838. Ogata's school, which was In existence till 1862, and of which a most interesting and vivid account is given In the autobiography of his pupil, Fukuzawa Yuklchi, the founder of the Ke'w Gijiikii, became the center of Western learning In western Japan, and counted over three thousand pupils, among whom were many leaders of new Japan, too nu- merous to mention. Another pupil of Tsubol, Sugita Selkei, in Yedo also had many distinguished pupils, among whom may be mentioned Kanda Kohel, who first taught Western mathematics In the Kaiseijo,^ and Sugi Kojl, the father of 1 See page 704. CV^^U BOOK OF THE OPENING statistics in Japan. Books on law and politics were now ordered to be translated in the Translation Bureau, though solely for ofliclal use. Mitsukuri Genpo wrote the Taisei Shinju, the first systematic history of Europe ; while his pupil and adopted son, Mitsukuri Selgo, published his Konyo Zushiki (1847), which gave the general public for the first time a tolerably up-to-date knowledge of the geography of the world. Mitsukuri also printed a Dutch grammar in script characters by means of wood blocks (the usual way in those days), which was a great help to the students of Dutch, for before this they had to copy the book for them- selves before beginning to read it. This continued to be the case with most foreign books until well on in the sixties, for imported books were scarce and they could not be printed in Japan; the present writer did not have to do this copying, but he can remember his brother, elder by a few years, copy- ing (somewhere about 1866) Markham's "History of Eng- land," which he was learning to read. Fujil Saburo was the first to attempt the reading of English books, and his Ei Bun Pan was the first book published on the subject (1847). About this time, also, Murakami Eishun (1811-1883) for the first time began to read French books with the help of a French-Dutch dictionary. By the middle of the nineteenth century doctors practising Dutch medicine had become so many and so successful, espe- cially in Yedo, as to cause serious uneasiness to doctors of the old Chinese school; and through the influence of the latter an Injunction was issued In 1849, confining the prac- tice of the Dutch school to surgery only, so that Ito Genboku and others had to enroll themselves pupils of Katsuragawa, the shogun's surgeon, before they could practise publicly! Moreover, it was made necessary to obtain the permission of the authorities of the old Medical Academy before pub- THE RICE INSTITUTE lishlng any book on the new medicine: this of course was tantamount to a prohibition. It was not much better with books other than medical: permission to publish any work relating to Western learning was always granted very grudgingly; thus, for instance, my grandfather, although he was on the staff of the Translation Bureau, had to wait for two years (from 1849 to 1851) after the wood blocks had been completed before he could get permission to publish his Hakko Tsushi, a book on geography. But even such meas- ures were not sufficient to stop the introduction of Western learning, and the coming of the American, Russian, and English ships demanding the opening of Japan to trade, and the subsequent change of policy on the part of the shogun's government, made the knowledge of foreign languages and foreign matters in general imperative. In looking back over this period, the first thing that strikes us is the fact that the first introduction of Western knowledge was almost entirely due to doctors of medicine, who, however, as we have seen above, did not confine them- selves to medicine alone. This was due to various circum- stances. As I have remarked before, about the middle of the eighteenth century there arose in Japan a remarkable revo- lutionary movement in things intellectual, a general restless- ness and reaction against old authorities, a search for new knowledge; and the doctors were almost the only persons possessing sufficient culture who were likely to turn their attention to foreign learning. Moreover, the superiority of the Dutch method in surgery had long been acknow- ledged, and their superiority in other branches of medicine could also be demonstrated by facts and appreciated by the public; and thus this was the door through which Western learning could enter with the least resistance. I have perhaps not stated explicitly enough the difficulties 1:702] BOOK OF THE OPENING and dangers confronting those who were bold enough to break through the hard crust of custom and prejudice and to attempt to learn a strange language and so to open an avenue to a new and alien learning; to do so would require too long a digression into the organization of the society and the character of the civil administration of the time; suffice it to say that they were very great, indeed, and some- times insuperable.^ Special mention should, however, be made of the assist- ance that many of the daimyos, actuated some by true and intelligent perception of the importance of the new move- ment, others by mere curiosity or vanity, rendered to its pioneers by their patronage and by giving them leisure to pursue their study, as well as by supplying them with books and other materials. THE FOURTH PERIOD Interesting as it would be, this is not the place to describe the stirring events which followed the coming of Commo- dore Perry in 1853 and the opening of the country again to foreign intercourse, and led to the "Restoration of Meiji'' in 1 1 cannot refrain from mentioning one example of these difficulties Even toward the end of this period, when it had become comparatively easy to set Dutch books, it was only through the shogun's officials, and with their per- mission, that a private individual could obtain a foreign book, and then not more than one a year. Often interpreters who accompanied the Dutch chief factor from Nagasaki on his visit to Yedo brought some books with them which they sold secretly to the Dutch scholars at a great profit In one of my grandfather's (Mitsukuri Genpo) letters to my father (Mitsukuri Shuhei) he complains that the Dutch, having met with a theft on the wav were so strictly guarded that it was impossible to get an interview with them as usual, and that the interpreters were afraid of selling the books that they had brought, or else demanded such prices for them that a poor scholar like himself could not afford to buy. Yet this very difficulty was often an incen- tive to a new line of study; as an instance, I may mention the case of Mura- kami, who, failing to get the Dutch book on chemistry that he wanted but being supplied with a French book in its place, set to work to learn to 'read French instead of waiting for the Dutch book, which would be at least eigh- teen months in coming. ^ 1:7033 tJ THE RICE INSTITUTE 1868; we must confine ourselves to those relating more particularly to the subject in hand. In 1855 the Translation Bureau was made independent of the Observatory, and under the name of Bansho Shira- bejo (*'An Institution for the Study of Foreign Books"), which was finally changed to Kaiseijo, besides translation, instruction was given in foreign languages, not only to the shogun's immediate retainers but also to those of daimyos, Mitsukuri Genpo and Sugita Seikei being among the earliest professors. The foreign languages taught were Dutch, English, Russian, French, and German. A department of natural products (or natural history) was added in 1861, with Ito Keisuke as professor; a department of mathematics (although naturally of an elementary character) in 1863, with Kanda Kohei as professor; and a department of phys- ics and chemistry in 1865, under a Dutch professor named Gratama. In 1867 the modern method of class teaching was introduced. In 1863 a foreign language school was opened in Naga- saki by the shogunate, at which Chinese, Dutch, English, French, and Russian were taught. Thus the instruction in foreign languages hitherto given only by private persons was now given at those schools or academies by professors ap- pointed by the government of the shogun. Some of the greater daimyos followed the example and established schools for the teaching of one or more foreign languages, usually English, which now came to be studied more than any other language— more even than Dutch. At the same time private tuition went on as before, and some regular pri- vate schools were established, of which that of Ogata, al- ready mentioned, and that of Fukuzawa, afterward called *'the Keio Gijuku/' were the most notable examples. The march of events was such that the injunction against [704] BOOK OF THE OPENING the practice of Dutch medicine lost its effect. In 1857 Ito Genboku, Totsuka Seikai, and others opened a "vaccination institute," where doctors of the new school held meetings, there being more than eighty of them in Yedo at the time. Next year Ito and Totsuka were called in to attend upon the shogun in his illness. The Vaccination Institute was made a governmeni institution, with three departments for instruc- tion, for discussion, and for vaccination. In 1861 the name was changed to Seiyo Igakujo ("The Academy of Western Medicine"). In i860 Matsumoto Ryojun opened a hos- pital in Nagasaki, where he had been studying under a Dutch naval medical officer named Pompe. The next year this hospital was turned into a government school of medicine, with a Dutch doctor named Bowdoin as professor; this doc- tor was the first foreign professor employed by the Japanese government. In 1865 physics and chemistry were added to the subjects taught in this institution. Missionaries now began to come to the open ports and gave lessons in languages; some were engaged by daimyos to teach in the interior. Among the missionaries the names of the Americans Hepburn, Brown, and Verbeck must spe- cially be mentioned, all men of sterling character and attain- ments. Dr. Hepburn practised medicine in Yokohama; his Japanese-English dictionary, the first of its kind, is still in use, and the system of transliteration of Japanese characters into the Latin alphabet employed in it has remained the standard down to the present day. Books, translations, and original works on various topics now become too numerous to enumerate ; I shall mention only two besides Hepburn's dictionary: one is the English-Jap- anese dictionary compiled by Hori Tatsunosuke, assisted by teachers in the Kaiseijo, and the other the work entitled Seiyo Jijo, or "Things Western," of Fukuzawa Yukichi, in 1:7053 THE RICE INSTITUTE which he describes what he had observed of the Western world during his travels in America and Europe, whither he went as a translator to the embassies sent by the shogunate to America in i860 and to Europe in 1861. This book did more to make the West known to the general public than almost any other book; indeed, it was unique at the time both in the nature of its contents and in the number of copies sold. In 1862 the shogun's government sent a number of stu- dents to Holland, among whom were Enomoto (afterward Viscount, Minister of the Navy, of Education, etc.) and Akamatsu (Admiral, Baron), to learn navigation; Ito Gen- paku and Hayashi Kenkai to study medicine; Nishi Amane and Tsuda Mamichi, who studied law (both afterward barons). The next year four students were sent to Russia. In 1866 a party of fourteen students was sent to England, among whom were Nakamura Masanao, already known as a Chinese scholar, and afterward a great educationalist; Toyama Masakazu (afterward professor and president of Tokyo University, and Minister of Education) ; Hayashi Tadasu (Count, the present Minister of Communications) ; and the present writer, the youngest of the party (being eleven years old at the time), with his elder brother, Mitsu- kuri Keigo. Finally, in 1867, the shogun's brother, Toku- gawa Minbutayu, was sent to France with another party of students: in his suite were such men as Shibusawa Eiichi (now Baron) and Mitsukuri Rinsho (afterward Baron, grandson of Genpo). A few of these students came home before the Restoration, but all were recalled in 1868. Most of them afterward did good service in the introduction of Western learning into Japan. The Satsuma clan also sent a number of students abroad, and a few went on their own initiative, among whom were the late Prince Ito and Mar- [706] BOOK OF THE OPENING quis Inouye: these had to go secretly, as the order forbid- ding all traveling abroad was still in force. Although the shogun's government saw the necessity of opening the country to foreign intercourse, the conservativ^es all over the country were bitterly opposed to such a step. This opposition to the foreign policy of the shogunate, in- separably combined with the more fundamental one based on our national constitution, namely, that the shoguns were usurpers and were wielding authority which properly be- longed to the Emperor alone, was the force that ultimately brought about the downfall of the shogunate and the "Resto- ration of Meiji." Conservative feeling ran very high, and masters of the new learning were now often in danger of their lives from conservative samurais, who regarded their action as a desecration of the land of the Kami (ancient gods of Japan). Sakuma Shuri was assassinated in Kyoto for his open advocacy of the opening of the country. It was under the cry of "Reverence for the Sovereign!'' and "Ex- clusion of Barbarians !" that the overthrow of the shogunate was effected. THE FIFTH PERIOD We now come to the era of Meiji, or "The Enlightened Government," which began in 1868 and ended with the death of Emperor Meiji in July of the present year ( 1 9 1 2 ) . The accession of the Emperor took place in the beginning, and the resignation of Keiki, the last of the shoguns, toward the end, of the preceding year. A few disaffected followers of the shogun took up arms against the imperial banner, but were put down without very great difficulty, and thenceforth the Emperor reigned in fact as well as in name. Although the cry for the overthrow of the shogunate had been "Reverence for the Sovereign!'' and "Exclusion of Barba- THE RICE INSTITUTE rians!", yet the leaders of the movement knew well that the last was neither practicable nor desirable; and on the four- teenth day of the third month of the first year of Meiji (April 6, 1868), the Emperor summoned the imperial princes and high officials of his court, and in the Shishindeu, or throne-room, of the old palace in Kyoto swore the mem- orable oath known as 'The Imperial Oath of Five Articles," setting forth the policy which was to be followed by him thereafter. The five articles were as follows:^ I. Deliberative assemblies shall be established, and all measures of government shall be decided by public opinion. II. All classes, high and low, shall unite in vigorously carrying out the plan of government. III. Officials, civil and mihtary, and all common people shall, as far as possible, be allowed to fulfil their just desires, so that there may not be any discon- tent among them. IV. Uncivilized customs of former times shall he broken through, and everything shall be based upon just and equitable principles of nature. V. Knowledge shall he sought for throughout the world, so that the welfare of the Empire may be promoted. In pursuance of the policy set forth in the above oath, the first ten years of the Meiji era were occupied mainly in breaking up the established order of things and substituting a new one; although, as for the latter, a much longer period elapsed before anything satisfactory could be arranged. Many great and radical changes were made, of which the 1 The translation is that of Dr. Hozumi Nobushige, Enneritus Professor of Law in the Imperial University of Tokyo. 1:708 3 BOOK OF THE OPENING greatest by far was the abolition of the feudal system, which was completed in 1871 : the daimyos, or great military lords, gave up, of their own free will, all their lands and the power of life and death over their retainers and people within their respective territories, receiving in compensation pensions which were afterward commuted into national bonds. A new system of civil administration was introduced, and laws were revised. The wearing of swords by samurais was for- bidden, the army and navy were reorganized, and a system of universal conscription elaborated, so that the samurais, or military class, no longer were allowed to monopolize the civil and military services. Schools established by the shogunate and closed at its overthrow were reopened as soon as order V7as restored, and many new schools were opened both by the central and the local government (those of the daimyos before the aboli- tion of feudal clans). Many private schools for the teach- ing of Western knowledge flourished, among which may be specially mentioned the Keio Gijuku of Fukuzawa, the Sansa Gakusha of Mitsukuri Shuhei (father of the writer), and the Doninsha of Nakamura Masanao. Of Fukuzawa it is related that in May, 1868, while fighting was going on in Ueno (now Ueno Park, Tokyo) between the imperial army and some retainers of the shogun, Fukuzawa continued to hold his classes in another part of the city, and his school was not closed for a single day. In 1872 the first Education Code was promulgated, by which a national educational system was introduced for the first time. According to this, the whole country was to be divided into 8 university districts, each with a university; each university district was to be subdivided into 32 middle school districts, each with a middle school; and each middle school district was again to be subdivided into 210 elemen- ■■•ti THE RICE INSTITUTE tary school districts, each with an elementary school, so that there would be 8 universities, 256 middle schools, and 53,760 elementary schools in the whole country: the elemen- tary school education was to be compulsory for all classes and both sexes. At the same time as the promulgation of the new code, all existing schools supported by the govern- ment, central or local, were to be reorganized so as to be brought into conformity with its provisions or else be closed. The scheme of the code, however, proved too ambitious to be carried out in its entirety. In fact, in this, as in many other forms that followed the Restoration, we began with copying too closely the system or model of some one coun- try, and that not always the one best suited to our circum- stances, sometimes trying one model after another in our effort to find out what was the best; but gradually, as our knowledge has increased and our field of vision become widened, we have tried to adapt and make it more suitable to our own needs, by a careful consideration not only of systems and methods of different countries in theory and practice, but also of our own customs, usages, and traditions, and the peculiar circumstances of the times, which at first were often overlooked. We cannot go afield into the whole question of the educa- tional system, but must confine ourselves to the introduction of Western learning. Before the coming of Commodore Perry this was naturally most easily effected through the medium of the Dutch language, which, indeed, may be said to have been the only channel then available. But with the opening of the country to foreign intercourse, the English language began to be more generally studied, as it was the current language of the East. American missionaries helped to spread the knowledge of it among the Japanese people, many of them becoming teachers in schools after the Resto- BOOK OF THE OPENING ration. The study of foreign languages in general, which had presented such great difficulties and even dangers in the earlier days, was now stripped of all extraneous difficulties and encouraged and made a part of the higher common edu- cation, so that from that time on mere study of foreign languages scarcely comes within the scope of our subject. In private schools for foreign languages, however, students were often of mature age and had had previous culture in Chinese literature; they read works on politics and econom- ics, on Western philosophy and other abstruse subjects, as well as books on history, geography, and other common sub- jects, with a view to mastering the subject-matter, and conse- quently a knowledge of those subjects became more general. Gradually, as higher common education spread, and with it the study of English, these private schools lost in large part their raison d'etre, and in the eighties most of them were either closed or transformed partly or wholly into middle schools for higher common education, or into colleges for the teaching of special subjects. In the Kaiseijo (i\cademy for Foreign Languages) estab- lished by the shogunate and reopened by the new govern- ment, the same kind of tuition as In private schools was carried on by Japanese teachers for some time, side by side with the new and systematic instruction in foreign languages under Japanese and foreign teachers; but soon the former part was discontinued, and, on the other hand, provisions were made for instruction in law, some branches of science and engineering, and in history, philosophy, and literature, with a view to make It a nucleus for a university. In 1877 the Kaiseijo and the Igakujo (see pages 705, 715, and 717) were Incorporated as the University of Tokyo, with four faculties of law, science, literature, and medicine, to be again reorganized in 1886 Into the present Imperial University of 1:710 THE RICE INSTITUTE Tokyo (by amalgamation with the Engineering College, for- n,erly under the Department of Public Works), w.th five "colleges " or faculties, of law, medicine, engmeenng, liter- ature, and science, to which was afterward (1890) added a College of Agriculture. Let us now briefly consider the development of these faculties or colleges. Before the Meiji era scarcely any attention had been paid to Western laws and political science; the few books on these subjects that had been translated by order of the shogun's officials had not been made public, it being the policy of the shogunate to suppress all political discussions as much as possible. With the Restoration all this was changed. The reorganization of civil administration and the revision of laws and legal procedure required a know- ledge of Western facts and ideas on those subjects, and books bearing on them began to be eagerly studied in the orialnal or in translations. Accordingly, those who had acq'uired some legal knowledge of the West, such as Tsuda Mamichi, Nishi Amane, Mitsukuri Rinsho, and others, were in great demand. A translation of the Code Napoleon made by the last named was an important work, and contrib- uted greatly to the spreading of the knowledge of Western legal ideas. In 1873 a French legal expert, M. Boissonade, was engaged as adviser to the Department of Justice. It is not the province of this paper to trace the history of the codification of Japanese laws, which occupied a period of some forty years, but it may be briefly stated that the first draft, a close copy of the French code, was considerably modified through a greater attention paid to the old and established customs and usages of the country, and by the taking into consideration of the laws of other lands, espe- cially of Germany. In this we have another very good in- stance of what we have stated above in connection with the BOOK OF THE OPENING educational system. The names of Professors Hozumi Nobushige, Tomii Masaakira, and Ume Kenjiro, of the Im- perial University, Tokyo, must be mentioned even in this brief notice; for to them and to Mitsukuri Rinsho more than to any others is due the credit of the successful accomplish- ment of the work of codification. A school was opened in 1872 under the Department of Justice to give instruction in French law, while in the Kai- seijo a course in English law was opened in 1874, as stated above. W^e find in the calendar of Tokyo University for 1878 three professors of English law, one Englishman, one American, and one Japanese, the American being Professor H. T. Terry (Yale, '69), who has just retired this summer (1912), and the Japanese, Inouye Ryoichi, one of the first two Japanese graduates of Harvard Law School. There were also some lecturers on old Japanese laws. In 1885 the school of French law was transferred to the university, and in 1887 a course of German law was added. As the work of legislation progressed, lectures on Japanese law were given at first as auxiliary subjects, but finally they came to be the main subjects, while lectures continue to this day to be given on English, French, and German law as auxiliary subjects. Public laws, political sciences, and economics also now form a part of the curriculum of the Law College, which at pres- ent consists of the four sections of law, politics, economics, and commerce. I cannot do better than sum up by quoting Professor Tomii's remarks: "Thus the two decades imme- diately subsequent to the Restoration were characterized by prevalence of the study of French, English, and American laws. . . . But times changed. The past twenty years have witnessed the rise and ascendancy of German law, and a tendency has grown up to take it as the model in studying jurisprudence and legislative work, whether in the domain 1:713: THE RICE INSTITUTE of public or of private law Recent developments have been remarkable, and the stage of imitation has already been left behind." ("Fifty Years of New Japan," by Count Okuma ) These remarks will apply also to political and economic sciences, as indeed to almost all branches of learn- ing introduced from the West. ., , • • Early in the eighties, owing to changes in civil adminis- tration and in laws and legal procedure, there was felt a great want of men having special knowledge of these sub- jects, and the single University of Tokyo not being able to turn out a sufficient number of such men, several colleges were started by private individuals, who disinterestedly gave some of their leisure hours to teaching in them; the first of these was the Senshu Gakko, opened in 1880 by Tajiri Inaiiro (a Yale graduate) and others to give instruction in law and economics. This was followed within a few years by many others, among which was the fVaseda Senmon Gakko of Count Okuma. The Keio Gijuku also changed its organization so as to have college courses in law, political economy, and literature. In Tokyo University itself a spe- cial course was organized temporarily, in which instruction was given in Japanese for those who had not passed through the preparatory course, so as to enable them to follow the regular course of lectures. It may be mentioned here that in almost every subject lectures in the university were given at first in some foreign language (German in the case of medicine, EngUsh in others), not by foreign professors alone, but by Japanese professors as well; for it was very difficult to find proper translations not only of technical terms, but also for necessary technical expressions and phrases, these being even more troublesome than simple terms on account of the peculiar nature of the Japanese language. Indeed, one of the initial difficulties in the intro- BOOK OF THE OPENING duction of Western learning may be said to have lain in the difficulty of translation, our language being so radically dif- ferent in its structure from European languages. Thus the lectures in Japanese to special classes served the double purpose of turning out a large number of moderately well trained men, and of giving professors a good exercise in lec- turing in Japanese on technical subjects. The opening of such special classes in the university for a time was not con- fined to the law faculty, but was found necessary in other faculties also. However, to return to private colleges, the maintenance of such is somewhat difficult in Japan, as no large fees can be charged owing to the poverty of most of the students, and endowments such as are so common in America cannot be expected, those even of IVaseda and Keio being quite insignificant in comparison with the endow- ments of even smaller colleges in America. In those earlier days of the Meiji era, when the number of students was small, most of the founders were themselves teachers who gave their time and services free, besides in many cases con- tributing to the expenses of maintenance. For this reason, there are but very few private colleges of medicine, science, or engineering, their establishment and maintenance being too costly to be supported by fees. I may mention inci- dentally that most of these private colleges have now as- sumed the more ambitious title of universities. As the introduction of Western learning previous to the Meiji era had been due almost exclusively to doctors of medicine, although happily they did not confine their atten- tion to medicine alone, it was natural that at the outset more progress should have been made in medicine than in other subjects, and it was In medicine that systematic instruction was first introduced after the Restoration. The Igakujo was one of the schools reopened by the new government, THE RICE INSTITUTE and with it was incorporated a hospital newly opened by the government under the direction of an English surgeon Dr. Willis The government, however, having decided to Ger- manize medical education, Dr. Willis left the hospital and went to Kagoshima, where until 1877 he taught in a medical school with great success. Meanwhile two German doctors, Muller and Hoffmann, were engaged in the I^aku]o in 1 87 1, and organized a system of medical instruction con- sisting of a five-vear preliminary or general course and a five-year special or medical course. Almost all the profes- sors and teachers, including teachers in German, Latin, and elementary mathematics, had to be brought from Germany. As the number of those who could enter this regular course of ten vears was limited, owing to the lack of accommoda- tion and equipment, while on the other hand the demand for doctors of the Western school was great and insistent, a short special medical course was opened, in which instruction was given in Japanese by Japanese professors. In the calendar for 1877 we find the names of eleven German pro- fessors and teachers, besides seven Japanese professors en- gaged in teaching the students of the short course. This course was afterward discontinued, as several colleges of medicine came to be established in different Parts of the country to carry on a similar work. The College of Medi- cine in the university itself has gradually grown to be a large body with twenty-seven professors, all Japanese, including four in pharmacy, and nineteen assistant professors and lec- turers, and nearly eight hundred students. With regard to science and its application, we have seen that translations of books on various scientific subjects had been made by Dutch scholars, some of the more important of which we have mentioned above. But there must have been manv that were not printed or even privately circulated, 1:716:1 BOOK OF THE OPENING for there are in possession of the writer's family translations of works on astronomy, geology, mineralogy, etc., left in manuscript by Mitsukuri Genpo, and no doubt there were similar manuscripts left by others. In Western mathematics, physics, and chemistry, teaching of the elementary parts was begun in the Kaiseijo before the Restoration, as already stated, but it was not revived for some time after the school was reopened. In astronomy such practical knowledge had been introduced as was necessary for the compilation of al- manacs. In natural history some advance had been made in systematic botany. As for applications of science to prac- tical purposes, but little knowledge had been introduced. On the promulgation of the first Education Code, the Kaiseijo was made a middle school, the instruction being given in a foreign language (English, French, or German), mostly by foreign instructors. Soon after courses were opened in special subjects, of which the one in English law has been already noticed. The other courses were those of physics, chemistry (pure and applied), mining and metal- lurgy, civil and mechanical engineering, and literature and philosophy. In the calendar for 1876 we find eighteen for- eign professors and instructors, including two professors of English law. The incorporation of the Kaiseijo and the Igakujo into the University of Tokyo in 1877 gave a great impetus to the study of science. Mathematics was made one of the main subjects (previously it had been merely an auxiliary subject for engineering students), and the study of its higher branches was entered upon. The appointment of Dr. Fujisawa Rikitaro in 1888 as professor of mathematics in conjunction with the present writer gave a new impetus to the study of higher mathematics. The year 1877 saw the foundation of the Tokyo Mathematical Society, which is the first of many scientific societies now existing, and which has 1:717:1 THE RICE INSTITUTE since developed into the present Tokyo Mathematico-physi- cal Society, holding monthly meetings for the readmg of original papers on mathematics, astronomy, and physics, and publishing them (in Japanese, English, or German) m .ts proceedings and transactions. , . „ / r. , In physics the coming of Professor Mendenhall after- ward superintendent of the United States Coast and Geo- detic Survey) marks the beginning of the teachmg of experimental physics and of original investigations. He was succeeded by Professor Ewing, whose work on hysteresis was begun in Japan ; and their work has been ably earned on by their pupils and successors, Tanakadate Aikitu, Nagaoka Hantaro, and others. Instruction in practical astronomy was started by Professor Paul, of the United States Naval Observatory, who was succeeded by Professor Terao; and although from its nature astronomy does not possess many votaries in Japan, and although the university observatory is at present but poorly equipped, Japanese astronomers have made some contributions to the science, as, for exam- ple in the observations of variations of latitude, for which an 'international observatory has been established in Mizu- sawa and placed under the direction of Dr. Kimura, whose discovery of the z-term in the equation of the variation of latitude has recently been awarded a prize by the Imperial Academy of Tokyo. In chemistry, pure and applied, we had Professors Atkinson (English), Wagener (German), and Jowett (now of Oberlin College), whose places were not long after taken by the Japanese professors, Sakurai Jojl and Matsui Naokichi : the former still occupies the chair of chemistry in the Imperial University, and during his long career of over twenty-five years in the university has con- tributed both by his teaching and original researches not simply to the introduction of that science Into Japan, but to BOOK OF THE OPENING the advance of the science itself; while the latter, too, did great service not only in the introduction of chemistry, but also of scientific agriculture in his capacity as director of the College of Agriculture from its amalgamation with the uni- versity in 1890 to his death in 1910. In natural sciences, Dr. E. S. Morse, of Salem, Massachu- setts, came in 1877 as professor of zoology; he established the first zoological laboratory in the university, and was also the first to expound to the Japanese public, by a series of public lectures, the Darwinian theory of the origin of species and the descent of man. He was succeeded by Professor Whitman, late of Chicago University, after whom the chair was occupied by Dr. Mitsukuri Kakichi (brother of the writer), supported by his colleague. Professor lijima Isao, who had been a pupil of Whitman, and afterward of Leuckart in Leipsic. The chair of botany was occupied from the first (1877) by a Japanese, Yatabe Ryokichi, a graduate of Cornell, with Dr. Ito Keisuke, then over seventy years of age, as honorary professor. To these men is due the credit of having introduced into Japan modern methods In biology, the elements of which now form a part of the curriculum of common education. Geology, mining, and metallurgy also began to be taught in the Kaiseijo. Professor Munroe, now of Columbia Uni- versity, was the first professor of geology and mineralogy; after him we had a series of professors from Germany. On the organization of Tokyo University, geology, with the allied sciences of mineralogy and paleontology, was sepa- rated from mining and metallurgy. Civil and mechanical engineering was likewise begun in the Kaiseijo, and after- ward formed a section in the faculty of science in Tokyo University. Systematic meteorological observations were begun at 1:7193 THE RICE INSTITUTE the suggestion of a German, Dr. Knipping, a teacher in the Kaiseijo, and a central meteorological observatory was es- tablished and placed under his direction. At present it is under a Japanese superintendent and staff, and is in tele- graphic communication with numerous stations all over the country, including Formosa, Korea, and Manchuria. It is not strictly proper to speak of seismology as introduced from the West, for it may be said to have originated in Japan with the investigations of Professors Wagener, Milne, Gray, Ewing, Knott, Sekiya, Omori, and others; but its first investigators came from Europe, and its methods are those of the Western science. The Department of Public Works (not now existing), being in urgent need of a large number of trained engineers to carry out its various works, opened an engineering school as early as 1871; in 1873 it invited from Great Britain a band of professors, with Dr. H. Dyer as principal,^ and in- cluding, among others, such men as E. Divers, J. Milne, W. E. Ayrton, J. Perry, and T. Gray. They organized an engi- neering college, entirely British in its character ; students were dressed in a uniform, of which a Scotch cap formed a part, and were lodged and boarded in British style under a purely British management. There were sections of civil engineer- ing, mechanical engineering, architecture, telegraphy, chem- istry, and metallurgy and mining. Many of the foremost engineers of the present day are graduates of this college. In 1 886 the college was incorporated with Tokyo University to form the Imperial University of Tokyo, of which, to- gether with the engineering sections of Tokyo University, it became the College (or Faculty) of Engineering. The first introduction of scientific agriculture must be attributed to General Capron, chief of the Agricultural Bu- reau of the United States, who came to Japan in 1871 as 1:720] H BOOK OF THE OPENING adviser to the Hokkaido (Yezo) Colonization Bureau. At his suggestion an agricultural college was established in Sap- poro with a staff of American instructors to train men to become leaders in the work of the colonization of Hokkaido ; several students were also sent to America, and it is to be noted that among these students were several young girls, the first sent abroad by the government (Princess Oyama, Baroness Uriu, Miss Tsuda, among others). Hokkaido, and in particular the Agricultural College, was thus very much under American influence at the start, and retains to this day traces of that influence (the present director of the college was its former pupil and afterward a graduate of Johns Hopkins). The college, however, has lately come under German influence, which, as already remarked, has been predominant in the domain of higher learning during the last two decades or more; it now forms a part of the Northwestern Imperial University as its college of agricul- ture. In the meantime an agricultural school was opened in Tokyo as early as 1877, and a school of forestry in 1881 ; the two schools were amalgamated in 1886 to form a col- lege, which again became a part of the Imperial University of Tokyo in 1890, and has at present five sections of agri- culture, agricultural chemistry, forestry, veterinary science, and aquatic products. This college was from the first under German influence, several of its first professors having been Germans. In literature we have always had an American or an Eng- lish professor of English literature, from the days of the old Kaiseijo soon after the Restoration down to the present day, in the Imperial University of Tokyo, besides instructors in the English language. So also there have been a German professor of German literature and a French professor of French literature, although these chairs were not established 1:721] THE RICE INSTITUTE until a much later date. Of course, Japanese and Chinese literatures have always formed a part of the curriculum of the university, and I should not mention them here, for they do not come under the category of Western learmng, but for the remarkable fact-which well illustrates the spirit that actuated the university authorities of those days-that about 1887 an Englishman, Professor B. H. Chamberlain, was for a time appointed to lecture on philology and Japanese liter- ature. Professor Chamberlain was, indeed, a profound Japanese scholar, but there were many Japanese who were better scholars than he; they, however, did not know the modern methods and could not give such systematic exposi- tion as Professor Chamberlain. Lectures are also now being given in Russian literature. In the Imperial Umver- sity of Kyoto lectures on English and German literatures are criven by Japanese professors, as also in the private univer- Titles of IFaseda and Keio. There is a great deal of inter- est taken in recent works of modern European novelists and dramatists, especially of Russian and Scandinavian writers, among a section of young Japan, which no doubt will have some influence on the future intellectual life of Japan, but it seems rather doubtful whether they will seriously affect the mass of the people. The culture of the pre-Meiji era had been founded on Chinese classics and Buddhist philosophy, and in the earlier days of the introduction of Western learning little or noth- ing was known of Western philosophy; but shortly before the Restoration, books on the subject began to be introduced, and for some time thereafter such works as the text-books on ethics and political economy by Dr. F. Wayland, of Brown University, were read in schools of the English language; in higher classes, Guizot and Buckle were read, while in French schools Montesquieu and Rousseau were used. In [722] BOOK OF THE OPENING the Kaiseijo logic and psychology were taught with Mill, Fowler (deductive logic), Haven's ^'Mental Philosophy,'* etc., as text-books. On Professor Toyama's (see page 706) return from America in 1876, where he had graduated at Ann Arbor, works of Bain, Jevons, and Spencer were intro- duced, and Professor Toyama began to lecture on Spencer- ian philosophy, which became very popular in Japan. Professor Fenollosa, who afterward did so much to make Japanese art known to the Western public, came out to Japan when as professor of philosophy, and introduced students to German and especially to Hegelian philosophy. About 1890 Dr. Inouye Tetsujiro came back from Germany, and by his wide reading and retentive memory has been of emi- nent service in introducing students to various phases of Occidental and Oriental philosophy. Lotze, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, etc., have not been without their exponents in Japan. Experimental psychology was introduced by Profes- sor Motora Yujiro (a graduate of Johns Hopkins) in Tokyo and by Professor Matsumoto Matataro (a graduate of Yale) In Kyoto. Christian theology has not occupied a prominent position either in Tokyo or Kyoto Imperial Uni- versities, although touched upon by Dr. Anesaki in Tokyo and Dr. Gulick (of Doshisha) in their lectures on the science of religion. There are, however, several Christian colleges supported by missions or by endowments, where It Is the principal subject of Instruction. The Doshisha In Kyoto, founded by Dr. Neeshlma and maintained largely by endow- ments from America, must be specially mentioned In this connection ; It has this year ( 1 9 1 2 ) made a new departure In opening a college of law and economics. Before closing this hasty and rough account of the Intro- duction of various branches of Western learning. It Is proper that I should say a few words about foreign professors. 1:7233 THE RICE INSTITUTE They generally come out to Japan on a contract to serve for a term, usually of three years, which is renewed from time to time if satisfactory to both parties. Thus no small num- ber of them have occupied their positions for fifteen, twenty, or even more than twenty-five years, so as to celebrate their silver jubilees, and have retired with a decoration from the Emperor, a pension from the government, and the title of honorary professor from the university. Very often we have had to part with a good professor because he had been offered a better and permanent position at home. On the whole, we have been fortunate in our foreign professors, the majority of them having been men of high character; and not only have they been good teachers, but many of them have made original researches while in Japan, which have won them distinction in their respective specialties. At the same time, we have sent our best graduates abroad to prose- cute further studies under eminent professors in foreign universities. In earlier days more students were sent to America and England than to any other country ; but for the last two decades or more most of the students from the universities have gone to Germany, that country offering the greatest facilities for the prosecution of higher postgraduate studies. They have on their return taken positions vacated by foreign professors going home or created by the develop- ment of education and learning. We have thus traced the history of the introduction of Western learning from its beginning down to the present day. We Japanese have always been ready to take from others what we have considered to be good for us. When we came in contact with the Chinese civilization and Bud- dhism in ancient times, we at once introduced them and adopted Chinese literature and Chinese and Buddhist phi- losophy as our own, and they have formed the main subjects of culture of our scholars. Our administrative system and [724] BOOK OF THE OPEJsTNG laws were modeled after the Chinese, although they were afterward greatly modified so as to become better suited to our own needs. So when we first came into contact with Europeans in the sixteenth century, we welcomed them and were eager to receive instruction in what they had to teach us. Christianity, likewise, was at first well received not only by the people, but also by men of authority and influence, until they perceived that behind it there was a great danger to the country. Even then they were desirous of keeping the advantages of foreign intercourse, if only they could at the same time keep out the dangers of Christianity; and it was only when they found that this was impossible that they had recourse to the extreme step of prohibiting foreign in- tercourse almost entirely. But while stringent measures continued to be taken against Christianity, the desire for new knowledge gradually became too strong to be resisted; the spirit that animated Maeno and his fellows in their efforts to read the "Tafel Anatomia" in their earnest search for truth is the spirit that has always animated the best ele- ment of intellectual men of Japan. This spirit, kept up in the incessant and untiring struggles of the Dutch scholars to introduce new knowledge among their countrymen under the shogunate, has blossomed forth under the wise policy of the open door explicitly enunciated in the fifth article of the memorable oath of the great Emperor Meiji, and under the sunshine of encouragement given to education and learning during his long and glorious reign. We flatter ourselves that at last we have succeeded in assimilating Western knowledge, and have now entered the comity of intellectual brotherhood; so that while we shall continue to learn from the West what it has got to teach us, we shall also furnish our quota, small perhaps though it be, to the common stock of the knowledge of the world. * Dairoku Kikuchi. [725] (p : THE STUDY OF POETRY^ I THE FUNCTION OF A UNIVERSITY THE inauguration of a new institution of university rank is a fitting occasion for reviewing the field which such institutions exist in order to cover; for going back for a mo- ment to first principles, and endeavouring to state, in the simplest terms, why such institutions exist, and what they may effect towards the moulding of a new generation, and the elevation of civic and national life. Different univer- sities, according to the circumstances of their foundation and history, can shew different reasons for their existence and for being such as they are. But all of them, whatever the date of their origin, whatever the place of their settlement, have come into being in response to certain demands of the place and the time. All of them have been founded with a purpose single in its nature, though diverse in its manifesta- tions. That purpose is to make stated and secured provision for the higher needs of a civilised community. The needs, like the pursuits, of a community are many. But its civilisa- tion is one. It is the object of a university to gather up that civilisation, to analyse and study its separate elements in order to recombine them at a higher power, and thus to give conscious direction to the human mind in its knowledge of the past, its understanding of the present, and its power over the future. Its office is to store up, to sort out, and to im- part knowledge; and by doing so it accumulates, organises, 1 A discourse prepared for the inauguration of the Rice Institute, by Pro- fessor John William Mackail, formerly Professor of Poetry in Oxford Uni- versity. [17263 ^.ij,lAK* ^-'f- BOOK OF THE OPENING application of the idea of space to chemical phenomena, we need only mention stereochemistry, which at the present time also represents a science that has arisen only in the last decade, but which already has a wide range of application, and in which the idea of the multiplicity of space has been successfully applied for clearing up chemical diversities, especially isometrical relationships. Here, too, it has been possible, by carrying out logically the basic idea, to make a great number of chemical prophecies which later experi- mental investigation has confirmed down to the smallest details. We now turn to the last group of sciences, whose ideas are the most complicated and therefore the smallest in scope but richest in content. This group arises from the fact that to the ideas that we have thus far arrived at in the field of order and energy, that of life is added. By phenomena of life we understand very definite transformations of energy by virtue of which the objects in question— the living beings — accomplish a continuous transformation of free energy, consumed either in the form of chemical food, as in the case of animals, or in the form of the radioactive energy of the sun, as in the case of plants. Over and above this continuous or stationary transformation of energy they are distin- guished, moreover, by the capacity for reproduction— f.