Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/716

700 is nevertheless a fitting opportunity to initiate something permanent, that shall mark the stage at which we have arrived in the growth of what may be called the international scientific consciousness of the world. Something, indeed, has already been accomplished in this important direction. That large division of the students of Nature, the medical profession, has entered into extensive co-operation on an international scale for the advancement of its interests. The International Medical Congress meets once in three years, each time in a new country, and all who have participated in its proceedings testify to the reality, the extent, and the value of the results attained. There is no reason why similar advantages may not be derived from an international association of scientists devoted to the promotion of the general objects which they have in view. We are glad to observe, as remarked above in referring to the American Association, that steps are being taken to organize such a body on an international basis. It will be but a further and natural development of the policy of the British and American Associations within their respective countries. There is a large field of labor that would especially belong to such a body, for hitherto science has been to no small degree hampered and impeded by the disagreements and conflicts that have arisen out of its limited and national pursuit. An international congress of scientists would be the proper body to promote the adoption of common standards of time, of measurements of all kinds, of biological and geological nomenclatures, of common systems of recording observations and statistics, and the policy of scientific undertakings which require international co-operation, and it would have many things to do which there is no association at present entitled to undertake. The same important advantages of increased personal intercourse among the cultivators of science, to which the existing associations have been tributary in their respective countries, would then be secured on a still wider scale. Nothing is more important than the bringing of scientific men, who are separated by distance and rarely see each other, into personal contact and acquaintance, to gain that intimate understanding of each other which can only come from personal discussion; and this is the more necessary where men are habitually separated by the differences of nationality. There are many reasons why such an organization should be established; the time has come for it, and the present is an especially favorable time for carrying it out. The large attendance of foreign scientists at Montreal is to be followed by the meeting of the American Association in Philadelphia, and many of the foreign savants will be present at that meeting. The circumstances are auspicious for taking this new step which, if taken, will undoubtedly be productive of lasting and world-wide advantage in this great field of labor.

But we must not lose sight of the loftier lesson that is so happily illustrated in the coming of this most powerful of scientific organizations to the New World, and which is well calculated to incite to further action in this important direction. What concerns us most is the exemplification it affords of the gathering strength of the great scientific movement in this age. The visit is made in obedience to that development of scientific influence by which it has now become the great leading force of civilization itself. We hear much of the advancement of science, as if it were but a movement in one direction; but we must not forget that with progress there has also been a vast widening of the scope of scientific influence and activity. The movement is one of enlargement of ideas, and it is only when we regard the different sciences as fusing into the most vital inter-connections, and