Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/285

Rh that all who, the world over, are engaged in scientific work form but one army, one band, and move forward under one banner. This fact has been recognized by the formation of many international associations for the prosecution of different branches of scientific work. The physiologists, the psychologists, the criminologists, and several other sections of the great scientific corps have in this way organized for mutual assistance; and it only remains to form one general international organization which shall in a manner preside over all the scattered provinces of science, and by its existence and activity give evidence to the world that science is one and that humanity should be one. We are glad to know that this important object is in a fair way of accomplishment. Next year the British and American Associations for the Advancement of Science will meet within about two hundred miles of one another, the one at Toronto and the other at Detroit; and it is expected that not only will the two associations contrive to meet and fraternize, but that steps will be taken toward establishing some bond of union between the two, and so preparing the way for a wider international organization. The scheme, it is further expected, will be followed up two years later when the British and French Associations will meet within about thirty miles of one another, one at Dover and the other at Boulogne; and if so a world meeting may possibly be arranged for the year 1900, Let science flourish, and let its influence over the nations increase! It means love of truth; it means reasonableness and equity; and if these things be in us and abound, there can not be much room for international hatred.

publication of the concluding volume of Mr. Herbert Spencer's Synthetic Philosophy is an event of no small moment in the history of modern thought. No other doctrine of this or of any recent century has revealed so much in regard to the way in which organisms and institutions have come to be what they are as the evolutionary or synthetic philosophy has. Long before its great expounder had completed his presentation of it in the four fields of life, thought, society, and conduct, it had turned violent opposition into eager acceptance, and was being applied in countless researches, and was assumed as the only admissible standpoint for interpreting the past and predicting the future. The concluding division of his system deals with Industrial Institutions, and has been eagerly awaited with the expectation that it would throw needed light upon the industrial ferment of the times. This expectation it amply fulfills. Mr. Spencer's plan for a series of ten volumes in which the principles of evolution should be set forth with sufficient illustrative evidence was first issued in 1860. To do this work as he determined that it should be done was an immense undertaking, and he was further hampered at first by insufficient means, and throughout by seriously impaired health. That he has surmounted every obstacle and reached his goal may well inspire wonder, and notable too is the fact that his exposition has been completed substantially as proposed. Notwithstanding the progress of knowledge during the past third of a century, and notwithstanding, moreover, the widening of Mr. Spencer's own horizon, the plan that seemed good to the man of forty has proved acceptable to his riper self at seventy-six. Mr. Spencer is to be heartily