^., the production of new similar types, by means of which in- dividual mortality of single members has been transformed through time and space into a disproportionately longer con- tinuation of the species, the totality of similar individuals. Thus in connection with the scientific examination of life we have to presuppose for its ideological comprehension and definition the totality of the sciences of order and the entirety of the physicochemical or energetical sciences. In so far, therefore, we shall have to say that every living being is an THE RICE INSTITUTE energetical type, and that all the laws that we have found for such a being must find their legitimate application to living beings. We shall have to say, furthermore, that a new conception has appeared here,-that of life,-which is characterized by stationary transformation of energy as well as by the capacity of reproduction, and concerning which we cannot maintain that it can be completely defined by general physicochemical laws. For we are quite in a posi- tion to differentiate experimentally living beings from those without life, and this fact alone suffices to prove that new relationships have appeared in connection with this narrow group of things, the ideological comprehension of which gives the scientific definition of life. Hence we shall have to consider every living being as a physicochemical object, in so far as nothing can occur in this object that does not take place within the compass of the energetical laws. But we shall have to consider animals as formations of a special kind in so far as certain peculiarities belong to them which are by no means present in all energetical objects, and which, therefore, render necessary special treatment and scientific discussion of them. The science of living beings we term in general biology, and we divide this whole discipline into single groups accord- ing to the special kind of life activity, and, at the same time, according to the increasing intricacy of the entire organiza- tion of the living being. The most general characteristics and relationships which occur in all living beings, and take on a one-sided'and specific development only in the case of certain ones, according to special forms and purposes, we treat in the form of a whole science bearing the name of physiology. In the very first place, it is a question here of physicochemi- cal conformity to law. The special characteristic of physico- chemical happening in the living being must be shown here 1:8423 BOOK OF THE OPENING in detail and explained experimentally; and, inversely, the physicochemical hypotheses must be found regarding the activity of all specific happenings in living beings, their single functions. Thus the principles of division which were deter- mining for the energetical sciences make themselves felt also as secondary reasons for division in physiology, and the corresponding groups have also been formed already in this science, such as electrophysiology, mechanical physiology, chemical physiology, etc. A special apparatus in connection with which new kinds of phenomena arise, which have led, therefore, to new forma- tions of concepts, is not found in all living beings, but only in those in which a division of functions has taken place, and hence in which the necessity exists for uniting these divided functions for the purpose of harmonious and suitable work- ing. This is the nervous system, which in the case of the more highly developed animals is grouped about a central organ which, as we ascend the scale, is formed in a more and more complicated and abundant way, until It reaches its high- est development in man. The special relations that occur in the function of this central organ are what form the sub- ject of this higher and more special science of life, which, from the name for the totality of this function in man, we call psychology. Here, also, we shall have the same things to say about general biology, namely, that for the investiga- tion of psychological relationships in lower and in higher living beings, finally in man, the knowledge and efficacy of physicochemical as well as of general biological laws must in all cases be presupposed, and that here it is only a question of specializing the mode of operation of these laws accord- ing to the special conditions under which, in the first place, nervous phenomena — in a narrower sense, psychic phenom- ena—occur. Since these psychic phenomena also presup- 1:843] THE RICE INSTITUTE pose energetical happenings, even occurrences in connection w h ponderable substances which are endowed w.th chem - cal energy, we must consider them of course as energetical occurrences, and the old problem of the connect.on between mind and matter attains a satisfying systematic solution in the light of the general system of science here described Psychic phenomena, in the next place, must be considered as resting upon a definite energetical basis. W.thm th.s hm.t however, they are specialized by peculiarities connected with the function of the nerve tracks and central organs Finally, an uppermost layer of this pyramid of sciences is formed by those facts and relationships which have developed in man, in contradistinction to all other animals, and which form that which we specifically call human avrhza- uon This science is usually designated by the improper name of ^odology. The name is due to the fact that man, even in the very early stages of his development has unques- tionably been a social being, so that, for much the greater part, specifically human culture has shown itsdf to be the culture of groups of people living together socially and busy- ing themselves in common. This special nature of human culture, however, is relatively a secondary phenomenon ; and it is, moreover, not entirely general, for certain cultural per- formances have been, and can in the future be, accomplished by a single individual. Thus, socializing mankind is an im- portant phenomenon in this field; indeed, it is one of the most important, but not the characteristic and ""'versd one. I proposed, therefore, a long while ago to call the field in question the science of civilization, or culturology {Kidturo- logie) And though it is not my opinion that anything ot very great importance for science depends upon the accept- ance or refusal of this proposal, I think, nevertheless, that m the present indefinite situation in which the science of civili- [8443 BOOK OF THE OPENING zation, or sociology, finds itself as regards its general prin- ciples and its place within the field of the other sciences as compared with the generality of them, a sharper emphasis of this kind on the essential feature of this new science might be of some benefit. To culturology, or the science of civilization, numerous sciences belong which we are accustomed to include under the name of mental sciences, the retrocedent nature of which, to express it in terms of method, we have already discussed and explained above. Law and language, administration and agriculture, industry and science, religion and art, are all merely different forms of activity proper to the general cultural work of humanity. Any investigation of them must, therefore, take the direction of applying the laws of the cor- responding occurrences from what the historical knowledge of earlier phases and the anthropological examination of contemporaneous phases of less developed peoples and of other groups of human culture has placed at our disposal, in order to determine thereby the present nkeau of a given field of culture and its prospective development. What we call politics in its wider sense, not only the relations of one state to another, but the general technique of the administra- tion of common possessions and the education of coming generations for the corresponding activities of the commu- nity,-this wider kind of politics, including the politics of civilization, shows itself under this aspect to be the field of application for scientific culturology or sociology; and, speak- ing ideally, through the development of this latter science in the future politics should be formed and conducted with the same certainty and precision with which we build at pres- ent an iron bridge or a station and understand how to direct an electrical or steam plant of so many thousand horse- power and keep it going. [845: THE RICE INSTITUTE Culturology, appearing thus as the topmost course of the pyramid of the sciences, shows itself from the point of view of method also to be the most diverse and many-sided of the sciences. For all of the more general sciences, logic, mathematics, geometry, and kinematics, as well as all the energetical sciences, and finally general physiology and psy- chology, have each its influence upon the formation of culturological ideas. A sure mastery of at least the funda- mental principles of all the sciences that I have just men- tioned is therefore a necessary presupposition for the scientific mastery of culturological problems. If one consid- ers that science of the twentieth century, even, is far from enjoying a sufficient development of them, especially of the biological sciences, and that the application of the sciences of order to cultural science has already made some progress (especially in the sphere of political economy and in its tech- nical application— statistics), one realizes that the applica- tion of the energetical sciences to the science of culture has almost been mapped out provisorily in its fundamentals. Still less can there be any question of a rational general application of biological theories to the science of culture, in spite of the fact that tentative efforts in that direction have already been made. Thus one sees with what an enormous problem we are confronted, one that is scarcely to be compassed with our present resources; and it is quite comprehensible if the work- ings of previous mental sciences, which have not been able to await the systematic development of concept formation in the lower sciences that are so necessary for any rational treatment, leave so very much to be desired at the present time on the side of scientific method. In the field of cul- turology it is still almost universally a question of the technical period of science, for nearly all of the special cul- CM] BOOK OF THE OPENING turological sciences are at present only in the stage of their own development determined by practical necessity. In this connection, I need only remind you of the present condition of jurisprudence, which shows precisely the characteristic forms of development which have been outlined here. Man- kind has not been able to wait until the twenty-first or twenty- second century, at which time it will perhaps be in possession of a pure or methodic culturology, to bring its affairs to such order that it might keep the body politic alive and capable of functioning. In the very same way, mankind has not been able to await the development of physiological chemistry in order to procure and prepare the food inevitably demanded day by day in order to preserve life. Thus, jurisprudence of the present is nothing but a most unsystematic sum of all pre- vious attempts made by especially endowed empiricists to preserve the social and scientific order of a community of persons. The idea is very far from the mind of the jurists of the present, that all the problems relating to jurisprudence must first be illuminated with the fundamental principles of the physical or energetical sciences in order to place it upon an exact basis. If, however, one considers, for example, how exceedingly irrational our present criminal laws and peno- logical procedure are, based almost entirely upon impris- onment, how by this process society is neither freed per- manently from the evil-doer, nor is the latter placed under conditions in which he gives up as far as possible his anti- social habits and replaces them with social ones, one realizes what an enormous amount of work yet remains to be done in this field before we shall be able to speak of a real, scien- tific theory of law. The same thing can be said of language, which represents the most important social means of communication, and whose duty it is to render the mental concepts of individual r847] THE RICE INSTITUTE persons accessible to other members of society, and then, by means of written characters, to insure their effectiveness for posterity over and beyond the life of their creator. This conception of language as a means of communication, and the criticism of language resulting therefrom, according to the standpoint of its technical adaptability to the exact, un- equivocal, and sufficiently complete expression of the ideas formed by each individual, as well as to the transference of ideas from one individual to others,— this conception of language, I say, does not yet play the slightest role in the science of language. Instead of properly envisaging what is essential in phenomena of this kind,— the ideas, their co-ordi- nation and system, — and making them the subject of scien- tific work, linguistics had heretofore limited itself almost exclusively to the most unimportant and least necessary of the whole phenomenon, namely, to the forms, in sounds and characters, which have been co-ordinated with the precon- ceived ideas. The extraordinary diversity of the various languages certainly shows clearly how very unimportant the special forms employed by single groups of people are for what is essential in language— social intercourse. Neverthe- less, what has heretofore been called linguistic science con- fines itself almost entirely to the investigation of the nature, or at most to the investigation of the slow changes which these accidentally co-ordinated characters have undergone; while practically no attention at all has been given to an in- vestigation of concept formation, to a system of the ideas themselves, to the question as to what classes of ideas there are, in what way simple and compound concepts react upon one another when combined— in a word, to the problem of the science of concept formation. So we need not be surprised that the fact is known to but few people that at the present time the technical problem of an artificial Ian- BOOK OF THE OPENING guage which is more complete than any natural one has already been solved. It is of special interest to note that the possibility of such a thing is most emphatically denied by the representatives of previous pseudollngulstic science, the philologists, though facts for years have proved the con- trary. If we glance back over the observations thus far made, we become aware that all of the sciences, taken together, repre- sent an absolutely coherent complex, ascending from the simplest to the most Involved, but exhibiting at every point the same course and the same character of progress, and consequently give no occasion at all for any delimitation of the frontiers of opposing fields as regards one another. It Is therefore absolutely Incorrect to separate, as Is often done, the entire field of human sciences Into two groups which have little or nothing to do with each other, and whose functions are fundamentally different. Regarding the group of the natural sciences there Is complete agreement. Other sciences, however, which were formerly termed mental sci- ences, were set over against them. Afterward one neces- sarily became convinced that the natural sciences, too, — for example, psychology,— had to do with mind, and that mind, therefore, was no special distinctive mark of this other de- partment of knowledge. Then It was thought that the science of civilization must be placed In contrast with natural science, but It soon became evident that cultural phenomena form a group (and indeed the highest) of natural phenom- ena. It Is unreasonable and Impracticable to consider the activity of man In his surroundings as ^'unnatural," as com- pared with the activity of animals and plants. Finally, the sciences of this special group were called sciences of voli- tion, because they rest upon the activity of the human will. This difference Is not practicable, either, for without the 1:8493 THE RICE INSTITUTE corresponding Impulses of the will, which have been prompted by the exigencies of existence, no one would have busied himself either with the theoretical or with the applied sciences. So there remains in fact no possibility of making an essen- tial distinction, and only the historical difference exists that the treatment of the higher sciences heretofore has been largely carried on with inadequate means and without any information as to the real aim of all sciences, namely, the ability to predict. It Is true that from this situation a con- tradiction has arisen which is destined, however, to disap- pear and will disappear all the more rapidly and all the more surely in proportion as the scientists in all the various fields become aware of the unalterable unity of all science. This unity of science leads us also to a great central problem, for the solution of which the representatives and incumbents of all the various sciences must co-operate. This problem Is to establish a systematic inventory of all human ideas upon the basis of the fundamental relations of Increasing multiplicity and complexity that have just been explained in proportion to decrease in compass. Our preced- ing analysis of all knowledge has led us to see that som.e of these Ideas, like those of order, of energy, and of life, stand out with especial clearness from the entire range of thought. But these ideas are all of a complex nature, and it is an in- evitable necessity for the sure handling of the entire scheme of all the sciences that one should separate these very Im- portant collective ideas into their elements and arrange these elements in corresponding natural groups according to similarity and reciprocal efficiency. This is a work the necessity of which was clearly recog- nized even by Leibnitz. We have from his pen numerous discussions of the extraordinary advantages which the hu- BOOK OF THE OPENING man mind could derive from such an inventory of all its material for thought. But I am not aware that Leibnitz ever made the attempt to draw up a table of elementary con- cepts and to sketch, even schematically, the laws of their mutual effect in the formation of new ideas. I myself have been working on this problem for ten years, without, how- ever, having made up to the present moment so extensive progress that I could give a consistent presentation of the entire matter. In the course of these labors, however, certain points have been brought out as well as could be wished. There is, in the first place, the process of differentiating simple concepts from more complex ones. We recall the fundamental rela- tionship between the content and the compass of the various ideas, and are enabled to establish upon it a means of defin- ing the elementary notions. When we consider any idea and vary it, seeking out some nearly related one, the scope of this related idea will show itself to be either greater or smaller than that of the original idea. If It has become smaller, then the related idea is of a more complex nature than the original idea, and we have undertaken a synthesis instead of an analysis. If, on the other hand, its scope has become greater, we have simplified the idea, it has become more elementary. We can apply the same process to this sim- plified idea. If we finally reach an idea which cannot in- crease any more in scope by any form of change, we have arrived at an idea which may be regarded, at least pro- visionally, as elementary. Since it resists further analysis, it is entitled to a place in the table of elementary concepts. This process, as one sees, is extraordinarily similar to the process of chemical analysis. In it, too, one proceeds by first subjecting a substance whose nature, whether it be ele- mentary or compound, has not yet been established, to chem- ■1 THE RICE INSTITUTE ical influences-f.^., one endeavors to transform it into another substance with other characteristics. If a single sec- ond substance with increased weight arises from the sub- stance submitted to us, and if, under all the conditions under which it is subjected to chemical transformations, some other sort of substance always arises whose weight is greater than that of the original substance, then we know that we have to do with an elementary substance. If, however, the substance can be transformed into others, each of which weighs less, or only one of which weighs less than the original substance, then we know that we have to do with a compound substance. If we subject the product of less weight thus arrived at to similar transforming influences, we can establish in its case also whether it is of an elementary or compound nature. In other words, under the supposition that a substance is com- pound, we treat it from every possible side with the agents by which chemical transformation is brought about, and observe whether it increases or decreases in weight, and if we have a substance which under all circumstances only in- creases in weight or keeps its weight unchanged, we have proved its elementary nature sufficiently well. In this way the scientists who have chosen as their field of labor the investigation of the total problem of science will have to begin by examining all concepts as to their sim- ple or compound nature, without any reference to any other relationships. From these results is, then, to be arranged a preliminary table of simple ideas which have been found thus purely empirically. These elementary ideas are to be pronounced elementary until their complexity is established, just as is the case with the elements in chemistry. According to the generally accepted definition, an element is really not an unanalyzable substance, but a substance which has not yet been reduced. In the same way we can say that an elemen- [852] i BOOK OF THE OPENING tary idea is not an unanalyzable one, but an idea which has not yet been analyzed. My previous work on the arrangement of a table of con- cept elements like this has shown me that these elements may be divided into two large groups of which passing mention was made earlier in our discussion. On the one hand we have the group of substances or objects or things, or whatever else we wish to call them, the group of those concepts which represent entities existing in themselves, which we always find recurring in the same way in the range of our experience, and which have, as regards time, an un- changeable or at least only slightly changeable nature. By the side of this group still another group of quite essential ideas is found, which we term ideas of correlation or of relation or of reciprocal action. They, too, represent quite definite experiences, but they refer regularly to two or more ideas of the first kind, and are the material by means of which the connection between isolated substances or things is brought about. We realize at once that the psychophysical function of memory leads first to ideas of the first kind. Those elements of experience (since we are speaking here of elementary ideas) which always affect us in the same manner take on, then, the form of these substances or objects in our con- sciousness, and independently of ourselves assume this char- acter of real existence which we ascribe to our external world. So long as mental functions are confined to the formation of such concepts of objects or substances, real thinking is impossible, since each of these concepts leads its own isolated existence and can in no wise come into connec- tion with the others. Just here the experimental fact is added, that we never experience such concept elements in isolated form, but in coherent complexes which even as such 1:8533 THE RICE INSTITUTE are felt to be units whose division Into elementary component parts follows only by a considerable effort of the mind, for which a high degree of maturity and independence of judg- ment is necessary. This results from the fact of reciprocal connection, of the relation of substances to one another. Thus these mental relations in the form of space or of time, or, to express it in general terms, of function, between the different concept elements of substantial nature, form quite an essential part of our total experience. The deter- mination of such relationships between substances on the conceptual side has at least as much importance for our entire mental activity as the formation of the Idea of the substance Itself. The association of ideas which has been characterized and studied for a long time by psychologists is only a relatively narrow expression for this general function of relationship which Is stamped upon our mind by the nature of its experiences. It represents, however, the best- known part of general Ideas of relationship and permits us also to see the circumstances through which these relative ideas have been formed alongside of the ideas of substance. Such ideas of relationship, for example, are "by the side of" or "above" one another in space, "earlier" and "later" In time, and a number of others, all of which may be recognized by the fact that they never refer to a single object, but in- variably bring two or more objects of different kinds into mutual relationship. We recall from our preliminary description of all science that the idea of group, namely, the relation or connection between objects of like nature, appeared at the very begin- ning of our formation of Ideas, and proved even then to be that process by means of which a mutual relationship arose from Ideas of objects that until then had been disconnected, and with it also came the possibility of establishing natural [854] BOOK OF THE OPENING laws. The unconscious work of language, too, has clearly differentiated these two kinds of ideas: the object-ideas are characterized chiefly by nouns, but also by adjectives and other words, while the ideas of relationship are expressed chiefly by verbs. But since language, as has been mentioned, has arisen unconsciously— f.^., without a clear consciousness of purpose or aim — the two great classes just referred to are by no means sharply distinguished from each other. For surely freedom in usage has given us on almost all occasions the possibility of making a verb of a noun, and, inversely, of considering in a formal way every verb as a substance-idea — i.e., as a noun. But In such matters it is only a question of formal resemblance to the other group, whereas upon real analysis of the content of the Idea connected with the words in question, their character as objects or as relationships can almost always be determined without difllculty. Labors of this kind, which presuppose and demand quite a thorough knowledge of concept formation in all the sci- ences, represent now what I consider as the real rational task for a future philosophy, and one which will be useful— yes. Indispensable— to mankind. According to this view, philos- ophy would be the science which is occupied with the sciences as a whole in reference to their mutual relations, their struc- ture, and their circumstances. It has the practical mission, on the one hand, of predicting those fields of knowledge which have not been subjected as yet to any systematic treat- ment or to treatment of any kind, and, on the other hand, of rendering the existing fields of knowledge capable of easier advancement and better arrangement through the proof of systematic and methodical relationships to other sciences. By the cultivation of this new philosophy it will then be pos- sible to organize and improve all functions of science which at present are so imperfect. The present procedure reminds THE RICE INSTITUTE one of the growth of a primeval forest, where every single tree develops on its own account and by its own strength, as well as it can, and so far as it finds light and air. Under such circumstances splendid individual giants may grow, but only at the expense of numerous other trees which under other cir- cumstances could have developed luxuriantly and beauti- fully, but which suffocate here under the shadow of the giant. Future science is more to be likened, therefore, to a logically cultivated forest in which every tree stands In its own place, and each, in proportion to its value, receives gen- erous attention. To employ another figure, we still stand in our present attitude toward science as men stood toward the problem of economics when men were only huntsmen, and when the acquisition of prey, and hence of food, was essen- tially a matter of accident and of special personal skill. In our treatment of the sciences we wish to pass out of this primitive condition into a condition which may be compared to that of men occupied with agriculture, by cultivating regu- larly scientific progress. Owing to the fact that we prepare the ground suitably and arrange the conditions of develop- ment as favorably as possible, we shall gain, in the place of the accidental discoveries, which were at times quite abun- dant, but frequently extraordinarily scanty and Insufficient, a steady harvest which, to be sure. Is not entirely Independent of the contingencies of external climatic conditions, — in the present case, of the multiplicity of political and economical conditions among men,— but which produces nevertheless, with slight variations, year in and year out, a regular, recur- rent harvest and assures therefore a rational and careful collective science of humanity In this greatest and most Im- portant field of Its entire mental activity. An attentive reader has perhaps missed two things in this examination of all the sciences. First, a thorough consldera- I BOOK OF THE OPENING tlon of the applied sciences which are the mother earth out of which the general sciences have sprung. Furthermore, one may have noted the complete non-consideration of a dis- cipline which Is claiming at present an extraordinarily im- portant place in our highest educational institutions, the universities, and the importance of which is being emphasized in a very lively way on many sides— namely, history. As far as the first matter is concerned, it can be disposed of quickly and easily. One readily sees that every applied discipline has its center of gravity in one of the general sci- ences. Thus there is, for example, an exceedingly extensive and important applied science— astronomy. This had its center of gravity until half a century ago v/holly in mechan- ics, for all astronomical phenomena which were then observed and which were essentially confined to the deter- mination of the positions of moving stars, and of the energy of gravitation by which they are held together In single groups, like the solar system, for example. With the exact recognition of the nature of these two kinds of energy, begun by the investigations of the sixteenth century and terminated fundamentally by Newton, this astronomy of position be- came an essentially completed science. In the case of which, to be sure, there was refinement and inner development, but no further extension on the side of ideas. In the last half- century, however, a new and extraordinarily far-reaching auxiliary means has been introduced Into astronomy through the discovery of spectrum analysis, by means of which other fields of the energetical sciences, especially chemistry, have taken up their role in the development of astronomy. In this connection the natural relation makes Itself felt, that geometromechanlcal astronomy Is a necessary presupposi- tion for the Investigation of astrophysics and astrochemlstry. One must, of course, be sufficiently Informed as to the gen- 1^ THE RICE INSTITUTE eral questions of position and motion before one can attack these more intricate problems. Thus, from this example we see how at first an external thing by its striking character and its technical importance (that of astronomy lies in its application for getting our bear- ings upon the surface of the earth, especially on the sea and in the desert) takes first those sciences into its service whose development has proceeded sufficiently far for the study and explanation of fundamental phenomena. In its further de- velopment it makes use of all the other sciences that can be applied to the existing relationships, and leaves out of con- sideration those sciences for which there are no possibilities of relationship. The whole development through which astronomy has passed rests upon the fact that the only news that comes to us from the stars is transmitted by light. Only the relatively few celestial bodies— namely, the planets, moons, and the sun— whose demonstrable field of gravity reaches to the earth and influences its movements, show in addition the influence of the energy of gravitation. The entire sphere of the fixed stars, of cosmic nebulas, and of other formations in the universe is so distant from the earth that any effect of its fields of gravitation is in no way demon- strable; in the case of these there remains only radiance, therefore, by which any energetical communication whatever takes place with the earth and its inhabitants. From this fact it may be concluded on general principles that only that which light can tell us can be known by us about the stars, and that since no other form of energy travels from the stars to the earth, it is absolutely impossible to learn anything about other energetical conditions of the stars. Thus, for example, we are thrown entirely upon conjecture as to how biological processes may take place on Mars or Jupiter, for instance, the confirmation or non-confirmation of which is [858] BOOK OF THE OPENING absolutely without importance to the inhabitants of the earth in so far as there simply does not exist any energetical rela- tionship between the eventual characteristics of the neigh- boring planets and those of the earth. According to general principles, one may imagine that the use of optical informa- tion from the planets may be developed so far that details of biological problems might also be studied, but obviously even in that case the possibility will be considered that other forms of energy, hitherto unknown to us, may be transmitted from star to star, and that we shall be able, if we become ac- quainted with such forms of energy, to deduce from them corresponding information, just as we now derive all the information that we receive from the stars from the energy of light. Somewhat different from astronomy as an applied science are the technical sciences proper. Now, while astronomy is busied with the study of existing objects and makes use of their characteristics as basis for their application without being able to influence and change them in any way, in the sphere of technical sciences we have to do with objects and processes upon whose ordering in time and space and upon whose reciprocal action we are enabled to exercise consider- able influence. We use this influence, then, to direct natural processes in such a way as may seem at all advantageous or desirable to us. Man's mastery of nature means nothing more than that he takes possession in an increasing measure of natural energies and learns with increasing skill to exploit them for his interests. At first we see how in regular succes- sion the energies best known to man and most familiar to him— namely, other men's capacity for work— are put to use. This has found expression especially in slavery, which was general in antiquity and at present is being relegated more and more to those regions that are still in a stage of 1:8593 THE RICE INSTITUTE barbarism. Then the more difficult problem was solved— the employment of the capacity for work in animals for human needs. The more recent phase of this general ad- vancement consists finally in the fact that for not much more than a hundred years— but then, however, in rapidly in- creasing mt^suvt— inorganic energies have been placed in the service of mankind. This has been achieved down to the present day chiefly by means of fossil coal. But in most recent times it has become possible through the development of electrical engineering to harness the natural powers of water and to place them in the service of human labor, so that they are beginning to supplant the chemical energy of coal in an increasing measure. For fossil coal is not a pos- session that is being produced continuously and formed anew each year on the earth in proportion as it is consumed by mankind, but it is like an unexpected and unforeseen in- heritance which has fallen into the hands of mankind, and which will also be exhausted at a date not remote. All the improvements of technical science which are directed toward a saving in the consumption of coal, or which render possible the exploitation of coal regions which were inaccessible to technical science in the past, can, after all, only postpone but not prevent the complete consumption of the coal supply. And if this accidental inheritance is exhausted, mankind will be forced to put to use that portion of the regular supply of energy— namely, the ever present solar radiation— which it needs for the furtherance of its civilization. Natural water- power represents an energy of this type for raising water by the influence of the sun's rays, and the condensation of vapor on the highest points of the earth represents a continuous process which will not change essentially so long as the conditions of life on the earth remain adapted to the human race. 1:860;] BOOK OF THE OPENING The fact must, of course, be taken into consideration, that through this very process of running ice and water down from the highest peaks of the earth there results a gradual wearing away of these summits and a diminution of their height, so that upon closer analysis this form of energy is also one which is slowly diminishing. We shall, therefore, have to consider as an ideal solution of the problem some form or other of mechanical contrivance by means of which the rays of the sun may be caught up directly and trans- formed into other kinds of energy. Technical science, for example, which a few years ago, when the question came into prominence of there being a possible lack of latent nitrogen for producing food for mankind, at once put an end to this deficiency by developing theoretical and sweeping methods for binding the nitrogen of the air until it was ren- dered serviceable, also envisages such a task with the quiet assurance that it will not merely be solved when, owing to the consumption of the last piece of coal, mankind finds itself face to face with the bitter necessity of a solution, but that the solution will have been reached long before the last treasures of coal have been subjected to exploitation. As may be seen at once, the problems here in question in connection with procuring primary energy for human pur- poses are grouped around the energetical sciences. Physics, especially the theory of heat and of mechanics on the one hand, and chemistry in the form of the theory of chemical energy on the other hand, are the basic sciences the theoreti- cal or general mastery of which is a prerequisite for success- ful technical development. Other technical sciences have other theoretical sciences as a nucleus. For medicine, for example, it is physiology, especially that of man. In more recent times psychology has also been coming increasingly mto prominence, and advances in it are rendering possible a C861:] THE RICE INSTITUTE much more sure and successful treatment of mental disor- ders, anomalies, and defects. The future activities of both sciences will place within our reach in time to come the at- tainment of a healthier, stronger, and more capable progeny. Thus we can find for each technical science the sphere in which its theoretical foundations are laid and are being developed without reference to immediate application. The science of civilization is especially fertile in that kind of applied disciplines (indeed, up to the present it has largely consisted of them) in which the theory of law, the theory of the state, education, and finally the whole organization of science, belong as technical branches. Since all the other sciences converge in the science of civilization, we see how extremely diversified this discipline must be in a theoretical as well as in an applied sense, and we see, for example, that certain disciplines, even, which according to previous belief stood outside of science, like ethics, must form a necessary and regular constituent part of sociology. For, from this point of view, ethics also is shown to be an applied science. It is the theory of the way in which and the content to which the individual must limit and direct the activities of his will in order to mold his own life in keeping with his own voli- tion as far as possible, but yet with the greatest consideration for the volition of his fellow-men. So in these considerations a fundamental fact is expressed, namely, that there does not exist a single class in the mighty diversity of our experiences and activities that could not be subjected to scientific examination,— in which, in other words, one could not w^ork out the recurrent regularities and use them for the prediction and, where one may exercise any in- fluence, for the pre-formation of the future. So on this side, too, science shows its specifically human and social character in a way that would be impossible for either applied or theo- [;8623 BOOK OF THE OPENING retical science of any importance so long as the human indi- vidual has to depend upon the narrow compass of his own powers and upon the short duration of his personal life. Only by means of the process of socialization, by means of the possibility of communicating one's own experiences and the generalizations derived therefrom to posterity, and in- deed, by means of writing, to communicate them for any desired length of time to posterity, independently of any personal factor, has the enormous development of science become possible, of which we are the surprised witnesses as we contemplate the history of recent and more recent times. These observations, finally, define our position as regards history. Owing to the circumstance that the civilization of central Europe has been erected upon the half-lost traditions of ancient Greco-Roman civilization, the means for attain- ing a knowledge of that old civilization, which appears so inaccessibly lofty to those striving after it, have enjoyed quite special prominence. And since from the nature of the case it was only a question of phenomena of the past, the means for Investigating the conditions of the past and for bringing them to the knowledge of the present age came Into correspondingly high repute and have undergone very extensive development. This explains the great respect which all historical disciplines have enjoyed. To begin with, historical disciplines which had to do with scientific, artistic, and religious traditions were, as a matter of course, appreciated to an extraordinary degree. Then this valua- tlon was extended Involuntarily and automatically to the Investigation of all possible forms of culture of a higher and of a lower degree which were being rendered accessible by means of the same Instruments of historical investigation. As almost always happens In human affairs, the means finally became confused with the end, and became in themselves the h THE RICE INSTITUTE object of endeavor, in such a way that the present Intellectual tendency of a great number of scientific persons has led them to the point of looking upon a merely exact knowledge of the past alone as an important task of science and worthy of any sacrifice. In reply to this It must be said that historical investigation in Itself cannot be considered by any means as a science in Its own right. History must rather be looked upon as a scientific technique, as an auxiliary means for the development of science, which, in an especial way, finds ap- plication to every individual field of all science. What is now called history was until recently almost exclusively his- tory of rulers, states, and wars, and had reference, there- fore, to an exceedingly Insignificant part of actual events. Slowly and with considerable resistance on the part of those concerned, the idea has been making headway that the his- tory of technical science and of civilization Is a far more important discipline than the history of wars and countries. But as a natural result, again, of accidental historical devel- opment, the history of civilization is understood to be rather a history of art, of belles-lettres, and the history of the dis- ciplines connected with them as a history of techniques; whereas every unprejudiced survey of the development of peoples and states teaches us that this development Is pre- eminently determined by the technical agencies and capa- bilities at the disposal of peoples and states, while the artistic-literary side has played relatively only a secondary role therein. Hence a logical history of civilization would be above everything else a history of technical science, and the history of the other Intellectual possessions, of religious ideas, of art, and of science would have to be incorporated only as special headings in this general history of human progress written from a technical point of view. BOOK OF THE OPENING Accordingly we see that an investigation of history would presuppose a still more varied preparation than that de- manded above for the philosopher of the future; that is to say, in addition to a wide and fundamental knowledge of all the theoretical or general sciences, it would presuppose a much more detailed knowledge of all the applied disci- plines, from astronomy to chemical technology and to the theory of natural selection. It is evident that the only atti- tude mankind in Its present stage of culture can take toward these questions is that the technical science of historical in^ vestigation is connected as a scientific method with the pur- suit of every single discipline. And heretofore, moreover, things have so shaped themselves in many places involun- tarily. For example, we have historians of mathematics, namely, mathematicians who by means of historical Investi- gation and with philological knowledge and the methods of literary criticism have thrown light upon the history of this particular discipline. In the same way the history of chem- istry down to the present time has been written exclusively by chemists and not by specialists in history, for the simple reason that the professional historians have not the neces- sary knowledge. What has been brought about automatically in this matter under pressure of actual conditions should now be cultivated farther in a conscious and scientific manner. In each indi- vidual discipline, in every pure science as well as in every applied science, the historical part should be submitted to careful scientific study. But it must be particularly noted that this should be done only from the universal point of view of scientific work in general, namely, for the purpose of utilizing logically and methodically the knowledge of the past for discovering general laws and at the same time for predicting the future. The definition given by the cele- THE RICE INSTITUTE brated German historian, Leopold Ranke, which exercised upon a whole generation of historians an exceedingly nar- rowing and enervating influence— namely, that the only im- portant thing for the historian to know is how things have come to pass— must be rejected for fundamental reasons. We have not the slightest interest, in and for itself, in know- ing what has occurred in the past, for we have not the least influence on this past, and even the most accurate knowledge of it does not enable us to change it in any way desired by us. Only in so far as the past has future value— that is, only in so far as one is able from a knowledge of the past to deduce universal laws for shaping in general the field in question, and can apply them for predicting and, wherever possible, shaping the future in the general interest of man- kind—have historical studies meaning or a right to exist- ence. If one surveys the present pursuit of many disciplines from this point of view, one will become convinced that even in the twentieth century we still suffer in various ways from unproductive scholasticism, from pseudo-science, which has arisen everywhere from the fact that the means have been confounded with the end, and the correct bearings have been lost as to what is and what is not worth knowing. The past is infinitely too rich in events ever to be exhaustively repro- duced even by the most careful and most complete study. For, at the very time we are devoting all our intellectual powers to such study, there actually happens in a moment so enormously much that to try to reconstruct in all its details any part of the past seems like drawing water into the vessel of the Danaides,— the mighty sea of new occurrences at once covers up all islands of this kind, islands that have been won with difficulty. So the essential impossibility of such a task in itself demonstrates its essential impracticability. On the other hand, the question of what relationships, what uni- BOOK OF THE OPENING formities, what general formations of concepts can be de- duced from the knowledge of any past events whatsoever affords us a safe guide that teaches us to judge what fields in the past and what problems of historical investigation are really worthy of study, because there finally results, not the science of the past, but the only science that deserves the name— the science of the future. C867: THE RICE INSTITUTE Second Lecture PRINCIPLES OF THE THEORY OF EDUCATION LET us attempt to picture to ourselves how pedagogy, J scientifically systematized, will look In the future. To think of thus anticipating the future Is not as presumptuous as might at first appear. For, by means of a methodology that has recently been developed, common to all the sciences, we may also examine the classification and content even of those growing sciences which, on account of extraneous in- fluences, we have not yet been able to develop to the extent that the general scientific and cultural conditions of the age would warrant. We shall first have to occupy ourselves with calling to mind In a short review the entire system of the sciences. With the help of this system we can then answer the question where pedagogy is to be classified. Then, by reason of the place which will be assigned to pedagogy in the system of the sciences, the systematic arrangement of this discipline may be readily deduced according to established principles. I would call attention to the fact that the totality of the pure sciences may be divided into three groups— the sci- ences of order, the energetical sciences, and the biological sciences. The sciences of order begin with logic, or the theory of classes; they Include, moreover, mathematics and geometry as well as the science of time, which has not yet received a distinctive name. The energetical sciences In- clude mechanics, physics, and chemistry, and, as Is well known, have as their chief characteristic the idea of energy, which as yet plays no role among the sciences of order, [8683 BOOK OF THE OPENING having made its appearance as a new subject of study in this second department of science. The biological sciences, finally, are to be divided into physiology, psychology, and "culturology" {Kulttirologle), the first having to do with the most general phenomena of life, the second with those special phenomena called processes of the spirit or mind and the third finally with the biological-psychological phenomena which occur exclusively or wholly in the highest species of living beings, man. These specifically human peculiarities which differentiate the race of the homo sapiens from all other species of animals is comprehended in the name culture; therefore the science of specifically human activities may be most suitably called culturology. It coin- cides practically with what has been called sociology. This name, however, is not entirely appropriate. The fact of association, to be sure, is extremely important for the devel- opment of human culture; but, on the one hand, it is not the only determining factor in this field, and, on the other hand there are so many kinds of associations among animals and plants, and even among minerals, that one cannot employ the idea of social organization as a specific characteristic of this highest of the sciences. Now, there exists between the sciences just mentioned the relationship that the first mentioned more general sciences always have an influence and sphere of application in all the scences that we have mentioned : physics finds its applica- tion in chemistry as well as in all the biological sciences, but no application in mathematics, logic, geometry, etc. The higher, therefore, a science stands in this succession, or the later it has been named, so much the more do earlier, fun- damental sciences come into consideration In connection with .t and contribute to its content for classification and exami- nation. While, for example, chemistry employs as aux- 1:8693 THE RICE INSTITUTE iliaries or presupposed sciences only logic, mathematics (including geometry), and physics, there come mto quesUon in every individual science belonging to culturology, one after another, .// the sciences, and from this there result naturally a division and an exhaustive view of all the prob- lems which are to be solved In that particular science. Before we pose the chief question and its answer, to which of these domains pedagogy belongs, we must state by way of premise that, by the side of the pure sciences just mentioned there are a great many special disciplines that are called applied sciences or techniques. They share with the chief sciences the application of the laws of nature, but differ from them in that their goal is not systematized learnmg and order, but some practical problem the solution of which has forced Itself upon man as a necessity. So medicine, for example, is that kind of an applied science or techmque that makes abundant use of all the sciences up to and including physiology, and in some of its disciplines it employs also psychology and the science of civilization {Kullur^ssen- schaft). Each applied science has, like medicine, its fixed center of gravity in one of the pure sciences. It will there- fore, as a matter of course, use In its functions all the more general or subsidiary sciences also, while little-under cer- tain circumstances nothing-from the higher sciences comes into consideration In connection with it. We have now made the necessary preparation to enable us to designate exactly the position of pedagogy in the whole system of the sciences. In the first place, there is no doubt that pedagogy belongs to culturology. As we have already seen pedagogy is concerned with handing down the culture of tiie present living generations to the ones coming next We recognize, furthermore, that pedagogy is an applied science, since it is not a question here of purely perceiving. 1:8703 BOOK OF THE OPENING systematizing, and ordering any natural facts, but it has rather as its purpose the influence to be exerted on the grow- ing youth in the manner often described. Pedagogy is, therefore, a chapter of applied culturology or sociology, the pure sciences appearing as sciences subsidiary to it, since culturology as the supreme or ultimate science is in its way dependent upon all the earlier or more general sciences. We shall, therefore, get a view of the whole content of scientific pedagogy if, with respect to pedagogical problems, we in- quire into the influence and importance of each particular science. Before investigating the relationship of pedagogy to the several single sciences that become step by step more com- plicated, we have still one general point to settle, the more important features of which I must at least touch upon in order in some measure to answer at the very outset ques- tions that may possibly arise. We shall have to call to mind that the problem to which we are now turning has two different sides. I mean that the question involves not only the influence which the various sciences exercise upon the subject-matter of instruction, but also the influence that they exercise upon the process of instruction. Accordingly both matter and form of instruction are influenced simul- taneously by the various sciences, and it seems logically and methodically imperative to keep these two sides always dis- tmct.^ I should anticipate right here, and say that such a division does not influence the results of our examination to any great degree. I must admit that I myself was astonished to see how much these two questions merge and hang to- gether, thanks to the general method to which they are here subjected. From this fact we may draw the general conclu- sion that on arriving at a really rational solution of the problem, the two phases of pedagogical science will show 1:8713 THE RICE INSTITUTE themselves to be closely related; that, in other words, the content of instruction determines its method adequately and absolutely. We recognize this most clearly, perhaps, m the very hrst heading to be treated, in the relation between logic-or rather the theory of multiplicity-and pedagogy. Owing to a strong movement which is making itself very evident m present-day science, the former unqualified veneration for the Aristotelian logic has been giving place to the more recent notion that what we with justice call logic is nothing more than the theory of the most general and most com- monly recurring relations among different things and their concepts. Accordingly, there come into question, not only the manner and means by which from two propositions a third may be construed (the exclusive content of logic hitherto), but also a more universal problem. What mod- ern logic treats of is how things may be classified, how the resulting groups may be mutually co-ordinated, and what results and laws ensue therefrom. From this point of view we see at once that the whole province of human speech be- longs in this large general chapter. Speech is nothing but a system of signs which we associate with the system of con- cepts, and which we have formed for ourselves for the purpose of transmitting our ideas to others by means of lan- guage. Language serves, therefore, for the communication of ideas by means of the following process: Some definite sign is associated with a given idea, and this sign must always be the same for that particular idea. If, now, another per- son is led to connect the same ideas with these signs, he^^'un- derstands" the language in question; that is, on recognizing the signs, he forms in his mind the same idea that the first person had in mind when he produced the sign. We are thus concerned here with an unusually general and therefore im- [872] BOOK OF THE OPENING portant case of the association of two groups, the concept group and the lingual sign group. Soon, however, this phenomenon assumes another aspect by reason of the fact that we are not able to satisfy ourselves in all cases with spoken, phonetic symbols, lasting but a mo- ment; we find ourselves, on the other hand, forced for many purposes to associate enduring symbols with our ideas, such as are employed in our written language, script. This means, pedagogically speaking, that what the child must first acquire is the ability to form and employ a number of ideas that are connected and sufficiently clearly grasped, as well as the ability to associate with these ideas the con- ventional speech symbols of its mother tongue. Only after the co-ordination of words has been completely established and fluently learned can the association of written symbols follow. Along with this a new fact makes itself felt, namely, that when a group A is associated with a group B, and again a group C with group B, then groups A and C prove to be co-ordinated. Now, if one represents the sym- bols of speech by means of letters, without concerning one's self about the sense of these sounds,— that is to say, without reference to their associated ideas,— one obtains again a system of symbols, the written language, which is co-ordi- nated quite as closely with the original ideas as the sound language was. In methodical presentation all these things look rather abstract and uninteresting, but they assume at once a con- crete form as soon as one envisages the real pedagogical problem in connection with the child-mind in process of de- velopment, viz., on the one hand, the formation of clear and precise— that is to say, sharply differentiated— ideas, and, on the other hand, the association of the symbols or of the words with these well-understood concepts. Obviously, n8733 THE RICE INSTITUTE this analysis gives as a result (and in a way which is to most persons as unexpected as it is illuminating) the principle of the industrial school {Arbeitsschule) , The phrase "indus- trial school" is one of those phrases the co-ordination of the meaning of which is not quite clear, probably because there is such a lack of definiteness to overcome in the idea itself. In the light of the observations just made, one sees that the in- dustrial school comes to mean in the lower grades that the cul- tivation of the formation of ideas within the range accessible to a child proves to be the first and most important mission of the school. Therefore, during the first year, when the teacher with his class looks about him chiefly in the school- room, afterward in the house, street, or field, and describes the various objects and situations and gives names to them, he is carrying out the most elementary pedagogical applica- tion of the first and most general of all the sciences — the science of co-ordination, or logic. At the same time we rec- ognize the fact that the method hitherto employed— i.^., that of beginning to teach reading and writing as soon as possible — is shown, in the light of this analysis of earliest school ac- tivities, to be unfit for the purpose. The most important thing, because fundamental, is first the formation, co-ordina- tion, and clarification of ideas; and since this work neces- sarily forms a basis for all else, a corresponding amount of pains and care must be bestowed upon it. Above all, it must not be demanded of children that they represent and repro- duce ideas before they have grasped clearly the content of the idea itself. Only after the child, within the range of its experience, can express itself fluently about the ideas that present themselves and about their mutual relations,— when, for example, it can relate its little experiences coherently,— then only does the question present itself how we are to co- ordinate with these abstract representations expressed by 1:8743 BOOK OF THE OPENING sounds those expressed in lasting symbols. In other words, one will not begin with instruction in writing and reading till about the end of the first year, and this year will be devoted almost exclusively to the cultivation of the processes of con- ception. Now as to the association of the written and printed sym- bols with the ideas and their sound-symbols, we know that German schools sufl^er most seriously by reason of the va- riety of alphabets, the number of which (large and small, written and printed, Roman and Gothic) amounts to no less than eight. I do not wish to permit this opportunity to pass without again urgently calling attention to the fact that, in the first place, the so-called German, or Gothic, script has nothing to do with the idea of "being German," and, in the second place, it proves to be a serious hindrance to the men- tal development of our children and of our people. Not even a half-educated person may avoid learning the Roman script, printed as well as written, because, for example, all the notices on the railroads, the street corners, etc., and the characters on all typewriters, are in this script, for the very simple reason that it is much easier to read than the Gothic script. The knowledge of Gothic script is therefore neces- sary only for written and printed statements in which it is still injudiciously retained, and in which its discontinuance is only a question of time. While it is true, for example, that in our daily press most of the general news items are still to be found printed in Gothic characters, nevertheless news of scientific and commercial character, which it is presumed will be read by readers of other nationalities, is already being printed quite generally in Roman characters. It would not occasion the slightest difficulty, but rather bring about far- reaching relief in the ratio of 2 : i in the instruction of chil- dren, if one should forego completely all knowledge of the 1:8753 THE RICE INSTITUTE Gothic script in the early years of school, and leave acquir- ing a reading knowledge of it (for writing it is completely superfluous) till a riper age. This explanation of the material content of primary edu- cation gives us at the same time an insight into the corre- sponding pedagogical procedure. At this stage the teacher will, above all, see to it that he promotes to the best of his ability the formation of concepts, that he compels the chil- dren to represent accurately to themselves the characteristic and constituent parts of the various ideas they possess, and he will also take care that the very clearest and most definitely co-ordinated words are employed for the clear and definite ideas thus obtained. Just here many difficulties may be encountered, for all the so-called natural languages (i.e., those which have developed unsystematically) leave much to be desired as regards order and regularity, and therefore often violate the prime requisites of logical association- above all, the necessity of avoiding ambiguity. The capacity of the teacher will be shown by his skill in overcoming these internal difficulties of our present language, and in point- ing out to the children the existing obstacles and ambi- guities in order that these may be avoided. As an example of the extent to which the material analysis of the content of instruction also elucidates the method of imparting it, I need only mention, in passing, that in the logical analysis of first conceptions it is necessary, from the point of view of method, to separate learning how to write from learning how to read, and to place the former, as the more difficult art, at a later period, when the relation between the idea and its written symbol has become completely comprehensible. After this first division of the sciences there follows quite naturally the second— the theory of quantities, or mathe- matics. Reading, writing, and arithmetic are the traditional BOOK OF THE OPENING subjects of elementary instruction, and in the very same way experience has brought us to realize that arithmetic should not come until considerably later, when the more general ele- ments in the systematization of mental processes have been treated and made familiar to the child. One cannot build up the science of mathematics logically, nor can that science, therefore, be rightly understood if one has not first acquired a clear grasp of the ideas appearing in the sphere of order, and of the mutual relations of those ideas. It is also a matter of common knowledge, and one that Is making more and more headway in our day, that after arith- metic should come the simpler elements of geometry. Of course, for definite logical and philosophical reasons, geom- etry should not be taught in the form of Euclid's Exposi- tion, but rather as an empirical science, which it certainly has always been. It is just here that the special side of the modp-n industrial school makes itself felt, where the child, by handling objects of dimension, by producing them from plastic material, and by their respective transfor- mation during the process of alteration, will acquire a quan- tity of notions regarding practical geometry at an age when the usual instruction, by reason of statements that are abstract and (for a child's mind) too general and empty, would lead nowhere. Helmholtz himself states that the principal theorems of geometry were perfectly familiar to him the first time they were taught him in school, and that this was due to the blocks with which he had played during his early years, when he was repeatedly compelled to keep to his bed. With these hints, let us leave for the present the subject of the sciences of order, as regards their influence upon the theory of teaching. In connection with the reflections just made, a hundred other relationships, which naturally follow \ THE RICE INSTITUTE from what has been said here, will have suggested them- selves to every teacher, but they cannot here be analyzed singly. For as soon as one begins to undertake a systematic examination, the subject-matter grows irresistibly into a complete system of pedagogy, the analysis of which would require not the few pages at our disposal, but volumes. We shall now turn to the second department of our clas- sification, the physical or energetical sciences. In case we desire for symmetry's sake to preserve the tripartite di- vision, we may divide them into mechanics, physics, and chemistry. It is a matter of common knowledge that it is customary to impart these sciences to the child only in the higher grades of instruction, but their relatively early posi- tion in the realm of all the sciences suggests the possibility that by postponing instruction in these sciences in the case of the developing child we have not heretofore waited too long. Here, too, we must distinguish very carefully the pedagog- ical presentation of the subject-matter connected with the daily concept formation of a child, by which at first only the general content and general processes of the science are demonstrated by means of natural examples from the exact, logically ordered, and systematic presentation of the whole science. The sciences to be considered in this connection are already so highly developed theoretically that even their general propositions may be made perfectly intelligible to a child. I need only remind you that elementary mechanics of the spade, wheel, lever, and hammer, gives a sufliciently complete introduction to the idea of energy, and can explain quite interestingly, even to the slightly developed mind of a child, the law of the conservation of energy by means of the general principle of the conservation of work in machines. I recall, in my own development, that at the age of twelve or fourteen I was sufficiently advanced not only to incorporate BOOK OF THE OPENING these things in my memory, but also to find that inward intel- lectual pleasure in their arrangement and in their respective relations the production of which is the most effective auxiliary of every good teacher. These hints concerning the content of instruction, in so far as it has to do with the energetical sciences that I have men- tioned, may suffice. On the other hand, the application of suitable fundamental concepts in the method of instruction is deserving of some attention, even though it does en- croach to some extent upon the subject-matter of physiology. The teacher must accustom himself to treating the child as an energetical machine,— which, like every other organ- ism, it really is, — and to conforming his treatment to the principles of energetics, whose first and most important axiom is that perpetual motion is an impossibility. In other words, it is not possible to produce work out of nothing; but rather, the only way to realize work consists in transforming other stores of free energy into the needed form. Unfortunately, the pedagogy that has been practised up to the present has paid very little attention to this basic law of all natural phenomena, though it circumscribes the sphere outside of which nothing can ever occur. Our present pedagogy is predominantly pedagogy of the will. By working upon the will of the child, with a view to reward or punishment, we have attempted to attain the desired results, and in case of failure to supplement it with all the more powerful influ- ences upon the will in proportion as the real performances fall short of those desired. I do not mean to intimate that we should fail to recognize that influencing the will is a fac- tor, and a most important factor, in all pedagogy. This influencing, however, is possible only within the scope of the laws of energy; and where the demands involve an infringe- ment of these laws, even the most powerful influence on 1:8793 \ THE RICE INSTITUTE the will accomplishes nothing. If a child that has not had sufficient sleep and is underfed is expected to do normal work in school, and if the teacher, either voluntarily or by virtue of the regulations, forces the child to do that normal amount by influencing Its will-power, it is a question of nothing but the attainment of perpetual motion, the possibility of which, however, is excluded by the most Important synthesis that science knows. A child that brings with it no store of energy into school possesses also no forms of energy which it can transform into the work demanded, and all the Influences brought to bear upon the will, from affectionate admonition to severest punishment, cannot alter the situation in any way. The beginning of a more practical understanding of these conditions is beginning to make itself felt In many directions, in so far as care Is taken, thanks to charitable foundations, to provide weak and underfed children, before the beginning of school Instruction, with the necessary stores of energy by the distribution of milk and bread. But these distributions are looked upon at present more in the light of charity, and it Is taken for granted that one is doing something unneces- sary, whereas more careful consideration teaches that the work of the teacher expended upon children of that kind, who are provided with insufficient stores of energy, is quite useless and in Its way a waste of energy. Every township, therefore, that does not see to it that working children have really something to consume, that they are physiologically capable of work, spends the money used in school Instruction in exactly the same way as a manufacturer would do if he attempted to construct his product with poorly made ma- chines, dull files and knives, and similar inadequate ap- paratus. We turn now to the biological side of pedagogy. The following circumstance is to be noted, which is of consider- [880] BOOK OF THE OPENING able Importance in the problems of method which confront us. To a growing child a beetle is relatively much more in- teresting than a stone; the attitude of other people toward it is much more a subject of notice than possibly the phe- nomena of the clouds or the actions of electrically charged Sambucus balls. This is a circumstance which is coi i^cted quite naturally with the formation of concepts. The child forms its first and most familiar concepts in immediate con- junction with its daily experiences; that Is to say, other peo- ple are, above all else, absolutely and indubitably objects of interest to it, and other interests follow these only in propor- tion as they are conceived as being less and less like man. For this reason it is much easier in school to awaken an in- terest in animals and plants than in minerals and physical experiments. So a certain antithesis makes itself felt be- tween this natural organization of the human mind and the logical construction of the sciences. For the latter begin with the most abstract Ideas, those lying farthest from the developing mind of the child, and ascend from them to the ever more varied and therefore more comprehensible ones lying nearer to the perception of the child. This seeming contradiction is explained by the fact that the former more general branches of knowledge, as has been explained al- ready, are introduced as entirely empirical subjects. By no means do we dare entertain the Idea, so far as a child is con- cerned, of an exhaustive, systematic presentation of them; but we should rather make use only of those parts thereof which, in the daily life of the child, prove themselves to be necessary and therefore familiar, and in the end also inter- esting. And so at this early age one will not wish to give a systematic presentation of physics and chemistry, but will, of course, rather familiarize the child with the fundamental phenomena that daily life brings with it, without special [881] THE RICE INSTITUTE reference to formulating them. At the point where the two divergent lines almost meet— viz., where the conceptual fac- ulty of the child has already advanced to a knowledge of animals and plants— the contact with more general and more abstract concepts will be brought about by ascending the scale of science and by the diminution of childish inter- est. That zoology and botany can be taught with success at an age when systematic physics or chemistry could not yet be taught is due to the fact that, in presenting to children at that age the science of animals and plants, the exposition is limited to their appearance, and to those circumstances of their being which resemble similar functions in man. It is merely a question of the continuation of the theory of con- cept formation to which we referred in our discussion of the most elementary stages of systematic instruction. Instruc- tion in the physiology of animals and plants cannot be ac- complished otherwise than upon the basis of a sufficient knowledge of chemistry and physics, and should be post- poned to a very much later period. So much for the content of instruction as regards the de- partments just mentioned. The method has been touched upon already to some extent, my observations regarding the energetical side of the question having suggested the premise that a child is a living being, a biological organism. At all events, we may add here a few additional remarks growing out of the physiological and culturological phases of the sub- ject. As far as the application of physiological laws to the method of instruction is concerned, this is a department of knowledge that has begun to be opened up only very re- cently. It is less than a decade since we began recognizing that all pedagogy presupposes the knowledge of psychol- ogy in its application to teacher and to child; that all scientific pedagogy, therefore, must begin with the study of [-882] BOOK OF THE OPENING child psychology and the psychology of the processes of in- struction. This, of course, is not the most important influ- ence that psychological knowledge has had upon pedagogy. On the contrary, the highly endowed empiricists of the past, to whom we are indebted for the best in all that has been accomplished and systematized heretofore, recognized these fundamental relationships long ago as a matter of course and put them to practical use; as, for example, the precepts that the simple must precede the complex, that the mind must not be fatigued by being occupied too long with one subject, etc. Among the empirical results thus obtained I wish to lay particular stress upon one only, because to my mind too little emphasis has been laid upon it, although it is absolutely fundamental for the successful solution of the problem of teaching. In the course of an investigation undertaken years ago for an entirely different purpose, I attempted to account for the pnnciples which, in conformity with natural laws might be established as regards the most general problem of every human life, namely, the attainment of happiness; and I came to the conclusion that the most important requisites for happmess are, first, the greatest possible amount of com- pletely transformable energy, and, secondly, the greatest possible amount of energy transformed voluntarily.' The workings of human energy may be divided into two parts- one that is transformed in complete conformity to the actual will of the person in question, and another that is brought into transformation under the influence of compulsion of some kind. A life filled only with forced activities repug- nant to the will is felt by everyone to be a condition of the greatest unhappiness. On the other hand, the various prov- S.af/.- "^'" ''•'^'^"""g d" Tages" (Leipzig, Akad. Verlagsges., ^,„), n883] THE RICE INSTITUTE erbs on the subject of happiness reveal the fact that activities which are in conformity to volition have long since been rec- ognized as the absolutely necessary premise to every sensa- tion of happiness. But at the same time, energetics also teaches that the result of every transformation of energy depends, first, upon the total amount of available energy, and, secondly, upon the quality-ratio— i.^., upon the propor- tion of raw energy that can be transformed into the form desired for the particular purpose. Accordingly there ap- pears a remarkable parallel between the quality-ratio and the sensation of happiness; that is, the highest quality-ratio is attained when the transformation ensues with the least re- sistance: for every resistance that must be overcome con- sumes an expenditure of energy which must be withdrawn from the principal objective. In the same way, happiness increases with the diminution of resistance. From this it follows that in school the children will accomplish a maxi- mum of work when that which they do is accomplished with the least resistance, under the least possible coercion on the part of the teacher, and hence with a maximum of sensations of happiness. Therefore, in the feeling of happiness on the part of the pupils we have a means of measuring the expe- diency of the instruction itself. The happier a pupil feels during the recitation hour, the greater will be the success that the teacher may expect from his instruction during the period. These analyses in the domain of psychology and ener- getics coincide with experience In accordance with which those teachers who understood how to train their pupils to joyous and enthusiastic participation in their tasks actually had also the very best success in their instruction. Not only is it a fact that children are accustomed to cling to such teachers with lasting gratitude, but that the Immediate and 1:884:] BOOK OF THE OPENING concrete results of teaching under such circumstances are incomparably greater than those obtained by severe teachers through employing coercion. If children are forced against their will to work on assigned tasks, only transitory results at best ensue. The children cram their minds with the sub- ject-matter demanded for the quizzes and examinations; they forget these things learned unwillingly very quickly, however, and the result is nothing but a lasting detestation of the teacher and a vacuum in the Ill-treated brain. In order to make this important principle clear by an ex- ample, I should like to recount a purely empirical and unin- tentional confirmation of it, for which I am indebted to the well-known pedagogical reformer, Berthold Otto. Berthold Otto describes what he calls Gesammtunterricht ("joint in- struction"), a system discovered and developed very com- pletely by him, by which the children themselves, with their questions and observations, assume the conduct of the exer- cises of instruction and the teacher is present merely to main- tain a sort of parliamentary order (which requires but very little oversight) and to give the actual information which the children do not possess, and for this purpose he employs as an aid either his memory or an encyclopedia ready at hand. Students of pedagogy who visited his classes after- ward complained to the leader that the children sat around In such disorderly fashion, that each particular child sat at its desk in a different attitude, and nothing at all was to be seen of the order that is carried out in a military way in a normal class. Otto was accustomed to answer this by saying that in the beginning he, too, had endeavored to bring about greater uniformity; but the difficulty of attaining orderli- ness while the children were following with eager interest the content of the subject-matter under discussion had led him, from a pedagogical point of view, to forego this re- fM LI" THE RICE INSTITUTE quirement. And not until I had called his attention to the fact that the matter was a simple question of the law of the conservation of energy, that a child could not at one and the same time give Its complete attention to the content of the questions posed and give heed to the position in which it sat at its desk, and that a demand made in the one direction necessarily resulted in a diminution In the other, -not until then, I say, was a theoretical motive shown for that which his pedagogical instinct had led him to see was right. The same observations may be made concerning the much discussed question of the independence of the teacher as re- gards the managing of the children and the treatment of the subject taught. If one watches a group of workmen at work, one will find that almost every one of them handles his tools In an Individual manner. This is due to the fact that all men differ from one another, and that the conditions under which each of them uses a particular tool most practically must accordingly differ from one another. The dissimilarity of teachers in mental as well as physical organization must nec- essarily cause their methods of Instruction to differ. Every form of coercion that does not take these personal differ- ences Into consideration, and that seeks to bring about a unl- formlty not justified by weighty reasons, only serves to diminish in the teacher the quality-ratio of the work of in- struction. From these observations we shall have to con- clude again that uniformity is to be striven for only In so far as It Is shown to be urgently necessary for the organization of the school system as a whole; that in drawing the line between freedom and constraint, however. It Is better In case of doubt to place our line of demarcation more toward the side of freedom than toward the side of uniformity. In such circumstances there exists a greater probability of better quality-ratio In the functions of the system of instruction as [886] BOOK OF THE OPENING a whole, and this, after all, should be the chief aim of all educational administration. Yet another great division of our subject remains to be treated finally, namely, that of the application of sociology to the school. For even though pedagogy comes under the head of applied sociology, this does not mean, after all, that it stands isolated from the other branches of this science. On the contrary, since it is a question of applied method, we must investigate the entire range of sociology in connection with its influence on pedagogy and its method of application. We see at once that we are confronted by an almost inex- haustible problem. Here again we shall have to content ourselves with a few brief suggestions as to how far the application of scientific sociology influences, on the one hand, the method, and, on the other hand, the content, of Instruc- tion. Now as to method. It Is a question of consciously linking our growing youth, by means of education, to the whole cultural fabric of the present; and one sees at once how far- reaching and elucidating is the light which falls, owing to this relationship, upon our present educational system. Quite an important part of secondary education (a short time ago one had to say the vastly greater part of it) hinges upon the acquisition of the two ancient languages, Latin and Greek; and the so-called humanistic or rather philological gymna- sium insists upon the tenet that by the acquisition of these languages, and of the old culture of the Greeks and Romans connected therewith, by far the best means for the attain- ment of culture is placed at the disposal of modern man. The former point of view, that the culture of the ancients was so incomparably superior to all other possible cultures that we for our part can only hope to attain to a certain degree of perfection by the imitation of their attainments, is still prac- 1:8873 [\ I » THE RICE INSTITUTE tically held; theoretically, however, it has essentially been given up. For the representatives of the philological gym- nasium are now attempting to establish their system upon es- sentially different grounds, since both classical philology and archaeology have also begun to incorporate the history and works of the Greeks and Romans in all the events of the history of the world, and especially to occupy a more critical attitude toward the products of their art and philosophy. On general principles, the following must be emphasized in this connection : The fact that man is a being capable ot development, that his present conditions of existence are therefore better, nobler, more favorable-in a word, more valuable-than his earlier circumstances were (all of this to be taken on a basis of general average) , necessitates a differ- ent appreciation of old things as compared with the new Owing to a natural error whose obviously possible origin 1 have explained in another connection,' we have arrived at an overestimation of old things, in comparison with those that we now have, which has repeatedly led to confusion of thought in our cultural work and prevented us from attain- ing a right point of view. If we look at the matter simply and soberly, it does not admit of a doubt that those peop es whom we are accustomed to call the ancients were actually young; they lived some thousands of years earlier than we, and our civilization has been able to evolve by employing all the cultural results won by those earlier and younger peo- ples. Expressed in other words, this means that, viewed from the stage that we occupy in man's development, we people of the present day are the oldest of all peoples, the ripest, the most developed, the people who culturally stand highest, and all other, earlier stages of human development stand, as compared with the present, in a backward position 1 Cf. "Die Forderung des Tages," S. 282. BOOK OF THE OPENING for the reason that humanity at present can and may use what humanity in the past has laboriously produced. In this connection, of course, we must take into consideration the fact that the road upon which man has developed in the past, especially in the earlier ages, was not a road continuously rising, but rather it ascended and descended in great waves. There arose, especially after the destruction of the culture of antiquity by the migrations of the nations, a cultural vacuum for the filling of which the remains of earlier culture first had to be drawn upon. But in the meantime we have long since passed beyond this void. Great new and fundamental realms of culture, especially in the sciences, have been dis- closed; and should we compare our present condition with that of the Greeks, or even of the Romans, we could boast without any exaggeration of a much higher degree of prog- ress. The single circumstance alone, that for hundreds of years mankind has been taking into its service various kinds of inorganic energy, especially from fossil coal, means such an enormous freeing of human labor from the monotonous toil of muscle without any addition of mind, that by this very fact alone our claim is established that we stand upon quite a different height of culture from any that could ever have been reached by the peoples of antiquity. Did not Aristotle, in complete accord with the point of view of his time, em- phasize the fact that slavery would never cease because one could not otherwise conceive how the rest of humanity would be able to get flour for their food? So, in the last analysis, one sees there is nothing in making use of the civilization of antiquity as our highest ideal of culture. An ideal, as I have often explained, can lie only in the future, never in the past; and every ideal that is artificially sought in the past is only a means of reaction, and is from its very nature inimical to culture. Thus we are experiencing in our own day the fact 1:8893 i4 THE RICE INSTITUTE that the philological gymnasium is -esistibly approach^^^^^^ gradual extinction, in spite of the constant and mcons derate support given to it by the ruling reactionary classes m Ger- many, for obvious political reasons. The contrast between I cdtural needs of our time and the cultural m- th the Dhilological gymnasium can transmit is too great and g r-mg rVis Lnant from the Middle Ages, that was %Iy galvanized anew a hundred years ago, to be kep aUve in the long run. The yearly increasing attendance a tte non-philological Institutions, as is shown by statistics that aremore and more favorable to them, speaks in a language which in this connection is not ambiguous. Now. by an illogical application of the fundamental bio- genetic law, they have attempted to justify the education of our growing youth through the example of the Greeks and Romans, by saying that just as every organism -"^t by -ay of short review pass through the various stages of develop- nient of Its species, in the same way it is also --ssary to mental development that our children who are destined o higher education should also pass in school through the earlier stages in the development of humanity. If this were true and If this argument were taken seriously, then our poor young gymnasium students would first have to learn Babylonian and Egyptian culture and history before they could be introduced to the joys of Latin and Greek gram- mar None of the educationalists have dared this consistent application of the argument which they have employed in the defense of teaching Latin-«..., not one of them has taken his own argument really seriously. We must repeat, therefore: all the lower and higher school vntrnction at present must he determined absolutely by the cultural needs of the present time. The lack of socio- logical training which has been brought about by our con- 1:890:] BOOK OF THE OPENING fining ourselves to the culture of antiquity, and hitherto to a purely external presentation of history that is principally related to wars and battles, and to the establishment and fall of empires, cries for immediate remedy. It has arisen from a completely false conception regarding the factors of cul- ture, and the history of governments must be supplanted by the history of civilization. A modern child would learn what is infinitely more valuable and useful for its future life if it acquired an accurate grasp of the development of agri- culture, of mining, of transportation, of the steam-engine, and so forth, than if it learned by heart all the battles of Julius Ca?sar down to the last details. The fact that this real history of man's development— the history of the conquest of nature by mind, or the history of technology and science— is as yet hardly written, to say noth- ing of its being taught in the schools, is clear evidence of the small extent to which the fundamental sociological facts have been employed heretofore as a subject of study in education. The modern call for instruction in sociology merely reflects the fact that we are becoming conscious, little by little, of this oversight, and are now seeking means (not always the most apt and suitable) to fill out this baneful gap in the training of the modern pupil. In fact, it is almost unbelievable when one calls to mind the present situation in all its naked truth. The very pupils who are destined in one way or another to be hereafter the leaders of the nation as teachers, judges, physicians, or ministers, do not receive during the most im- portant period of their development in the gymnasium the slightest competent enlightenment about the ways in which the cultural, economic, and political organization of the Ger- man Empire is formed, nor how hereafter they will have to co-ordinate their civic life with its duties and its rights in the life of the nation as a whole. ili; f k ! THE RICE INSTITUTE And when, in conclusion, I come to speak of the influence of social science upon the method of instruction, I may en- counter a reproach which often enough has been cast upon n,e unjustly by those who feel themselves d^^^^ed m he r present prerogatives and positions of comfort The re- proach intimates that I only know how to bring destructive criticism and fruitless fault-finding into the school question, and that I exhibit no positive or helpful activity in this field. The fact alone that until recent years I had passed my whole life_and successfully, for that matter-in educational work should be sufficient to nip objections of this kind in the very bud. But when I have characterized that which we now have as being largely in need of improvement, I have done so over and over again by giving always an exact ex- planation of the reasons why I considered it bad, and in so doing I have specified the exact direction which Improvement must take. Just here, in connection with the question re- garding the application of sociology to the technique of school-teaching, opportunity is afforded to advance a good step further in the matter before us. Our present school organization- and this fact must be placed before everything else-is not arranged essentially with reference to the greatest possible advancement of the child, but with reference to the most convenient administra- tion possible in the hands of the officials in charge. 1 he thought underlying our whole present school organization is the supposition that all children are identical in character They are received into the school at an absolutely prescribed age, and then the object to be attained is that from year to year all, in like periods of time, take up and master the absolutely prescribed portions of knowledge assigned to them, which are alike for all, so that they may advance each year to a new class, and, if all goes well, may be dismissed 1:892;] BOOK OF THE OPENING after a normal lapse of time with their diplomas. Such a scheme, of course, is outwardly more readily handled than any other; for, to begin with, it is as trivially arranged as could possibly be imagined. Viewed, however, from the standpoint of its pedagogical effectiveness, it is the crudest imaginable, and therefore the most barren of result— yes, the most harmful. The supposition that all children are organized alike, that they develop with the same rapidity, that they have the same degree of interest in the various subjects, and therefore can be carried over similar distances in all the various subjects in a fixed average time, contradicts the facts in every particular. To force a system that rests upon this hypothesis can lead at best to most serious conflict with reality. For example, we are already quite accustomed toward Easter-time to hear of a number of cases of suicide among pupils, and of many other pupils who have left home secretly, either for fear of punishment or on account of shame due to a poor report. The contention as to whether the school or the home is to blame for the situation— the reproach brought by the school, for example, that, owing to incorrect management at home, children are made nervous and irritable, and are therefore no longer able to satisfy the necessarily strict de- mands of the school— Is fruitless. We are confronted by the situation that the present school system leads to these fearful results that are becoming worse each year, and the only conclusion that can be drawn from It is that causes which have such deplorable results must be eliminated. These causes, however. He In the contradiction between the school organization and the actual characteristics of the pupil, between the schematizing of personal development by our school organization and the Infinite variety of actual life, which is sharply opposed everywhere to the scheme. In Vf ):, k' u !»' THE RICE INSTITUTE addition to this, there is added a frightful amount of un- charitableness toward the pupil, for which the teachers of the higher schools more than those of the elementary schools must be blamed, and this is due to the unsuitable trammg of the teachers. Quite a considerable portion of our teachers in the gymnasiums and similar institutions consider them- selves to be Pegasuses in harness. In the university, owing to hunger for scientific activity on the part of their profes- sors they are led into scientific work; they consider this their real'calling in life, and therefore feel that a violence is done their minds because they are forced to teach children. The result of this is that the dissatisfaction that they feel toward their profession and their work is discharged on the defense- less victims in their classes. And even though a conscious reaction of this inward discontent upon the children may take place only in very rare cases, nevertheless the uncon- scious discharge of this continuous feeling is a phenomenon so natural that it must be expected in all cases where it is not counteracted by an especially energetic sense of pedagogic duty. ^ , The actual situation is a contradiction of the premises upon which our present school organization rests, the com- plete falsity of which its representatives have probably scarcely ever realized. Everyone who has seen a few chil- dren develop side by side realizes at what different ages the same stage of mental development may be noted. One child learns to speak in the first year, another in the third, and the same differences may be recognized in all forms of mental activity. When, therefore, a group of six-year-old chil- dren in whom a difference of almost a year may exist are, under the formal administration of regulations de- termined by the accidental date of birth, brought together before the teacher, the group by no means represents a uni- 1:894:] BOOK OF THE OPENING form, but rather an exceedingly heterogeneous mass, and every teacher knows how varied and individual the attitudes of mind are that children assume toward instruction. As time passes, these differences not only continue to exist, but generally become more marked. The tasks of the class- room, however, demand uniformly rapid progress on the part of each individual. In order to enhance this pedagog- ical nonsense to the point of incredibility, a child is kept back in the class a whole year, according to the regulations, if it exhibits a deficiency in one or two subjects, regardless of how good its attainments in the other subjects may have been. This only brings about a further disarrangement of mental poise, for non-advancement means a further mistreatment of the developing child, as it is prevented from prosecuting the very things which it can perform best, and in which, therefore, it has abundantly fulfilled the demands of thJ school. Instead, the child must work at the disagreeable thing, and in the field to which its ardent desires are drawn it again has set before it only what is so well known that it is wearied of it. This outward schematizing in year-courses and classes, in hour-divisions alike for all, and into lessons in connection with which not the slightest consideration is paid to personality, causes the many failures in school and neces- sitates also the dismal phenomenon just mentioned— the complete decay of the vitality of the child owing to the cir- cumstances under which it must live. The question as to how one can interpose In the matter with a view to improving conditions Is answered In a prac- tical way by experience in other fields where school bureau- cracy, fortunately, has not yet been permitted to make its entrance. From my own experience of almost a quarter of a century as a laboratory teacher of chemistry, I can say that by a free arrangement of instruction as regards time and 1:8953 .1/ \ THE RICE INSTITUTE content vastly much more is accomplished than by the usual schematizing. If children in the schools were only treated just as we university professors are accustomed to treat our students in the laboratory, and as very young children are treated in the kindergarten, incomparably better results would be attained. Each child is set at its task and attempts to do its best with it, in proportion to its attainments and to the rapidity of Its mental reactions. Just as in the laboratory we do not force the slower worker and do not hold back those who work fast, in exactly the same way children should be permitted to determine the rapidity of their development. From the general energetical reasons explained above it seems obvious that In this way by far the best results will be attained. Only by this kind of instruction is it possible also to de- velop social acting and thinking in children. It is considered at present one of the worst school offenses for one child to help another solve Its task. The one receiving the assistance is punished as well as the one who was ready to impart the help. Is, then, mutual willingness to render help a charac- teristic so exceedingly general that it must he systematically done away with in school? Is not, rather, egoism and nar- row-mindedness a fault under which we suffer severely? I do not hesitate to express the conviction that a considerable amount of this illiberallty Is imparted to our growing youth in school by the prevalent notions regarding this mutual help and the usual treatment of it. So necessary a characteristic, socially speaking, as the willingness to be of mutual assistance should rather be culti- vated in every way possible by the schools. This, to be sure, is not possible in the thoughtless schematlzatlon of the pres- ent school curriculum; it becomes, however, an Important pedagogic factor as soon as the system of unhampered In- cm;] BOOK OF THE OPENING struction just described is introduced. Then those children who learn more quickly and grasp an idea more readily will become, spontaneously, most effective assistants to the teacher. To those who are more backward they will en- deavor to impart comprehension of their tasks, and they will frequently succeed in this better than the teacher him- self, on account of the similarity of their mental processes In this way there develops at an early age the distinction between natures born to lead and those requiring leadership. 1 he former are spurred on to renewed zeal in their endeav- ors, and m proportion to their ability they may participate m mfluencmg their little comrades in a useful and fruitful manner; the others learn at an early age that in their ad- vancement they have need of the assistance of the better endowed ones, and, what is the best thing for all of them they learn subordination and how to work in rank and file. I must unfortunately forego explaining here all the excel- lent and elevating results which would ensue from such a really social development of our school system. I am not the first to express a thought of this kind; for in this direc- tion, too, the instinctive pedagogical talent, which fortunately still seems relatively more abundant in us Germans than in other peoples, has indicated the right course to a few pioneer spirits. The conception of the school as a social organiza- tion IS to-day no longer so strange as it seemed ten or twenty years ago, though a century ago a few leading students of pedagogy had already taken the same decisive point of view But the application of scientific system to pedagogical prob- lems gives us for the first time, so far as I can see, the sure scientific guaranty that in this direction the right course for Je development of our school system is really indicated i hose things that were demanded by these idealistic pio- neers in the realm of education, by reason of their instinctive THE RICE INSTITUTE understanding of the child-soul and of the cultural needs of their time, by the application of basic sociological laws to the school problem are scientifically proved and systematically co-ordinated. Therefore our age no longer needs to be forced to wait till the right way is discovered by towering individual spirits endowed with the sureness of the sleep- walker in the dark; but it behooves rather the conscious scientific thought of the twentieth century to recogmze and to follow a course that results from an exact and pertinent consideration of the facts, as the mature fruit of a philo- sophic grasp of all human knowledge. WlLlIELM OSTWALD. 1:8983 HENRI POINCARE AMONG the various ways of conceiving man's affection I V for life there is one which perhaps Metchniicoff has not heretofore investigated, yet in this one way that desire has a majestic aspect. It is quite different from the way one usually regards the feeling of fear of death. There come moments when the mind of a scientist engenders new ideas. He sees their fruitfulness and utility, but he knows that they are still so vague that he must go through a long process of analysis to develop them before the public shall be able to understand and appreciate them at their just value. If he believes then that death may suddenly annihilate this whole world of great thoughts, and that perhaps ages may go by before another genius discovers them, we can understand that a sudden desire to live must seize him, and the joy of his work must be confounded with the fear of having to stop it forever. We can imagine Abel's anguish at the thought of ap- proaching death, when none about him could understand the ideas which he wished to propagate, and which he feared forever lost. We appreciate the moments that Galois must have experienced before fighting his duel, if we remember that a few hours before going on to the ground from which he should not return, he had not written a single line of his great discoveries. Poincare died at the most brilliant moment of his career, in full vigor. His spirit was young; original ideas were 1:899:] THE RICE INSTITUTE . ,_• u •„ niH he realize that the world that r:r2 .L^TpptacHinL .na ,« .he p,.« o, Kls U« A..r\na his life Poincare was ever at the breacn, a gu t „sd...h. During .hese, as,. hirt, years .he. h. been no new question, connected even remotely with m h^ latlcs which he did not subject to his deep and delicate TntlPisrand enrich with some discovery or fruitful pomt of ''Tbelleve ,1... no sclenris. so n,„ch „ he "vj J" -«» and intimate relation with the scientific world tha u A A Wrr. He received ideas and gave them by a process rounded him He receiveaia^ ^^ of exchange both rapid and f^^^'^^^ . , ^f ^e the day when his heart ceased to beat. That i why f were to characterize the recent penod of ^e history Tathematics by a single name, we should all give that of ?o ncaT r he has been without doubt the most wide y LTw a;d celebrated mathematician of recent years. Li 1 e t i.,le he created . .yp. of sclen.is, and P^'loJ-P « ■ J'*' out being aware of it, the mathematicians of his time by means of subtle sympathies and bonds, grew necessarily into * Srific development, .he re.a.lons of science wi.hM. and of the general public with the scientist have been greatly 1:9003 BOOK OF THE OPENING changed In these late years. The causes are easy to under- stand, the effects striking. Brilliant discoveries have illu- mined every department of life. It is for this reason that science in general has become popular, and people expect from the mathematical and physical sciences particularly, results always new and ever more useful. It may be that people even have come to have a confidence in them which surpasses their power. The scientist who a few years ago stayed hidden in his study or in his laboratory to-day mingles with other scientists and with the public. He hears the questions which are asked from every side, and he must reply. Too much urged, he must sometimes reply before his thought Is ripe. Congresses and scientific reunions have Increased In num- ber; and popular presentations and learned lectures, where people wish to know the last word of science, follow each other without pause. There Is no longer any time to wait. Modern life, eager and tumultuous, has Invaded the quiet dwellings of the scientists. Some centuries ago people pub- lished great volumes; they were the synthesis of the thought of a man's whole life. But that was not sufficient for the scientific development now In progress. Scientific journals to-day ask for memoirs. In which work is published as It pro- gresses. The proceedings of the academies, short and pre- cise reviews, have appeared. A man reports In a few words every discovery as soon as he has made It. Time presses; one fears that the next minute the discovery may be lost. But the communications of the congresses, which no one has the leisure to revise, exceed In rapidity even the proceedings of the academies and of the scientific societies. We wish to know what has not been done. We say what we hope to find. We confide that which we shall never have courage to print. This development has created a particular state 1:9013 THE RICE INSTITUTE of mind among scientists, and has changed their lives, their ways of working, and even of thmkmg. There are great advantages in this modern scientific hfe as I have jus" presented it. Research has become almost collective. The energies of the investigators are summed; "; discoveries follow each other rapidly; compet.uon spurs them on. Their number increases from day to day. But how many objections we can oppose to these advan- fages' What refinement of detail is lost! Perhaps that padence, which for Buffon was genius itself, has vanished in the tumult of the present hour. Poincare was a modern ci n ist in the full meaning of the word. There was no con- g ss, no scientific reunion where his word was not heard. Mos of the scientific journals received his memoirs and the !;counts of his investigations. The universities of Europe and America have heard his conferences «"d ectures^ A work so absorbing, so intense, may easily overdrive to the point of danger a weak or sickly constitution Is it this excess which fatally has led Poincare to the tomb? Calm and serene scientific work is often a rest for the mind The pleasure of the new results that one finds sud- denly, like a beautiful landscape at the turn of^ — in road, alternates with the labor of research. The difficu t es of analyzing the question are often generously compensated by he llufions which appear at the precise moment when one expects them least, by means of methods which one could not hope to find useful. The work which Euler, Lagrange, Gauss knew may be compared to a pleasure voyage in the finest of countries; but that which public lectures and con- ferences demand, which journals ask for at a fixed rate very often fatigues and irritates like a long and rapid tour during which one has no time to consider the surrounding beauties and charms. f'^ 1.11 BOOK OF THE OPENING I Imagine that a mind even so largely endowed as that of Poincare, one that possessed all the gifts appropriate to scientist and author, must have felt fatigue and weariness before a mass of labor which year after year continued with- out intermission or rest, and every day became more de- manding and intense. But modern life called for it, and a famous man like Poincare, most popular of mathematicians and philosophers, could not refuse. Perhaps he felt that it was the duty of his genius towards humanity to spread abroad his ideas, not hiding any. He gave as he found, generously, as a great lord who has im- mense resources and is sure that no hasty expenditure can use them up. He did not hesitate between the desire to make known his thought to a great public and the fear of giving out results not yet completely ripened. An unusual lucidity saved him from mistakes. He always laid bare his ideas, and he did not hide his methods. That ingenious and subtle way of giving results and concealing the manner of getting them, so dear to the ancients and always so tempting, never appealed to him. He never waited to make complete and final his discovery, and give it a systematic and definitive form; although it is exceedingly self-satisfying to stop and investigate from every side that which one has discovered and which Is really one's own. It is indeed pleasant to find new aspects of it, and obtain its applications. But Poincare resisted all these temptations. He sacrificed these gratifications of the scientist to a high ideal. He went ever ahead. New questions awaited him, and the time for considering the details of the old never came. Indeed, I believe that he consistently avoided details and did not wish to give his time to minute questions. It was not his business either to correct or to revise that which he had done. The whole was everything for him, the details nothing. 1:903] 11 THE RICE INSTITUTE This inherent ardor gave to his nervous style a personal stamp and character. Perhaps it is for this reason also that "^possible to compare Poincare and other mvest.ga^^^^^^^^ even those of the present date. He -.'oo modern for any comparison to be possible. Among scientists he is hke an impressionist among artists, and I know of no other scientific impressionists among the great men of the past It is quite certain that no theory like universal gravitation or electrodynamics will be attached to his name, as to those of Newton, Ampere and Maxwell. Among the great num- b r of metLods which he invented and developed from day to day are there any comparable with those which mad famous Archimedes or Lagrange? It would take a grea deTl of time to distinguish everything that the- is m his w^rks, in order to say which of the seeds th- he has sown will sprout, and which finally will be most fruitful. But i Z ask to-day, on the morrow of his death, at what level Ze should pla'ce his genius, we must reply that he has reached the altitudes where dwell the great of human kind. There certainly a philosophy that is Poincare's. and an ana ysi , a mathematical physics and a mechanics that are Pomcare s, which science can never forget. . • . j His renown during his life was great. Few scientists and a very few mathematicians have had celebrity equal to his A phTsicist would find the reason for this in what I have jus been saying, remarking that his spirit and the spir^ of b time vibrated in unison, and that he was in phase with the universal vibration. Some great scientists have labored, urged by an internal force, without hearing or concerning themselves with those about them. They have been mis- understood. The pitch of their voices was not in harmony with that of their times, and they uttered tones which re- sounded only in later generations. 1:9043 '^ BOOK OF THE OPENING Nothing is harder than to prophesy the reputation of a scientist. History has given too many contradictions to obvious prophecies. Will not what one wonders at to-day be unessential to-morrow? But it is impossible that Poincare's voice shall not be heard in future times. The questions that he treated are so important and fundamental that a great number of investigations will follow those which he com- menced. His works will be studied in detail, and by many. They will form a very precious mine for all the scientists to come. The wealth of it, even at the present moment, we can surmise. These last few words explain what I am going to talk about. It is impossible to summarize surely and adequately the entire work of Poincare, and to give a complete survey of his mind and his wonderful activity. But I wish to devote to him this lecture. His voice should have sounded here in this solemn event, and the Rice Institute should have been inaugurated also under the auspices of his illustrious name. I shall endeavor to recall, then, a very small number of his discoveries, by trying to trace their principal characters, and to show their place in reference to the time when they were developed. I hope to be excused if I recall facts already known, and if I consider a few details that are elementary. But since I cannot be complete I must be clear, and I shall therefore aim not to describe matters in a difficult manner. I hope that you will understand my selections from his works: I have endeavored to take them from various branches of mathematics in order to show the development of sev^eral of his speculations. I begin with the one of Poincare's investigations that first brought him to the attention of the mathematical world, and at once showed his great talent in analysis. This is the 1:905:1 THE RICE INSTITUTE theory of linear differential equations and of Fuchsian func- tions. The theory of functions was the most important conquest of analysis during the last century. I did not hesitate at the Congress of Mathematicians at Paris to call the nineteenth century the century of the theory of functions, as the eigh- teenth might have been called that of infinitesimal calculus. An intuitive idea, like the idea of function which everybody possesses, and which is related to the most elementary concep- tions of quantities which vary with constant laws, gradually has invaded the whole subject of mathematics. Analytic geometry and the infinitesimal calculus gave it a start; alge- bra gave a great impulse to its systematic study; and Lagrange was able to write the first theory of analytic func- tions, the celebrated work in which are found the germs of later progress. It is only by the enlargement of the field of variables that the theory has been built up in a precise manner. It was necessary to consider imaginary and complex values in order to be able to explain the most hidden and most important properties of functions. To study a function without considering its imaginary and complex values would in many cases be like wishing to know a book by looking at what is written on the back, without reading the pages that are inside. Cauchy, Riemann and Weierstrass have assisted us most In the reading of this mysterious book. All of their ge- nius was necessary to lay bare to us Its most interesting secrets. But, as often happens, a general theory can be developed only by means of a profound study of a particular class of the objects which one is considering. Always some guide is necessary to provide orientation in a new region which has not yet been explored. The guide in the theory of func- 1:906;] BOOK OF THE OPENING tlons has been the detailed study of elliptic functions. A great many questions of algebra, of mechanics, of geometry, and of physics lead to the development of this branch of analysis, which has followed so closely that of the trigo- nometric functions: the elementary functions which Euler had already shown to be related to the logarithms and exponentials. The history of elliptic functions Is well known. It has been written many times, because It is perhaps the most interesting part of the history of mathematics. We pass from surprise to surprise In passing from one step, which we believe to be the most important of its development, to another, which brings forth new discoveries and new sur- prises. It has happened that the general theory of functions as well as all the other particular branches which are related to it has been cast upon the model of the theory of elliptic functions, and thus it Is that the theory of Fuchsian func- tions, which represents the latest of these constructions, fol- lows It also, in Its essential features, according to the plan of Poincare. As Is well known, the principles upon which the theory of elliptic functions Is constructed are three: the theorem of addition, the principle of Inversion and that of double peri- odicity. Everybody has learned in the elements of trigo- nometry that the sine and cosine of a sum of two arcs can be calculated from the sines and cosines of the arcs them- selves, by means of very simple algebraic formulae. In Its specific form the theorem of addition of elliptic functions is quite similar to that which we have spoken of. It Is not, however, under this aspect that It first appeared. Fagnano, an Italian Investigator who made part of no scientific circle but possessed great talent, recognized it in the geometric properties of a special curve— the lemnlscate of Bernoulli. 1:9073 THE RICE INSTITUTE The genius of Euler was necessary to show the true nature of this property and to develop it in all its generality. Another most subtle property, made evident only much later, is that of double periodicity. The periodicity of trig- onometric functions comes immediately from their very defi- nitlon. The double periodicity of elliptic functions was not discovered until Abel and Jacobl established the prin- ciple of inversion-that is to say, when they had taken the whole theory from the reverse side. Legendre, who thought the theory already complete, had to learn that he had not yet investigated its most fundamental conceptions. Abel and Jacobl kept on in the route which they had struck out. The general theory of the integrals of algebraic func- tions was systematically constructed upon the theorem of Abel, which is an extension of the theorem of addition, upon the principle of inversion which Jacobi demonstrated for the first time in complete generality, upon multiple periodic- ity, and finally, upon the use of certain functions which are called Jacobian functions. The principle of inversion under a new form, the exten- sion of the idea of periodicity, and a modified type of Ja- cobian function were carried over at one stroke by Poincare into the new domain-that of linear differential equations. It was that which constituted his work of analysis upon Fuchslan functions. After quadratures, the great problem of infinitesimal cal- culus Is the Integration of differential equations. The most simple differential equations are the linear ones. We get an equation of this sort if we imagine a relation of the first degree to hold between the displacement of a particle, its velocity, and its acceleration, the coefficients of the equation depending In an arbitrary manner upon the time. The par- ticular equation that we have just defined Is of the second 1:908] BOOK OF THE OPENING order, because the velocity is the first derivative, and the acceleration is the second derivative, of the displacement; but we can imagine linear equations where derivatives ap- pear of any order, and which are accordingly of higher order than the second. Lagrange and many other mathematicians studied these equations, but Gauss investigated a special class of them completely. He connected them to their series, which was the hypergeometrlc series. Rlemann went still further into these questions. He published a celebrated paper upon the subject ; and after his death results of the greatest Importance were found among his manuscripts. It seems that Weler- strass, without having published anything, had also discov- ered much relating thereto. But we owe to Fuchs an article, appearing In 1886, which called the attention of the entire scientific world to the new manner of considering linear differential equations. If we wish to form an Idea of the new level to which Fuchs and his predecessors had carried the question, we have only to compare it with the theory of elliptic functions at the time of Legendre— that is to say, before Abel and Jacobi appeared upon the scene. And yet advances had already been made into the new subject about to be developed, since the theory of the modu- lar function was known. The integrals of uniform functions are reproduced with the exception of an additive constant when the variable per- forms a closed circuit round singular points. This property is the origin of the periodicity of elliptic functions. In the same way, the set of fundamental integrals of a linear equa- tion with uniform coeflicients is subjected to a linear trans- formation on going around a singular point. We seek in this remarkable fact the key to the properties of those func- tions which can be obtained from the linear differential equa- 1:9093 t. THE RICE INSTITUTE tlons, by a procedure analogous to that of the inversion of elliptic integrals. If the equation is of the second order, the ratio of two fundamental integrals undergoes a linear substitution on performing a closed circuit round a singularity. We see then that the independent variable regarded as a function of the ratio of the two integrals must remain invari- ant of certain linear substitutions executed upon this ratio. The property which was to replace that of periodicity was thus found, and at the same time the principle of inversion. Poincare started from this fundamental idea and interpreted geometrically that which we have just called a linear sub- stitution. He started a systematic study of those substitu- tions which belong to a single discontinuous group, because it is evident that uniform functions which remain invariant of continuous groups cannot be other than constants. Linear substitutions correspond geometrically to trans- formations of the plane by means of inversions by reciprocal radii, united with reflections. They play a very important part in non-Euclidean geometry, as several geometers, among others Beltrami, had already shown. Poincare dis- tinguishes two kinds of groups, those which he calls the Kleinian groups, which are the most general discontinuous groups, and the Fuchsian groups. These last, interpreted geometrically, leave the real axis fixed; but by composition with a certain new substitution they leave a circle invariant. It is this circle which Poincare calls the fundamental circle. The finding of all these discontinuous groups is in this manner reduced to the consideration of the possible regular divisions of the plane and of space. Poincare distinguished between Fuchsian substitutions of different families, and obtained the corresponding groups. He then had actually to construct the functions which remained invariant of the [910] BOOK OF THE OPENING substitutions of these groups. These are the so-called Fuchsian functions. Jacobi, starting from elliptic functions, had arrived at a function which he called 0— that is to say, the Jacobian function. It is not periodic, but possesses what is called periodicity of the third kind, because increasing the variable by one period reproduces the function, multiplied by certain exponentials. Jacobi showed that the simplest way to obtain the theory of elliptic functions was first to define directly this function by means of a series, finding its properties by algebraic methods, and then afterwards to calculate the doubly periodic functions as ratios formed by the func- tions. Poincare followed a similar method for the Fuchsian functions. He started by calculating the Fuchsian func- tions by means of series, and then found the changes that they underwent by performing upon the variable the linear substitutions of a Fuchsian group. Certain ratios formed by these Fuchsian 0's remain unchanged when the variable is subjected to substitutions of the same group. It Is thus that the new transcendental functions were in- vented. By their Introduction into mathematics a new field of analysis was created. We shall not enter Into the details of the properties of these new functions, upon their connec- tion with algebraic functions, or with Abelian or other transcendental functions. Neither shall we speak of a large number of questions of arithmetic, algebra and analysis which are related to them. But we must say a word about the relation of the Fuchsian functions with the Integrals of linear differential equations that have algebraic coefficients. The direction here taken by Poincare Is similar to the one which we follow when we express Abelian Integrals by means of the generalized 1:911;] » i •I THE RICE INSTITUTE functions of Jacobi-that is, by means of the Abelian 0's. Following this method, Poincare introduced the Fuchsian Zeta functions, deriving them from the Fuchsian 0. These are transcendental functions that express the desired m- tegrals. . . It has been asked several times, Have the Fuchsian func- tions applications? But one can answer with the question: What does it mean for a theory to have applications? Does the touchstone of a theory consist in its use in mechamcs or physics? Did the theory of conies which the Greeks raised to such a high state of perfection take its honorable place in geometry only upon the day when people believed that those curves were the orbits of planets? Was it not already a great artistic monument, without reference to any practical application? But we must not spend time upon these matters outside of our subject. Let us now abandon analysis and pass along to other questions. There are two kinds of mathematical physics. Through ancient habit we regard them as belonging to a single branch and generally teach them in the same courses, but their natures are quite different. In most cases the people who are greatly interested in one despise somewhat the other. The first kind consists in a difficult and subtle analysis con- nected with physical questions. Its scope is to solve in a complete and exact manner the problems which it presents to us It endeavors also to demonstrate by rigorous methods statements which are fundamental from mathematical and logical points of view. I believe I do not err when I say that many physicists look upon this mathematical flora as a collection of parasitic plants grown to the great tree of natural philosophy. But perhaps this disdain is not justified. In the evolution of BOOK OF THE OPENING mathematical physics these researches probably are to play ever an increasing part. Explain to a child the first propositions of Euclid. It is not the geometric properties which surprise him; rather, that it is necessary to prove them, because his mind is not experi- enced enough to doubt their obviousness. In the same way, certain theorems which are demonstrated in mathematical physics produce upon some people a similar surprise. We are not familiar with the development of geometry before Euclid, and we see therefore the complete work. It is quite probable that in the progress of geometry there were periods when feelings similar to those of which we have just been speaking existed, and little by little passed away. The other kind of mathematical physics has a less analyti- cal character, but forms a subject inseparable from any con- sideration of phenomena. We could expect no progress in their study without the aid which this brings them. Could any one imagine the electromagnetic theory of light, the experiments of Hertz and wireless telegraphy, without the mathematical analysis of Maxwell, which was responsible for their birth? Poincare led in both kinds of mathematical physics. He was an extraordinary analyst, but had also the mind of a physicist. We shall seek for the proof of this among his works. The memoir that appeared in 1894 in the "RendicontI di Palermo" is one of his most interesting papers. It bears the title, *'On the Equations of Mathematical Physics." The au- thor presents the question which he is about to treat in a short introduction, where he recalls the work of some of those who preceded him. But the question has a long his- tory of which I shall speak somewhat. Let me begin by saying that the work has a character 1:9133 - -1 THE RICE INSTITUTE which is essentially analytic, and that it belongs to the mathe- matical physics of the first kind. In precisely what then con- sists the interest of this question, which so many mathema- ticians have investigated? No physicist would doubt for example, that an elastic membrane could emit an infinite number of notes, and that there would be an infinite d.scon- tinuous scale of them, going from the lowest tone to the highest. The example of sounds produced by an elastic cord or by a rod is sufficient to suggest what ought to happen when one passes from the case of a single dimension to that of two dimensions, and even what ought to result from the consideration of a vibrating body of three dimensions. But for mathematicians it was necessary to give a rigorous proot, and this proof was complicated and hard to find. We must not even suppose that the analytic investigation had the aim of calculating the pitches of the various notes. Any practical application of the calculation was quite far from the thought of the mathematician. It was only the logical pomt o view which gave importance to the question. Its difficu ty in- creased its attraction and it thus became a question of com- pelling interest. , Physicists were intuitively aware of the result, not merely on account of the analogy of which I have just spoken but also from a certain process of induction which has a philo- sophic value of the highest order, and which can be regarded as the source of several Investigations which continued after Poincare. Lagrange had devoted a chapter of his "Analytic Mechanics" to the theory of small motions. This chapter is one of the finest of his work. The author was able to carry through all the integrations in the case which he was con- sidering, and obtained very simple and interesting formulae. The periods of vibration of any set of molecules, finite in number, connected among each other by arbitrary restramts, were obtained by Lagrange by means of the roots ot an 1:914:] M i BOOK OF THE OPENING algebraic equation. Now any system can evidently be con- sidered as a collection of molecules arranged in a space of one, two or three dimensions according as we consider a cord, a stretched membrane or a solid body. It is sufficient then to replace the finite number of molecules of Lagrange by these collections which we have mentioned in order to extend his results to the different cases. This is really what is called Lord Rayleigh's principle, and gives a very clear and suggestive point of view in regard to the bearing 0.^ the problem. But this principle was not sufficient demonstration for mathematicians. The question which we have just been considering from the point of view of the theory of sound, is presented also, either in quite the same manner or in similar form, in several other questions of mathematical physics. We meet it when we consider other vibrations which are not acoustical — for Instance, those that are electromagnetic. We meet it also in questions of another nature, such as those of the theory of heat. A single result had been demonstrated rigorously since 1885, in such a way as to satisfy every mathematician. That was the analytic proof of the existence of the fundamental tone— that is to say, the one which corresponds to the ab- sence of nodes and nodal lines in the vibrating membrane. Schwartz had obtained that result when studying certain questions of a different nature. For a long time he had been developing the theory of minimal surfaces— that is to say, the surfaces of equilibrium of a very thin liquid layer In which there is a surface tension (for instance, a layer of water in which soap is dissolved). In the problem of the calculus of variations, to which he was led, it was necessary to distinguish the maxima from the minima. He was thus led to consider the following question: A function of two variables vanishes at the boundary of a region of two dimen- 1:9153 THE RICE INSTITUTE sions. The ratio of the value of its differential parameter of the second order to its own value is a negative constant at all points of the region. What is the smallest absolute value of this constant? Now the problem of the notes pro- duced by the vibrations of the membrane consists m finding all the values of this ratio. That is why Schwartz's problem is only a particular case of the one we are considering. The question then was to proceed to calculate all the other values beyond Schwartz's minimum. Already M. P.card had discovered properties of the greatest importance in this di- rection, and Poincare had attacked the problem in a work which was published in the American "Journal o Mathe- matics," but it must be confessed that in this work he was still far from the solution. He took his revenge in the paper which we are about to examine. We should guess from Lagrange's theorem and Lord Rayleigh's principle that the different pitches ought to ap- pear as the roots of a transcendental function. It was the construction of one of these functions, or, more particularly, the proof of its existence, that Poincare attempted. Let us see how. . . He commences by adding a term to his equation-that is, he considers one that is made up of three terms. The first is the differential parameter of the second order, the second is the unknown function multiplied by a param- eter, and the last is a function which he takes as arbitrary. We' shall call this equation the auxiliary equation. The primitive equation lacked just this last term. He constructs this arbitrary function by linearly composing n functions by means of certain constant undetermined coefficients. Ihis done he develops the unknown function, supposed zero on the boundary, in a series of powers of the parameter^ This result is reached by the use of Green's functions. He gets in this way an analytic function of the parameter for which n9i63 BOOK OF THE OPENING the development is valid within a certain circle, and which can be also represented as the ratio of two functions of which the denominator is independent of the variables of Integra- tion. By means of processes of extreme subtlety he shows that these undetermined coefficients of which we have just spoken can be chosen so that the two functions shall be entire functions of the parameter. Hence if in the auxiliary equa- tion we replace the unknown function by the ratio of the two functions, giving them this entire form, we see that for all the values of the parameter which make the denominator vanish the auxiliary equation reduces to the primitive equa- tion, and thus it comes about that all the roots of the entire function which appears as the denominator give the values which we were looking for. Nothing can be simpler than this process which I have been able to summarize In so few words, but It contains a group of thoughts of a marvelous subtlety and frultfulness. What I have given is only the first part of Polncare's memoir. The study of the roots of the functions which resolved the primitive equation, their properties, the devel- opments that they followed, the definite applications to the problems of acoustics and of the theory of heat, give a num- ber of very Important results. They have been applied to many similar questions. At present this classic memoir remains as one of the finest monuments constructed by Poin- care; but It Is with the methods of Integral equations that we now study those problems. Leaving these questions here, however, let us pass on to other problems and investigations. Some years ago it seemed for a time as if the atomic and corpuscular theories were losing ground. People thought that everything could be explained by means of continuous substances. In mathematical physics partial differential equations were obtained by abandoning entirely the molecu- lar hypothesis. In chemistry also It was heard that the atoms 1:9173 h THE RICE INSTITUTE were becoming useless. But a sudden breath dispersed the light clouds which seemed to obscure the corpuscular theo- ries. They are now supreme, and serve to illuminate the various regions of natural philosophy. Necessarily the old atomic theories continued to advance. Electricity was first recognized as being of corpuscular na- ture, and little by little in every subject new sorts of atoms appeared. People discovered facts that accorded with the new theories. These theories became even the richest and most fruitful source of new discoveries, and it is for that reason that their reputation has increased from day to day. It has become now so secure that when contradictions are unavoidably presented we do not think of giving up these new ideas, but, rather, have not hesitated to abandon ancient principles whose validity was not doubted enough even to discuss. Little by little the classic theories which seemed set upon eternal foundations have been upset. Even mechanics, which, after Galileo and Newton, came to be regarded as the most secure of all sciences, has been overturned. A new mechanics has been formed, that of relativity. But that perhaps is already to-day an old mechanics. Will there not come from it indeed again an entirely new one, by virtue of the concept of atoms of energy? Polncare was associated with the transformation of the old physics and the birth of the new. His criticism and analysis have penetrated modern conceptions from all sides. He was devoted to such questions up to the end of his life, and several of his articles and latest lectures were given to their exposition. And so Polncare was not only a master in the first kind of mathematical physics, but also in the second. The electrodynamics of bodies at rest did not present great dIflScultles after the discoveries of Maxwell and the progress due to Hertz. But that of bodies In motion gave 1:918] BOOK OF THE OPENING rise to much discussion. Hertz had suggested a special hypothesis In order to pass from the case of rest to that of motion, but experiment proved it to be false, and it is Lorentz's theory which now explains best the latter subject. The celebrated discovery of Zeeman was a great triumph for the conceptions and hypotheses of Lorentz, because these conceptions and hypotheses predicted the doubling of th^ lines of the spectrum in a magnetic field; and this was the re- sult verified by Zeeman's experiment. Lorentz's theory was the source of a new order of ideas, Including that which I have called the new mechanics. His theory was put In comparison with the principles of me- chanics and physics. No contradiction appears with the principles of the conservation of energy or with those of electricity and magnetism. But at the first step a question Is suggested to us, namely: Is it possible to determine explicitly the "absolute" motion of bodies, or, rather, their motion relative to the asther, by means of optical or electromagnetic phenomena? To make the question still more precise: Do optical or electromagnetic phenomena serve to determine the absolute motion of the earth? If we take account only of the first power of the aberra- tion, the motion of the earth has no influence on any of these phenomena. This negative result has been shown by experi- ment, and Is perfectly explained by Lorentz's theory. But a celebrated experiment was performed by Michelson and Morley which kept account of the terms depending on the square of the aberration, and even this experiment, as Is well known, gave a negative result. In a famous paper of 1904 Lorentz showed that this result could be explained by introducing the hypothesis that all bodies are subjected to a contraction in the direction of the motion of the earth. 1:9193 THE RICE INSTITUTE This paper was the point of departure for the later inves- tigations. The results of Polncare, Einstein and Minkowski followed closely that of Lorentz. In 1905 Polncare pub- lished a summary of his Ideas In the ''Comptes Rendus" of the French Academy of Sciences. An extended memoir on the same subject appeared shortly afterwards in the '^Rendi- contl" of Palermo. The basic Idea In this set of Investigations Is founded upon the principle that no experiment could show any absolute motion of the earth. That is what Is called the Postulate of Relativity. Lorentz showed that certain transformations, called now by his name, do not change the equations that hold for an electromagnetic medium; two systems, one at rest, the other In motion, are thus the exact Images each of the other, in such a way that we can give every system a mo- tion of translation without affecting any of the apparent phe- nomena. In Lorentz's theory a spherical electron In motion takes the form of an oblate spheroid, two of its axes remaining constant. Polncare found the particular force necessary to explain both the contraction of the electron and the con- stancy of the two axes. This is a constant exterior pressure acting upon the deformable and compressible electron. ^ The work performed by this force is proportional to the variation in volume of the electron. In this way, if inertia and all of the forces are of electromagnetic origin, the postulate of relativity can be rigorously established. But according to Lorentz all forces, no matter what may be their origin, are affected by his transformation In the same way as the electromagnetic forces. What modifications will it be necessary to introduce into the laws of gravitation, In virtue of this hypothesis? Polncare finds that gravitation must be propagated with the velocity of light. We might think, knowing the famous 1:920:1 BOOK OF THE OPENING theory of Laplace, that that was in contradiction with astro- nomical observations. But that is not so; there is a compen- sating term which removes every contradiction. Polncare was thus led to propose and resolve the following question: To find a law which satisfies the condition of Lorentz and reduces to Newton's law when the squares of the velocities of the stars are negligible in comparison with the velocity of light. Those are the fundamental problems and Ideas of Poln- care, which have played such an important part in all later researches. The methods employed involve the principle of least action and the theory of groups of transformations, because Polncare finds that the transformations of Lorentz form a group in Lie's sense. It is enough to have recalled these general Ideas. At the present time they are much spoken of. They form the subject of such a great number of scientific papers and popular conferences that ever^^body knows them and appreciates their importance. We shall close by speaking of Polncare's contribution to mechanics. It is the hardest part of his work to analyze. He concerned himself with practically every branch of analytical mechanics: problems of stability, celestial me- chanics, hydrodynamics and potential. The problem of the three bodies forms the subject of a great number of his investigations, now become famous, since they aided in revo- lutionizing classical methods. As is well known, it was Poin- care's memoir on "The Three-body Problem and the Equa- tions of Dynamics'' which was crowned with the prize founded in 1889 by King Oscar of Sweden. Important works of Poincare's followed this memoir: the three vol- umes entitled "Les methodes nouvelles de la mecaniques celeste," and the "Lecons" given at the Sorbonne. More- over, Poincare's last expository work was devoted to the discussion of the various cosmogonic hvpotheses. [921:] l\ THE RICE INSTITUTE The fundamental ideas which guided Poincare in the prob- lems of mathematical astronomy were the consideration of periodic solutions, the study of the series which give the solu- tion of the problem of three bodies, and the introduction of integral invariants. We have a periodic solution of the prob- lem of three bodies if at the end of a certain time the three bodies are found again in the same relative positions, the whole system being merely turned through a certain angle. By considering the eccentricities and inclinations of the or- bits, Poincare was led to distinguish three kinds of periodic solutions for values of the time infinitely great either nega- tively or positively. These studies on periodic solutions have very great theo- retical Interest, but also they have Important practical appli- cations. At a first glance, we can understand that the proba- bility is Infinitely small that in any practical problem the initial conditions of the motion will be such as to correspond to a periodic solution. Nevertheless, we can take one of these periodic solutions as a starting-point for a series of successive approximations, and thus study those solutions which differ little from it. It is well known that a beautiful application of this method was made by Hill to the theory of the moon's motion. The question of divergence of the series which appear In celestial mechanics has great importance. It is one of the most interesting questions that have arisen in mathematics. Can we use divergent series, and can we by means of series of this kind arrive at approximate solutions of practical problems? The example of Stirling's series allows us to answer in the affirmative. We find series of the same kind in celestial mechanics. They also furnish approximate values sufficient for the demands of practice. That is what Poin- care noticed and proved. The celebrated theorem about the non-existence of uni- [922] 14 BOOK OF THE OPENING form integrals— that Is to say, that the three-body problem has no uniform Integrals besides those already known— Is one of the most remarkable results of Poincare's theory. In these researches about which we have been speaking the so-called Integral Invariants play an essential part. These are approximations which are calculated by quadratures applied to the variables of differential equations, and remain constant. These invariants are connected intimately with the fundamental question of stability. It is impossible to summarize all these theories and yet present them clearly. On the other hand, to develop them more minutely would carry us too far. Following the same path that we have taken for analysis and mathematical physics, let us then consider also in me- chanics a particular one of Poincare's investigations, suf- ficient to show us the range and powerful originality of his genius. On the one hand, this investigation is related to hydrodynamics; and on the other, to celebrated questions of celestial mechanics and, as Sir George Darwin has shown, to the most interesting and modern cosmogonic theories. It is the question of the equilibrium of a rotating fluid mass, and was one of the first problems that presented themselves with the establishment of the theory of gravita- tion. MacLaurIn gave a solution of it by means of ellipsoids of revolution, and it is perhaps the finest result which that great geometer gave to science. The solution by Jacobi by means of ellipsoids with three unequal axes was a happ^ stroke of genius of that Illustrious mathematician. He was In fact the first to doubt what everybody considered as evi- dent a priori— th^t Is, that every possible form of equi- librium of a rotating homogeneous fluid mass is symmetric in regard to the axis of rotation. But solutions due to MacLaurIn and Jacobi were only particular solutions of the general problem. There are an [923] ^. 1[ ^ I Jl THE RICE INSTITUTE infinite number besides. We must also notice that these particular solutions were not obtained directly. It was merely verified that under certain conditions certain ellip- soids satisfied the laws of equilibrium. Before considering Poincare's investigation we must recall the fact that Thomson and Tait in their treatise on natural philosophy had seen that there were ring forms of equi- librium as well as ellipsoids. They had also studied the question of stability, either by imposing certain conditions on the fluid mass— for instance, that of being a solid of revolution or of being ellipsoidal— or by omitting such con- ditions. The fruitful idea of Poincare was that of equilibrium of bifurcation. Let us consider a system whose state depends on a certain parameter. If, for instance, we have a rotating fluid mass, we can let that parameter be the angular velocity of rotation. Let us suppose that several different forms of equilibrium correspond to the same value of the parameter. Let us change that value. The configurations— or, in other words, the forms of equilibrium— will change. It may hap- pen, that, on approaching a certain limit, two forms of equi- librium become the same. If we go by this limit we may have one of two cases. The figures of equilibrium may disappear ; we express this in algebraic language by saying that they be- come Imaginary. That is the first case. We say then that that form which the two figures approach is a limiting form. But it may happen that if we pass the limiting value the two distinct figures reappear. That is the second case. In this case the figure where the two forms of equilibrium coincide is called a form of bifurcation. Let us suppose ourselves to be able to represent each figure of equilibrium by a point in the plane of which the coordinates are the value of the parameter and some varl- 1:9243 BOOK OF THE OPENING able which distinguishes the figure. By changing the param- eter we shall have a curve. In our second case this curve is formed of two branches which cross, corresponding at their intersection to the form of bifurcation. Now Poincare established a theorem of the greatest importance by con- sidering the stability of the figures corresponding to the dif- ferent points of the two branches. Let O be the value of the parameter which refers to the point of intersection. If for negative values of the parameter there is stability on the first branch and instability on the second, it will be the oppo- site for positive values of the parameter— that is, there will be instability on the first branch and stability on the other. In other words, there is an exchange of stabilities between the two branches at the place where they cross. This propo- sition was called by Poincare the theorem of the exchange of stabilities. Let us now ap- ply these results to the question of the rotation of fluid masses. Let us suppose that we know the solu- tions of Mac- Laurln and Ja- cobl. The axis of rotation is always the small axis of the ellipsoid, and so we know that its ratios to the other axes are less than unity. These ratios are equal for MacLaurin's ellipsoid and different for that of Jacobl. If [925] riGUItE I 1 I > I H THE RICE INSTITUTE we take these ratios as coordinates of a point in the plane, each ellipsoid will be characterized by a point, and these points will form a curve (see Fig. i). The bisector of the angle between the axes will be the line that represents the ellipsoids of MacLaurin. The curve BCD will represent the ellipsoids of Jacobi. But Poincare also found new figures of equilibrium that can be obtained by deforming the elHpsoids. The exact form can be calculated by means of Lame's functions. The simplest have the form of a pear. It Is shown that there exist an infinite number of ellipsoids of MacLaurin that correspond to the points N, Ni, N2 . • • • of the hne AO such that one of the infinitely near figures of Poincare is also a form of equilibrium. In the same way there are an infinite number of points M, Ml, M2 .... M\ M^i, M^s . • • • of the curve BCD such that the neighboring Poincare figure is also a form of equilibrium. Let us consider now the stability. The MacLaurin ellip- soids are stable in the part AC, and unstable in the part CO. The ellipsoids of Jacobi are stable from C up to the first point M, where one encounters a figure of Poincare, and unstable in the part MB. Hereupon we come to an application of the theory. I quote from Poincare himself: *'Let us consider a homogeneous fluid initially rotating and cooling slowly. If the cooling is slow enough the inter- nal friction determines that the whole mass revolve with the same angular velocity at all points. The moment of rotation will moreover remain constant. **At the beginning, since the density is very small, the form of the mass Is an ellipsoid which will hold together despite the revolution. The representative point will describe the portion AC of the line which corresponds to the MacLaurin [926] BOOK OF THE OPENING ellipsoids up as far as C, where these ellipsoids become unstable. The representative point, which can no longer take the path CO, will then follow, for instance, the direc- tion CM; the ellipsoid will have its three axes unequal, and this is true as far as M, where the Jacobi ellipsoids become unstable. Beyond this stage, since the mass can no longer keep the ellipsoidal form, that having become unstable, It will take on the only form possible, which is that of the neighboring surface to it. This surface is a piriform figure (see Fig. 2) which has a narrow place in the region marked 3 ; the regions 2 and 4 tend to increase at the ex- pense of the regions i and 3, as if the mass were trying to divide in two unequal parts.'* The results that we have just presented are quite elegant and of great importance. They revealed much to Sir George Darwin. He thought that the process which we have just described might play a part in the evolution of celestial systems, and this theory seems to be confirmed ac- cording to the forms observable in many nebulae. Some satellites may have been formed in this way at the expense of their planets. In particular that may have happened in the case of the earth and the moon, the masses of which are comparable in magnitude. Under these majestic aspects, where the most subtle and ingenious theories of mechanics are at one with the most 1:9273 riGUKc: 2 \ THE RICE INSTITUTE daring cosmogonic hypotheses, we finish our analysis of the investigations due to Poincare. I have given but an incomplete idea of the immense work which he did, of the problems which he treated and which it will be necessary to study exhaustively, of the regions which he has opened where several generations of mathe- maticians will be able to work. His discoveries will but have the result of stimulating new investigations. That is the fate of the works of great geniuses. They give the key for solving many problems and satisfy scientific curiosity by unveiling the secrets of nature, but at bottom they merely increase that curiosity by opening new horizons and making still more distant the goal of scientific aspiration. VlTO VOLTERRA. 1:9283 \ ^ /^^u^^^ ;6 ^IA/t/U€^^^ /^ (4^. e. ^l/l/Ul^€^^^ THE ELECTRON AS AN ELEMENT COMPOUNDS OF ELECTRONS THE DISRUPTION OF THE SO-CALLED ELEMENTS^ First Lecture THE ELECTRON AS AN ELEMENT THE independent existence of the electron is now con- clusively demonstrated; in my opinion, it is, next to the first and second laws of energy, the most far-reaching discovery which has yet been made, both in its application to the elucidating of our former views concerning matter and its nature, and to our control over what are popularly termed "the forces of nature." Although progress in human thought has usually been achieved from the practical standpoint, still, after a sufficient number of observations have been made, a consistent theory, which permits of the knitting together of such isolated parts into a complete whole, suggests the trend of further re- search, and renders easy what previously was justly regarded as difficult. It is thus with the idea of the electron as an entity. Once it has been realized that the part played by the electron is all-pervading; that it enters as an element into the constitution of chemical compounds ; that when they undergo ^^ Three lectures delivered at the inauguration of the Rice Institute, by Sir William Ramsay, K.C.B., F.R.S., Professor of Chemistry in the University of London. 1:9293 THE RICE INSTITUTE change, that change is brought about by a shifting of electrons from one form of combination to another; when we reahze that a current of electricity flowing along a wire Is merely the passage of almost infinitely numerous electrons from place to place, and the formation and decomposition of temporary compounds; when we can clearly conceive that the starting and stopping of such a current of electrons cause ethereal waves, themselves capable of starting or stopping similar currents of electrons In wires parallel to the first; when we realize that by the expenditure of energy such streams of electrons can be set In motion and can be stopped,— then we have acquired knowledge which will enable us to contrive machines better than those which we already possess, where- by the direction of motion of electrons can be controlled. The fact that electrons cannot be seen need now prove no stumbling-block. For men were for long unable to realize that invisible gases could be put to use. The wind was by our forerunners regarded as semi-spiritual; a ghost and a gust were akin ; and I find it difficult to convince my non-scientific, and even some of my scientific, friends that It Is much easier to work with and to manipulate gases than liquids or solids. And now gases, in the form of compressed air, compressed steam, or compressed products of explosion, are our chief agents for conveying energy from place to place; they are, electrons excepted, the means by which almost all our energy is transmitted. They have the advantage of being easily moved; of being elastic; and of being conveyed rapidly from place to place without loss. Indeed, If it were necessary to characterize the past century by a single expression, the ''age of compressed gases" might be aptly chosen. The story of the measurement of the mass of an electron has often been told. The "kathode rays" were discovered by Lenard to be able to pass through a thin sheet of alu- BOOK OF THE OPENING minium; and after their passage they were found to be able to penetrate the atmosphere for some distance, although they were somewhat rapidly dispersed; in fact, the disper- sion, with the loss of their activity, has been likened to the passage of light through water to which a few drops of milk have been added. Crookes's previous researches had proved that kathode rays can be concentrated to a point from an aluminium kathode, shaped like a parabolic mirror; that they produce great rise of temperature at their focus; that their impact can Impart rotatory motion to a paddle-wheel on the blades of which they impinge; and that they have the property of causing phosphorescence in various objects- many minerals, for example, glowing with marvelously bril- liant colors. They are unable to penetrate thick objects; hence a metal cross or other object can be made to cast a kathode shadow when placed in their path, and the shadow can be well seen on the side of the glass vessel In which the rays are generated; the glass phosphoresces with a beautiful green or blue color, except where It receives the shadow of the metal cross. Crookes also showed that two such streams of electrodes, each arising from its own kathode, repel each other; for if the kathodes were parallel, the streams were not parallel, but divergent. On the other hand, streams of kathode par- ticles, passing in opposite directions, attract each other. Goldschmidt, many years ago, had noticed that the streams of kathode rays can be deflected by a magnet ; and it was this property of the rays, taken with that of their being attracted by a positive and repelled by a negative electric field, which led to the possibility of measuring the ratio of the charge which they carry to the mass of the electron. Knowing this ratio, it follows that if the magnitude of the charge be known, the mass of the electron will then be deter- 1:9313 THE RICE INSTITUTE mined. Now, accurate measurements show that this ratio involves one of two alternative suppositions: either that the negative charge is 1830 times the positive charge earned by one atom of hydrogen in the ionic state, or that the mass of the particle is only Visso of that of an atom of hydrogen. It appeared improbable that the first supposition should be cor- rect • and the matter has been decided without a shadow of doubt from experiments made by Mr. C. T. R. Wilson. A property of ions in a gas is to cause the condensation of supersaturated water-vapor to droplets. The number of such droplets can be counted; the velocity of their fall can be measured. This affords a means of determining the diam- eter of each droplet, and from that the volume of a droplet can be deduced ; and as the total quantity of electricity carried down by the precipitated liquid can be easily measured, the charge on each particle can be estimated. It is that which may be attached to one, two or more electrons; for the ion of a gas may be attached to electrons, and each ion corresponds to one water droplet. Wilson's experiments, as well as the beautiful experiments of MiUiken, agree in the conclusion that the electric value of a unit charge, or electron, is 4.78 x 10-" electrostatic units; and it follows from this that the mass of an electron is Visso of that of an atom of hydrogen. It is possible now to go further and to determine the ac- tual mass of an electron. Experiments by M. Perrin on what may be termed visible molecules-namely, particles of gamboge in an aqueous emulsion-have enabled him to deduce with great accuracy the mass of an atom of hy- drogen; it is 1.63 X 10-==* gram. Dividing by 1830, the mass of an electron is found; it is 0.8x10-2^ gram. Let me interpose here the remark that the method of determining the "atomic weight" of an electron does not differ in principle from the usual method of determining 1:932:1 BOOK OF THE OPENING atomic weights. The usual method is to ascertain the weight of the element in question which will combine with a known weight of some standard element the ratio of whose atomic weight to that of oxygen is known. This ratio is generally determined by the balance, and the result gives the equiv- alent of the element of which the atomic weight is required. With the electron the process is similar, except in the method of weighing; the "weight" is determined electrically. In- deed, the use of the word "weight" is not strictly permissible, for the attraction of the earth does not come into play; elec- tric forces replace it. But there is now no doubt that the atomic mass of an electron is ^gso of that of hydrogen. It is also certain that what is termed an electric current consists of a stream of such electric particles in motion; and that a negative electric charge consists in the surface of the nega- tively electrified object being covered with a film of such particles. W^e see, therefore, that we have now to do with an ele- ment of known atomic weight which has been isolated from its compounds and is thus accessible in the free state. It may be pointed out here that this is not the first time that the existence of elements has been inferred before their isolation in a state of freedom. To quote a familiar instance, fluorine was defined as an element by Davy eighty years before Moissan prepared it by electrolysis of hydrogen fluoride, rendered a conductor by the presence of dissolved salts. The fact of the general resemblance of its compounds to those of the other halogens made the inference legitimate. But the electron possesses properties so remarkable that there is lit- tle wonder that its elementary nature was overlooked. The first suggestion, which, nevertheless, fell short of the truth, was made in 1887 by Helmholtz in his Faraday lec- ture, when, having indicated that according to Faraday's law 1:9333 THE RICE INSTITUTE each atom of an element, liberated on electrolysis, is asso- ciated with one or more units of positive or negative electric charge, he pointed out that the legitimate conclusion to be drawn was that each liberated elementary atom is associated with one or more positive or negative units of electricity, to which the term "electric atom" might legitimately be at- tached. It has only been slowly realized that a negative charge is due to the presence of atoms of electricity or negative electrons, and that a positive charge is due to their absence. We are reminded by this of the long-exploded doctrine of phlogiston, the demolition of which by Lavoisier revolutionized the science of chemistry and gave it a fresh start In it the absence of oxygen corresponded with the presence of phlogiston, a wholly imaginary conception; just as a positive charge was tacitly assumed to be the addition of positive electricity to matter, while a negative charge cor- responded to the association of matter with negative elec- tricity It is as if the upholders of the phlogistic theory, having been convinced against their will that combustion implied combination with oxygen, had at the same time maintained that during such combination phlogiston is lost. Indeed, Scheele's Ingenuity made him devise a somewhat similar hypothesis when he was confronted by the experi- mental fact that oxygen Is produced by heating "mercur.us preclpltatus per se" in a retort. His explanation was that the heat which entered the retort, being composed of phlo- giston plus fire-air, was decomposed by the calx of mercury; the calx, combined with the phlogiston, producing mercury, while the fire-air, or oxygen, the other component of "heat, escaped and could be collected. The reasoning is perfect as long as the use of a balance Is excluded; and, as with the electron, it was only by careful weighing that the substan- tiality of oxygen could be demonstrated. 1:934:] BOOK OF THE OPENING Similarly, it is now time to reject the old hypothesis that there are two kinds of electric fluid— one positive, one nega- tive; the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of the theory that electricity consists of an assemblage of electrons, or par- ticles of negative electricity, and that compounds of electrons change their nature when the electrons are removed, just as mercuric oxide acquires the properties of a metal by removal of oxygen. Much confusion has arisen owing to the fact that electric phenomena are produced by ethereal waves. Indeed, the word "electricity" has a dual signification : firstly, it applies to congeries of negative electrons attached to what is generally termed matter, as one element is united to an- other—or, to use a more general expression, is attached to another, or to a compound; and secondly, it is made to signify vibrations in the ether, which arise when a current of moving electrons is started or stopped. It is also clear that a magnet is associated with electrons in circular motion, which keep the neighboring ether in a state of strain; if the lines of strain, or "lines of force," be cut by a moving wire, the elec- trons in that wire are set in motion and a current is produced. It is unnecessary to state that this fact that ethereal vibra- tions can start or stop electrons has proved of the very great- est service to mankind; to this is due the invention of the dynamo, of the motor, and of wireless telegraphy. But it is evident that such ethereal vibrations, transmitted as waves, are in no sense the material electrons, any more than the force applied by a horse to a rope is the canal-boat which it sets in motion. As for the mechanism by which ethereal waves effect motion in electrons, that is beyond the scope of these lec- tures. Indeed, of the rival theories which profess to explain it, not one is satisfactory. All that can definitely be said is that there is an evident gyroscopic action, for motion of l93Sl THE RICE INSTITUTE electrons occurs not in the direction of propagation of the ethereal force, but at right angles to It. We therefore delib- erately confine our attention to the electron as a form of matter with a known atomic weight, viz., Visso, and capable of forming compounds with what we commonly term matter. And here again we must draw a line. The question has been raised. Does matter consist of congeries of electrons m rota- tion, or In vibration, or exercising some form of relative motion? Or Is there a material nucleus, composed of some entity different from electrons, with which electrons can combine, and from which they can separate? And Is there only one such stuff-prlmordlal matter? Or are there as many varieties of stuff as there are elements? These speculations are of great Interest; some of them have exercised men's minds for centuries. But answers to these questions are not yet forthcoming; they are the goals to which Investigation Is tending. As regards the question of the composition of matter, whether It consists wholly of electrons or not, that must be left open. It can and will be decided by experiments devised to test various theories. All we need say for the present Is that most forms of matter, such as we know them, contain electrons as parts of their composition; we need not yet concern ourselves with the constitution of the residual matter after the removable elec- trons have been removed. As for the unity of matter, I hope to be able to show that progress Is being made in the direction of an answer to that question. It may, however, be stated at once that It Is as yet absolutely uncertain whether or not matter will ultimately be found to be homogeneous-that Is, consisting wholly of one kind, associated with more or with fewer electrons. Having arrived, then, at the notion that In electrons we must recognize an elementary form of matter, let us next 1:9363 BOOK OF THE OPENING consider the transference of electrons from one form of combination to another. This can be done most simply by reasoning on any simple electrolysis; and I will choose that of water, assuming, for simplicity's sake, that the change is the theoretical one, 2H20 = 2H2 + 02. The real change which occurs depends, of course, on the electrolyte which has been added to the water, and on the action of its liberated ions on the water; if it be sulphuric acid, for example, the hydrogen of the acid will be set free, and the sulphatlon group, SO4, will liberate oxygen by Its action on water. We will neglect these actions, however, and will regard the ac- tion as expressed by the simpler equation. Water, then, consists of molecules of some complexity, probably H^Og, or H8O4, or mixtures of these with even more complicated molecular groups; and along with them, mingled with the rest, are ions of hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen Ions are those which lost electrons to the oxygen when the water was produced. It Is reasonable to suppose that during the combination of the hydrogen gas with the oxygen gas (granting the water to have been so formed), the hydrogen, which as a gas consists of hydrions in union with electrons, H-H-, has, during Its "union" with oxygen, which as a gas may be provisionally taken as 0=0, given its electrons to the oxygen; so that on ionization the electrons, having already arranged themselves In the water- molecule In such a manner that they are no longer directly associated with the hydrogen, leave the hydrogen atoms en- tirely without removable electrons; it is often the custom to call these atoms of hydrogen devoid of electrons, "hy- drions." Each electron which has left an atom of hydrogen associates itself with an atom of oxygen plus one of hy- drogen, thus : 2H--H+0-=0 = 2H-0^+H-fH. 1:937] l\ THE RICE INSTITUTE This equation requires consideration. A molecule of hy- drogen is not H- but =H2. Now it is an open question how the electrons are attached; but it is to be presumed that an electron forms the bond between the two atoms. This may happen in two ways. First, the attachment may be H--; or, second, H-H-. The same reasoning applies to the molecule of oxygen; it may be =0=0 or 0==0. In the first case one of the atoms is tetrad, according to the usual code of writing; but that need excite no surprise: oxygen is known to possess tetrad valency under suitable conditions. It may be remarked, however, that similar reasoning applied to the hydrogen molecule involves the assumption of dyad hydrogen, and that is an unlikely supposition. It need hardly here be insisted on that the actual practical valency of an element or group is equal to the number of electrons which it carries during electrolysis; that is the corollary of Far- aday's law. Now hydrogen is invariably monovalent; hence the formula H — H is preferable to H-H-. On the other hand, it may be objected that two electrons will repel each other, and it might with justice be asserted that for that rea- son H-H- is preferable to H — H; and similarly that 0=0= is preferable to 0==0. This statement will be referred to again in the second lecture. Perhaps both for- mulae are correct; tautomerism may occur in reference to atoms and electrons as well as between atoms considered independently of electrons; the formula of hydrocyanic acid appears to be both H-C=N and H-N^C; and many sim- ilar instances will suggest themselves in more definite cases, as, for example, among the enols. Leaving such questions for the present, let us see the effect of an electric current on hydrions and hydroxylions. They are to be regarded as separate and definite chemical entities intermingled with complex water-molecules— indeed, sur- 1:938] BOOK OF THE OPENING rounded by them; for it is in every way probable that the hydrions are attracted by spare electrons of the water- molecules. We have many instances of a similar directive action among compounds; the place of substitution in the benzene ring depends on the position of groups already sub- stituted for nuclear hydrogen. We may therefore believe that the ions both of hydrogen and of hydroxyl are pro- tected by a coating of non-ionized molecules of water. It is, indeed, probable that interchange of electrons takes place between the two, molecules and ions, so that it is not always the same hydroxyl group which retains its electron ; the Wil- liamson-Clausius hypothesis of interchange may well be applicable. Into such a system of molecules and ions two platinum electrodes are plunged. We need not here consider the source of the current; suflice it to say that at the negative electrode the electrons are crowded on the surface, ready to escape on application of sufficient driving force— f.^., of a sufficiently high potential; while from the positive electrode the elec- trons are subject to strain, for they are being sucked into the connecting wire by a corresponding electromotive force. In fact, we may consider the negative electrode as a region of electric pressure — a kind of electric force-pump; and the positive electrode as a partial electric vacuum — an electric suction-pump. The hydrions, having no electrons attached to them, are attracted to the negative electrode, where electrons are pres- ent under electric pressure; they move thither at a rate de- pending on the mobility of the ion (and hydrions are the most mobile of all ions) as well as on the viscosity of the liquid, which is itself a function of temperature. Having arrived at the kathode, each Ion absorbs an electron, and from a hydrion becomes an atom of hydrogen. Each atom 1:9393 THE RICE INSTITUTE of hydrogen readjusts its newly found electrons so as to com- bine with its neighbor atom according to one of the schemes already set forth. In an exactly similar manner, the kation, the hydroxylion, reaches the anode where electrons are under strain; from each hydroxylion an electron is removed, and the group OH is left without a free valency-/.^., without an attached elec- tron. It may under certain circumstances unite with another hydroxyl group, due possibly to the quadrivalence of the oxygen atoms; they may serve as bonds of attachment of the two groups to each other, thus : 0-H+0-H = H-0^ = 0-H; or only one of the three latent electrons may come into play, thus forming H-O— 0-H, the others being existent, though not in evidence. Or, as more generally happens, the molecules readjust themselves, forming water and free oxygen according to the scheme 0-H+0-H = H-0-H+0; and the atom O unites with a neighbor atom of O, forming 0==Oor=0=0, as explained before. It may be objected that views such as the above are very hypothetical; that they tend to complexity and not to sim- plicity; and that they are imperfect. To that it may be replied that it is certain that some ions are carriers of dec- trons, and that others-the positive ions-travel without manifest electrons; that the electron is certainly to be re- garded as an element, and that its comings and goings, its entering and escaping from chemical compounds must there- fore be chronicled in all complete equations; that the intro- [9403 BOOK OF THE OPENING duction of a new element capable of reacting with other elements necessarily tends toward complexity; and that all first attempts to represent chemical changes are of necessity imperfect, as is witnessed by the enormous progress which has been made in the graphic notation of organic chemistry. This example will serve to illustrate the electrolysis of any chemical compound; the processes which occur are sim- ilar in kind, although they may differ according to the nature of the electrolysis. Let us next consider what goes on in a simple battery; and we may suppose a plate of platinum and a plate of zinc dipped in a bath of dilute hydrochloric acid and coupled by means of a wire, a galvanometer being inserted to show the direction and electromotive force of the current. The solution contains chlorions and hydrions, each pro- tected by water-molecules. The more dilute the solution, the more efficient the protection from mutual discharge of the anions and the kations, the greater the ionization of the solu- tion. Concentration of the solution by diminishing the relative number of water-molecules decreases the number of ions of hydrogen and chlorine. These ions are to be sup- posed, before introduction of the platinum and zinc plates, as evenly distributed throughout the liquid. The plates are now introduced but not yet joined by a wire. Now, zinc, for some reason which we cannot yet guess at, has a greater tendency to dissolve in water than has platinum. But metallic zinc, which is really a compound of a zincion with two electrons, is insoluble in water; to dis- solve, it must lose its electrons. When placed in water which contains some few hydrions, a trace of zinc will doubtless dissolve as ions, while a trace of hydrogen will adhere to the surface of the zinc. But the pressure— the solution-pressure, as it may be termed— will soon cease, and no further action i THE RICE INSTITUTE will occur. On joining the zinc plate to the platinum plate by means of a wire (let us suppose of copper), the zinc be- gins to dissolve, while for every atom of zinc dissolved a molecule of hydrogen attaches itself to the surface of the platinum, and when the concentration is sufficient it escapes in bubbles. In order that the zinc shall dissolve it must lose its elec- trons. These, however, require a channel of escape, which they find in the copper wire. Leaving for a moment the nature of the change which accompanies their transit, let us follow them to the surface of the platinum plate. Here they accumulate, with a pressure (that is, at a potential) equal in absolute measure to the solution-pressure of the zinc plate. The hydrions flock to the platinum plate, for they, lacking electrons, travel to where electrons are plentiful; each hydrion acquires an electron, unites with it, and, as pre- viously explained, joins to a neighboring atom to form a molecule. When these attain a sufficient number to saturate the neighboring water, and the capacity of platinum for holding atomic or molecular hydrogen (probably atomic) is attained, the molecules of hydrogen escape in bubbles. The chlorions— in the old nomenclature negatively charged. In the new conception containing each an active electron-are attracted to the spot from which electrons are flowing away through the wire. Although they are not otherwise changed, they concentrate in the neighborhood of the anode, from which zincions are being propelled into the solution. The rate of their flow to the anode depends on their specific mobility and on the viscosity of the liquid, a condition of concentration and temperature. In short, the process taking place in a battery has consid- erable resemblance to that which causes the flow of a liquid due to osmotic pressure. A concentrated solution, in contact 1:9423 BOOK OF THE OPENING through a semipermeable diaphragm with a dilute solution, tends to be diluted; the solvent from the dilute solution passes through the semipermeable membrane into the con- centrated solution, and lessens its concentration. Now the electrons may be likened to the solvent of the dilute solution; they have alternative courses. The wire is permeable to electrons, but not to ordinary forms of matter; it acts thus as a semipermeable membrane. The pressure may, as In the case of osmosis, be regarded from two points of view: either as that of the solvent entering the concentrated solution through the semipermeable membrane, or as due to the bom- bardment of the walls of the vessel containing the concen- trated solution by the molecules of the contained solute. So the pressure in the battery may be regarded from two points of view: either as the difference between the solution-pres- sure of the metallic zinc and that of the metallic platinum, or as the difference In the affinity of electrons for zinc and for platinum. It is, however, the property of the electrons to pass along the wire, which differentiates them from what we generally term matter; and, as already remarked, the phenomena in a battery afford a close analogy with those producible by means of osmotic pressure. We have in the battery a stream of electrons passing along the copper wire as long as there is zinc to dissolve In the ionic state, or as long as ions of hydrogen remain in solution to unite with the electrons on the surface of the platinum. This current of electrons may be made use of In several ways; first, it may be employed in electrolyzlng an interposed solution— that phenomenon has already been considered. Second, it may serve to heat the wire; the conditions for a great rise of temperature are that the wire shall be thin, and that its con- ductivity shall not be high. Third, if the wire be colled, and 1:943] I, THE RICE INSTITUTE if a magnet be suspended within the coil, it will set itself at right angles to the plane of the coil. Let us first consider the heating of the wire, for that in- volves the theory of metallic conduction. All material elements are capable of combination with electrons. Those which are termed bad conductors or in- sulators, however, do not readily combine; the electrons therefore form a layer on the surface. Such a layer can be produced by friction between two non-conductors— for in- stance, silk and sulphur. As has been known for a century and a half, ^'frictional electricity'' can be produced by rub- bing a silk pad on a cylinder of sulphur. Here the surface of the sulphur is "negatively electrified''—/.^., electrons leave the silk and adhere to the sulphur. If a glass cylinder be substituted for one of sulphur, it is the glass which loses electrons and the silk pad which gains; hence the old names *Vitreous" for positive and "resinous" for negative elec- tricity. The rubbing of a metal object also effects the transfer of electrons; but in this case, unless the metal is supported by a non-conductor, the loss or gain of electrons is replaced by conduction from the earth. The electrons spread themselves all over the surface of the metal, instead of adhering in patches, as they do if non-conductors be rubbed. When a salt is dissolved in water it is the metallic portion which loses its electron or electrons, and the non-metallic por- tion which gains them. We may therefore conclude that metals have less tendency to combine with electrons than non- metals, and that the more "metallic" an element, the less its tendency to hold electrons. It is therefore to be expected that in a metal wire, if electrons are introduced at one end, they will displace those in combination with the metal at the hither end of the wire, and that this process will go on con- i:944l BOOK OF THE OPENING tinuously, so that if it is possible for electrons to escape at the further end, they will pass from one end of the wire to the other. This will also happen with rods or wires of poor conductors, but not with actual non-conductors. Transpar- ent fused salts, or oxides, such as rock-salt, glass, or silica, are practical non-conductors. Their only method of conduc- tion is an electrolytic one, and the mobility of their molecules and ions is so small that they cannot serve to convey elec- trons. But in a copper wire the transfer of electrons is easily effected. The result of the passage of a current through a poor con- ductor of small section is to heat it. This heat corresponds quantitatively with the resistance which it offers to the pas- sage of the current. It may be conceived that the electrons form relatively stable compounds with the atoms of the element of which the resisting wire is composed, and that in order to facilitate their passage the atoms are obliged to re- adjust their position relatively to each other; hence friction and heat. It would follow that the electrons do not flow as a stream through the interstices between the atoms, but that they form temporary and unstable compounds with the metal as they flow. It must, however, be acknowledged that this explanation lacks completeness, which further experiment will doubtless assure. It is somewhat beyond the scope of these lectures to con- sider the action of a stream of electrons on the position of a magnet. The flow of electrons, it may however be re- marked, produces a strain in the ether which interferes with the rotation of the electrons round the atoms of a magnet- ized bar. These set themselves at right angles to the plane of the wire carrying the current. Conversely, a forcible displacement of the magnet will cause a shift of electrons in the wire. But, as before remarked, owing to lack of definlte- [945] I. THE RICE INSTITUTE ness in our ideas of the nature of the ether, no perfect picture has vet been made of the mechanism of its action. ^ W are more and more impressed with the necessity of a .eThanical conception of things around us; ^^^^^ covery shows that things much too mmute f or us to see a e onstituted in a manner not unlike the objects apparent to ;; enses. Hence we must regard the atoms of electricity __the electrons-as capable of taking up position in a chem- ical compound, just as we have imagined the atoms to do^ I itrue that w cannot maintain that the atoms are without ': :„. F„ from i.. B-t - »» "f '"'/'t / S determine the position of their centers of oscd ation o rota tion The structure of compounds, viewed from the elec- onic point of view, will form the subject of the next lecture. 1:946:] BOOK OF THE OPENING Second Lectii7'e COMPOUNDS OF ELECTROxNS WE have already considered one compound— namely, water— from the point of view of the shift of elec- trons during the reaction of gaseous hydrogen and oxygen. It may conduce to clearness, however, if similar considera- tions are applied to the case of sodium chloride, one method of preparing which, though far from a commercial one, is the ''direct union" of sodium with chlorine. It may be re- marked, however, that union does not take place between perfectly dry chlorine and clean sodium; It appears to be necessary that a trace of water-vapor be present. The role played by the water will be considered later. On the electronic hypothesis, sodium, the metal as we know It, Is a compound of an atom of sodium with an electron. Chlorine, too, Is a compound of an atom of chlorlon with electrons; and Inasmuch as in the perchlorates chlorine func- tions as a heptad. It would perhaps be proper to Indicate that fact whenever the chlorine symbol Is written. A convenient method Is to affix to the symbol of the element the Roman numeral VII; thus, Cl^". These electrons, however, so far as we know, play no part In the union of sodium with chlo- rine; hence It Is permissible to omit them for the present. It Is, however, to be noted that the addition of one more elec- tron to chlorine raises the total number of attached electrons to eight; and this appears to be the highest number of elec- trons with which an element can be associated. The equation Na-+Cl = Na-Cl does not accurately express the whole change, for that Is undoubtedly preceded 1:9473 [ THE RICE INSTITUTE . 1. u „-. n C\ — C1-+C1-, and the simple atoms by the change LI — Ll — ^i +<-•' > pn„rse of chlorine are available for combmat.on. It .s, of course pos 'ble that the chlorine molecule persists by -ason of the fnte a ion of several electrons; then CI- may be attach d interacuuu ui uv^nr^Q"- Cl^^ C^' would to its neighbor CI- by many bonds U ^ express the case already mentioned; but CI --^i Cl' = = C1^ etc., would equally well represent combmat.ons o the" sor . In the absence of any positive evidence, the Iplest hypothesis may be adopted, and the abbreviated form C1--C1 chosen. r i i • Union between an atom of sodium and one of chlonne consists, in nil probability, in .be »se o( .b. 'I.e.- o ■. sodium The formula Na-Cl-^ would appear to represent hf compound, because as soon as that salt - dissolved m waterTh electron is undoubtedly associated with the chlorme Itom- we have Na, surrounded by water-molecules on the ne h nd, and on the other, -Cl^A,, Now sod.um chloride does not differ in properties from its solution, ex- cept in so far as the ions are free to migrate after, but not befo e it is dissolved. The salt has a specific refractivity ; its ution possesses a refractivity practically the mean of ha of the salt and the water, taken in the proportions in wh ch they are present in solution. It has also a mean spe- S: be'jand, in sbort, .an, o.ber physical prop.r.,.s o the same order. It is therefore more than probable, if the ex stence of electrons be granted at all, that the change in po ition of the electron originally attached to the atom o Metallic sodium has taken place during the formation of the Todium chloride. And on solution in water, the new system d vis : the sodium ion, surrounded by attracted water-mole- cules, constitutes one practically independent unit, N a.Aq vhil the chlorine ion, -C^^^q, has also reached indepen- I't exttence. This is proved by the fact that these entities 1:948:1 BOOK OF THE OPENING exert each Its own calculated osmotic pressure; and further- more, that the chlorlon can be attracted to a metallic anode, and the sodlon to a metallic kathode, placed In the solution. Similar reasoning may be applied to the ordinary hydroxides of the metals, even to those which are ordinarily regarded as Insoluble; for Insolubility Is only a relative term, and reac- tions between hydroxides and adds are no doubt only effec- tive as regards that portion of the hydroxide In solution; because, when withdrawn, and after reaction with the acid to form a salt and water, It Is at once and continuously replaced, according to well known laws, by a further portion which goes Into solution as Ions of metal and acld-radlcal. It may be Imagined that the attack of a metal like sodium by chlorine, which depends on the presence of a trace of moisture, has also to do with the action of the metal on the water. It Is, how- ever, not so easy to give a reason. For the loss of energy due to direct formation of salt from sodium and chlorine Is ob- viously, according to Hess's law, the same as that w^hlch ensues when salt Is formed Indirectly, according to the usual scheme 2Na + 2HOH = 2NaOH + H2, H. + Cl^ =. 2HCI, and 2NaOH + 2HCl = 2NaCl + 2HOH; the molecule of water being regenerated. It may be that such a system permits of the easier transfer of the electrons; this answer, however, begs the question; or It may be that either the chlorine or the sodium, or both, enter Into combination with the water-mole- cules, making use of the latent electrons of the oxygen, thus: Ho=0=Cl/'' and Ho^O^Nao, and that these subsequently Interact with one another. This, however, opens a question, afterward to be considered, relating to the source of the elec- trons, which are depicted as bonds between the oxygen and the chlorine on the one hand, and the oxygen and the sodium on the other. The case of salts in general is analogous to that of the [949] #1 ( THE RICE INSTITUTE chlorides and hydroxides. The "acid radical" is in itself an ion, carrying with it, according to its basicity, mono-, d.-, tri-, etc., one, two or three electrons. Thus the group =S0, has doubtless two available electrons ;= P0„ three, and so on The portion of those salts, generally regarded as in- soluble, which is in a state of solution contains such ions ; and, indeed, a determination of the conductivity of the very sparingly soluble salts affords an elegant plan of determining their solubility. . , „ .„ In certain cases ionization does not occur so simply as to be represented by a metallic anion and a non-metalhc kat.on Compounds such, for example, as cupric chloride ionize, a least partially, into Cu.Aq and =CuCU.Aq. Indeed, it mav be stated that this behavior is the rule, and simple ionization the exception. The fluorides and the cyanides are particularly prone to undergo such ionization when dis- solved. On the other hand, salts like the alums and the double sulphates, when treated with water, give solutions in which the simpler ions form the major part of the ions pres- ent, although no doubt accompanied by a certain Percentage of more complex ions, according to the nature of the salt the degree of dilution, and the temperature. There can be little doubt, however, that in the solid state, or in the crystal- line form, with water of crystallization, it is the complex ions which are present. For instance, a partial formula for potash alum in the crystalline state would be K-U^l(S0JJ.i2H,0; although in solution the majority of the ions are K.Aq, M-Aq, -OH.Aq, and =SO Aq. It is customary to call salts which possess mainly the latter character "double salts," and those which, like K,be(e.r^ )e- K^g(CN)., Na,SiF«, etc., ionize according to the more complex scheme, "complex salts." But this classification, 1:950:] BOOK OF THE OPENING although convenient, is not exclusive. It is probable — nay, certain — that Ag ions are present in a solution of potassium argentocyanide because silver can be electrodeposited from Its solution. And although it would be impossible to prove that a measurable amount of the silicon ion is present in a solution of sodium silicifluorlde, it must be regarded as an extreme case. Change of valency permits of easy representation on the electronic hypothesis. As an illustration the ferrous and ferric salts may be cited. Supposing the ionization of the chlorides to occur according to the simple scheme, then ferric chloride is FesCls"', and ferrous chloride, -Fe=Cl2"". The third electron, present in combination with the ferrion in metallic Iron, plays no part in the structure of ferrous chloride, but remains latent. It can be brought into action by chlorlnation, or by oxidation, when the iron "changes its valency." Perhaps the speculation may be here allowed that iron, associated with three electrons, is a less easily attack- able body than when one electron is latent. What "latent" in this connection signifies is merely that the latent electron is not so easily transferred as the others. In iron, for example, as in all other elements, the maximum number of electrons associated with an atom appears to be eight. Even when the iron "acts as a triad" there must still be five latent elec- trons attached to the iron atom— electrons, that is, which play no part in ferric compounds. Some of them, however, are essential when the metal acts as a ferrate, of which more hereafter. So far, the symbol - (the usual one for a valency or bond) has been employed to denote an electron. This has the con- venience of long-established custom; and it also fits in with I THE RICE INSTITUTE the resemblance of the dash to the negative sign, and may be taken also to imply a unit charge of negative electnc.ty asso- ciated with the compound or atom. But that sign does not show what direction the electron has taken dunng the forma- tion of a compound. The idea of direction is easily m- troduced by the conventional barb of an arrowhead; and Na-^Cl may signify that during the formation of salt the electron which couples the two atoms was the one which was originally attached to the sodium when it was in the metallic state; and also that on solution in water it will form part of the chlorion. We have now to consider the electronic formula of cer- tain more complex compounds; and as examples two shall be chosen, viz., hydrogen fluoride and ammonium chloride In the gaseous state the formula of hydrogen fluoride is H„F,; and in solution, H,F,.Aq. How are the electrons distributed ' It is known that hydrofluoric acid may ionize in two fashions: H.Aq+-HF,.Aq and 2H.Aq+=F,.Aq. In the first case the second hydrogen atom does not enter the solution in the ionic state. How is it attached? And how are the two atoms of fluorine combined together? Answers to these questions must necessarily be of a speculative na- ture- but it appears best to set up a provisional theory which must stand the test of experience and prove compatible with the constitutions assigned to other compounds. It appears to me that it must be concluded that an atom mav have the power both of giving and taking an electron. If a hydrogen atom parts with an electron to a chlorine atom, so that the electron is more closely associated with the chlo- rine than with the hydrogen atom, then, on solution in water, the hydrion will separate as an entity. If, however, the hydrogen atom H- not merely parts with an electron to an [952] BOOK OF THE OPENING atom of fluorine, but receives one in return, then: H?^F; the hydrogen ion does not separate on addition of water. But by this process the fluorine atom has acquired the property of disposing of an electron which would otherwise remain latent. This serves as the bond of connection between the two fluorine atoms. It may be expressed thus: H^F«-F<— H; the kation will then be H«=±F«-F^, and the anion H. In this manner it may be conceived that a molecule of chlorine may be constituted: C1?^C1; and its combination with water, preliminary to the attack of sodium, would be thus represented: " ^Cl Let us next consider the case of ammonium chloride. Here we have the group NH4CI, which on solution yields the ions (NH4).Aq and -Cl.Aq, similar to common salt. So far the case is clear. How is the group NH4 to be repre- sented? The hydrogen of the hydrogen chloride has already given its electron to the chlorine; it has, by hypothesis, no electron to bind it to the nitrogen atom. The effective electron must therefore come from the nitrogen. But there is no known difference between the four hydrogen atoms of ammonium chloride. Of course it is true that when heated one hy- drogen atom associates itself with the chlorine (when the vapor is damp) ; but, so far as is know^n, any one of the four hydrogen atoms miay do so. It may be remarked, in passing, that the fact that two varieties of tetra-substituted ammo- nium chloride exist has no bearing on the question before us. That has purely stereo-chemical reasons. I suggest as one 1:953] f • THE RICE INSTITUTE solution of the problem that the nitrogen atom parts with its electrons to all four hydrogen atoms, thus : H H t N H"" i H CI the fifth having become the bond to the chlorine atom. In solution, the group NH, is left. _ The vertical line shows how ionization occurs on solution in water. This opens the general question. How are the electrons attached in the case of non-ionizable substances, such as PCI3 or CH4, to choose only two among almost innumera- ble instances? .J- J It may be taken as certain that the acidity of an acid is due to the hydrion, H, which accompanies its solution in water; and the residual group may be depicted as A^. From this it may be argued that, as a rule, where the compound is non- ionizable, not only is the hydrion absent, but the disposition of the electron is such that ionization cannot occur; the hydrogen does not part with its electron to the other element or group. But if the hydrogen were to retain its electron and suffer no further change, it is to be presumed that it would still retain the properties of the element; hence some change must have occurred. Indeed, there are only three possibilities: (i) that the hydrogen parts with an electron and that has been shown to be practically impossible; (2) that it receives one; and (3) that both its own electron and the one which it receives are the cause of its staying in com- bination. The first case may be represented, as before^^by A*-H- the second, by X^H-^; and the third, by X^H. We know only that methyl iodide, CH3I, is not generally 1:954: BOOK OF THE OPENING regarded as an ionized compound, and yet, on long shaking with a solution of silver nitrate, silver iodide is formed even in aqueous solution. This precipitation takes place more rapidly in alcoholic solution, probably because of the more intimate contact between the reacting bodies. Now the usual representation of such a fact would be (CH3)|->I. The group CH3 has a positive charge; it has lost an electron to the iodine, which has become iodion, -^I. The explanation has already been given in the case of ammonia; it may be symbolized thus: H H t -C i H I This leads us to consider the hydrocarbon CH^; and it may evidently be represented on the same scheme, viz. : H H t -C^H i H No one of the hydrogen atoms is replaceable; they are all negatively electrified—?.^., to use an exaggeration which will be understood, they are more negatively charged than gaseous hydrogen Itself, each atom having received an extra electron. Just as metallic zinc can be preserved from attack by imparting to It a powerful negative charge, so these atoms of hydrogen are rendered inactive by virtue of the protective electrons which they receive from the carbon atom. Analogous reasoning will prove applicable to compounds like phosphorus chloride; here the electrons possibly come i:9S5n THE RICE INSTITUTE from the phosphorus atom and from the junctions with the phosphorus atom, thus: CI Cl^P >^ CI The addition of two atoms of chlorine to form phosphoric chloride would be too speculative to Interpret; and it may be remarked that the electrons are probably also derived from the phosphorus. ^ . Let us now return to the halogens, and examme their valency in the light of the electron theory. According to the ordinary view, the acids are, as a rule, dehydrated hy- droxides; the elements with high valency do not form nor- mal hydroxides; the known compounds are derived from these hypothetical compounds through loss of water. A single example will render this clear, and the case of chlorme Is instructive. The oxv-acids of chlorine are: HCIO, hypo- chlorous acid; HCIO,, chlorous acid; HCIO,, chloric acid; and HCIO4, perchloric acid. In the first of these chlorme functions as a monad; in the second, as a triad; in the third, as a pentad; and in the fourth, as a heptad. The normal hydroxides would be: (i) ClOH; (2) CI (OH) 3; (3) Cl(OH),;and (4) Cl(OH),. The first is known as such; the ordinary formula of chlorous acid, as revealed by its salts is 0=C1-0H; that of chloric acid, (Oo)^^d-OH; and of perchloric acid, (03)^^C1-0H. Now while caustic soda ionizes into hydroxyl and sodium, -OH and Na, hypo- chlorous acid, which displays some small extent of ioniza- tion, in solution gives (CIO)- and H as its Ions. And since it is clear in the first case that the atom of sodium metal, m becoming hydroxide, has given an electron to the oxygen, while hydrogen is still retained by the oxygen, the direction of electrons must be -^O^H, or possibly ->0-^H-, or pos- [9563 BOOK OF THE OPENING sibly -^O^H; in the last case the hydrogen electron as well as that pertaining to the oxygen taking part in the union. Similarly, when hypochlorous acid ionizes, the ions are (CIO)- and H ; it is clear that the hydrogen atom has parted with its electron to the group (CIO), and probably to the oxygen atom; we may therefore write its formula ClO-^H. How are the chlorine and oxygen atoms connected? The highest valency of any element appears to be eight; and in perchlorates that of chlorine is seven. It would be possible for the heptavalent chlorine — i.e., the atom of chlorine stuff combined with seven electrons— to absorb an eighth. That must be supposed to occur in hydrogen chlo- ride; hence we may write its formula Cl^"«-H, the Roman numeral VII expressing the electrons already attached. The formula Cl^^^-O-^H would thus portray the condition of the electrons. This, however, gives no clue as to the splitting off of an electronless hydrion in preference to the hydroxyl group <— O^-H. It may therefore be imagined that one or more of the seven electrons of the chlorine atom take part in retaining the oxygen atom. And this becomes a necessity when we consider one of the higher acids. Were each oxygen atom of perchloric acid to transfer one or two elec- trons to the chlorine, the latter would be overladen. Hence electrons must be derived from the chlorine; and if each atom of oxygen requires two electrons to bind It (except the hydroxyl oxygen, which, having received one already from the hydrion, will be content with one more), then the for- mula of perchloric acid may be written : O O ^ // O^Cl^O^H I o Chloric acid may be similarly represented; but the chlorine 1:957] . « iKI ' W II I>„.«; "UM. ' . !' .l ! ' l!' l l' J«,p '- THE RICE INSTITUTE symbol should be written CI", to signify that it stlU retains two electrons; and the chlorine in chlorous acid retains four out of the seven. These electrons correspond to what have sometimes been called "contra-valencies" (see Abegg's pub- lications). It is not necessary to multiply instances; the electronic constitution of all the oxy-acids can be thus represented. We have now a clue to the constitution of the oxides and anhydrides. Orthocarbonic acid, as represented by its esters, will have the formula C(->O^H)4; carbonic acid, O— C(->O^H)o; and it follows that COo must be (;;(^0)o. By analogous formulae we can represent all the oxides and sulphides of the metals. The unsaturated oxides call for a short comment. We have CO, also ClOo, NO and NOo, as somewhat outstand- ing compounds. As for CO, it may be treated like the other oxides; or again, it may be that the electrons concerned come from the oxygen, thus: C^^^O. The hypothesis, as for- merly suggested, that one electron has been derived from the oxygen, the other from the carbon atom, thus: C'^^O, is not excluded. This would appear, on the whole, the most probable assumption, for in that case the valency of the carbon is not disturbed. On this hypothesis, the formulae of chlorine peroxide, of nitric oxide,^and of nitric peroxide would be Clv"Zg' N^^O, and N^^g, respectively. We now see that the maximum number of electrons v/ith which an element can be associated is eight. When some of these are employed in holding together the constituent atoms of compounds, the remainder are ''latent"; they may under certain circumstances come into action, and in some Instances the acting electrons are derived from both constituents of a binary compound. Here we have, perhaps, an explanation of amphoteric bodies— bodies like zinc hydroxide, which can [958:1 BOOK OF THE OPENING function either as a base or as an acid. In the former case the electrons would appear to be arranged thus: Zn(->0->H)2; in the latter, thus: Zn(-^0<-H)2. In all probability the oxide is a zincate of zinc, for which an appro- priate electronic formula can easily be worked out. We come next to the consideration of how the electrons form ties between the atoms of compounds; and this must necessarily be of a speculative character. But we have one point de depart. We know that a stream of electrons repels a similar stream of electrons passing In the same direc- tion, and attracts a stream of electrons passing in the oppo- site direction. Reasoning which applies to a number of electrons in all probability applies to single electrons, and it is known to be equally applicable to curvilinear as to straight- line motion. Assuming that the electron connected with an atom of metallic sodium Is rotating in a clockwise direction, viewed from the center of the atom, and one of the seven normally attached to an atom of chlorine is rotating In an anti-clockwise direction, combination may be supposed to take place when their planes of rotation become parallel, thus: Solution In water leaves the sodium atom minus Its electron, which remains attached to the chlorine atom. The applicability of this conception to the position which substituents take up In carbon compounds, and to the Influ- ence of groups already present on such position, is easily seen and need not be enlarged on, but they form a not unimpor- tant part of chemistry. The Influence exerted on atoms by neighboring atoms and groups also finds ready explanation, and many Instances will at once suggest themselves. Certain compounds show absorption spectra; others do [959] THE RICE INSTITUTE not, so far as Is known, absorb light either In the visible or Invisible spectrum. From Zeeman's experiments and Lo- rentz's theory It Is clear that the circular paths usually fol- lowed by electrons can be changed to elliptic ones; here we have to some extent a proof that the permanent circular motion of electrons In compounds Is not Imaginary. Under the InBuence of a magnetic field, all compounds which trans- mit polarized light rotate the plane of polarization; here we have the magnet arranging the planes of rotation of the already rotating electrons, so that they affect ethereal waves passing In their neighborhood. These rotating electrons represent the "tubes of force" which have sometimes been Imagined as the mechanism of chemical attraction. As yet we cannot account for the fact that two electrons, moving In opposed parallel paths, attract each other; It Is merely another Instance of the Inexplicable problem of "action at a distance," which has puzzled all philosophers since the time of Newton and earlier, and even now we are no nearer an explanation. What can be done, however, Is to trace the connection between the now known fact that chemical elements and compounds Invariably, so far as we know, contain electrons among their constituents, and the mechanism of a compound containing electrons in motion. In this lecture many of the conceptions are similar to those put forward In the author's presidential address to the Chemical Society of London in March, 1908 ; hence no allu- sion has been made here to the possible explanation of the constitution of some complex compounds by the electronic hypothesis; nor has the theory of isorrhopaesis, developed by Baly and his school, been touched on. Reference to the pub- lished papers will show how easily their conceptions fit the theory of electrons. It must be distinctly noted that much 1:960:3 BOOK OF THE OPENING of what has preceded is now no longer hypothetical, but ac- tual statement of fact. The electron is no mythical concep- tion, and that it enters into the constitution of matter is as certain as that matter exists. The combination of one hydrogen atom with another to form a molecule may finally be again considered. Suppose that the constitution of the atom Is such that the electron is not free to shift its position on the surface of the molecule, which may be taken as a sphere. If two such atoms have electrons rotating in circular paths on their surfaces in a clockwise direction, then, when the sides of the atoms fur- nished with electrons are opposite, the electron on one atom will be rotating clockwise, while that on the other will be anti-clockwise, when viewed from the same point. Their orbits being in opposite phase, they will repel. If, however, one is rotating in clockwise and the other in anti-clockwise fashion, as is probably the case with H and CI, they will attract. This may be depicted thus : H O O Cl or in abbreviated form, H — Cl.^ ^ Note added May 23, 1915: Experiments with models have shown that when two spheres, representing two atoms of hydrogen, each provided with a coil of wire, through which an electric current is passing (so as to imitate the path of an electron), are placed near each other they set themselves (seen from above) in such a position that the two coils of wire lie in the same plane, thus:— 0/0 C9613 THE RICE INSTITUTE Third Lecture THE DISRUPTION OF THE SO-CALLED ELEMENTS THE mechanism by which one element is retained In com- bination with another has been a matter of frequent speculation. That the properties of atoms depend on their shape was an idea held by the ancients; pointed atoms giving an acid or "sharp" taste to solutions contaimng them, while the impression of sweetness was imagined to be due to the spherical and smooth nature of the atoms of sugary bodies, and their soothing action on the organs of taste. ^ After tables of affinity, showing the order of preferential combination of elements with each other, had been drawn up by Bergman of Sweden in the early half of the eighteenth century, the hypothesis was revived that one element is at- tached to another by means of hooks capable of interlacing. The mechanical nature of this suggestion was at that time hardly a recommendation; and in determining the propor- tions in which atoms combine, the mechanism of their com- bination was tacitly ignored. The prominence given by Frankland and his school to the doctrine of valency, and the important advances in the theory of organic chemistry made by Kekule in the sixties of the nineteenth century, again directed attention to the subject. Although no clear conceptions were formulated, combina- tion was represented by dashes, to which the name of "bonds" or "affinities" was ascribed. Each element capable of combining with or of replacing one atom of hydrogen had attached to its symbol one "bond" or dash, and was termed "monovalent," or a monad; one with the power of retaming [962:] BOOK OF THE OPENING or of replacing two atoms of hydrogen had two "bonds," and was termed a dyad, or divalent; and so with the rest. But no mechanical idea of the nature of these bonds secured acceptance; they were regarded as arbitrary symbols with the signification ascribed to them above. The fact that less heat is evolved on making attachment of one carbon atom to another by a "double" than by a "sin- gle" bond made it improbable that such bonds were of the nature of links or hooks; and the almost thermal neutrality of the "triple" bond strengthened this Impression. Such views, indefinite as they were, tacitly assumed that two atoms when they combine do not interpenetrate; indeed, the notion of an atom as an indivisible entity precluded the conception of Interpenetratlon. But the advance of know- ledge, which has rendered it conceivable that atoms may consist of congeries of electrons, now makes it not impossible that the combination of one atom with another may be at- tended with interpenetratlon, the one system of electrons entering the other and establishing a more complicated sys- tem. Sir J. J. Thomson, some years ago, threw out the In- genious hypothesis that the combination of atoms may be due to the annular rotation of one vortex-ring round an- other; and he adduced Interesting speculations on the number of rings capable of taking part In such annular rotation, and the stability of the resulting system. But these speculations were anterior to the discovery of the electron as a chemical element; and though by no means to be lost sight of, they may be allowed to stay in the back- ground for the present. In this lecture I shall attempt to put together evidence which, I hope, will eventually accumulate so as to throw light on the whole question. It will be remembered that in the second lecture the speculation was made that the staying In n963n THE RICE INSTITUTE combination of two atoms was possibly due to the attraction exercised by their ^Valency" electrons rotatmg m similar directions. We have now to consider whether any means can be discovered which will disturb such a system, and by setting free ions in such a condition that they can be exam- ined light may be thrown on the mechanism of combination; furthermore, whether means are at our disposal of still more fundamentally altering the motion and distribution of the atoms of the ''elements,^' so that a change of the nature of transmutation of one element into another can be effected. For this end three lines of argument may be adduced. These are: 1. The evidence of the spontaneous disintegration of the radioactive "elements.'' 2. The evidence that disintegration of a somewhat similar nature occurs in the stars. 3. The evidence that by applying concentrated forms of energy to the common elements, these can be made either to undergo reversible changes, consisting in the loss or gain of one or more "valency" electrons, or to lose more fundamental electrons, and so to undergo "elemental change," or transmutation. I The first line of evidence is now so well known that it may be treated in a cursory manner. The discovery by Henri Becquerel that an electroscope is rapidly discharged when in actual communication, by means of a tube, with a vessel in which a salt of radium was contained, was followed by the discovery, by Schmidt, of the transmissibility of a gaseous educt of thorium through a tube. The determination of the nature of this substance by Rutherford and Soddy ; the [964: BOOK OF THE OPENING establishment of the similar nature of the body emitted from salts of radium now known as niton; the proof of its gradual "decay" and reproduction from its parent substance at such rate as to keep the total amount present in contact with the parent body in a state of equilibrium; the naming of these bodies "emanations"; their condensation by liquid air; and lastly, the theory of disintegration applied to such bodies, — all these constitute one of the most brilliant chap- ters in the history of chemistry. The subsequent discovery by Ramsay and Soddy, in 1903, of the fact that one of the products emitted during the disin- tegration of radium and of its emanation was the now well known element helium, and the determination of the gaseous nature of radium emanation by the same investigators; the mapping of its spectrum by Ramsay and Collie, by Cameron, and more accurately by Royds and by Watson; its liquefac- tion, the measurement of its vapor-pressures, its boiling- point, its critical point, and lastly of its density by Ramsay and Whytlaw-Gray, established the claim of radium emana- tion to be ranked among the "elements," and to have ascribed to it the systematic name "niton" and the symbol Nt; for its inactivity proves it to belong to the series of inert gases, of which argon is the best known. It has also been shown by many investigators that from thorium and its educts helium is evolved during their disin- tegration; and by Debierne, the discoverer of actinium, that it, too, yields helium during its radioactive changes. Not merely this: the number of atoms of helium evolved during the various changes has been ascertained. The emis- sion of a helium atom takes place with an atomic explosion; the atom evolved has a high velocity— so high that it ionizes any gas through which it passes, and renders the ionized gas capable of discharging an electroscope. It was Becquerel C965:] THE RICE INSTITUTE who first recognized this fact, and who characterized such moving atoms of helium (their nature, however, bemg at that time unknown) as a-rays, to distinguish them from the even more rapidly moving ^-rays, now known to be elec- trons in motion. Confining our attention for the present to the a-rays, they are known to be evolved when radium dis- integrates into niton and helium; for each atom of radium, one a-particle, or helium atom, is evolved. Next, when niton disintegrates, forming radium A, a-particle is again expelled ; the spontaneous change of radium A into radium B however, is accompanied only by the emission of electrons in motion, or ^-rays; but the changes of radium B into radium C, and of radium C into radium D, are each accompanied by the emission of an atom of helium. There are in all four atoms of helium expelled between radium it- self, the great-great-grandfather, and radium D, the great- great-grandson, and three between niton and radium D. It is not necessary to pass further down the scale, for the lite of radium D is a comparatively long one. But three atoms of helium are expelled during the change of niton into radium D, and this fact has been verified by Ramsay and Whytlaw-Gray by aid of the microbalance. It may be taken as certain, therefore, that radium, as well as thorium and actinium, which undergo analogous changes, is the ancestor of numerous elements. Of the elementary nature of radium and of niton, according to the usual inter- pretation of the word "element," there can be no doubt whatever; for the former has been isolated m a metallic state by its discoverer, Mme. Curie, and is said closely to resemble barium, an element to which its salts bear a close resemblance; while niton, as previously remarked bears a close resemblance to the inactive elements of the helium and BOOK OF THE OPENING argon series, and is a congener of neon, krypton, and xenon, as shown by its physical properties and by its spectrum. Here, then, we have spontaneous transformation of one elementary form of matter into others. The "elements" are not elementary, but some of them at least are only com- pounds of exceptional nature, spontaneously capable of decomposition. It remains for us now to determine whether "elements" other than "radioactive elements" are capable of change; and inasmuch as the time required for changes of the kind varies enormously, from millions of years for the change of uranium into radium, of which it appears to be the grandparent, to a few seconds, the half life-period of actin- ium emanation. It is reasonable to suppose that the periods of change of the older and commoner elements may be enor- mously long— so long, indeed, as to elude human observa- tion. But another phenomenon attending the spontaneous change of the radioactive elements must not be left out of sight: the changes alluded to are all accompanied by enor- mous evolution of heat; they are in the highest degree exo- thermic; and conversely, if it were possible to produce such radioactive elements by inducing their products of disintegra- tion to combine, an enormous absorption of energy would be essential. Bodies formed by absorption of energy are termed "endothermic"; they are not infrequent among com- pounds, and they are among the least stable. It is, however, by no means certain that the ordinary elements, which we generally reckon as stable, are endothermic; they may be exothermic, in which case we should expect them to exist indefinitely without change, provided they are not made to receive energy. An analogous case, familiar among com- pounds, is ammonium chloride. Left to itself, it may be kept for an indefinite time ; but when heated to 360° C. it dis- 1:967] THE RICE INSTITUTE sociates into ammonia and hydrogen chloride. May it not be the case that the ordinary ^^stable elements are m this sense similar to ammonium chloride ; that as long as they are not made the recipients of large quantities of energy they remain as they are; but if subjected to an accession of energy, either in the form of heat or of kinetic energy, they may fall apart into simpler forms of matter? This leads us to the second line of evidence; but before considering it, it may be reiterated that the behavior of the radioactive forms of matter conclusively shows that bodies which have until recently been classed as elementary are in continual process of ^disintegration," or, if they be regarded as compounds, of ^'decomposition/' 2 The second line of evidence is dependent on an exami- nation and classification of the spectra of the fixed stars. This work has been accomplished by Sir Norman Lockyer during the past half-century. The arguments for the view that the high temperature of some stars is producing the disintegration of the common elements has been developed by Lockyer in his work entitled ''Inorganic Evolution. In 1864 Mitscherlich showed that certain compounds when heated gave spectra peculiar to themselves and reveal- ing no trace of the elements which they contain. These spectra of compounds present a fluted appearance, the fluting consisting of numerous lines arranged in regular order, and of different intensities. Lockyer showed that at higher tem- peratures such compounds can be made to exhibit the spectra of the elements which they contain, and the spectra of the elements are characterized by fine lines; the flutings disap- pear with rise of temperature, to be replaced by the elemen- tary line-spectra. ,., , j u The effect of rise of temperature on a solid body, such as platinum, is, first, to produce a grayish-white light; this is 1:968:1 BOOK OF THE OPENING succeeded by a dull red, and we say that the solid is "red- hot." A higher temperature increases the amplitude of vibrations, so that the substance emits more light but it diminishes the wave-length, so that the light emitted grows yellower; we may term it "yellow-hot." The next stage is the advent of still shorter vibrations in the green, and when some blue is added the solid is "white-hot," for the com- bination of these colors produces on our eyes the effect of white light. At a still higher temperature violet light is emitted in quantity, and we might characterize the color seen as "blue-" or "violet-hot." Taking these colors as a test of the temperature of the stars, Lockyer points out that it is reasonable to group the stars accordingly; and the line spectra of the gases in the stars can then be allocated to a qualitative scale of temper- ature. It is possible to imitate similar conditions, although im- perfectly, with terrestrial means. The flame is less hot than the arc; the arc gives a lower temperature than the electric spark; and it is possible, by means of powerful discharges, to increase considerably the temperature of the spark. On submitting various ordinary elements to such an ascending scale of temperature, Lockyer noticed that certain spec- trum lines became "enhanced," — i.e., appeared stronger and brighter,— while others diminished in intensity. On examining the spectra of the stars, it was found that the "enhanced" lines of certain elements were much more prominent in certain stars, and indeed were uncontaminated with the ordinary lines of the elements; these had vanished. Indeed, all stages of change can be followed in the stars; and it is to be noted that as the temperature of the star is higher, the spectra of hydrogen and helium appear, along with spectral lines at present not identified with those of any 1:9693 THE RICE INSTITUTE terrestrial element. The appearance of these unknown lines is accompanied with the disappearance of the spectrum of the ^'common" elements, calcium, iron, etc. To the new spectra Lockyer ascribes the coming into existence of new elements, to which he gives the name "proto-elements," re- garding them as formed by the disintegration of those known on earth; for instance, he has evidence for the existence of "proto-calcium," "proto-manganese," etc. These "proto- elemental" spectra in still hotter stars are absent, and are replaced by the spectra of helium, oxygen, nitrogen and car- bon, along with some unidentified lines; and in still hotter regions, when the spectrum of helium has disappeared, there remains a spectrum whose wave-lengths are related nu- merically to those of hydrogen, and to this Lockyer has given the name "proto-hydrogen." If Lockyer's observations and explanations are correct, It would follow that with Increase of temperature, matter as we know It undergoes continuous simplification; being finally reduced to one kind, >roto-hydrogen." Whether this final conclusion can be accepted may be left for the present; but as regards his main contention there appears to me to be no manner of doubt. 3. We now pass to the third line of evidence. Let us consider how energy may be applied to "elemental" matter so as to produce disintegration. First, as regards the nature and amount of energy avad- able two sources present themselves. It is known that both the a-particles-/.^., atoms of hellum-and fl-particles, or corpuscles-i.^., atoms of electricity or electrons-are emitted from radium and its disintegration-products with enormous velocity. The usual expression for the kinetic energy of a moving body is J^ mv^ where m stands for mass and v for velocity. It was shown by Clerk-Maxwell, many years ago, C970I BOOK OF THE OPENING that the kinetic energy of gaseous molecules could be thus calculated in agreement with experimental results connected with their pressure and temperature. As shown by Joule, kinetic energy can be numerically expressed in heat-units; and the velocity factor of kinetic energy, t'^, corresponds to tem- perature. This method of presentation has been chosen here because the dissociation of exothermic compound bodies is always a function of temperature; to quote an instance already referred to, ammonium chloride heated to 360° C. is completely resolved into hydrogen chloride and ammonia; and the reverse effect— recombination between these bodies — occurs when the temperature Is lowered. Now the average velocity of an atom or molecule (for In this case they are Identical) of helium existing as an ordinary gas at 0° C. Is known to be 1.037 x 10^ centimeters, or about lYs kilometers, or In English measure approximately half a mile, per second. But the a-particle, or atom of helium, expelled from an exploding radium atom is about 2x10^ centimeters, or nearly eighty thousand times as great. The squares of these velocities are to each other as the temper- atures on the absolute scale; and as 0° C. corresponds to 273 Abs., we have the proportion: ( 1.3x10^)2: (2x10^)2;: 273 :6.^ X 10^^ degrees Centigrade; the last figure, expressed in words, is the enormous temperature of sixty-five thousand million degrees. It is difficult to evaluate the temperature of a star; prob- ably even the hottest does not surpass 100,000° C. If that be so, then the effective kinetic energy of an a-particle ex- ceeds that of gaseous atoms In the hottest star by 6.5 x lo^, or getting on to a million times. This energy can be brought to bear upon matter by mixing with it a radium salt, or, better, by dissolving in a solution of the compound to be treated some niton; for from niton a much greater number C97I] fl THE RICE INSTITUTE of helium atoms are expelled in unit time than from even a much greater weight of radium. The second available source of concentrated energy con- sists in the utilization of ^-rays, either from radium or from the kathode terminal of a high-potential current. No defimte experiments have been made with the former, except in so far as it has been shown by Cameron, and subsequently by Usher, working in the laboratory of University College, London, that the available energy of the g-, or kathode, rays from niton does not amount to one-fourteenth of that obtain- able from the a-rays, judging by their action in effecting the decomposition of water into hydrogen and oxygen. The effective energy from the kathode terminal of a high-poten- tial current obviously depends on the degree of potential, which is correlated with the velocity of the stream of the electrons, as well as on the quantity of the current, or, in other words, the number of electrons impelled from the kathode. In this latter case it is of course possible to give definite direction to the kathode stream, and even to concen- trate it by the use of a spherical or parabolic kathode. Both of these methods have been employed with apparent success. ( 1 ) It has been found on four separate occasions that a solution of copper sulphate, exposed to the action of niton, yields, after removal of the copper and evaporation, a residue in which the spectrum of lithium was recognized. Needless to say, a specimen of the same copper sulphate, under precisely similar conditions except that no niton was added to it, gave no trace of lithium; nor did distilled water containing an equal amount of niton give any mineral residue. ( 2 ) It has also been found that there is a continual evolu- tion of carbon dioxide from a solution of thorium nitrate, left to itself and tested at Intervals of six months. 1:972] BOOK OF THE OPENING (3) Experiments on the action of niton on a solution of thorium nitrate have resulted In the production of carbon dioxide. The same solution was treated at Intervals four times with fresh doses of niton, and the quantity of carbon dioxide formed was roughly proportional to the quantity of niton dissolved in it. The thorium nitrate was finally proved to have contained no compound of carbon. (4) Other elements of the same group, of which carbon Is the member of lowest atomic weight, viz., silicon (as hydrogen slllcifluorlde), titanium (as titanium sulphate), zirconium (as nitrate), cerium (as sulphate), and lead (as nitrate), were similarly treated with niton; all gave carbon dioxide, with the exception of cerium; and the quantity pro- duced by the same dose of niton was in the same order as the atomic weight of the metal treated; silicon giving least and thorium most. Lead, however, gave a relatively small amount; and from solutions of silver and of mercury (as nitrates) no carbon dioxide appeared to be formed. But from bismuth (as nitrate) a trace was produced. ( 5 ) When water contains niton in solution, it decomposes into oxygen and hydrogen. These gases, formed In rela- tively large amount, can be removed by explosion, and a constant small excess of hydrogen can be got rid of by addi- tion of pure oxygen and explosion. The excess of oxygen can be withdrawn by exposure to charcoal cooled with liquid air; the residual gas consists of neon mixed with some helium. The presence of neon appears somewhat unac- countable, but It will be seen, further on, that we have a clue to its production; the helium is obviously one of the disin- tegration products of the niton. This same change appears to take place In certain mineral springs containing niton; the gases evolved from the hot springs of Bath in England, consisting mostly of nitrogen, [973] *«i THE RICE INSTITUTE contain about three-quarters as much argon as is normally present in atmospheric air; about sixty-five times as much helium, and about one hundred and eighty times as much neon. Hence, too, the neon evidently arises from the action of dissolved niton on water. The action of kathode rays on the composition of matter has not as yet been examined, so far as I am aware, except in the two following instances. The first consisted in the exam- ination of the blued glass of bulbs which had been used for the production of X-rays. Four of such bulbs, each of which had served for medical purposes for several months, were broken up, and the fragments of blue glass were placed m a combustion-tube. The air was exhausted and oxygen was admitted, so as to "wash away" all traces of air which might have conveyed with it traces of the gases for which it was prepared to test-helium and neon. The tube was finally exhausted and heated. The gases evolved, mainly oxygen which had been absorbed by the glass, were pumped off, and by the aid of charcoal cooled with liquid air all condensable gases were removed. There was a trace of residual gas, which on spectroscope examination proved to consist mainly of helium; but some feeble neon lines were recognized, showing the presence of a small trace of neon. Professor Norman Collie undertook the next experiment. It consisted in bombarding with kathode rays a sample of calcium fluoride prepared by the addition of a solution of sodium fluoride to one of calcium chloride. The resulting precipitate was washed, dried and ignited. It was exposed for days to bombardment with kathode rays from a power- ful Ruhmkorff coil. But under such circumstances the residual gas in the tube became absorbed, and in order to maintain the vacuum under suitable conditions for a kathode stream, pure oxygen was added from time to time. The first [974] BOOK OF THE OPENING portions of gas were rejected; but after nearly a week's bom- bardment about half a cubic centimeter was examined by the method already described. On examination of the gas re- maining after absorption of the oxygen, etc., by cooled charcoal, the spectrum of pure neon was noted; helium w^as absent. Although it would be inadvisable without further research to dogmatize on the results mentioned, it cannot but be re- garded as important that in the absence of oxygen the product should consist of helium, while if oxygen be present neon is formed. The equation + He = Ne, or, in figures, 16 + 4 == 20, would appear to correspond with the change which has occurred. The formation of neon during the action of niton on water would thus also find an explanation, the oxygen being derived from the water and the helium from the niton. We are merely at the beginning of such work. It will be difficult, owing to the small amounts of matter altered; but methods are being perfected not only to deal with minute quantities of material, but to weigh them with accuracy.^ Let us now inquire how electrons may be supposed to take part in such changes. We have as yet no clear mental picture of the structure of an atom; but from what has gone before, it appears evident that certain electrons, in union with the atoms of the substratum of metals, impart to them their metallic nature; it is these electrons which are more or less easily detached, and which correspond to valency. The non- metals appear to be distinguished by the possession of "latent electrons," which come into action during certain conditions of combination, and which also play the part of 1 Note added May 23, 191 5: Several papers have since been published on this subject by Collie and Patterson, by Masson, by Egerton, by Strutt, and by Merton in the "Proceedings of the Royal and Chemical Societies." 1:975] THE RICE INSTITUTE valency. The former, attached to metallic substrata, may be exemplified by the metal sodium, which we must now agree to regard as consisting of a substance in union with an electron; the latter, by chlorine, which in the chlorates, per- chlorates, etc., develops valencies latent in its monovalent combinations, of which sodium chloride is an example. Besides these easily detachable electrons, it is legitimate to speculate that whether or no there may be a material substratum to the atom, it contains other electrons, which by their number, their grouping, and their motion play a great part in determining its intrinsic and distinguishing properties. The collision of an a-particle, or atom of helium, in rapid motion, or of an electron, with an atom, may take place either by a grazing impact or centrally. The chances in favor of a grazing impact are very much greater than those of a central collision. Probably out of every seventy colli- sions, one is central; the others merely affect what may be termed the "shell" of the atom. Now it is known that the effect of a-particles or of p-cor- puscles on gases is to ionize them. Ionization means the addition of an electron, or of more than one electron, to the atom of a gas; or it may equally mean the removal of one or more electrons from the atom of a gas. In the former case the ion is termed negative ; in the latter, positive. Such ions, however, have no permanent existence; given time, they equalize their electric charges, or, in the language of the electronic theory, those having an electron more than neces- sary for the atomic existence of the gas pass on that electron to those having an electron less. Electric neutrality is thus reestablished, and the gas loses its conducting power. The action of an a- or a ^-particle is, in short, a reversible one, if only the shell of the atom is penetrated. "Valency-electrons" [976] BOOK OF THE OPENING are added or removed. The colliding a-particles pass through a gas at ordinary pressure for about seven centi- meters before the rate of their motion is so diminished that impact with atoms no longer produces an ionizing effect. To use well known and conventional expressions, if the colliding atom or electron becomes slow-moving, then its impact will be so feeble as not to be able to overcome the "affinity" of the ionic electrons for the matter to which they are attached. In the much rarer cases of a central or nearly central col- lision, the moving atom of helium or the moving electron penetrates the core of the atoms which it encounters; it must then play great havoc with their structure. The positions and motions of systems of electrons must then be profoundly disturbed; new and stable rearrangements will occur, and other forms of matter will result. In other words, a trans- mutation will be effected. It is as certain as any fact can be that the loss of a-par- ticles and of ^-corpuscles by radium and its products leads to the transmutation of these bodies into others. They need not belong to the same chemical family; radium itself, a metal of the barium group, by the loss of an atom of helium yields niton, a gas of the inactive series. On the other hand, if reliance can be placed on the results obtained by treatment of members of the carbon column with niton, there is a ten- dency toward simplification to lower members of the same column; yet cerium, a metal generally regarded as one of the carbon group, fails to yield carbon as the result of dis- aggregation; and bismuth, an element quite free from any resemblance to those of the niton group, gives some carbon on such treatment. Again, the formation of neon by the exposure of oxygen and some other body (glass, calcium fluoride?) to the kathode stream opens a way to the synthesis of elements. It 1:977] / THE RICE INSTITUTE is true that the atomic weight of neon is 20.2, not 20.' But the addition of electrons may account for the mcrease m weight. As some 1800 electrons have a mass equal to that of an atom of hydrogen, the addition to an atom o hehum plus one of oxygen of the fifth of 1800, or 360 electrons would give the necessary increase in atomic weight, and such an addition does not seem impossible. Nothing has been said regarding the periodic table in what has preceded, except to indicate that transformation does not always take place from the members of any one col- umn to those of lower atomic weight in the same column; and it would at present be premature to speculate as to the ancestry or progeny of the elements. But as a_ working hypothesis it may be conjectured that while the existence of compounds between what we generally term elements con- sists in the juxtaposition of their atoms in such a fashion that the electrons of the "valency" order belonging to the com- bining atoms, which appear to be attached to the surface of the combining atoms, or which at least are easily removed, serve as "bonds" of union, the elements themselves are pro- duced by the interaction of deeper-lying electrons. In fact, when one atom interpenetrates another, so that the deeper- lying electrons of one element influence those of another, what has been termed "transmutation" occurs. Or, con- versely, an element of relatively high atomic weight may be induced to split into two or more "elementary" forms of matter; and it would appear probable that in order to pro- duce such a fission the absorption and assimilation of a cer- tain number of electrons is essential; or it may be the loss of some attached electrons. The latter alternative is certainly in operation when radioactive bodies disintegrate. 1 V ,. ,^:i,A \Uv 2% lois: Ashton has brought forward some evidence for ,h: suTposi.i^n 'h':.^ tu'e'r^a^e two neons, the atomic weigh, of one be.ng .o, and of the other, 20.2. 1:978] BOOK OF THE OPENING We are still In the dark as regards what happens when a radioactive element undergoes change with no expulsion of an a-particle. A specific instance is the change of radium D into radiums E^ and Eg, and of the latter into radium F, or polonium. Here there Is no helium atom lost; but ^-rays, or electrons, are emitted at each stage. These have mass; hence the atomic weight of polonium should be somewhat lower than that of radium D. These two products of the disin- tegration of niton are at present being investigated at Uni- versity College, London; and it may be said at once that their reactions are quite distinct, and that they can be sepa- rated from each other with the same ease as, say, arsenic can be separated from zinc. Further research will show whether their atomic weights are identical, or whether they differ by a small quantity, as, for example, the atomic w^elght of nickel differs from that of cobalt. Attempts have been made, although with no definite re- sults, to determine whether an "allotropic change" — e.g.^ that of ozone into oxygen, or that of red Into yellow phos- phorus—is attended by the gain or expulsion of electrons. But it must be remembered that the usual test for electrons depends on the ionization of air by rapidly moving electrons, and that It Is difficult to recognize electrons unless they are In rapid motion. It is true that an electric charge can be tested for and measured; but the existence of an electric charge Is no proof that what may be termed "elemental elec- trons" have been gained or lost; the charge may be due to the gain or loss or the transference of "valency-electrons." It has thus not been shown that allotropy is due to gain or loss of elemental electrons; In all probability it is not, but to the familiar rearrangement of the atoms of a compound, for which we generally use the term "isomerism." Enough has now been said to show the nature of the prob- [;979] THE RICE INSTITUTE iems which await solution. Progress must of necessity be slow; but methods of micro-analysis have now been much improved, and the microbalance affords a means whereby quantities of matter of the small order which must be han- dled can readily be weighed. The field is ripe unto the bar- vest, but as yet the laborers are few. William Ramsay. t [9803 ^t^. THE CORPUSCULAR THEORY OF AURORA BOREALIS* TN the following pages I shall have the honor to give a X resume of my researches on aurora borealis, begun in the year 1904 and continued up to the present time. Most of the results have been published in " Videnskabsselskabets Skrifter," f Christiania, and in the " Archives des Sciences Physiques et Naturelles," f Geneva. I . Introduction. It seems to be Goldstein who has the priority in the idea that the sun sends out into space electrical rays analogous to cathode-rays, and that this may explain the mysterious con- nection between variations in solar activity and correspond- mg fluctuations in the magnetic and electric phenomena on the earth. This idea was published in "Wiedemann's Annalen " in 1881, in a paper entitled " Ueber die Entladung der Electricitat in verdunnten Gasen." § Some time later, the Danish meteorologist, Adam Paulsen, was led, from his observations of aurora in Greenland, to the * A lecture presented at the inauguration of the Rice Institute, by Carl Stirmer Professor of Pure Mathematics at the University of Christiania. ^ ' l'actiorH',t'"°'"'T-K '^'"" P°'?,S">""'^' PO"-"-' "ne charge d'electricite sous 1 action d un a.mant elementa.re," /..., ,904, and "Bericht iiber eine Expedition Nordli^S™:" i*7; ,;,';':°'°'"'''''"'" ^"'"^'"^ "°' Hohen^essungen von ^L"^^' '" *"J^"°'f«^ ^^^ corpuscules electrises dans I'espace sous Taction du magnetisme terrestre, avec application aux aurores boreales," etc., U., 1907. litt n}!r°r '"^T''^' '•'•' '9" ^""^ '912. In the second memoir I have given a S ..«7- ^^"'y-^"": P^P"s that I have published on auroras up to the year 1912 § Wiedemann's Annalen," Vol. XII, 1881, p. 266. v y '^ 2. [:98i3 \ THE RICE INSTITUTE hypothesis * that aurora was due to cathode-rays ; but instead of assuming that these rays came from the sun, he thought they had their origin in the upper atmosphere. Then, in 1896, came Professor Kr. Birkeland's experiments on what he called " the suction t of cathode-rays towards a magnetic pole." He found that a magnetic pole had an effect upon a beam of parallel cathode-rays analogous to that of a lens upon a beam of light, namely, to make them converge toward a point. J This phenomenon led him, in- dependently of Goldstein, to the idea that aurora was due to a similar effect of the earth's magnetism on cathode-rays coming from the sun, especially from the sun-spots. To test this hypothesis. Professor Birkeland exposed a little spherical electromagnet to a stream of cathode-rays, and found a series of analogies to the shape and nature of the aurora. The auroral belts in particular were very beauti- fully produced. These remarkable experiments, which gave the first really good support to the corpuscular theory of aurora, were described in the paper on his aurora expedition of 1 899-1900 ;§ but the photographs were not published until 1907.11 Figs. I and 2 show these artificial auroral belts round the polar regions of the little magnetic sphere in Professor Birkeland's experiments. Notwithstanding that these remarkable experiments tend to show that aurora is a direct effect of the precipitation of * Adam Paulsen, "Sur la nature et I'origine de I'aurore boreale," Copenhagen, 1894. t His expression is very badly chosen; in fact, the magnetism has no attraction on cathode corpuscles, but only a deviating action, as is well known. X "Archives des Sciences Physiques et Naturelles," Geneva, 4 periode, Vol. I, p. 497. § "Videnskabsselskabets Skrifter," Christiania, 1901. II Professor Birkeland allowed me to publish some of these photographs in my paper, "Sar les trajectoires des corpuscules," etc.. I.e. [9823 BOOK OF THE OPENING cathode-rays in the upper atmosphere. Professor Birkeland considered aurora more as a secondary phenomenon * due to secondary rays from great electric currents in the upper air; but he also admitted the existence of a direct action.f In the mean time Arrhenius % published his hypothesis that the sun was sending out small electrified particles from about one ten-thousandth to one thousandth of a milli- meter in diameter, and that these particles were pushed away from the sun by the pressure of the light, and on reaching the earth's atmosphere caused aurora. In the beginning of the year 1903 I was becoming extremely interested in Professor Birkeland's experiments and theory of aurora, and knowing that the phenomenon of the con- centration of cathode-rays toward a single pole had been mathematically treated by Poincare,§ I thought it might be interesting to find out mathematically the trajectories of electrified corpuscles in the magnetic field of the earth, and hoped in this way to find again, not only the details of Professor Birkeland's experiments, but also the principal features of aurora and of the magnetic storms. My first results were then published in " Videnskabsselskabets Skrifter " in 1904. H The work has been since continued, and in 1907 the first detailed report was published in "Archives des Sciences Physiques et Naturelles," Geneva. In the following paragraphs we will give a short account of those results. * << Expedition Norvegienne de 1899-1900 pour I'etude des aurores boreales." pp. 60-74. t Ibid., p. 74. t "Ofversigt af Kongl. Vetenskaps-Akademiens F6rhandHngar," 1900; Stock- holm. § *' Comptes Rendus," Paris, Vol. CXXIII, p. 930, 1896. II " Sur le mouvement d'un point," etc., I.e. »li 'I til 1:983: I ♦ 14, THE RICE INSTITUTE 2. Simplifying hypothesis for the mathematical treatment. Starting with the hypothesis that the sun is sending out electrical corpuscles towards the earth, the mathe- matical problem to find the trajectories of those corpus- cles is an extremely difficult one to solve in its most general form. As I pointed out in my Geneva paper, the natural way to proceed should be this : first, to try to solve the problem in a series of simplifying hypotheses, and after that to treat the cases in which these simplifying hypotheses are abandoned, one after another, in order to get the real conditions of nature. As simplifying hypotheses I chose, in my Geneva paper, the following : I. The motions of the earth and of the sun are considered as negligibles, so that only their relative positions come into consideration ; in fact, the speed of the electrified corpuscles considered is supposed to be so great that this relative posi- tion does not sensibly change during the time a corpuscle takes to go from the sun to the earth. II. We assume that the corpuscles are not aflFected by other forces than the earth's magnetism, and III. That they follow the laws observed for the motion of a cathode-particle in a stationary magnetic field. IV. As regards the earth's magnetism, we consider it, in accordance with Gauss's hypothesis, as due exclusively to magnetic masses in the interior of the earth, so that we have the known expansion of the magnetic potential outside the earth in a series of spherical harmonics. V. In the mathematical analysis we use only the first term of the series for the potential, which means that we consider the earth's magnetic field as a field due to an 1:9843 BOOK OF THE OPENING elementary magnet placed in the center of the earth with its axis coinciding with the magnetic axis of the latter. Under the above-mentioned hypothesis, this approxima- tion will hold good at great distances from the earth, because the other terms of the potential expansion containing higher R powers of — will be negligible as compared with the first T term. (Here R is the radius of earth, and r the radius vector.) The problem is thus reduced to a study of the trajectories of electrified corpuscles in the field of an elementary magnet. When this problem has been solved, we may successively have to take into account the following more general prob- lems : As regards hypothesis I : To take into account the motion of the earth and of the sun during the motion of the cor- puscles. As regards hypothesis II : To take into account the possible electromagnetic fields surrounding the celestial bodies, especially the sun. Further, other forces that may act on the corpuscles, such as gravitation and the pressure of light in Arrhenius's theory. As regards hypotheses III and IF: To take into account the reciprocal electromagnetic action between the corpuscles when their number is considerable. Each corpuscle carries with it an electromagnetic field, and the changes in these fields are transmitted through space with the velocity of light. Especially, to take into account the magnetic field outside the earth produced by currents of corpuscles when their number is considerable, as probably during magnetic storms. As regards hypothesis V : To take into account the real Gaussian expression for the magnetic field with all the terms hitherto considered. C985: 1 I, w ■ y THE RICE INSTITUTE There are, as will be seen, enough difficult problems to solve even when the first one, corresponding to hypotheses I-V, is completely cleared up. It is a promising circum- stance that the solution of this first problem in itself gives a good explanation of a series of the principal features of the phenomena of auroras and magnetic storms. 1:9863 BOOK OF THE OPENING MATHEMATICAL DISCUSSION OF THE MOTION OF A COR- PUSCLE IN THE FIELD OF AN ELEMENTARY MAGNET 3. Differential equations of the trajectory in the case of an elementary magnet. We will now study the trajectories of electrified corpuscles in the field of an elementary magnet. We take as unit a length c centimeters, where c is given by the relation a Here M is the moment of the elementary magnet, and ^ is a constant characteristic of the corpuscle in motion. Let us, for instance, consider a point in the trajectory where the tangent is at right angles to the magnetic force ; let us denote with p the radius of curvature in centimeters at that point, and presume that the magnetic force is equal to H magnetic units ; then a = lip. If we put the elementary magnet at the origin of a rectangular Cartesian system of coordinates OXYZ (see Fig. 3), with its axis coinciding with the Z-axis, and its south pole towards the positive z, then the components of the magnetic force * at a point (a;, y, z) will, by definition, be the partial deriva- tives of the function r * That is, the force acting on a unit of north magnetism. 1:9873 '^ THE RICE INSTITUTE With the adopted unit of length, the diflFerential equations of the trajectory * for a negatively charged corpuscle will be f^ ds' ds' dz f^ o <>\dy / o o\ ax _ u/Zt = (32"-Ot--3^^-t: ds ds dH dy dx — = 3 xz-f— 3 yz ds ds ds (I) where r- = ;c2 + y^ 4- s' and where we have taken as inde- pendent variable the arc s of the trajectory. For a positively charged corpuscle, the signs of the second members of the equations have to be reversed ; but the same effect is obtained by changing x into - x, that is, by changing the positive direction of the Z-axis. Hence the trajectories of positive corpuscles will, for the same value of Hp, be sym- metrical with the trajectories of negative corpuscles relatively to a plane through the Z-axis. It is of course sufficient to study the latter trajectories. By introducing polar coordinates R and , defined by the equations (see Fig. 4) X = R cos 0, y = R sin <^, we obtain from the two first equations d(n,dc}>\_ ^Rhdz r'-^z' j^dR ds\ ds) r' ds r" ds' where the second member is the exact derivative of the function i?V"^ ; in integrating we thus obtain ds r * See my Geneva paper of 1907. [;98B] (2) BOOK OF THE OPENING where 7 is a constant of integration. If we eliminate by means of this equation, and call Q the following function of R and z, "27 I — LR + 4 we get the very simple system for R and z as functions of s : d'R ^ I 8Q ds' 2dR' dh^i8Q ds' 2 8z ' fdR\ \dsJ ui -"'^- (3) = Q^ The problem is thus reduced to the integration of this system, which can be done by integrating a differential equation of the second order followed by a quadrature. After that will be found by a new quadrature. But even without integrating the differential equations it is possible, as will be shown, to draw very interesting con- clusions directly from the equations, and further, by the powerful methods of numerical integration, to calculate trajectories with any accuracy desired. 4. Formula for sin d. Part of space beyond which the trajectory cannot go. From formula (2) we obtain a very interesting geometrical property of the trajectory; if we call the angle between the tangent in the direction of motion and a plane passing through the point of contact and the Z-axis 6, then sin d = Rd ds ' 1:989] THE RICE INSTITUTE and equation (2) then gives sin 6 = -77- ' "^' R r (4) By this equation the angle B can be found for each point of the trajectory; and B will be positive or negative according as the motion along the trajectory has the same direction as the positive direction of the angle or the opposite. (See Fig. 5.) From formula (4) many interestmg conclusions may be drawn. For instance, in the region where 2 7^?"^ + Rr~^ is positive, B will be positive and the angle will be constantly increasing; and where the expression is negative, will decrease. On the other hand, along a trajectory can only reach its maximum or its minimum in the points of intersection with the surface 27 . R R + -^ = o- This surface, which only exists for negative values of the constant 7, is a surface of revolution obtained by rotating a line of magnetic force around the Z-axis. For a given trajectory, the corresponding value of the constant 7 can be found by equation (4) by substituting for a given point the values of R, r and sin (9, which immediately give 7. But the most valuable consequence of relation 4 is the fol- lowing : Along a trajectory, sin B cannot be less than — i, nor greater than + i ; the trajectory must of course be con- fined to the region in space where — K -^ + — < + -,< + !. R 1:990] BOOK OF THE OPENING We will call this region ^7. To each value of 7 we obtain a corresponding ^7 and no trajectory corresponding to the same value of the constant 7 can get beyond this region (37. To find Q^ we may proceed in the following way : Put sin = y^ and R = r cos ip ; then the intersection between the surface of revolution where sin B = k and a plane through the Z-axis will be a curve w^hose equation in polar coordinates found by (4) is kr"^ cos \l/ — 2 yr — cos^ \[/ = O. (5) If we then let k vary between — i and + i, this curve describes in the above-mentioned plane a region which we will call qy. In rotating this region around the Z-axis, we then obtain the region Qy. The detailed discussion of the curves (5) will be found in my Geneva paper, as also the discussion of the parts Qy for all values of 7 between — 00 and + 00. We will here only give six characteristic forms of qy and Qy corresponding to 7 = — 1. 016 7 = - 0.97 7 = - 0.5 y = - 0.05 7 = 0.03 7 = 0.2 In the upper row of Plate I we see the shapes of the regions qy white, the other parts of the plane being black. The origin is in the middle, and the dotted lines are the lines of K Hp is equal to the largest diameter of the dotted oval correspond- ing to 7 = — 0.5. 1:991] magnetic force, where sin^ = o. The unit of length \ THE RICE INSTITUTE and equation (2) then gives sin 6 = —pr-T -:;. R r (4) By this equation the angle B can be found for each point of the trajectory; and d will be positive or negative according as the motion along the trajectory has the same direction as the positive direction of the angle or the opposite. (See Fig- 5.) . ^ . , From formula (4) many interestmg conclusions may ^ be drawn. For instance, in the region where 2 yR' -^ Rr ^ is positive, d will be positive and the angle will be constantly increasing; and where the expression is negative, (^ will decrease. On the other hand, along a trajectory can only reach its maximum or its minimum in the points of intersection with the surface 27 R + 4=0. This surface, which only exists for negative values of the constant 7, is a surface of revolution obtained by rotating a line of magnetic force around the Z-axis. For a given trajectory, the corresponding value of the constant 7 can be found by equation (4) by substituting for a given point the values of R, r and sin 6, which immediately give 7. But the most valuable consequence of relation 4 is the fol- lowing : Along a trajectory, sin 6 cannot be less than - i, nor greater than + i ; the trajectory must of course be con- fined to the region in space where R r [990] BOOK OF THE OPENING We will call this region Qy. To each value of 7 we obtain a corresponding Qy and no trajectory corresponding to the same value of the constant 7 can get beyond this region Qy. To find Qy we may proceed in the following way : Put sin ^ = ^ and R = r cos xp ', then the intersection between the surface of revolution where sin 6 = k and a plane through the Z-axis will be a curve w^hose equation in polar coordinates found by (4) is kr"^ cos yj/ — 2 yr — cos^ rp = O. (5) If we then let k vary between - i and + i, this curve describes in the above-mentioned plane a region which we will call qy. In rotating this region around the Z-axis, we then obtain the region Qy. The detailed discussion of the curves (5) will be found in my Geneva paper, as also the discussion of the parts Qy for all values of 7 between — 00 and -|- 00. We will here only give six characteristic forms of qy and Qy corresponding to 7 = — 1. 016 7 = - 0.97 y = - 0.5 7 = - 0.05 7 = 0.03 7 = 0.2 In the upper row of Plate I we see the shapes of the regions qy white, the other parts of the plane being black. The origin is in the middle, and the dotted lines are the lines of K Hp is equal to the largest diameter of the dotted oval correspond- ing to 7 = — 0.5. [990 magnetic force, where sin ^ = o. The unit of length \/ THE RICE INSTITUTE In the lower row are seen the corresponding regions Q^ in space, described by the parts q^ when rotated about the Z-axis. We find especially that the regions Q^ is open from the origin to infinite distance only if - I < 7 <. O. This, as we shall see, will have important consequences in its application to aurora. 5. Mechanical interpretation of system (3) and results for the discussion of the trajectories. Still more useful information concerning the trajectories is obtained if we interpret system (3) mechanically; in fact, if we consider s as the time and R and z as the Cartesian coordinates of a material point p in a plane, then system (3) defines the motion of that point under the action of a force derived from the function of force J Q, As such a plane we may choose an arbitrary fixed plane ORZ through the Z-axis. Further, let P be a moving point on the trajectory, and let us lay a circle through P parallel to the ZF-plane, and with its center on the Z-axis. Then p will be the point of inter- section between this circle and the plane ORZ; and when the point P is moving with constant velocity along the tra- jectory r, the corresponding point p is moving in the plane ORZ according to the above-mentioned mechanical law, and will describe a certain plane curve K. When we know the shape of the curve K, the shape of the corresponding trajectory in space is easy to find by the formula for sin d. To each curve K there are In general two corresponding sets of trajectories, each containing all trajectories that can be obtained from one of them by rotation around the Z-axis ; [9923 i'4 } I BOOK OF THE OPENING the first set corresponds to a motion along K in one direction, the second to a motion in the opposite direction, and the two sets are symmetrical with one another with reference to the ^Z-plane. Now the study of the curves K is comparatively easy when the level-lines Q = h are drawn for a series of equidistant values of the constant h. These lines are identical with the lines (5), where ^ = ± Vi - h, as we see by substituting the value of the function Q. Of course these level-lines are situated ex- clusively in the plane region before called q^, and the boundaries of that region are formed by the level-lines Q o. The line of force ^ = o is identical with the level-line Q = 1, I have drawn such level-lines corresponding to equidistant values of h with interval o.i for a series of characteristic values of the constant of integration 7, and in order to facilitate the mechanical Interpretation, have colored the parts between successive level-lines with graduated tints white nearest the lines = i, and dark nearest the line Q = o. On Plates II to XIX are seen the fields of force thus constructed for 7 equal to - 1.2, - 1.016, - i.ooi, - 0.999, ~ 0.97, - 0.9, - 0.8, - 0.7, - 0.6, - 0.5, -0.4' — 0.3, — 0.2, — 0.1, — o.oi, o, o.oi, and o.i respectively; on Plate XX Is also seen the Inner part of the field of force for 7 = - 0.5 on a scale ten times as great. The force acting on p will then always be directed normally to the level-lines and toward the lighter parts, and the strength of the force will be approximately inversely pro- portional to the breadth of the spaces between two con- secutive level-lines. 1:9933 i^ THE RICE INSTITUTE A very intuitive idea is already obtained about the curves K if we consider the point p a.s a. small sphere rolling without friction in a landscape where the level-lines indicate the shape as on geographical charts, the valleys being light and the higher parts darker. The analogy is not complete, but gives nevertheless a fair idea of the form of the curves K, 6. The methods of graphical and numerical integration applied to the study of the curves K and the trajectories in space. The above-mentioned methods are excellent for the quali- tative discussion of the trajectories. For the quantitative investigation, however, they are not sufficient, and it is then necessary to use methods of graphical and numerical integra- tion, the first when no very great accuracy is required, the second in those cases in which the greatest possible accuracy is necessary. The method of graphical integration that I have employed is described in a paper* published in 1908. It is based on a further development of an idea of Lord Kelvin's, and sup- poses the level-lines Q = h to h^ drawn ; the radius of curvature can then be approximately found by a very simple construction. The method of numerical integration is by far the more accurate. It has been described in detail in my Geneva paper of 1907, and is analogous to the methods used in astronomy for calculating orbits. In the first place an integral curve K of system (3) has been computed and then the corresponding trajectory in space has been found by numerical quadrature. The computation has been made throughout to six places of decimals, and has been most * On the graphic solution of dynamical problems. Skrifter," Math, naturv. Kl. 1908; Christiania.) 1:994] ( " Videnskabsselskabets BOOK OF THE OPENING tedious and elaborate. A computer with enough practice can calculate only about 3 points of a trajectory in an hour. My assistants and myself have used this method of numerical integration for some years, and have computed more than 120 different branches of trajectories, a labor of more than 5000 hours. But these computations have been of the greatest importance in the applications, and at the same time a most interesting test of the theoretical develop- ment, and have given very suggestive ideas. The detailed .computations have not yet been published,* only figures and wire models of the trajectories. 7. First general view of the trajectories corresponding to a wire model constructed by graphical integration, ^ Space does not permit us to give here a detailed descrip- tion of the trajectories ; we can only point out some general characteristics. We will begin by showing a picture of a wire model con- structed by graphical integration, published f in my lecture held at the International Congress of Mathematics in Rome, in 1908. Here the elementary magnet is placed in the center of the sphere, and the Z-axis is normal to the plane of the model, i.e. parallel to the dark supporting rods. The white wires represent trajectories of corpuscles coming from the square plate at the right. Our unit of length is equal to the radius of the circular trajectory round the sphere, and the ZF-plane is the plane of that circle. In the XF-plane are also rep- resented the particular trajectories lying in that plane, * The computations have meanwhile been published in " VIdenskabsselskabets bkrifter, ' 1913 and 1914, Christiania. (Remark during the correction of proofs.) t See my Geneva paper of 1907, § 20. 1:9953 THE RICE INSTITUTE trajectories calculated by elliptic integrals, i.e, exactly;* they are a good check on the others, which are found by graphical integration. Only trajectories coming from points in the plate above or in the XF-plane are seen in the wire model. To the former of these there are corresponding trajectories coming from points below the XF-plane and symmetrical with them with reference to that plane. In Fig. 7 is seen the same wire model with the square plate in the background. The shape of the trajectories is easily understood when compared with the corresponding integral curves K in the ^Z-plane : Those farthest to the right in Fig. 7, and along which the angle is positive, correspond to the case in which the constant 7 is positive ; the corresponding curves K run upward as seen in Fig. 8. The next trajectories above the little sphere correspond to 7 about — 0.3. Along these is at first positive and then negative, and the angle goes through a maximum where the corresponding A'-curves intersect the lines of magnetic force (see Fig. 9). Those right up to the left of the little sphere are seen forming a whirl, and come nearer to the sphere than the others. They correspond to 7 nearly - 0.5 and to integral curves K going into the horn of the region qy (see Fig. 10). The following trajectories, some of which are seen going down under the XF-plane and bending upward again to the right of the sphere, belong to an extremely interesting family studied in detail in a paper published in 191 1. f They ♦ See also Professor Kr. Birkeland's work, "The Norwegian Aurora Polaris Expedition," 1902-03, Vol. I, first section, p. 156. t "Sur une classe de trajectoires remarquables dans le mouvement d'un cor- puscule electrique dans le champ d'un aimant elementaire." (" Archiv for mathe- matik og naturvidenskab," Vol. XXXI, No. 11 ; Chrlstiania, 191 1.) [996] BOOK OF THE OPENING correspond to integral curves K penetrating through the '' defile '' between the two parts of the field of force q^ for 7 between - i and - 0.8 (see Fig. 11). Farthest to the left are seen the trajectories corresponding to 7 negative and greater than - i in numerical value. Along these trajectories the angle is always negative and always decreasing. They correspond to curves K in the outer part of the region q^ as seen in Fig. 12. They all turn their concavity toward the sphere. We see that these two last-mentioned groups of trajectories form a thick bundle of curves that more or less encircle the little sphere on the afternoon and night side, if we consider the sphere to be the earth and the square plate the sun sending out the corpuscles. Most of the trajectories, moreover, only approach the sphere to within a certain distance, and then go out again into infinity. Only those in the middle of the whirl for 7 about - 0.5, and those corresponding to curves K through the " defile " for 7 between - 0.8 and - i contain trajec- tories that can reach theoretically the origin of coordinates. Those trajectories which pass through the origin and extend to an infinite distance are now of the most funda- mental importance in their application to the aurora borealis. They have received special study, as we shall see in the following paragraph. 8. The trajectories passing through the origin, and their computation. For each negative value of 7 there are in general two curves K passing through the origin. These curves are lying sym- metrically with the i?-axis. To each curve there are two corresponding trajectories in space, Ti and 7^2, Ti for a [997] THE RICE LNSTITUTE motion toward the origin and T^ for a motion from it. Ti and Ti are symmetrical with reference to a plane through the Z-axis. Then, as we have seen in § S, there is, cor- responding to Ti, an infinite number of trajectories obtained by rotating Ti about the Z-axis; they are all congruent. In the same way there is, corresponding to T^, an infinite number of trajectories obtained by rotating Ti about the same axis ; they are also all congruent. The study and calculation of these trajectories by the method of numerical integration have been carried out in great detail in my Geneva paper of 1907. The inner parts of the computed curves K are seen on Plate XXI, and many of the corresponding trajectories in space in the wire model in Fig. 13. The entire computation has taken more than 700 hours, and has been made to six places of decimals. As an example are here given the coordinates R, z and (/> corre- sponding to values of the arc s for one of these trajectories. The arc s is reckoned from the origin, and Sq is the value corresponding to the starting-point. Here Sq = 0.2368. is zero for j" = o. Trajectory through the origin corresponding to 7 = -0.8 s- So R z 1 s-so R z " o 0.139305 0.182864 0.783 13 0.183969 0.206944 1.220 I : 256 0.142628 0.184916 0.813 14 0.187523 0.208563 1-259 2 0.145971 0.186935 0.843 15 0.191092 0.210148 1.300 3 0.149334 0.188920 0.874 4 0.152717 0.190871 0.906 8: 128 0.194676 0.211699 1.340 5 0.156120 0.192788 0.939 9 0.201886 0.214700 1.422 6 0.159542 0.194672 0.971 10 0.209150 0.217565 1.508 7 0.162982 0.196524 1.004 II 0.216463 0.220294 1-597 8 0.166439 0.198343 1.038 12 0.223824 0.222884 1.689 9 0.169913 0.200129 1.073 13 0.231230 0.225340 1.784 10 0.173403 0.201883 1. 108 14 0.238678 0.227661 1.882 II 0.176909 0.203604 1. 144 15 0.246165 0.229848 1. 98 1 12 0.1 8043 1 0.205297 1. 181 1 16 0.253688 0.231902 2.084 [99^] BOOK OF THE OPENING Trajectory through the origin corresponding to y =- 0.8 — Continued s — So 17 18 19 20 21 II :64 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 R 32 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 H 25 13: 16 H 15 16 18 19 20 21 22 0.261244! 0.268832! 0,276448! 0.284089 0.2917531 0.299437 0.31485s 0.330323 0.345821 0.361331 0.376835 0.392316 0.407758 0.423146 0.438466 0.453705 0.468851 0.483893 0.498821 0.528298 0.557218 0.585534 0.613208 0.640217 0.666548 0.6921981 0.717171 0.741481 0.765146 0.788190 0.810641 0.832530 0.853891 0.895176 0.934796 0.973054 1. 010243 1 .046642 1.082504 1.118056 1-153499 1. 189006 0.233823 0.23561 1 0.237267 0.238793 0.240189 0.241455 0.243598 0.245230 0.246359 0.246995 0.247148 0.246829 0.246050 0.244824 0.243165 0.241086 0.238602 0.235727 0.232476 0.224904 0.216006 0.205902 0.194710 0.182545 0.169518 0-155734 0.141293 0.126291 0.110815 0-094947 0-078763 0,062331 0° S — So R 0-045715 0.012152 0.021538 0,055045 0.088135 0.120630 0.152407 0.183383 0.213509 0.242763 2.190 2.300 2.412 2.526 2.644 2.766 3.018 3.283 3-560 3-848 4.148 4-459 4-781 5-II4 5-456 5.808 6.170 6.542 6.923 7.711 8.533 9.386 10.268 ii.i77;j 12. no I ' i 13.065 ij 14.041 15-035 16.046 17.072 18. 112 19.163 20.224 ■ 22.370 ! 24-539; 26.719 I 28.901 I 31,076 33-235 35-370 37-476 39-544 23 24 25 13: J 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 13:4 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 12: 2 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 II 12 13 14 1.224723 1.260771 1.297250 1-334235 1. 40996 1 1.488260 1.569262 1. 65 297 1 1-7393 1 1 1-828153 I-919345 2.012720 2.108110 2.20535 2.30429 2,40478 2.50669 2.71428 2.92621 3-14179 3.36042 3.58161 3.80513 4.03048 4.25748 4-48590 4-71556 4-94630 5.41055 5.87782 6.34750 6.81913 7.29237 7.76693 8.24261 8.71923 9.19666 9.67478 10.63276 11.59259 12,55386 - 0.271 145 - 0.298668 - 0.325358 - 0.351250 - 0.400800' - 0.4476621 - 0.492 1 85 1 - 0.534700 - 0.575503 - 0.614856 - 0.652981 - 0.690069 - 0.726280; - 0.761748; - 0.796586! - 0.830888 - 0.864733 - 0.931304 - 0.996709 - 1.06124 I - 1.12511 I - 1. 18846 ! - 1. 25142 I - 1.3 1406 - 1.37645 - 1.43864 I - 1.50066 I 0* 41-572 43.554 45.487 47.369 50.969 54.347 57-502 60.436 63.161 65.686 68.026 70-193 72,201 74.062 75.789 77-394 78,886 81.573 83.917 85-973 87.788 89.399 90.837 92.127 93.289 94.341 95.298 1-56255 1. 68601 1.80915 1.93206 2.05480 2.17742 2.29994 2.42239 2.54478 2.66712 96.173 97.707 99.008 100.127 101.098 101.946 102.697 103.363 103.960 104.496 2.78943 104.981 3.03395 J105.823 3,27839 1106,529 3,52277 ii07.i29 1:9993 THE RICE INSTITUTE Trajectory through the origin corresponding to y = - 0.08 — Continued s - So 15 16 17 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34 36 38 i? 13.51628 14.47962 , 1544372 16.40845 18.33945 20.27200 22.20570 24.14028 26.07555 28.01137 29.9476 31.8842 33.8212 357583 <^= S — Sq R 3.76710! 107.646 4.01 140 108.096 - 4-25568 - 4.49994 - 4.98841 108.491 108.840 109.430' 5.47684 109.909 5.96524 110.305 6.45362I 110.639 6.94199 743035 110.924 III. 170 — 7.91870 III. 384 8.40705 8.89539 9-38373 III. 573 111.739 111.888 40 44 48 52 56 60 64 68 72 80 88 96 104 112 37-6957 41-5710 45-4469 49.3232 53-1998 57.0767 60.9538 64.8310 68.7085 76.4637 84.2194 91-9754 99-7315 107.4880 ' 9.87207 10.8487 11.8254 12.8021 13.7787 14-7554 15.7320 16.7087 112.023 112.253 112.445 112.606 112.744 112.864 112.968 1 1 3 .060 17.6853 113-141 19.6386 113.280 21.5919' 113-393 23.5452I 113-487 25.4985 113-566 27.4518 The calculated trajectories through the origin are only the simplest ones, as I pointed out in my Geneva paper, f or y between - 0.93 and - i there is an immense number of re- markable trajectories not yet studied in detail, correspondmg to curious i^-curves passing through the defile from the outer to the inner region of the field of force q,. There are, for instance, as already pointed out in my Geneva paper tra- iectories that extend round the Z^axis in waves up and down through the Xr-plane, and whose number of revolutions round the Z-axis may be greater than any number given beforehand; they come very near to certain periodic orbits in the neighborhood of the circular orbit in the ZF-plane From the calculated trajectories it is possible by interpola- tion to find any trajectory corresponding to y between zero and - 0.93, and thus, for instance, to construct the trajec- tories going out from a given point, and reaching the origin, for that interval of r pooo] I BOOK OF THE OPENING On Plate XXII are seen those trajectories for different positions of the point of departure. The Z-coordinates are written beside the marked points of the trajectories, so that any one can make a wire model of the figures if he Hkes. The trajectories going to the upper part of the sphere round the origin are plain ; those going to the lower part are dotted. The trajectories are drawn only until their intersection with the sphere. A wire model is seen in Fig. 14. The figures illustrate the important theorem that through a given point in space there are generally a series of distinct trajectories passing through the origin. As developed in my Geneva paper, the number of such distinct trajectories from a given point to the origin may vary immensely ; it may happen that we have a series of an infinite number of trajectories corresponding to an infinite number of values y converging to a limit y situated between — 0.93 and — I. There may even be several series like this, and probably even an infinite number of such series of trajectories. 9. The periodic trajectories. It is very interesting that there exists an Infinite number of trajectories composed of Identical parts, so that a corpuscle following such a trajectory will have a periodic motion. There are even closed trajectories of this kind, so that the corpuscle, after a certain time, comes back to the same point with the same direction of velocity as before. The problem of finding these periodic orbits Is very much facilitated by the mechanical Interpretation of system (3) put forward in § 3. It Is in fact sufficient to find periodic curves K. For this purpose two methods have been used. THE RICE INSTITUTE The first is to study, for a given value of 7, all the curves K that meet the level-line !3=o; that is, the boundary of the region q^ in the i?Z-plane, and by following them by continuity find those that have their other extremity on one of the branches of that same line Q =0. Let K in fact be such a curve, and A and B its two extremities, situated on the line Q =0] further let T be a corresponding trajectory in space, and A' and B' two points on it corresponding to A and B, In the point A' the angle d will be + 90° or - 90°, because (2 = o, that is to say, the trajectory in that point is normal to the plane through the point and the Z-axis. As the magnetic field is a function of R and z only, that plane will be a plane of symmetry for the trajectory. In the same way the plane through the Z-axis and the point B' will be a plane of symmetry, and then after passing through B' the corpuscle will follow a branch B'A'' symmetrical with B'A\ then a branch A^'B'' symmetrical with A''B\ and so on; that is to say, we shall have a periodical trajectory. The corresponding curve K will have stopping points (points d'arret) in the points A and B ; and when the point P follows the trajectory the point p will go from A to B, then from B to A along the same curve Z, then from A to B again, and so on. The second method consists in studying all the curves K that intersect the i^-axis orthogonally. If we then find a curve intersecting the R-slxis orthogonally in one point more, this curve will be symmetrical with the R-axis and quite closed, and consequently the trajectory in space will be periodical. This is a point of view used in Darwin's work on the periodical trajectories in the problem of the three bodies. 1:1002:] ^ i BOOK OF THE OPENING When a periodical trajectory corresponding to a certain value of 7 has been found, other periodical trajectories of the same family can generally be found for 7 near this value, and then by variation of 7 even closed trajectories. In fact, if 4> is the difference of the values of the angle for the two points A' and B' ( counted in radian), it is sufficient to vary 7 so that the quotient ^ : x becomes a rational number. With regard to the values of 7 giving periodic trajectories, it is easy to see, by looking at the fields of force qy, that there are no such trajectories when, for instance, 7> -0.5. For 7 = — 0.8 there are, and of course there exists a value of 7 between — 0.8 and — 0.5, so that there are periodic trajectories for 7 < t' but not for 7 > 7'. For 7 less than — I, the periodic trajectories can only exist in the inner part of the region Qy. The simplest of the periodic curves K are those that con- nect the two sides of the defile when 7 lies between — i and 7'. The corresponding trajectories in space have an undulating form, and become the circle with radius i lying in the XY-p\a.ne with its center in the origin, when 7 becomes equal to — i. In Fig. 15 is seen such a curve K corresponding to 7 = — 0.8, and the corresponding trajectory in space is marked with III (in vertical and horizontal projection) in Fig. 16. The other trajectories in the same figure correspond to 7= —0.97 and —0.999. These trajectories and the cor- responding asymptotic trajectories, etc., are more carefully studied in a paper published in 191 1.* * "Sur une classe de trajectoires remarquables," etc. og Naturvidenskab," Vol. XXXI; Christiania, 191 1.) ("Archiv for Mathematik 1:1003 J THE RICE INSTITUTE Another interesting periodic trajectory, corresponding to y = — 0.999, is seen in Fig. 18 and the corresponding ^-curve in Fig. 17. In Fig. 19 is seen a periodic trajectory lying in the XF-plane and corresponding to 7 = — 1.2032. The dotted circles have a radius equal to unity. The corresponding AT-curve is the segment of the ^-axis contained in the inner part of the region q^. The coordinates of this trajectory can be expressed by elliptic integrals, as is the case with every trajectory lying in that plane.* It would be rather interesting to compute a great number of periodic trajectories of different families. Their shape is sometimes extremely curious, and they can be found rather easily. Their theory is of much interest in their application to periodic magnetic disturbances. f * See my Geneva paper of 1907, § 20. t See "Comptes Rendus," October i, 1906; Paris. BOOK OF THE OPENING [;ioo4] II APPLICATION TO AURORA 10. Explanation of some of Professor Kr. BirkelancTs experiments. As it has been mentioned in § i. Professor Kristian Birkeland has made some extremely interesting experiments with a magnetic sphere exposed to cathode rays. A great many new experiments of this kind have been published in the first section of his work, *'The Norwegian Aurora Polaris Expedition," 1902-1903,* and more will follow in the next section of that fundamental work.f As it is well known, the magnetic field due to a uniformly magnetized sphere is identical outside the sphere with the field of an elementary magnet placed in the center of the sphere. It is of course to be expected that the physical experiments and the mathematical theory will be in accordance, and a close comparison of the results of the two has also hitherto shown the most excellent coincidence. In another paper the detailed comparison between the theory and the experiment will be fully described, so that I will not here enter into details. Only some of the most striking coincidences ought to be mentioned. The first thing to be fixed for the application to Professor Birkeland's experiments is our unit of length. VF * Obtainable from Longmans, London, and Longmans, Green & Co., New York, t See "Orages magnetiques et aurores polaires," by Kr. Birkeland. (" Archives des sciences physiques et naturelles," Geneva, 191 1.) cioos: THE RICE INSTITUTE centimeters. Here M is the magnetic moment of the sphere, and Hp the characteristic product of the cathode rays in question ; both can be determined by experiments. It is necessary to observe the relative position of the cathode with regard to the sphere and its magnetic axis, and to take into account the form of the vacuum tube in order to obtain an exact idea of what is to be expected. If, in fact, the interior of the tube is too small, many of the possible trajectories will not reach the sphere, but will strike the interior walls of the tube. The region of space Qy, out of which trajectories could not come, can be seen in Fig. 20, and at the side is seen the corresponding region Qy. The patches where the cathode rays strike the sphere are also in accordance with the calculated trajectories of the simplest shape (— 0.93 < 7< o), as shown in Fig. 21. In my paper, " Sur une classe de trajectoires remar- quables," * etc., I have shown that the remarkable series of congruent precipitations that are sometimes to be seen on the magnetic sphere is also in full accordance with the theory. The luminous ring sometimes seen in the magnetic equator of the sphere may correspond to the trajectories in the vicinity of the circular orbit of radius ^ Hp centimeters (i.e. radius equal to our unit) in the XF-plane ; but, as I have recently pointed out,t a ring may also be produced by negative corpuscles thrown out from the sphere in the neighborhood of its magnetic equator, as in my models of the solar corona. t * See " Orages magnetiques et aurores polaires," by Kr. Birkeland. ('' Archives des sciences physiques et naturelles," Geneva, 191 1.) t See " Critique et developpements relatifs au memoire de M. Richard Birkeland," etc. ("Archives des sciences physiques et naturelles.") J See " Sur la structure de la couronne du soleil." (" Comptes Rendus," Septem- ber, 26 1910; Paris.) [1006] i BOOK OF THE OPENING The theory of artificial auroral belts will be more fully developed in the application to aurora. For further applica- tion I must refer to my Geneva paper now in preparation. II. Application of the region Qy to find the auroral regions on the earth. In the application to aurora we have considered, as already stated, in § I, the Gaussian expansion of the magnetic po- tential of the earth for a point outside it, and have rejected all terms of the series except the first principal term, which then gives us the magnetic moment of the earth and the direction of the magnetic axis. For this axis we take as a definition an earth-diameter parallel with that direction.* In the applications in the Geneva paper of 1907 I have chosen as the magnetic moment of the earth M=8.52 X io25. The point of intersection of the magnetic axis (the south end) with the surface of the earth is marked on the chart, Fig. 24, for the years 1700 and 1900. The positions are calculated by the formula of Carlheim Gyllenskold.f After that the unit of length. v^ Hp centimeters is to be found, and it is then necessary to know the product Hp for the electrified corpuscles supposed to be the cause of aurora. Regarding this product Hp^ we can only make assumptions until further evidence has been obtained. In my Geneva * It is possible that an axis parallel to this one and suitably chosen might be still better. t For the details, see my Geneva paper, 1911-12, Part I. 1:10073 THE RICE INSTITUTE paper of 1907 I have calculated the unit of length correspond- ing to cathode rays, jS-rays and a-rays of radium. The result was as follows : Hp Cathode rays < ^ 1 543 ^-rays < ' I 4,524 [ 291,000 a-ravs < ^ ' [ 398,000 Unit of Length in Kilometers 8.9 4 2.2 1.4 1-7 X 108 X108 Xio® X108 Xio'^ 1.46 X 10^ The dimensions of the regions Qy are therefore immense as compared with those of the earth, as will be seen from Fig. 22. This figure represents the shapes of a series of regions qy in the vicinity of the origin. The scale, which is much larger than on Plate I, is marked on the ^-axis, "Vt^- being taken Hp as the unit of length. The parts qy, which are white, are not continued up to the origin, in order to avoid indistinctness. The five dotted circles indicate the relative size of the earth as compared with the spaces Qy for various kinds of cor- puscles ; the innermost circle corresponds to cathodic rays where //p=3i5, the two next to /3-rays where Hp =2Sgi and 4524, and the two outer circles correspond to a -rays where Hp = 2.gi X 10^ and 3.98 X lo^* Now the first necessary condition fulfilled by corpuscles sent out from a point at a distance from the earth greater — - and reaching the earth, is that the corresponding Hp space Qy extends without interruption from the point of emanation to the earth. The constant 7 corresponding to the trajectory cannot therefore be less than — i. On the * See my Geneva paper of 1907, § 17. C 1008 3 4 BOOK OF THE OPENING other hand, a detailed study of the shapes of the regions q for 7 > o shows that 7 cannot be greater than where A is the distance from the center of the earth to the aurora measured with our unit of length \jM. ^h' The regions of the earth in which the corpuscles can strike the atmosphere will thus be confined to two zones round the magnetic axis and limited by circles whose radius in degrees is easily found.* If we call that radius O, we have, with sufficient exactness. sm fl =V2A A being the above-mentioned distance. If we measure A in centimeters, and if it is equal to D centimeters, we obtain sm n=J.z)Vf. Thus for cathode rays I found X2 to be between 2° and 4°, for /5-rays between 4° and 6°, and for a-rays between 16° and 19°. The corresponding regions on the earth are seen in Fig. 23, a and b. Here we see the first objection to the theory : the radius of the auroral zone is too small for cathode-rays and ^S-rays of the known kinds. In fact the real auroral zone is gen- erally limited by a circle of radius about 23°, and sometimes goes much farther from the magnetic axis. We will return to this important question later on. * See my Geneva paper of 1907, §§ 6 and 17. C 1009 3 THE RICE INSTITUTE 12. Application of the trajectories through the origin to find the auroral belts. We will now make the further hypothesis that the cor- puscles come from the sun, and see if that hypothesis will reduce the theoretical auroral regions still more. If we suppose, as in my Geneva paper, that I GO ^ Up ^ 400,000, it will be seen that only the corpuscles whose trajectories lie in the vicinity of those through the origin can reach the earth ; the others return into space. The study of the trajectories through the origin is therefore most important for the application to the aurora. Now the angle between the plane normal to the earth's magnetic axis and the line from the earth to the sun varies between — 35"^ and -f 35°, and therefore trajectories whose infinite branches come from directions outside this interval have to be excluded. As the computations show,* these excluded trajectories correspond to 7 between o and — 0.2, and their point of intersection with the earth will lie in regions round the magnetic axis limited by circles. Only two belts of the theoretical aurora region found in the foregoing paragraph will thus be left. The breadth of these belts will be still more reduced when we only take into account auroras which are visible when the sun is below the horizon ; for 7 will then be confined to the interval from about — 0.5 to — I. The auroral belts are thus explained, but, as has already been pointed out, we do not get the real situation of these belts ; they are too near the magnetic axis for hitherto known corpuscles. But the fact that the magnetic axis is * See my Geneva paper of 1907. [lOIO] BOOK OF THE OPENING in the middle of the belts is in accordance with reality, as may be seen on the chart of the frequency of aurora borealis (Fig. 24). 1 3 . Explanation of a series of peculiarities regarding aurora, as an application of the theory of the trajectories through the origin. Formation of auroral curtains. Let us now suppose that corpuscles are sent out from a point of the sun's surface in all directions into space. Let us further assume that the constant Hp is the same for all these corpuscles and that it has a value between loo and 400,000. As I have pointed out in the foregoing paragraph, the corpuscles whose directions of emanation are very nearly tangent to a trajectory through the origin will reach the earth, the others will pass by. Let us call the directions tangent to trajectories through the origin, distinguished directions. Their configuration and their number vary enormously with the relative position of the point of emanation with regard to the magnetic axis of the earth. Now this position is continually changing because the magnetic axis follows the movements of the earth, and consequently the condi- tions for the occurrence of aurora must vary considerably with time, a circumstance which accords well with the sudden variable character of the auroral phenomena. This may also explain the fact frequently observed, that aurora occurs on two consecutive days almost at the same hour; in fact, the relative position between the point of emanation and the earth's magnetic axis is repeated after twenty-four hours. But as the point of emanation follows the sun's rotation, we have another well-known period of twenty-seven days Cioii] THE RICE INSTITUTE between two consecutive passages of a sun spot through the solar meridian whose plane passes through the earth. The cases in which the sun spot does not give rise to a new aurora the next time it passes may be explained by the non-coinci- dence of the directions of emanation with the distinguished directions ; in fact a slight difference in the relative positions can cause the distinguished directions that existed at the first passage to disappear. Let us now assume that a beam of corpuscular rays is sent out with the same velocity from a surface of emanation on the sun, and that it reaches the earth's atmosphere and produces aurora. The constant 7 for the diiferent trajec- tories in the beam is given by the formula 2y = R sin 6 — r^' where R and r are coordinates of the point from which the trajectory starts, and 6 is the angle between its tangent at that point and the plane through the magnetic axis of the earth. It is clear that if we choose the same 7 for all the trajectories, the beam will consist of almost parallel rays. All the trajectories will then be in the interior of the region Qy^ and consequently the aurora also. Now near the earth, this region Qy is the very narrow space inclosed between the two surfaces of revolution corresponding to k= -\-i and k= —I, and the aurora will therefore appear in the region of the atmosphere between these two surfaces. That region extends all round the earth with the magnetic axis in the middle, and is very narrow. For instance, the thickness (see Plate XX and Figs. 22 and 25) is For cathode rays, between 3 and 20 meters ; For i3-rays, between 50 and 150 meters; For a-rays, between 9,000 and 13,000 meters. [1012] BOOK OF THE OPENING Therefore, as already pointed out in my paper, " Sur le mouvement d'un point materiel portant une charge d'elec- tricite sous Taction d'un aimant elementaire" (Christiania, 1904), the rays of the beam distributed in this region may give rise to the light phenomenon which we call, according to circumstances, an arc or an auroral curtain. We will study more closely a case in which the spreading out of a cylindrical beam into a curtain can be explained mathematically.* In Fig. 26 the earth is situated in the origin, with its magnetic axis coinciding with the Z-axis and the north polar region turned upward. Let My be the point of emana- tion of a corpuscle following the trajectory through the origin corresponding to the constant 7. Let Dy be the tangent to that trajectory at the point My, \[/y the angle between the radius vector to My and the Xy-plane, and ^y the variation of the angle when the corpuscle moves from My to the origin, ^y is positive or negative according to increasing or decreasing angle 0. Let us give the point My a little displacement without changing the distance from the origin, and at the same time vary 7 continuously so that we get the corresponding tra- jectories through the origin in the new position. Let us call A^ and A0 the augmentations of if/y and corresponding to the displacement of My, and A7 and A$ the corresponding augmentations of 7 and y. Here A7 is independent of A0 and A$ = A0+Ai, where Ai^ is the augmentation of ^y when is constant and xpy varies from \l/y to i/'y-f- A \p. To find A7 and Ai$ it is sufficient to know how the angles * See my Geneva paper of 1907, § 19. THE RICE INSTITUTE }Py and y vary with 7, for the trajectories through the origin. Let us now study the variation of the point of precipitation of the corpuscle upon the earth and its displacement corre- sponding to the displacement of the point My. Let us consider the point of intersection Jq of the trajec- tory from My with a sphere S concentric with the earth, and whose radius D is equal to the distance D from the center of the earth to the aurora. Let J be the displaced point corresponding to the new position of My. Further, let Co and C be two smaller circles on 2 with their centers in the magnetic axis, and passing through Jq and J respectively. Let MJo and MA be two great circles through Jq and Ji and M, and let J' be the point of intersections of MJ with the circle C. The position of J is determined by Aq^' and A' A, and we will find these displacements as functions of A7 and A^. As 7 is negative, let us put 7 = - 71 and let We then have ^,M \ — = c. sni a =\- and Aa = \ cos a 2 cyi A7, whence A'A = D 4. D cos a 2 C71 A7. Here A will be nearer or farther from the magnetic axis than Aq corresponding respectively to positive or negative A7. To find AqA' we may remark that the angle AqMA' [10143 BOOK OF THE OPENING is equal to A$ ; if A$ is then measured in degrees, we have AoA' -^ [A0 -f- ^M D sin a. 180 Here A' will be to the west of the point Aq^ if AqA' is positive, and to the east if it is negative. By these formulae the situation of the point A relative to Aq can be calculated ; here Aq is the point of precipitation of the corpuscle coming from My, and A the point of precipi- tation of the corpuscles coming from the displaced point My. It is clear that we can now find the precipitations of all the corpuscles coming from a whole surface of emanation and corresponding to continuous variations of 7, and this, as we shall see, will give a very natural explanation of an auroral curtain. // the situation of the point of emanation My is chosen in such a manner that A is very great and A7 very small com- pared with Axp, then AqA' will he very long compared with A' A. The corpuscular rays sent out from the surface of emanation will therefore be spread out like a fan in approaching the earth, and will strike the atmosphere as an auroral curtain consisting of beams * along the lines of force, as on the photographs on Plates XXIII, XXIV which I took at Bosse- kop in March, 1910. Situations like this occur for the values of ^y corresponding to a maximum or a minimum of the function In Fig. 28 we see a curve like this constructed by means of computed trajectories through the origin. The curve is to be continued to the right, and will tend more and more to consist of an infinite series of congruent arcs, like * For details concerning the trajectories in such a beam, see my Geneva paper of 1911-12, § 25. THE RICE INSTITUTE a sinusoid, giving an infinite number of trajectories cor- responding to values of y tending towards the limit 7* mentioned in § 8. A detailed computation of an auroral curtain correspond- ing to the minimum for 7= - 0.928934 will be found in my Geneva paper of 1907. The result was that the length of the curtain was more than a thousand times as great as its thickness, which is in good accordance with the reality. Even the remarkable fact that we can have several auroral curtains one behind another \ can very easily be explained. There may be two reasons.J If the surface of emanation sends out corpuscles whose velocity has a finite number of distinct values differing very little from one another, our unit of length will differ for the different kinds of corpuscles, and therefore also the distance of the curtain from the magnetic axis ; we shall get curtains one behind another. But even with the same kind of corpuscles we may get series of curtains. Let us, for instance, assume that the direction of emanation corresponds to a value like 7*, which is the limit for a series of values of 7 corresponding to tra- jectories going round the earth an increasing number of times (see § 8). Then the beam sent out from the surface will give trajectories corresponding to several cases of fan-spreading and to corresponding values of 7 differing very little. Con- sequently a series of auroral curtains will be spread out all round the magnetic axis in the north and south polar regions at one time, and if they all occur in the same meridian, they * For details concerning the trajectories in such a beam, see my Geneva paper of 1911-12, § 25. t See Plate XXV, which represents a photograph taken by me on February 28, 1910, in Bossekop. X See my Geneva paper of 1907, § 19. [1016] BOOK OF THE OPENING will appear one behind another. A value of 4'-, like this is indicated in Fig. 29, which is the continuation of the curve where the line corresponding to the value ^^ in question intersects the curve in an infinite number of points near the minima, giving curtains whose corresponding angles are found on the axis of abscissae. The situations giving rise to curtains and series of curtains will be rapidly passed over because the magnetic axis of the earth is rotating round the axis of rotation by the diurnal motion, which changes the relative position of the surface of emanation assumed to be on the sun. This is in accordance with the observed fact, namely, that these beautiful phenomena come suddenly and last only a very short time. 1:10173 THE RICE INSTITUTE III OBJECTIONS TO THE PRECEDING THEORY. INVESTIGATION UNDER MORE GENERAL ASSUMPTIONS 14. The position of the auroral zone. As we pointed out in § 2, the above theory was only the first approximation to reaUty corresponding to the simpHfy- ing hypothesis there set forth. It is therefore rather remark- able to see how many peculiarities of the aurora can already be explained. But there are also facts that do not agree with the developed theory. The chief of these, already pointed out by Villard, is the real situation of the zone of maximum frequency of aurora. We have seen that at its outer border the auroral zone was limited by a circle, whose angular radius 12 was given by the formula sinl2=\2Z)V^, which gave only about 6 degrees for ^-rays corresponding to Hp = 5000, and about 18 degrees for a-rays of radium. The real value corresponding to the general situation of the maximal zone of aurora borealis is, on the contrary, 23°, corresponding to Hp about a million. In my Geneva paper of 1907 I already admitted the possibility that the corpuscular rays corresponding to large sun spots and brilliant corresponding aurora may have a much larger value of Hp than those corresponding to aurora in the maximal zone; but I did not pay much attention to that side of the question. I thought it possible that if 1:10183 BOOK OF THE OPENING we changed hypothesis V, and took into account the real Gaussian expression for the magnetic field with all the terms hitherto considered, we might also find the real situation of the auroral zone. To test this was an extremely laborious and tedious task. I had first to compute tables and draw corresponding plates for taking out graphically the components of the earth's magnetism in each point of space required. To calculate these components would have been impracticable, because each contains about fifty terms in its expression. I had then to calculate the lines of force and then the trajectories. These computations have been given in detail in my recent Geneva paper of 1911-12. The result, however, was negative, being as follows : It seemed probable^ but could not be decided with certainty ^ that the consideration of the Gaussian expression with all terms known could not explain the real situation of the auroral zone. In the meantime Professor Kr. Birkeland had published a note in the " Comptes Rendus," Paris,* where he explained the situation of the auroral zone by assuming for the cor- puscles in question hitherto unobserved properties — first, that the velocity is very nearly the velocity of light (an assumption that gives a sufficiently high value of Hp)^ and next, that the charge is negative and that the corpuscular rays have such great power of penetration that they can reach almost down to sea level, a penetration equivalent to that required to pass through 760 millimeters of mercury. It is clear that if this hypothesis could be verified, we should have in the auroral rays corpuscular rays of extreme interest. Now the first exact measures of the altitude of aurora, by a photographic method, obtained on my auroral expedi- * January 24, 191 2. 1:10193 THE RICE INSTITUTE tlon * to Bossekop in February and March, 1910, gave a series of reliable determinations of the altitude of the lower edge of the auroral curtains ; and it was shown that these aurorae did not possess anything like the extreme power of penetration supposed by Birkeland. Some of them, however, which reached the lower limit of about 40 kilometers, gave a penetration greater f than the /S-rays of radium, for which Hp = 5000. The 120-and-odd exact measurements of aurora photo- graphed simultaneously in Christiania and at Aas on April 8, 191 1, also proved { that the beams and draperies stopped at an altitude of about 60 kilometers, which corresponds to a penetration equal to that of /3-rays ; and this too is not in accordance with Birkeland's views. It is possible that the great aurorae sometimes seen during the maximal period of solar activity may reach as far down as Birkeland assumes, but this has yet to be proved. In order to explain the situation of the auroral zone when Hp is only of the same order as for jS-rays, I endeavored to find out whether the outer magnetic field caused by corpus- cular rays round the earth could have an influence on the situation of the auroral zone and, for instance, draw it away from the magnetic axis when the quantity of corpuscles was large enough, as during magnetic storms. The results of the computations were favorable to this hypothesis, as we shall see in the next paragraph. § * See "Bericht iiber eine Expedition nach Bossekop," etc. ("Videnskabsselsk. Skr.," 191 1 ; Christiania. t See P. Lenard: "Ueber die Strahlen der Nordlichter Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenshaften," 2 Juli, 1910; and "Ueber die Ab- sorption der Nordlichtstrahlen en der Erdatmosphare," ibid., 13 Mai, 191 1. X See my Geneva paper of 1911-12, § 27. § For the first results see, "Sur la situation de la zone de frequence maximum des aurores boreales d'apres la theorie corpusculaire." ("Comptes Rendus," Paris, October 24, 1910.) [1020] BOOK OF THE OPENING 15. The action of the outer corpuscular magnetic field on the situation of the auroral zone. General problem. As shown by Professor Kr. Birkeland's researches on magnetic storms, it seems extremely probable that magnetic storms are due to the action of large corpuscular currents in space outside the earth. If we admit that such currents have electromagnetic action, it is clear that the normal terrestrial field in space can be completely altered by these corpuscular currents, especially at a great distance from the earth, where the terrestrial field is very weak. The perturbation of the terrestrial field in space will vary with the amount of corpuscles and with their trajectories. On the other hand, each corpuscle will have an electro- magnetic action on every other corpuscle and on the electro- magnetic field of the earth, and vice versa. This brings us to the following difficult problem. A number of celestial bodies — e.g. the planets and the sun — are moving in a given manner in space. These bodies may be magnetizable and surrounded by electromagnetic fields. On the other hand, we assume a number of corpuscles moving in space, and at a fixed moment we suppose the motion of all these corpuscles to be known. The motion and the electromagnetic field at any given future moment have then to be found. It is clear that this problem must be extremely difficult. Each corpuscle exerts an electromagnetic action on every other corpuscle, and we have reciprocal electromagnetic action between the corpuscles and the celestial bodies. Further, the electromagnetic action is propagated in space with the velocity of light, so that the field in any point is a function of the conditions in space, not only at the moment immediately preceding, but for a definite period before. It 1:10213 THE RICE INSTITUTE seems probable, therefore, that the equations defining the development of the phenomena will not be differential equa- tions, but rather integral equations, where the unknown quantities are put under signs of integration, as in the case of the Fredholm integral-equations. We cannot now treat this general problem. We will only mention a simple case. In the discussion of the trajectories shown in the wire model (Fig. 6), we saw that there was a large stream of corpuscles going round the magnetic sphere on the evening and night side, if we consider the sphere as the earth and the surface of emanation as the sun. This stream, as we saw, can go quite round the earth and form a corpuscular ring in the magnetic equatorial plane, with radius equal to our unit of length M^{Hp)~2 centimeters. If we suppose the outer magnetic field to be due only to a corpuscular ring such as this, it is possible to find the regions of space out of which trajectories cannot come. In my Geneva paper I have discussed in detail an ideal case such as this. I will here only give the principal results. Let us assume a corpuscular current to be lying in the magnetic equatorial plane, having the form of a circle with radius \/— - — centimeters. Here M is the magnetic moment of the earth, and Hipi the characteristic product of the corpuscles in the ring. If the charge of these corpuscles is negative, the corpuscles will be supposed to be moving in a direction from west by south to east ; if the charge is positive, in the opposite direction, all in accordance with the trajectories in the earth's normal field. Let us further denote with H the direct magnetic action of this ring observed on the surface of the earth. If this action [;io223 BOOK OF THE OPENING is only about 30 units 7 (one 7 equal to io~^ C.G.S.), it will be sufliicient to draw the auroral zone corresponding to other corpuscles so far away from the magnetic axis that we shall get the real position of the observed zone of maximal fre- quency, as will be seen from the following table,* where //oPo is the characteristic product for the aurora corpuscles, Hipi the same for the corpuscles in the ring. Tab If of the Values of H if the Auroral Zone is drawn down to the Observed Zone corresponding to ^ = 2^ floPo = lo2 I02-5 io3 I03.5 10* io*-S 10^ ,05.6 IO« //iPl = Io2 33 33 33 33 33 32 30 23 4 = I02-5 32 32 32 32 32 31 29 23 4 = I03 32 32 32 32 32 30 23 4 = Io3-5 32 32 32 32 32 30 23 4 = 10^ 79 32 32 32 30 23 4 = lO* 5 460 140 46 32 23 4 = ioS 250 79 32 30 22 4 = I05-5 1400 450 140 43 22 4 = I06 2600 790 230 5H 3 = lO^-S 4-^00 1300 340 i 2» 1 Thus a ring consisting of ^-rays can bring the theoretical auroral zone for cathode rays down from fi= 3° to 12= 23°, when the current in the ring becomes large enough. As I have shown in my Geneva paper, the current will then be of the order of a hundred million amperes, and its distance from the earth about one million kilometers. I think it probable that there is such a ring or at least a large stream of corpuscular rays bending round the afternoon and night side of the earth, with an action similar to that of a ring. Another effect of an exterior magnetic field such as this is to concentrate the auroral zones corresponding to different * See my Geneva paper of 1911-12, § 19. 1:1023] THE RICE INSTITUTE kinds of corpuscles in one belt corresponding to Q = 23° in the above example, which may give an explanation of the observed fact that in the maximal zone we have aurorae of very different degrees of penetration. During my expedi- tion, I measured auroral curtains whose lower edges were about 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, and 125 kilometers above the ground. The hypothesis of the outer disturbing field that draws the auroral zone away from the magnetic axis has a most interest- ing application to aurora observed during magnetic storms. It is a well-known fact that aurorae seen in lower latitudes e.g. in the middle of Europe — are always accompanied by magnetic storms, which is not generally the case with aurorae in the zone of maximal frequency. On the other hand, auroras occurring far away from the magnetic axis do not penetrate so far into the atmosphere as the aurorae in the maximal zone. An example of this is afforded by my photographic parallax measurements of the auroral curtains at Bossekop and in Christiania, the lower limit of the altitude found at Bossekop being 40 kilometers, and in Christiania, on April 8, 191 1, about 60 kilometers. It seems probable that the most penetrating aurorae cor- respond to the greatest values of the constant ^oPo, and we then have a contradiction when we calculate the outer border of the auroral zone by the formula ann = ^2Z)V^ which corresponds to no action of an exterior field. But if we take such a field into account, we can have the aurora even when caused by cathode corpuscles drawn away from the magnetic axis into positions corresponding to the observed facts ; but the action 7/, which was negligible in [1024] BOOK OF THE OPENING the case of aurorae in the maximal zone, now grows very fast as may be seen from the following Table. ^ = 30° 35° 40^ 6607 H = 1407 35 3207 45 12007 50^ 19007 where the corpuscles in the ring have a product Hipi, equal to or greater than the product HqPq of the aurora corpuscles. We have here an explanation of the fact that such aurorse must be accompanied by magnetic storms. The action H will probably be concealed behind the greater disturbances caused by portions of the corpuscular system, of which the ring is only a part. We have here a wide field for investigation. 16. Research based upon the hypothesis that the sun is sur- rounded by a magnetic field^ and that the corpuscles are in- fluenced by gravitation, pressure of light, and electrical attraction to, or repulsion from, the sun. As already pointed out in the introduction, the next step in auroral research would be to substitute for hypothesis II the assumption that the sun is surrounded by a magnetic field. When I constructed the first wire models of the trajectories through the origin, in 1906, I was even then struck by the resemblance between these trajectories and the swallow- tailed streamers of the solar corona during years of minimum frequency of sun spots. I did not, however, follow up the suggestion until 191 1, when I published a note on the solar corona, accompanied by figures of wire models representing trajectories of electric corpuscles sent out normally from the surface of a magnetic sun.* * See "Sur la structure de la couronne du soleil." ("Comptes Rendus," Paris, February 20, 191 1.) THE RICE INSTITUTE We reproduce here two of these figures (Figs. 30 and 31) to show the resemblance to the solar corona observed on the American expeditions * (Figs. 32 and 33). For details the reader is referred to the note in question. One point, however, may be mentioned. If we succeed in identifying the trajectories with corona streamers, this would supply a method of finding the magnetic moment of the sun, if we know the product Hp of the corpuscles, and vice versa. On the other hand, a detailed study of the trajectories in the sun's equatorial plane, such as I gave in § 20 of my Geneva paper of 1907, gives, as Professor Birkeland f has pointed out, an explanation of the interval of about forty hours separating the passage of a sun spot over the central meridian of the sun's disk, and a subsequent magnetic storm. It also gives a relation between Hp and the sun's magnetic moment. Besides the hypothesis of a magnetic sun, there are other assumptions that can be made. According to the auroral theory of Arrhenius, for instance, the sun sends out small electrified material particles of about one ten-thousandth part of a millimeter pushed away by the pressure of light. As Arrhenius further supposes the sun to be magnetic and to have an electric charge, one is led to study the motion of an electrified corpuscle that is influenced by the following forces : (i) The field of an elementary magnet, (2) Gravitation, (3) The pressure of light, and (4) Electric attraction or repulsion. * Publications of the United States Naval Observatory, Vol. IV, Appendix I. t See "Comptes Rendus," January lo, 1910 (Dcslandres) and January 24, 1910 (Birkeland). 1:1026] BOOK OF THE OPENING The last three forces are supposed to emanate from the elementary magnet, and to be inversely proportional to the square of the distance. I have already treated this problem in a paper * published in 1907, and have given further results in a note in " Comptes Rendus " f in 191 1. The chief results are here given. If we put the origin of a Cartesian system of coordinates in the elementary magnet and the z-axis along its axis, the equations of motion will be 2 V r^ dt r' dtr^r^' df" \ r' dt r' dtJ ^ r^' drz It - V r' dt r^ dt) r'' where M is the moment of the elementary magnet, and X and /A are constants depending on the intensity of the acting forces and of the nature of the corpuscle. From this we get the two first inte2:rals, r and V ^ - ^, ^ - fK- dt ^ dt r' where v is the velocity, and a and C constants of integration. Let Q denote the angle between the tangent at a point on the trajectory, and the plane passing through that point and the Z-axis ; then we find from the two integrals above, that sin d = Rf- = aR + \M dR R ^/CR'-2fiR'-(aR-h\My The detailed study of the trajectories seems also to be of Importance for the cosmogony, judging from a recent note by Professor Kr. Birkeland.* We have here a field which well repays Investigation. 41 Ul ■ Sur I'origine des planetes et des satellites." (" Comptes Rendus," November 4, 191 2. And my note, "Remarque sur la Note de M. Kr. Birkeland," etc. (Ibid.] November 25, 1912.) D029:] THE RICE INSTITUTE 17. The new photographic method for measuring the position and altitude of aurora. Some of the results obtained, and the conclusions relative to the nature of the corpuscles and to the composition and temperature of the upper air. In order to obtain an objective impression of the auroral phenomena, I made,* as already mentioned, an expedition to the well-known place Bossekop, in the north of Norway, during February and March, 1910. My purpose was to photograph auroras and to measure their altitude by obtain- ing parallactic photographs simultaneously from two stations connected by telephone. Both purposes were accomplished with entire success. Previous to this, the only photograph of aurora with an exposure of less than one minute was one taken by Brendel at Bossekop on February i, 1892. It represents part of an auroral curtain, and the time of exposure was seven seconds. By means of a cinematographic lens (aperture, 25 milli- meters ; focal distance, 50 millimeters) and lumiere etiquette violette plates, I succeeded in reducing the time of exposure to an average of two seconds, sometimes to a fraction of a second only. The complete report of the expedition has been published in " Videnskabsselskabets Skrifter," Christiania,t so that it is not necessary here to enter into details. In this report 342 photographs of aurora are reproduced in their original size of 4X 5 centimeters, 24 are enlarged to 11 X 15 centimeters, and there are 44 pairs of parallactic photographs taken simultaneously from the two stations, Alten church and Upper Alten school, 4300 meters apart. (See Plate XXVI. In the * As assistant I had the Norwegian meteorologist Bernt Johannes Birkdand, member of Roald Amundsen's future north polar expedition. t "Bericht uber eine Expedition nach Bossekop," etc., I.e., 191 1. [1030] BOOK OF THE OPENING background of the pictures here reproduced we have the well-known constellation of the Great Dipper, and the altitude calculated from the photographs was from 100 to 120 kilometers. For the details we refer to the full report.) The measurements of the altitude of aurora are seen graph- ically in Fig. 34. We see that most of the altitudes are from about 100 to 120 kilometers, and that the inferior limit is about 40 kilo- meters, the superior about 350. Parallactic photographs have since been taken simul- taneously in Christiania and in Aas on February 22 and April 8, 191 1,* and the results have been carefully discussed in my Geneva paper of 1911-12. We give here the two parallactic photographs reproduced in that paper from the 8th of April at II h. 35 m. 30 s. (Central European time). (See Plate XXVII.) The aurora appeared as beams and curtains, and in the background is the well-known constellation of Perseus. The great beam in the middle reached from about 370 kilometers down to 76 kilometers, and was at a distance of about 500 kilometers. The measurements of the altitude of the aurora on April 8 are shown graphically in Fig. 35. The long beams are here represented by vertical lines, the lowest limits by horizontal short lines, and other calculated points of the aurora by dots. In the photographic method of measuring the altitude and the situation of the aurora we have for the first time employed an altogether objective and exact method of observing this phenomenon ; and it is to be hoped that its * On this occasion by my assistant on the Bossekop expedition, the meteorologist Bernt Johannes Birkeland, and an assistant at Aas. THE RICE INSTITUTE systematic use will soon give very important results.* It is especially important to have simultaneous records from series of stations all round the auroral belts in the arctic and antarctic regions ; for many of the auroral phenomena, such as curtains and coruscations, need to be studied at several stations simultaneously along the auroral belts. Parallactic photographs will probably also yield decisive data relating to the nature of the corpuscles and to that of the upper air. In some previously mentioned papers (see § 14), Pro- fessor Lenard has published a very interesting formula for the absorption of cathode rays and ^-vays when they come from space down into the atmosphere. He supposes, like Birkeland, that the auroral beams in the curtains are formed by negative corpuscles following magnetic lines of force, and he then finds the following law of absorption : Let /o be the initial intensity of the beam in space outside the atmosphere, and let / be the intensity at a height of h centimeters above the earth's surface, then W nat -^ = - — ^ I bco -bh cos 6 where i = o. 1238X10 -5 and where 6 is the angle between the beam and the vertical ; a is a constant depending on the penetrative power of the corpuscles. In estabhshing this formula, Lenard supposes the composition of the atmosphere to be the same at all altitudes, as also the mean temperature. He then finds the following diagram for the absorption. * After having finished this report I made a new expedition to Bossekop in March, 191 3, accompanied by the meteorologist B. T. Birkeland. We secured 450 pairs of parallactic photographs with a base of 27 kilometers, which will give excellent results. BOOK OF THE OPENING From this he draws the conclusions that the laws of ab- sorption of cathode rays and /3-rays — that is to say, of negatively charged corpuscles — agree well with the auroral phenomena, and that the assumed jS-rays corresponding to the lower limit of altitude, 40 kilometers, must be a more penetrating kind than those observed up to that moment.* On the other hand, the fact that aurora have been measured and found to have an altitude of more than 350 kilometers gives him a proof that the air in this region must consist of very light gases, especially hydrogen, a conclusion which is in accordance with the calculations of the composition of the air at different altitudes by Hann, Humphreys, Jeans, and Wegener, t He indicates finally the interest in calcu- lating the laws of absorption (especially for altitudes of over 100 kilometers) corresponding to the occurrence of these light gases. For finding these new formulae of absorption It Is also necessary to know the variation of temperature upward. Now, as I have explained In my Geneva paper of 1911-12, the auroral beams can give Information regarding the temperature ; we may make the following hypotheses : (i) The atmosphere above 100 kilometers consists of pure hydrogen. (2) Its temperature above 100 kilometers Is constant, equal to f Centigrade. (3) An auroral beam, situated entirely In the region above * M. Danysz has now found /3-rays where Hp is up to 26,000. See his paper, "Sur les rayons ^ de la famille de radium." ("Le Radium," January, 1912.) t Hann, "Das Daltonsche Gesetz und die Zusammensetzung der Luft in grossen Hohen." ("Zeitschrift der Oesterr. Gesell. f. Meteorologie," 1875.) Humphreys, "Distribution of Gases in the Atmosphere." ("Bull, of the Mt. Weather Observ.," 1910.) Jeans, "Thermodynamics." Wegener, "Thermodynamik der Atmosphare," 6 Kapitel. 1:1033:] THE RICE INSTITUTE loo kilometers, consists, as Lenard supposes, of cathode rays or jS-rays coming down in straight Hnes along lines of magnetic force. (4) The luminous part of the beam corresponds to the part where the intensity diminishes from A Jo to 5/o, A being near unity, B near zero, and /o being the initial intensity. I then found that 1.03 L 273+^ = -i,^j where L is the difference of altitude of the upper and lower end of the beam, and the logarithm is the Briggsian with base 10. In other words, the auroral beams may serve directly as a thermometer for the upper air. In applying this formula for the measured auroral beams on the 8th of April, 191 1, I found that / = — 1 50° if A = 0.9 and B = o.i, t= — 2\i° \i A = 0.99 and ^ = o.oi ; that is to say, the temperature of the air above 100 kilometers was on that occasion probably between — 1 50° and — 200° C. I also calculated, as an example of computation.,* the laws of absorption corresponding to the assumptions that t= — 23° at altitudes of less than 10 kilometers, t= — 55° at altitudes between 10 and 70 kilometers, / = — 175° at altitudes of more than 70 kilometers ; and taking the composition of the air at sea-level used by Wegener t as my starting point, I then obtained the following diagram : * For more exact calculations we have probably to suppose the change of tem- perature at 70-kilometer level less sudden. t Namely, hydrogen, 0.0033 per cent; helium, 0.0005 ; nitrogen, 78.1 ; oxygen, 20.9; argon, 0.937. We have not taken into account the existence of the hypothet- ical gas "geocoronium," supposed by Wegener. [1034] BOOK OF THE OPENING From this it will be seen that the absorption at first increases slowly down to about 80 kilometers, corresponding to the long faint auroral beams. It then increases very rapidly, which may explain the bright lower edge of the auroral curtains such as those seen, for instance, in the photograph of an auroral curtain taken in Christiania on the 8th of April, 191 1, by my assistant from my aurora expedition, the meteorologist Bernt Johannes Birkeland (see Plate XXVIII). In my Geneva paper of 1907 I made the computations corresponding both to negative corpuscles like cathode rays and /3-rays, and to positively charged corpuscles like a-rays. This latter hypothesis has been worked out by Mr. Vegard,* who has given a series of arguments for the view that aurora is due to a-rays. The well-defined straight beams in particu- lar, and the sharp lower edge of the curtain, are in his opinion a decisive argument in favor of the a-ray hypothesis. It would be very interesting to work out the absorption formulae in this case, and compare them with those of negatively charged corpuscles. In both cases the parallactic photographs of aurora, accompanied by photographs of the spectrum, seem able to give fundamental information about the upper air. Carl St(^rmer. * See Philosophical Magazine for February, 191 2. 1:10353 THE GENERALIZATION OF ANALYTIC FUNCTIONS ON THE THEORY OF WAVES AND GREEN'S METHOD * THE GENERALIZATION OF ANALYTIC FUNCTIONSf INTRODUCTION THE generalization which is treated in the following pages has already been the subject of several investigations of mine, in the first place in several notes, published in the "Rendiconti" of the Reale Accademia dei Lincei, then in an extended memoir which appeared in the " Acta Mate- matica." Several of the lectures which I read at Stockholm were also devoted to this subject. And it is now my pur- pose, in returning to it, to consider the general case in some detail, beginning with the first foundations. In treating the general case it is necessary to consider certain elements, which I have called functions of hyperspaces, and which represent extensions of the functions of curves that I have already treated several times, in particular, in a recent course at the Sorbonne. A space of n dimensions contains spaces of o, i, 2,--- n— i dimensions, and for that reason we consider functions of * Three lectures presented at the inauguration of the Rice Institute, by Senator Vito Volterra, Professor of Mathematical Physics and Celestial Mechanics in the University of Rome. t Translated from the Italian by Professor Griffith Conrad Evans, of the Rice Institute. 1:10363 /^V^^ir^i^^^^^^^^ BOOK OF THE OPENING these spaces. We shall begin by extending to these functions the fundamental concepts of continuity and differentiation, and we shall consider the condition that a function be of the first degree. This condition depends upon an extension of Stokes's theorem. We shall then consider a relation between these functions analogous to that of monogeneity, which for functions in the ordinary sense was established by Cauchy. This leads to new types of equations with functional deriva- tives, which present analogies with the equation of Laplace. We can separate the functions with which we are dealing into elementary and otherwise. The former have interesting properties and applications. A certain operation of composi- tion turns out to possess quite curious arithmetical properties. We shall finally develop the operations of differentiation and integration, and the extension of Cauchy's theorem in complete generality. THE GENERALIZATION OF ANALYTIC FUNCTIONS First Lecture General observations on hyperspaces — general formulae for MATRICES, and RELATIONS-BETWEEN THE DIRECTION COSINES OF HYPER- SPACES — FUNCTIONS OF HYPERSPACES AND THEIR DERIVATIVES — EX- TENSION OF STOKEs's THEOREM — CONDITIONS WHICH THE DERIVATIVES OF FUNCTIONS OF HYPERSPACES MUST SATISFY, AND FORMULA FOR THE TRANSFORMATION OF COORDINATES — ISOGENEITY — CONDITIONS FOR ISOGENEITY. I. General observations on hyperspaces I. A hyperspace (space of n dimensions) will be character- ized by the multiplicity of values of n independent variables Xi, X2,'"Xn^ A hyperspace S, of r dimensions (r, to which they are bound by the n relations X2 = X2{0)„ (O.,, (I) r = T (co, (o., ••• o) ^ We assume the differentiability of the preceding relations, and obtain (2) dx,= j;^pdr other variables bound by arbitrary relations to the first, and their signs will change only if we change the sign of the hyperspace; we shall call them the direction cosines of the hyperspace. We see at once that they must satisfy the relation (A) 2, jft),^, r) in which the sum is extended over all the combinations of the indices Zi, Z2*"^r-i) ^^^ the A^s are certain, in part indeterminate, infinitesimal parameters. In fact if we form the matrix of the coefficients of the A^s, among its minors will be found the r — ith powers of the mi- nors of the matrix (3), and so not all the minors of that matrix can be zero. If we substitute the values (5) in THE RICE INSTITUTE the equations (2) we obtain (6) j^ _ y d{x,, Xt^'- Xt^_^) J ax, - —^i ?i_- ^r>p), both however with the same elements. Let us write . . • • • ^ ^U'f*r' • • • • • = ^/.A- "hj, and consider ^H, ^si. • •• a^ A,= • • • "' (^u ... = (j=I, 2 , ••• p). ^rt, ( \ ••• (^H ^ [1040] BOOK OF THE OPENING We shall have 1 s da sh. P r) /? '•+1 • 1 O^lh. From this it follows that (3) r+1 ZiS ^^'^h-h-ih+i-'h-\-i^h\-^p ~ ^' 2. This is the formula which we wished to obtain. In particular, if we take as identical the two matrices (i) and (2), we shall have (3') r+l Among these equations let us notice specially the follow- ing, from which the others all follow : (4) O = -^VA ••''r-2A = | [SJ |. We shall assume that we are deal- ing only with closed hyperspaces S^.f Let us take a point P of S, and through it draw a hyperspace S„_, normal to S„ taking in S„., a small neigh- borhood s of P. If we make P describe all the points of Sr we shall generate a portion of n-dimensional space, which we shall call a neighborhood of S,. While P is describing S, any other point P' of s describes a new hyper- space S'r, which we shall say belongs to the neighborhood of S,. The function | [SJ | will be said to be continuous if, when we take a quantity o" arbitrarily small, we can find a neighborhood of S, such that mod [cl>\[sr']\-\[Sr]\]<^, where SI belongs to that neighborhood. Besides the continuity of 1[SJ | let us admit also the following property. Let us pass from the hyperspace S, to the hyperspace SI by giving to each point of S, a displace- ment € which varies continuously from point to point. The displacement e generates a hyperspace S^+i of r+ i dimen- sions, of amplitude say, (t. We shall assume that we can make \ \[Sr\ \-(t>\ [SJ \\ less than a number chosen arbi- trarily small, provided a be less than some value o-q. 2. With this understood, take in S, a neighborhood s of a point P, and give to j a displacement dxi parallel to Xi. * Vedi la mia Nota I : "Sulle funzioni dipendenti da linee." ("Atti d. R. Ace d. Lincei," Vol. Ill, fasc. 9.) . .„ tVedi: Betti: "Sopra gli spazil di un numero qualunque di dimension!. (Annali di Mat., T. IV.) [1042;] BOOK OF THE OPENING Let us denote by 50 the corresponding variation of must vanish. Hence we must have 50 = o if we take (see § i, form 7) bx^ =2^;i,ft,..ft^_,Qrfft, V-l whatever the quantities a may be. Hence and from this we have n 1 for every possible combination of the indices A2 ••• A^_i. 4. Since now the a satisfy the relations § 2, (B), we have r+t 1 1:10433 THE RICE INSTITUTE If we multiply this by an undetermined parame- ter X,,..., J which satisfies the condition that it changes sign for every transposition of the indices, we shall have n i and subtracting this from equation (2), whence (3) (t>n — ^q^iQ^-Qr^Q^Qi-ar From this it follows that r 1 i Q f r-«-l %y Sj. I 1 ^QiQi--it-\^t+ ^...,,jxAdS,. Consider now the elements dS, and suppose drawn through every point of it a segment of components bxi-bx„. The locus of these segments will be a space S., of r+i dimensions. If the equations of the hyper- r+ 1 space Sr are x^ = x\{coi,o)2, •••ft),) (i = I, 2, ••• n) the equations of the hyperspace S,+i will be ;c, = A:,(ft)i, 0)2, '"CO,) + co^+Mi 0*= ^' 2' •••^)- * See my Note II : "Sulle funzloni dipendenti da linee." ("Atti della R. Ace. dei Lincei,'' Vol. Ill, fasc. 10.) [10443 i BOOK OF THE OPENING Let us form the matrix dXi 6x2 dx, (4) - — ••• dco^ dcoi dcoi dxi 6x2 dx. dcOj. dcOj. dcOj. dxi, dx2 ••• dx„ Let us denote its square by A^^j, and the square of the matrix obtained from it by taking away the last line by A,^ We shall have f r+i We can fix the direction of S,^, with respect to S, in such a way that A,„=(-oA^/2;^|/-T)'-c.,...,.,, l-(lr+l^^ 1[SJ | will be said to be regular (or simple) when the following condition is satisfied. Let SJ and S'J be two hyperspaces having a common portion s, whose direction is different according as it is considered as belonging to the first or the second hyperspace. Denote by S'J' the hyperspace which we get by taking away s from the combina- tion of S; and S'^' and fix as its direction the direction of those two hyperspaces. We impose the condition cA|[sni = 0'[s;]i + «!m|. When (f) IS regular it follows immediately that if S, de- creases indefinitely in amplitude (C) lim\[Sr]\ and 0|[S;]i at the point P, and the /3's are the direc- tion cosines of S^+i- Upon this basis let us consider a hyperspace S, passing through the point P, whose element at P is defined by the equations r dXi = ^ a Joy, (z= i, 2, •••n) 1 and let S^^'"'^''^^^'"'^^'^ denote hyperspaces passing through P defined by the equations J J = I, 2, ••• r si=. hi, hi '"hp. (£•= hi, h ••• hj„ r-1- 1, ••• n.) [1046] '$ ■> % '^ % :"! i BOOK OF THE OPENING In particular let us consider the hyperspaces S"^ "^-i'«+i-Wi' and S?^-^^-i^^+i-V+i) whose elements at P are contained in a hyperspace of 7^+ i dimensions, of which the direction cosines ^ are zero, except ^i^i^...i^^, = 1. By means of (6), we have hh'"h+' iiV ■■ V+l where the indices z'l^ ••• ir denote the parameters X corre- sponding to the hyperspace S^'^-'n\ Therefore we can suppress the indices and write simply (7) X;i"-''s-l's+l-ir^r = A. hh-ff-^l 1,1 i'2 ■■■ V+1 6. Two hyperspaces SJ^i""*''^^^-^2'-i^ and SJ^-v^*r"V have elements at P which are contained in a S^+i, whose element at P is defined by the equations j= I, 2, ••. r s ^hu ho, ••• hp dx. = h -^ p Hence, if we denote by /5 the direction cosines of Sr+i and by q;«x-V(*i-V the direction cosines of SJ<'-'^^^^>- V, vve shall have K miTn2 ••■ TTi- (h- i.)(hi ...h) = IC. a mim-i •-. rrij. where k is independent of the indices Wi, Wg, ••• w„ and all the /3's are zero, in the indices of which 4 is missing. From this it follows by reason of (6) that X (U ■■•1j.)(fi: -hp) Tn\ ^hp"^i — ^T -X (h - ij.)(fll ... hp_l)\ dl v^ TO. a TOi ^^)(^i - Zip) =0, i:io47n THE RICE INSTITUTE where the Index (h -" tr)(hi •" hp), afBxed to the X, means that refers to the hyperspace having the same index. We have then ^ (h ■■■ V(fti ••• V ^1 - ir^(hi - ftp) yr^ (h ••• ir)(f>i a ffii ••• m. in which, by means of (3), we can substitute for the \m,..m, the \^^^:..^^ ^S and consequently, the Af^ m, ...m^ of formula (7). (ii-\[Sr]\=S, 2 A V 1 ^QiQt ••• ffr+l^ with respect to XiXi^ ••• x^^^^. What relations must these derivatives satisfy ? Before proceeding to the search for these relations, it will be necessary to give an extension of Stokes's theorem, a subject which is dealt with in the next section. 4. Extension of Stokes^s theorem I. Let Lii^.i^ be functions of the points of the hyper- space S„, such that every transposition of the indices creates a change of sign, and form the expression (I) 1 ^-^ u Let S;.+i be a hyperspace, of r+i dimensions, bounded by a set of hyperspaces S;., let its direction cosines be o-uir-ifJti^ and form the expression r+l putting ^ -^i^^^V2-'r+l^Ve- > + l where the /3's are the direction cosines of the hyperspace S;.. 2. From these formulae it follows that if ll^^A,V-vftxV-*r^^ = 0, 1:1050] m for every closed hyperspace S, in the region S„, the neces- sary and sufficient conditions that must be satisfied are (3) ^..vw.=i:,(-ir dL ^ ■ • -^s-iWi — Wi = o for every combination of the indices fiZ2 ••• ^r+i- 5. Conditions zvhich the derivatives of functions of hyper- spaces must satisfy. Formulae for the change of coordinates I. Let 0|[SJ|be regular, and return to formula (5O of section 3. Since the integral which appears in the right- hand member does not change when S^+i changes, provided the boundary Sr does not change, we must have J„ _^ Z^/V,--«?r+l^ffi<72-*r+l^'^''+l = ° when the integration is extended over any closed hyper- space S^+i. Hence the necessary and sufficient conditions which the A must satisfy in order to be the derivatives of a regular function of hyperspaces Sr (see section 4, article 2) is '■■♦-2 f)A. ...4 4 , ...i ,,, (D) i; (-')'" ax ^° for every possible combination of the indices iiZ2 •" V+2- We can write these equations, making use of the symbols of section 3, article 7, in the form r+2 dcj) - = O. We shall call these conditions the conditions of integr ability. 2. Consider now the formulae for change of variable, transforming the variables Xu ^2 ••• ^n ii^^o x'l, x^ ••• ^n by "., ; '-^- ■**-»■ *__ THE RICE INSTITUTE means of the relations x'i = x[(xi, X2, •" Xn) ({= I, 2, ••• n) 1 1 d(xi. Xo •" x„) such that \^^—^ "^ a[Xi, X'l ••• Xn) is always finite and different from zero. Let us consider two regions which correspond in a one-to-one manner, S„ and S'n, one belonging to the first set of variables, the other to the second. Let S,+i be a hyperspace, bounded by S, and contained in S„, and let S^+i, bounded by S^, correspond to it in Sn. If we suppose that S^^^ is given by the equations ;v, = ;v« (ajia;2 ••• co,+i) (i = I, 2 ••• ;i), we shall have 0|[SJi r+l S do)\do22 "' do: r+l ^j;";--"';-±ij ^K:::^ ^^,^...^^, ^_ ^<5(a'^^ ••• x^^^^) ^hd{x'n^ ••• ^;^^^) J(coi ••• aj,+i) =X,.,2 ^(^\--^\+l) 2:, dcf) d(Xi ^'^^-^^ ^, '^ d(wi ••• co,+i) ^^aC'v,^-.-^,^^^) ^(^v--^;^^j) coi ••• aa; r+l where the /3' denote the direction cosines of Sr+i. If we write we shall have whence r+l ^ d(j> '^'^.+1) 2'-"r+ ja6;.+i. a; ft. ••'ir+l D052] •4 1 .i^. I BOOK OF THE OPENING The desired formulae for the transformation of coordi- nates become then (I) d d(f> ciyXiXi^ V+l^ d{XnX'n^ ••• ^i,+i) ~ ^id{xiX^^ ••• x^^^^) d{xnX^^ '"^'n,^-^ 3. If we multiply the preceding equations by ^K+2^^+3-^0 and add them, for all values of the A's, we shall have __ ^fer+2^^r^3 •" ^0 '^d(x'^x',^_ ••• xU ^(^l,+2^l+3 ••• ^\) d(f> d(XiX2 •" Xn) d{x,x,^ ••• -^.,+1) d{x[x2 ••• A-;) where the notation being used to denote the fact that the groups of the A's and of the j's are two even permutations of the first m integers. Hence d(l) (2) . ^K^\-"^Vi) d(l> d{x.x, «r+2 «r+3 ^J d{x^X2 '" Xr ,)'^^d{x'f,xl '•' 4,.,i) ^C'^i+2'^ir+3 * * * '^U ' 4. By means of the equations (D'), which are satisfied dcj) by the functions -- d(x, '" Xs J satisfied by the functions theorem : , and the analogous equations dcj) we obtain the THE RICE INSTITUTE If the quantities ^i^t^-.t,^-^ {which change sign for every trans- position in the indices) satisfy the equations (3) '■+2 dai ...f ,< ^, ...i ,., dxi = o /A^ quantities ^^2-^+1 ^^'"''^^ ^^ the for mules r+2 ''r+.S JC\-i ••• X^ V+1 \ V+2 V+3 'n^ ^(Xi '" X^) (ii, i'l '•' in) = (hi, h '" A„) = (i, 2, ..• n) will satisfy the analogous equations (3 ^^i. = o. 5. Let us write a0 ^K*"^wi) = <2 ^i, we shall obtain the result that the quantities r ^\ - ftr+1 = d(t) ^(^1. •••'^'^r+l) will satisfy the analogous equations (4') 1 1:1054] I BOOK OF THE OPENING In fact If we have the relations (4), the a^....^^^^ will be minor determinants of a matrix ^1.1 ^1.2 '" ^^X,n ^r+l.l^r+1,2 ••• ^r+l.n that IS, we can write ^i,-Wi -^l.KI^^ E>iH^K = Ef^iXn — EkhXii 1:10573 I - •~y-:)^'V- THE RICE INSTITUTE hence, whatever /, H, K may be, we have the formula and similarly, DhkXi + ^kiXh + DjhXk = o. 5. Let us return to the equations {£) ; from them it fol- lows that r I' IL O^L Xl Xi IL^HK If we interchange / with H and L with K the last member of this equation will not change. Hence we shall have (6) I // Xh\ ^K Xk In other words, the quantities ©.. are independent of / and L, and so we can denote them all by ©. If in (5) we put / = //, L = i:, we shall have (7) e = (PjXl - pLX2f+ iQi XL-<]LX,)- formulse which show that © is a positive quantity. If in (5) we Interchange S and x, and p and 9, the © will not change, and we shall have for © the alternative expression (5') e = D.rD JL^HK [1058] BOOK OF THE OPENING If we write = 0i + {(jy^ and make use of our symbols /, H •••, we can write ^01 di (Oj = (O h-ir+i Xl — Xu-ir+i = ^K^f.-^wJ d{xj)' d(i>i d(t>i ^(^ir^W'X^^J d(Xj) where (xj) is a substitute for (xt^Xi,^-' x,^^^), i.e. The expression for @ can novv be written (G) = D,rD IL^HK where in place of ^ we can put either i or <^. 6. We know that the quantities co and % must satisfy the following equations (see section 5, article i) V+2> and therefore, from {E), we have the following equations r+2 n (H) dx. ^K'^ii-is~l*s+l-*r+2^ H ^^"^^•••'5-lWl-'r+2' ^ D = o ^ii: r-^2 2(-i) ,-. 5 ^ATc OJ THE RICE INSTITUTE or, by reason of (H) and {F), 4>i and , must satisfy the equations r+2 1 ' ■a(x^) (F^) It D HK = o /).K.T^- + ^-a^) + ^- = o. 7. Conversely it can be shown that if yp\[Sr]\ is a real regular function and satisfies the preceding equations, it may be considered as the real part of a function rP + iB isogenous to/. In fact, by means of (//O we can write 'd{xK) dd H,K D 'hk d{xj) where Cr,) = K .•• ^,_A.r- ^W^)' ^^^ ^^^^ ^^'^ ^^^/^^ it follows that the first member of the preceding equations is independent of H and K, hence we can take the d^^ as in- dependent of their subscripts and write them all equal to 6, so that d{xK) d{x„) D HK de d{x,) And now if from these equations we follow the inverse pro- cedure to that of articles i, 2, 3, we find that the ratio d(x,) pi + ki is independent of the indices (/), so that ^p + id is isogenous 1:1060;] if' BOOK OF THE OPENING to /. The equations {H') and {F') operate in our case in the same way as the equation A^ = o in the theory of Riemann. 7. Conditions for ISO geneity. I. If we take arbitrarily a regular function of hyper- spaces Sr it will not always be possible to associate with It an Isogenous function. In order for that It Is necessary that certain conditions be satisfied. In fact If F\ [SJ | Is a regular function to which $ | [SJ | Is Isogenous, and we write df d^ - we must have = p < •1 r+l> (O, V+1 A- ^K = Xi 'r+ .) Is independent of the Indices ii follows that _ so that *^r+l' Hence it r+2 <5«t. 1 r+2 ~As^ ^yph-h-ih+i- From this we conclude that it is necessary and sufficient in order that there may exist a function isogenous to F\ [SJ that the system of si7nulta7ieous linear differential equations dct> 1 admit solutions. +2 dx\ = O It is for this reason that In § 9 we shall study systems of differential equations of this form. In the meantime let us observe that the equations (i) may In some cases be in- compatible. Thus, if we have In four dimensions the regu- lar function F \ [Si] |, the equations (i) become nio6i3 i i 4 THE RICE INSTITUTE BOOK OF THE OPENING d4> ^ ^ d . 5<^ _ o r+2 dx^ dX: dXi d4> -?4l|?:+?31^-?34^;-0, a^ - ^^^ a;cr ""' and these equations will be incompatible unless ^12^84 + :^13p42 + ^14^23 = O 2. We now proceed to prove the following theorem : The necessary and sufficient condition in order that equations (I) admit a common solution is that we can write (2) ^,-*r+2 = Z/~ ^^ dx.^dix^^^^^'^.X ^^^ - ^i,^,) where xl^ is a regular function of hyperspaces. Let us write dxly Six. -Xi^) = ^h-ir' It is easy to show that if the equations r+l are satisfied, the equations (i) will also be satisfied. In fact, we shall have r+2 d^ r+2 r+2 ,+, d(t) d a;c:< ^ti- ViWi-^t-i^«+i*"*''+i' 1:1062:] (0 in which 5^ . is extended over all the values of the index s from I to r+2, the value t excepted, and j' should be taken equal to j- or to j—i according as j-<^ or s>t. Hence the left-hand member of the equation is zero, and the equations (i) are satisfied. From (2') it also follows easily that r+2 X ( — I )* ^^^t"<*-lWl •^r+2 _ Q dXi^ Thus we have shown that our condition is sufficient. To show that it is also necessary, let us execute a change of variables, instead of Xi, X2 ••• x^ taking :vl = 0, ^2 = -^2 **• ^n^^n- If we prime the letters which refer to the new variables, we shall have 1st) if I ^ I d dx,^ 2d) if 7*= I d({> <» ''dx ih Supposing momentarily that Zi ••• ir+i^i we shall have r + l d dxu t-i according as ts. Hence (3) ? dxi^ THE RICE INSTITUTE If we suppose instead that some one of the Indices of p is equal to I, say Ji= I, we shall have r^l d(l> d(l) d(t) o S We shall show that (3) is a consequence of (3O. In fact, from (3') we have '\U-i ^ii-'ir+l 2 ■■■ ^r+l so that (3) becomes Pu- 'r+ r+1 \dxi/ Pui -ts-\is+l-'^r+l c)j> a<^ and ;f we put lo = i, this gives us u * an equation which is identically true. We must now prove that the functions f ^ _ PlU-ir + l dxi satisfy the conditions of integrability (see section 5, article l), assuming therein that is constant. We have in fact (see section 5, article 3) d{XiX2 ••• Xn) where {hiJh ••• KJlrr2 '" K) = (I '2 ••• WV+2 - 4) = (^ 2, - n) so that .f _Pli2-ir^l ^0 1:1064] .If i i i •1 ; ; 1 BOOK OF THE OPENING If ii, 4-" if+i 5^ I, we have (see section 5, article 3) I -^ '^K+2--^'„) ^''••••'+i'~^(0;c2-.T„)"*^*' ■■•*'+' d(.xiX2--x„) '^K^-V) r+1 dxi d And so if we apply the theorem of section 5, article 3, we shall have r+1 o=Xi-^y dXf Pl-<2--- are given by the preceding for- mulae, with (l> = {f), the F and $ must be isogenous. 9. Auxiliary remarks on systems of simultaneous differential equations I. Consider the system of differential equations (I) r+2 H M2 < 74-2 1 >s = o whose coefficients satisfy the conditions (2) r+2 Z^S ^^'^^ '^^ dx. r-i-l l/A<^ 1 1 r-i-2 ^^ — U — '1 ••*^r+2 whence ^^ (- i)'-^t,t,..-t,_it,+i....,+2a;^ so that the theorem is proved. 3. Now let us form the alternating function of Poisson taking i\ = Ai, io = ho, ••• iV+i = K+i and writing /z,+2 = ir^z, [1068] ^ BOOK OF THE OPENING we shall have r+2 r^2 2^1 Z^X— 0'"^'^ ^^- ^^-I'ls+l 1 1 r+2 V+2 -2s(-i)'HA-viwi-w2 1 r+1 r+1 •0 ht 1 1 r+2 r+2 n ^ r+2 j^ , r+2 ;) ^ r+2 1 r+2 ^0 + 2 (- l)^+^+2 ^^^^i-^'-+l^^t-^/-ls-lf^s+l - ^+2) ^0 1 r+2 -Xsi-l) s+ ^^., ^^^r+^ r+2^'^A-WlA- _ rj _ _ whence 2^ (- i)'At,...t,_it,+i... 1 so that the theorem is proved. 3. Now let us form the alternating function of Poisson taking ii = Ai, ii = ho, ••• i'^+i = K^\ and writing /z,+2 = ^'^43? [1068] BOOK OF THE OPENING we shall have r + 2 r^2 / p^ J ^ , = V V r T^W // ^-^<,-vi^^+i-W2 ^0 1 1 dx^ dx. - Z,(- 1) l^A-<.-wi-w2 e^^^^eT-. 1 1 r+2 r+2 n ^ r+2 1 r+2 /+!••• «r+2 ^0 4- V (_ jy+r+2 ^(A-WiA- ^/-l^i+x r+2 ) ^0 1 r + 2 V+2 *f — 2 (- i)<+r+2 ^^A-V+lA-^f-l^^+l-^+2) ^0 1 r+2 ^Xf ^^ dXf, *r+2 "f , V /_ - v+r+2 ^ A - ^r+1 A - ^s-1^+1 - ^+2) <^0 1 r-^2 d^k. dXi 7- +2 -S.(-I) 1 If we write r-i- r+2^^A- r+3 + Xs(-'^y Q^ ' ^^i,-is-lis+l-ir+Z~^^h-^r+2^h-ir+li r+3 ^ti-ir+l^r+3^h"-ir-^-2' 1:1069] THE RICE INSTITUTE BOOK OF THE OPENING Hence to the system (i) we must add the equations r+l *r+3 1 so that if the conditions dXi^ = o r+2 T-l-2 dXi = o are satisfied for every combination of the indices i\ ••• V2, the system (i) will he complete, 4. From this It follows that the equations (i) of section 7 will form a complete system whenever, in addition to the conditions of integrability (see section 5, article i), the functions p satisfy also the following conditions : r^2 (5) S/~ 0'^<,-i,_iW-W2^A-^ = O- 1 Hence for elementary functions (see section 5, article 5) the system of equations (i) of section 7 is complete. 10. The elementary functions I. Let us suppose that the function F \ [SJ | Is regular and elementary, so that the system (i) of section 7, or the equivalent system (3) of section 9, is complete. There will exist then r+ i independent integrals / dF Hence the ratio e will be Independent of the subscripts Zi ••• i„ and we shall have A.... «r+l ^e d{v'.-i',+i- -'r+ia^ = °- 1 *s The quantity B will therefore be a function of 0o, 0i, •••0r, and if we write -^ = ^, we shall have a0 _ ^00(^(0, 01 ... 0^) _ ^(00, 01 ... 0;.) ^*'-'^+i a0 ^(.r,^...Xe,J ^(^i,-^vj * We have therefore the following theorem : // F is an elementary function^ it follows that dF ^ ^ (00, 01 ...0 ,) ^ where 0o, 0i, •"0r <3r^ independent integrals of the complete system d(f) _ r+2 (I) 2^ ( l/Ar-i, ••• 0r are conjugate to the function F^ and that F Is conjugate to them. THE RICE INSTITUTE 3. If $ is isogenous to F, and we write ^K-'^wi) = ^ d{Xh"'^h,+i) = P fif-f^r+l^ ^flr d(x^ '"X. ) ^^+2 ^+2 (I) W, ii---it+2 = V (-iyi^-it+2^ i)^ a in which /zi ••• A,+2 is a permutation of z'l •.• i^^^-^ the sum 2^ is extended over all the combinations of the t-\-z subscripts ^1 ••• h+2, r-\-\ at a time; and the symbol (— 1)^^^"^/^2^ repre- sents + 1 or —I, according as the substitution which appears in the exponent is even or odd. 2. We shall show that there exists a regular function ^!['S'<+i]|, such that In fact, the quantities m satisfy the conditions of integrabil- ity (section 5, article i); that is, V (- l)' ^ ^^, ^ we shall write We have immediately 1:10733 THE RICE INSTITUTE If e i [S,J I is a regular function, and we write dO ^K.a-^Va) = n ^^z+s-^c+a hi-h A . =T f_l)'^'-'^+3 />A....ft,^i^/»,,2 ••''/+2"*r-:<-''r+:i ■/'i •••^c+3' (-1)' /I = 2y ^ - ^) *' ■•■ ^'^^ ^'^^ - 'ir 2^^^<^3 ••• ''r+3' it follows that there exists a function A | [S.+2I ! which is regular, and such that ^A _ f will be isogenous when where/, are point functions and/ is a function of 0. If F and $ are isogenous, so will be also the functions (/; e) and (^, e). No function is isogenous to a prime function ; in order that a function may be found isogenous to a given function it is necessary and sufficient that the given function should admit a divisor which is a point function. That is, it is necessary for it to have the form F = (^,/) with/ a point function. An elementary function is obtained by the composition of point functions, etc., etc. 12. New considerations with reference to the relation oj isogeneity I. So far we have been considering isogeneity between functions of hyperspaces of the same number of dimensions. We are now to generalize this relation so that it will apply to hyperspaces of different dimensions. Let us consider the two regular functions <^ | [S,] !, \[^ i [SJ i , with r > /, and write ^K---^<,^i) = a \ [SJ 1 shall he isogenous to the elementary function ^ | [S,_J 1, is that (2) $i[sj! = (^,e). That the condition is sufficient can be shown without any difficulty. In order to show that it is also necessary, let us write ,^ d^ _■, d^ de = Ci d(4>\, 2 ••• r-l+U . We shall show that if (i) is true, (2) is also true ; that is, that ('■. ■ ■ »r+i') [;i076] » i I'^i BOOK OF THE OPENING For this purpose let us make a change of variable, taking instead of xi, X2,"'Xn the new variables 0i, 02, •••r-t+2-'^r in which /i, ••« /, are s of the numbers i, 2, .•• r - ^ -f- i, and Ap^ ••• h^^ is a permutation of the numbers /i,_,+2, ••• K^^. (ii) If one of the numbers /i,_,+2 -" K is equal to one of the numbers i, 2, ... t-\- 1, then Equation (2') will then become + V(- l)Wtl2-'^.l)c', \K'"h v^""'j>:x'"'^d(xj, Vv\-\ Xh ) in which the first sum is extended over all the possible com- binations of the indices A,_^+2 ••* ^Wi which do not contain any of the numbers i, 2, ... r -t-\-i. The second sum may be rewritten in the form d{t+l) ^(^1 '" ^U^O Now by following a process analogous to that of section 7, article 2, it is easy to show that all the equations (2'") are a consequence of these last equations (3). And so it is sufficient for us to show that the quantities c , obtained from (3), satisfy the conditions of integrability. We have in fact a a l.--< + l .dSr,- V dF_ I \ i BOOK OF THE OPENING will be independent of the hyperspace S,^i, and will depend merely upon the point of the space at which the derivative is taken. The quantity will then be a point function for the total space of n dimensions. We shall denote it with the symbol -— and call it the derivative of 4> with respect to F. As a fundamental theorem it can be shown that the derivative of 4> with respect to F is isogenous to both of the functions 4> and F, The proof of this theorem comes imme- diately from formula (i) of section 7, with reference to the definition given in the preceding section. 2. Consider now a point function/ isogenous to a regular function F \ [S,] \. By fixing the direction of the hyperspace S,+i (see section i, article 2) the quantity -^^ will be dS, r+l defined (see section 3, article 7), and hence the quantity dF fs.J: '^r^l'dS, ■'^■^'+' h+l will also be defined. This integral we shall represent by the symbol v+1 Changing the direction of the hyperspace will change the sign of the integral. We shall suppose that the hyperspace S,^i is closed and forms the boundary of a hyperspace S,^2 immersed in a por- tion of the total hyperspace Sn throughout which / and F have no singularities. It follows that f fdF = J fV dF r+l ^ d(x^^'^' X^^^^ '1 ••• V+l r+l = j^^^/2j/'<....<,„a.,...V+i^S^, 1:1079: THE RICE INSTITUTE where the a,....,^^i are the direction cosines of the hyperspace Sr^i. If we choose properly the direction of the hyperspace £,2 and apply the generalization of Stokes's theorem (see section 4) we shall have = Jg X ^*' - W2 2) *^ ~ ^ )'^*^ - '^-1**+1 - *^+2 I /V / ^y-l ^Pil'^'^slh+^^^^*r+2 0X4 • UOr4.2 — 0« Hence we have the theorem expressed by the formula (I) X./^^=°- If, instead of a single hyperspace S,+i we have the hyper- spaces S^rli (^"=1? 2, ••• n) which bound a space Sr+2 within which there are no singularities for/ or F, we shall have the formula : d') X X"\ -^'^^=°' in which the directions of the hyperspaces S^i are all to be chosen with reference to the conventions adopted for the generalization of Stokes's theorem. The theorem enunciated in the formulcB (i) and (i') is the direct extension of Cauchy's theorem. 3. Let us take away from the total hyperspace all those portions in which either / or F have singularities, and then introduce cuts in such a way that every closed hyperspace S,+i may be taken as the complete boundary of a hyper- space Sr^2' r 10803 BOOK OF THE OPENING Take two hyperspaces S?, SI such that a hyperspace S^+i can be drawn to have them for its boundary, and choose the positive direction of S? and the negative direction of SI so as to correspond by the theorem of Stokes to one direction of the hyperspace -S^+i. With the direction of S^+i fixed in this way, the integral (2) r fdF will be determined. It is easy to show that the value of the integral (2) will not depend on the hyperspace Sr+i, but merely on S? and Sr. In fact If Sl+i is another hyperspace which has these same two spaces for its boundary, the totality of S^+i and S'r+i will form a closed hyperspace, and from the hypotheses that we have made, we shall have X '^r+l'^^r+l fdF= o, from which the desired property follows. Therefore the integral (2) can be indicated by the expres- sion (2') S^'f^^- By changing the direction of S,+i we change the sign of the integral ; hence we may write (3) X5'/^^=-Xf-^'^^- 4. If we keep fixed the hyperspace S? and vary SJ, the integral (2') may be regarded as a function (regular) of SJ, and we can write (4) £:fdF=^\[s:]\. Cioso ij THE RICE INSTITUTE The function <1> will be isogenous to F and we shall have d^ (5) dF = /, that is to say, the two operations of integration and differentia- tion are mutually inverse. 14. Isogeneity of order r I. A system of elementary functions will be said to have isogeneity of order r when all the functions of order greater than or equal to r, which are obtained from the system by means of composition (see section 11), vanish, while there is at least one function of order r - i which does not vanish. All the elementary functions 4>| [S,] \ of the system must de- pend on certain functions », ••• '^^ such a way (see section 10) that a 2. We have immediately the following theorems : The necessary and sufficient condition for isogeneity of order r that is (0 for every possible combination of the numbers h, -" Ir+u ^u A function of order r - i is always isogenous to any other fu7iction of the system. In fact from (i) it follows that every function of order r - I is isogenous to the functions of order zero of the system, that is, to the functions 0,. We shall have [1082] 4 11 :, ■ '4 h ■■m ^^ BOOK OF THE OPENING then d{XiXf,^'"X„) T d\ d{Xn^"'X,) t+i 1 dx. And if we let rp \ [Sr-i] \ represent one of the functions of order r — i of the system, and write d(xt^ --^f,) Pi,-ir^ we shall have r+l 2^/-0>,-<,_iWl-*r4-l^Mi- -^ t+1 I 1 r+l d. =2;(-irw„^,(-i)>,,.....-,<..,......,^,". 1 ^'^is Every function of order r — i admits as divisor another func- tion of the system of lower order (see section 11, article 3). 3. Let us consider specially the functions of the system of order zero; that is, the functions 0i, 02, •••0t, •••. By means of the equations (i) we know that there must be v of them, 01, 02, •••0r, independent, of which all the others are functions, and conversely, that every function o/0i, 02, •••0^ zvill be an elementary function in the system, and will be of order zero. If we take two functions 4> and F of order r - i, they will be isogenous, and we shall have the relation d^ (2) dF = 0(01? 02, ••• 0r)- Further, if we take an arbitrary function of order zero, that is a function of 0i, 02, •••0r, we shall have (3) f 4>dF = o, %/Sr 1:1083] THE RICE INSTITUTE where S, is the complete boundary of a space S,^i within hich and F have no singularities. If we have W then (3) can be written in the form CO,, ... 0), being the parameters of the hyperspace S, (see sec- tion I, articles 1,2). If we take dco, 1^101 d'i(t)i" dr\ J"* I ^102 ^202 •'. dr2 Ul0r <^20r ••• ^^A which is but a generalization of Cauchy's theorem (see the preceding section) put in a different form for the case of the elementary functions. If Sr is not closed, but is bounded by two hyperspaces S'r-i and S,.i, of which the first is fixed and the second vari- able, we shall have defined the expression di\ ... dj(j)\ $i[s,-,]i=r'"'0 = 0, r-1 di' of rigid boundaries, and partly of a free surface co, where the pressure is P, Let us suppose that the state of equilibrium is stable. We shall study the small oscillations of the fluid when it is dis- placed from the state of equilibrium. The hydrodynamical equations of Lagrange are d^x dx , d'^y dt'' d^ df d'^x 1^ dxo dx df d'y dy .d^z ayo"^ dt' dx ■ d^y ^Zo dt"^ dXo dy dy + dt'' dh ' dt'^ d'-z d^ dXo dz^ dyo dXo d d V- (I) dz^ ' df dzo dzo \ p where x^ y, z, denote the coordinates of points of the fluid at time t, Xq, yo, U the initial coordinates, V the potential func- tion, P the pressure, p the density. 2. Let Xq, yo, Zo be the coordinates which correspond to the state of stable equilibrium, f, ry, f the components of dis- placement of each particle with respect to its position of equilibrium. Then x= Xq+^, y=yo+r7, 2= So+f. * Translated from the French by Professor Percy John Daniell, of the Rice Institute. THE RICE INSTITUTE If we consider the displacements as infinitesimals of the first order and if we neglect terms of order higher than the first, the equations (i) become d~^ a d^v _ ^ 'dt^'dyo'^ df dz. F F V- p For simplification the indices o are suppressed and x, y, z denote the coordinates of each particle in the position of equilibrium. df dx\ Then F p F d^V^ a ( f^. df dy\ dt^ dz\ p / The condition of incompressibility can be written as dx dy d: (2) (3) }Z ^~dz' On account of (2) we can put act) _d^ ^^dx' '~a/ 4> being the potential of displacement. Then the equations (2) become ^_r+^ = r, (4) dt' p where c is constant with respect to x, y, z, but may vary with L 1:1086] BOOK OF THE OPENING The equation (3) becomes A^^ = o. At points of the liquid where it touches the rigid boundary f cos nx-\- 7) cos ny -ff cos nz = o, if n denotes the normal to the boundary. This condition becomes = o. dn 3. Let us return to the equation (4). If we put F-^+c = H, P the equation (4) becomes d^ df ^H. (40 The free surface of the fluid has been denoted by a?. Let us suppose that the potential function F and the pressure P, which correspond to each particle of fluid belonging to co are functions of the coordinates of the point occupied by the particle independently of the form of the liquid. If this hypothesis is not correct, since the displacements are infini- tesimal, we can neglect the variations produced by the changes in form of the fluid so that we can always proceed as if the hypothesis were correct. In the state of equilibrium H is constant on co. Therefore the equation of this surface will be H — Ho— constant. Let us now calculate H when a point of the surface co is displaced when ?, 77, f are the components of displacement. If we neglect infinitesimals of a higher order than the first, H = Ho+ ^- s + —-v + -T-r- dx oy dz 1:10873 THE RICE INSTITUTE TH»p„..i„.X=.(f)>©>(f)' ^ = X COS nx, ^^ = X cos ny, ^ = X cos nz, dx dy oz when n is the normal to the surface oj. Then ^ = //o + X (? cos n^ + ?? cos ny + f cos nz) = i/o + x^-; combining this with equation (4O (s) or = //o + X^ dn d'^ = A _ , dt' dn^ since is determinate except for a quantity which is con- stant with respect to the time. Let us take the normal n as directed toward the interior p of the fluid, and let us suppose that F Increases on moving co and following the positive direction of n. dH Then when n is positive, — — > o, dn or by virtue of the equations (5) M = M cos nx-{-^ cos ny+^ cos nz = X, dn dx dy dz it follows that X > o. The problem of waves can be presented in the following manner. 4. To determine a function $ regular within the domain S which satisfies the equation (J) A'^ = o BOOK OF THE OPENING within S and which in the part a;' of the boundary satisfies the condition (B) ^=0 dn and in the part o) satisfies the condition (C) ^ = x^-^, dt^ dn ' where X Is a positive quantity Independent of the time, and n Is the normal to the boundary directed toward the interior of the domain S. Section 2 I. We can make a comparison between the problem we are about to consider and that of the vibrations of elastic media, and other problems of mathematical physics. The problem of the vibrations of elastic media is based upon the equation -„ d'^u ^ _ (6) dt^ = a-A-u. The problem of the propagation of heat In the case of varying temperature leads to the equation dF dt = aAW. (7) The problems of potential and of stationary temperatures in isotropic bodies depend upon the equation of Laplace A'^W=o, (8) These three equations are respectively of hyperbolic, parabolic, and elliptic types. The question we have considered In section i belongs to the elliptic type on account of the equation {A) of section i, which Is the equation of Laplace; but it is the condition which must be satisfied on the surface co of the boundary 1:10893 THE RICE INSTITUTE which leads to the essential difference between this problem and the problems of potential and stationary temperatures. In fact, in the problems of potential the conditions at the boundary are reduced to that of giving the values of the unknown function or of its normal derivative ; m those of stationary temperatures a linear relation between the un- known function and its normal derivative is known. But m the case of waves the condition at the boundary (equation (C) of section i) introduces a new variable, the time, which makes the problem one of four variables. In respect to the number of variables the problem of waves is similar to the problems of vibrations and varying temperatures. It differs from them, however, because equations (6) and (7) have real characteristics. There are no real characteristics in the problem of the waves of liquids. We shall give a theorem in section 3 which will show the difference, from a physical standpoint, between waves in elastic media and waves in liquids. , , i-rr 2. There are two general methods in which the different problems we are investigating can be treated. That of the separation of variables consists in separating the time from the space variables. Let us put in the equation (6) L^= sin mt • u{x, y, 2;), (9) where m is a constant. The equation becomes where the time has disappeared. If, for example, on the boundary U = o, u must be taken = o there. We are led to find values of m for which the previous equation has solutions which are not identically zero (special solutions). The gen- eral solution is obtained by forming an infinite series of C1090] BOOK OF THE OPENING solutions of the form (9) multiplied by arbitrary constants '\Tr of such values that U and — for ^ = o have the values of dt the given functions of x, y, z. The question of determining the special solutions has been resolved by Poincare ; the theory of integral equations has been used and Mr. Hilbert, Mr. Schmidt, and others have founded the theory of series of special solutions. Similarly an analogous process can be employed for equation (7) if we put F= e"^v{x, y, z) ; that is to say, by separating the time from the variables x, y, z. Equation (7) reduces then to mv -h aAh' = o, which is exactly analogous to equation (10). 3. The same method of the separation of the variables can be applied to the problem of waves in liquids. If we put $ = sin mt i-<|)2 also satisfies the equations (A), (B), (C) and further we have (^3)0 = o for ^ = o on the surface oj. Let us now calculate I d \dt = o = 1-^ rv^*'Yio;. 2dtJ'^\\ dt J 1:10923 BOOK OF THE OPENING On account of equation (C) we shall have fi = = / I fd^s\fd-^, XV dt A dt ^>"=X(f)(t>- But on CO ^^3 dn = o and therefore ^^j(d^j\rd.^ dt dnJ dcr. Applying a well-known transformation, Y d d^z a$3 . d d^z a$3 . d a4>3 a^3 -"=1 Kdx dt ' dx dy dt ' dy + dz J dz dt dS The third term = o ; then I d £ d^3 s dt -Q = 2dt Xi( fd^sY , fd^^Y , f^^'Vids dx + \dy J + dz and it follows that Integrating with respect to the time, ifd^'^ <'-xi(t;-(t)'-K^!'yi-='. <.o J* 1 I U^3 «» X V a/ / ' ^s [\dx J ' \ dy y N C7Z, / J where c is constant with respect to the time. Then if ($3)0 = o for ^ = o on w, since '^ = o on co' (3)o d7i must be zero in the domain S. Consequently, the second integral in the formula (11) will be o for / = o. In the ^ ^ =0, the first integral will be o for same way, since dt Jo t = o. It follows that c = o, and the conclusion can be drawn that $3 will be o for every value of / and therefore ^1 ■= $2. Q. E. D. THE RICE INSTITUTE 2 Second Theorem. If at a certain instant the molecules belonging to a part of the domain S are not displaced from the position of equilibrium, any molecule of the fluid is not dis- placed from the position of equilibrium. Demonstration. If ?, r;, f are o in any part of S, $ will be constant in this part, and since it is an harmonic function regular in S, it will be everywhere constant. Consequently ^, r/, f will be o at all points of S. Q- ^' ^' Third Theorem. If at a certain instant the molecules belonging to a part of the domain S are not displaced from the position of equilibrium and have no velocity, the fluid will remain ahvays in the position of equilibrium. Demonstration. If f, ry, K and |, |, | are o in one part of the domain S at a certain instant, ^ and — will be constant in this part and therefore they will be constant in the whole domain S at the same instant. By virtue of the first theorem they will be constant in S at every instant and consequently the liquid will have no motion. Q. e. d. 3. These propositions show us the essential difference which exists between waves in liquids and waves in elastic media. In elastic media the motion is propagated with a certain velocity from one part to another; in liquids the motion reaches the whole mass contemporaneously, at least when the fluid does not remain in a constant state of equilib- rium. In the case of liquids there is no propagation of motion and consequently one cannot speak of the velocity of propagation. Section 4 I. Let ^ and ^ be two functions which satisfy the con- ditions (^), (5), (C) of section i. [1094] BOOK OF THE OPENING By virtue of Green's theorem on account of (B) f f0^^-v/^Va; = o. ^^'^ V dn dnJ Using (C) this becomes / ^(^_M,^V^^co -\ \dt- dt- J X = 0. (12) Let us now suppose that r where r denotes the distance between a point A {xq, yo, ^0) interior to the domain S and a point {x, y, z) and where x is a regular function. Then the preceding formulae are no longer valid for they presuppose that \p is regular in the domain S. In this case formula (12) must be replaced by 4-^. + If^^^-^^V'^- = o, df dt-J\ where $^ denotes the value of $ at the point J. Then A"t>.= - f- r U^ -^^) ' ao.. (12') Integrating between the limits o and ti, we obtain 4^f,''4>Adt=-f \diJi \dtJi\\ 'w +X|*.(f)r< dtJo '^\dtJo - do) X THE RICE INSTITUTE where d> i^ f'^*^) (^) denote the functions , 4' and the ^ \dtJ\ \dtJi , . . d4> d4^ r , u'Ag cbn 4^. (^) ('-) denote the derivatives '^^.^1 ^ ^' \dtJo\dtJo same quantities for t = to. Let us now suppose that xP, and -^ ) are o on oj. dtJi The above formula gives us a knowledge of * at every point in S and for every value of t when the values of 0o '^A are known on a,. (Compare with the first theorem of dtJ" section 3.) • r j It is necessary to calculate further the function * and consequently x- This function plays, in this case, a part which can be compared with that played by Green's junction. It must be remarked that ^0 and (^)/hould depend on h since ^. and f^") should be o. The variable h appears then \dtJi . . in the second member of the equation (D) because it is con- tained in ypQ and ( "^j^- Section 5 In this paragraph we shall give some applications of the fundamental formula (Z)) of the preceding paragraph. Let us suppose that S is a sphere of radius R and that co is the surface of the sphere in such a way that there are no rigid boundaries. Let us put ^^^ _ ^^^ _ ^ ^^^ _ ^^, 1:10963 04 + BOOK OF THE OPENING flo, ^2, ^4 ••• being coefficients independent of ti and t. shall have •^• = ^»' (f)i = °- But ^ = I+x- T •*• ^o = --+(x)i, We and since a^ should be o on a> and x should be a regular and harmonic function if we use the method of images we obtain R I (x)i = - ir^; where A' denotes the image point of A with respect to the sphere, r^. is the distance of the point A' from the point {x, y, z), I is the distance from the center of the sphere to the point A. -ru I R I Ihen ao = , Let p be the radius vector, the pole being at the center of the sphere ; then da^ (ti-tyda2 {h-tyda^ dn dp dp av , , (h - ty ^ . 2 1 dp 4! dp dt 2 ! Consequently on the surface &>, i.e. for p = R dao . da^ ddi A — — ^4, — A — = ^65 Since do is known, the regular harmonic functions ^2, ^4, ^6 *•• must be determinate when their values on the boundary of the sphere are known. THE RICE INSTITUTE Let us begin by transforming the expression for Uq. Let us denote by 7 the angle between the Hnes joining the center of the sphere to the points A and {x, y, z). I R_ T / fR Then an = (/2 4- P' - 2 /p cos 7) or p duo I R dp R dp L(/2 4. p2 _ 2 /p cos 7) ' '^u p ■-+p^- 7 '> — p cos 7 R I R\ .. R' 2 J p cos 7 is a harmonic function which is equal to -^ on the surface of the sphere; but it is not regular in the interior of the sphere. In fact, the first term of the second member becomes infinite for p = /, 7 = o. Then to calculate ^2 we cannot take the previous expression and multiply it by -X for ^2 must be regular in the interior of the sphere. But the fol- lowing artifice may be used to calculate ^2. Let us transform the first term of the second member by a transformation of reciprocal radii with respect to the sphere and let us multiply by — . The expression remains harmonic, P possesses the same values on the boundary of the sphere, but becomes regular in the interior. To make the trans- formation of reciprocal radii it is sufficient to replace p by ^' Thus the first term of the previous expression becomes R' R" — Ip cos 7 (/V - ^' - 2 /i^'p cos 7) The second term equals pl{lp — R' cos 7) {R' + Pp'- 2 IR'p cosy)' [1098] BOOK OF THE OPENING It is found then that ^2 = — X Pp' - R (R' + Pp'- 2 IpR' cosy) In calculating ^4, a^ ••• there are no more difficulties and ^4 = — X^ P R'-l O O ^ ^P LR' + /V - 2 IpR' cos 7) a X2 d R' - Pp'^ In general, Rdlogpl (7^^ + /2p2 _ 2 IpR^ cos 7) ^ n-1 ^ iU-l R' - Po~ Consequently, R""-' a (log p)«-^ Li^4 ^ I2p2 _ 2 lpR2coS 7) ij n-1 r K^ LR' + Pp'' - 2 R' - Pp- + pp- ^n-l I pR^ COS 7) (^1 - t) 2n 271 I R' - Pp' l(R' + P {R' + Pp' - 2 IpR' cos y)"" J (h - 1) 2n-l (2 w — i) ! In order to calculate the formula {D) of section 4 it is necessary to evaluate i/^o and [~) , that is to say, to put ^ = o in the previous series. Further it is the values at the surface of the sphere which have to be found. Finally, this expression must be derived with respect to ti. Let us then adopt polar coordinates and put X =p sin ^ cos 0, y = p sin ^ sin 0, z= p cos ^, :vo = / sin ^0 cos 0o, yo= I sin ^0 sin 0o, z= I cos ^0. THE RICE INSTITUTE Then cos 7 = cos <^ cos 00+ sin sin 0o cos {6 ~ ^0). Let us write 00 \n-l ;a»»-l 1 ' R""-' d(\og l)""-' r R^-P 1 ^2„-l _/e2 + /2 - 2 i^/ cos 7)^-J (2n — i) ! Formula (Z)) can be written Da)Hl, So, o, t) = ^fcl>o(d, (/>)©(/, 6>o,c!>o, ^, 0, sin ^^(9^0 + — tA *o((9, 0)©(/, ^0, 00, ^, 0, sin eded, yir dp where for simplification we have written ^o(<9,0) =00(^,^,0,0,^ = ^; (^, 0) = ^-0o(^, ^, 0, ,^ = O. The formula we have been seeking to find is the general formula in the case of the sphere. If, instead of a sphere, the liquid occupies a hemisphere and the diametral plane constitutes the rigid boundary so that the curved surface is free, the method of images will provide the solution in a similar manner. The same holds in the case where the liquid occupies a section of a sphere between two rigid diametral planes the angle between which TT equals -, where n is an integer. n VlTO VOLTERRA. vrv^r^-^v E-PR£^1> Ciioo] 1 •u m: -*, •ill 4 n » • »' . >'w4 U'(i,(d i \ '<• m !»• K^ iiit> m tm COLUMBIA UN VERSITY 0032190646 BRITTLE DO NOt PHOTOCOPY ^ CD CQO. I » m m m ^cr/^^c /2, /C€- -Z- /?5-/>/4^ /)^ JUL 3 'A V^'-'ft « Y • i I I •• «« «. ■. • ^» • » « REDUCTION RATIO WITHIN I.OIO y — — 0.97 — o. y — — 0.05 0.0 0.2 Pi.ATr I o oc y / / \ >^ (^ X Figure i Figure 2 2 Figure 3 U positive X Y 6 neaatvve Figure 4 Figure 5 X Figure 6 Figure 7 X ^ ^ ^^ ^^ ^^ Figure i Figure 2 Y z Figure 3 Figure 4 X rieqauue 1 U^ Figure 5 X Figure 6 Figure 7 Figure 8 Figure 9 Figure 9 Figure 10 J. IVJV^lVi-. M. \^ Figure i i Figure i i Figure 12 Figure i ^ Figure 14 Figure 15 / FrciRE I ^ Figure 14 Figure i s z ^ ^ X Figure i6 f r FiGLRK 17 X Vxc.iAv: iS / / / / / / / / / \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ •^ x^ / / \ \ \ X \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / y y y^ F'iGURE 19 •rn^-^M Figure 20 Figure 21 / / / / / / / / / \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ ^ y^ / / \ \ \ \ \ \ \ N \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / y / y Figure 19 •-. ¥ Figure 20 Figure 21 ^-> I Figure i6 - 21 » 23 *fO •• J?9 10 •' 30 30 - 3? /O " 33 ^0 " 3r JO - 38 /a - 39 /^ II I I I h I I* •• I • I \ ! ! U— L I II III I »- I I I* I M • • \- I I' I— — I I i I I •• • I I •! I Mil I il III 1 • t III niiD iriB iin i ^■irtt l ****!** Fir.iRE 26 Figure 23/' wo IW KAin i: x; CEOGR\PIU.SCHKN VfcRliHKlTV.VG ^ [^ ^ NORDUCHTES. J^rSuliibarifll '', Linieiuvii-alfiRichUmgdfr^iUbcuneii ;, o^ Magnrnscheyiemkiiu < \ J' Figure 22 Figure 24 -^-> J Fir. L RE 1 6 ,^s^- • '■— Figure 23/^ - 21 * 23 ^0 " Z5^ fO " 2 < » > * t r ni ■■iiiiD ma iirn i r n i I I I I r f I I I I I I I » » ' ^ ■ " Ti-miZcs i.-r.fent.M.rtS I I » — ■ « I »' — « 1 1 1 — ' ' ' — ' I ' Fk.L RK 2S U> t I'ir.LRK iS 1' K.l Rl- 2<> Fkuri- 29 }' /"> b. (f ^ / ■/ // './ /■/ N- / Fk.I RK 26 -y lILciCj'nettt axi IMortk ijole Oou t It pol e 1 1 1 cu cni ^ t i. c Ctt L -5 Leiilre o\ 111*? eari h Kl(,l RK .^l) ICIRK 2 ■- ^/ V ]• KU RK ;?I / X X a^- \ il20 K^\.-^ ('■ 7 7, / ^^Iro }\ ^/J: /— 0,93 FuiLRK 28 Figure 32 Fk.L RH 33 fO' ' '0 3f 30 -^-T -r — u I < » ■ I I I > I ' ' » ' ^.__^ — 1_- ' 1 -?5" li) 1 1 I \ ! ! LL I II I I I • I M ' /a 1 1 1 1 , •< 39 m 1 1 •!• ) 20 1 1 1 1 > TO 1 il III 1 • «- t f > r I !!G omiillll 111! Iirn I l ll l .< Tt-miUs vTi/'e'rieures ■ — , — I I . — I — K— • — I — » . » . ■ I % I — » I I ' ' ' — ' — I — ' — ' — ' — ^ Fl(il Rl 2> Oil t !'i(;i Ki iS !• U.l Rl 21 t Fk.I Rl- 2<) r \' ^^-^ K i^^ I ^-^ ^/' ■•/ ^< ^JV ' "». / -y 1- K i Kl J(i H V, JO- ;r -z: -30- lIL cici-netit axi. Nor Ik tool- Oou t It pol e I I U"l Q Vi t- t i. J C CtV L ?, Fk.I Ri: 1- Leu trf or the eciri I /— C,9 3 I'K.l Kl. ■{(> I'u.i Kr ^ I 1- K.lRl 28 FuHRIi \2 \ U.l RK 1 X ^ § 9. = -1 < r ' R . ""J 5 ^ ' ?. < O "?- 9 ^ i 5 ? '^1 ? ■ D : % '? 2 ; D R 5 ^ < ? ? • = ? l r ! T ' ~ - ^ Total^ 1 1 1 II 1 1 1 1 llji II 1 llll III tin itiiijiiiii iiiiiiii|iili|ii{i llll IllUI II III II 1 f h in i 1 8 52 58 1 ! 1 1 1 re h / 8 49 1.^ ' «u nde tres-ini ?n5e I 1 !0 8 47 14 > II ^ 8 26 Rayon • ou draperie vue de c/iam/7 1 1 f 10 10 24 ■ 1 11 1 10 8 41 Aurorc au 1 I zenith 1 1 1 1 10 t^ 56 > 1 1 1 1 II 10 2 3t^ Arc et rayons I 1 -1 , 1 1 1 1 ] II 1 I II 9 32 50 A 1 1 1 urore au : en it /i 1 n 1 tl 1 rr; 9 ?1 39 . 1 1 1 1 1 1 U •^ 9 29 49 1 Rayons diffi JS 1 1 2 •X. L- CTS E (J > • 9 24 47 i ' 'i 1 1 1 Raydns et draperies 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 I 9 f8 14 1 1 Draperie [ 1 8 51 1 ron ith- 1 1 8 4o 50 *tv 1 1 1 I 7 34 22 1 1 1 1 1 11 41 13 A re e / draperie "1 1 1 1 1 r*; 11 21 58 1 r /Ire intense 1 1 1 - 1 1/ 9 7 4 Fragments 1 II 9 4 46 1 I Draperie I > " ^ 9 2 Draperie 1 C 03 12 1 8 1 1 r<- 12 19 Pragments diffui " 1' 11 5t> 41 Aurorc f- — 1 diffuse 1 CO c« 1> C X< {A 1) < II 26 21 L ... II 1 1 1 1 11 8 21 ■ Draperies i 1 > 1 't fragments de draper ies 1 1 1 1 1 ^ 11 7 23 i 1 r^ '^ 9 32 35 ] PI y^ /^ It /JC /' rt r-ii c can ^ 1 1 8 59 36 I 8 59 6 I 8 58 31 Arc s ef" dra pen es etleur fragments lilt 1 1 ' 8 57 44 \ 1 8 36 31 1 8 2t' 32 I 8 23 3 1 8 20 17 J 1 < 8 17 29 1 •i 9 c S § ^ c X o -i ?- i ^ S E S ? X ? ''J Altitudes en kilotnetres Figure 34 : I ' u ^ ^ i f^ * ^ S 2 i ; rt J 5 ^ 'S c 1 5+ •^ ^ c\ cu e cuULertaX <- Jo = 7^<:?<^ l:^f^ ^^/?^ - _i ) fc 1 ■* ■• •— J fo^ ^c So ^o oc so ^o ^/e ^r. rrv •Lot) t' iSo k \ Figure 35 Figure 36 -« ^>-S^: w. »^i•-^-^T '#7. Jt to o en ?i o o O Figure 37 / / X X to X hJ ;^ b^^^TT ^* Hfev ** — ^ A "^-^^ ^^■r ' \ \ ^^^^Kffi \ ^^^^^^^^1^ / ^^^'■'/ / / / / / X M •»» K fS es / \ li ( \ \ \ 1 1 \ \ m^ ' 1 1 \ 1 1 WBg, >' '^y i \ \ ^f '^ > \ 1 ■/ 1 ' • - /■ ,.,/ 1% f X \.\ ^^■ :C\ ^ ^^^^^^H ^^■■.^ \ '^I^^^^^M ^^^^^^^^^^H ^^H"^^^| ^^^^^^^^1 ^Hp./ \ '^SH^n^^l ^^^^H ^^^^^1^3 \ \ '^H^H ^H \ \ ^^^^^^H ^^^^M "^ V 1^1 ^^^^^^^^^^H ^^K ^ ~j^ \ ."^j^H ^^^^^^^^^^H ^K^"'^ \ " i " 1 ^^^^^^^^H ^mm's \ ^^^^^^^^^^H ^Bnl.i:" \ ^^^^^H ^^0|Mr^ \ \ \ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H J^y'j^ f-i \ ^^^^^^^^H Hk^ i i \ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H ^R9n^/. _ ^ \ ^^^^B f " ' ' "' \ 1 ■ ■ \ \ y \ \ \ \ \ 1 I \ ' E w f ( 1 \ 1 1 1 1 ^^^m^f^'^ ' ' • ^f / ,' i H^^^ i 1 w^^^S^ '■ ■"•■^ 'kai^ / ^ >' Si / fo ^■O CO K> -* t/J -- H w X X / ' / c5- .^^' / ^-\ ^ o'^ /O ^ 9^ I >0 ^^ :o i I 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 h->t V1^ .0^ If l» #« tt It '/ h9* \^ '\ l"^ :o 0^ H *^ :v s-L ^ ,x :0 ^ ,? II l> I ii II 'I ii 'J ov^ I I I 6 * I ,s^ ^\ b^ 'V 9 .i'^ :\ 9 o I X X X X Hi X X X la wsm tmmammm X X X X 0^ X X X y Mmm X ^, X X X :