Excerpt from International Congress of Arts and Sciences, Vol. 4: Physics, Chemistry, Astronomy, Sciences of the Earth [Robert Simpson Woodward, Ph.D., Sc.D., LL.D., President of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, b. Rochester, Mich., 1849. C.E. University of Michigan, 1872; Ph.D. University of Michigan, 1892; Honorary LL.D. University of Wisconsin, 1904; Sc.D., University of Pennsylvania, and Columbia University, 1905. Assistant engineer, U. S. Lake Survey, 1872-82; assistant astronomer, U. S. Transit of Venus Commission, 1882-84; astronomer, geographer, and chief geographer, U. S. Geological Survey, 1884-90; assistant, U.S.Coast and Geodetic Survey, 1890-93; Professor of Mechanics and Mathematical Physics, Columbia University, 1893-1905; Dean of School of Pure Science, ibid., 1895-1905; President of Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1905. Member of National Academy of Sciences; Past President and Treasurer (since 1894) of American Association for the Advancement of Science; Past President of American Mathematical Society and of New York Academy of Sciences; member of Astronomical and Astrophysical Society of America, Geological Society of America, Physical Society of America, and Washington Academy of Sciences. Author of Smithsonian Geographical Tables; Higher Mathematics (with Mansfield Merriman); also of many Government reports and numerous papers and addresses on subjects in astronomy, geodesy, mathematics, mathematical physics, and education.] There is a tradition, still tacitly sanctioned even by men of science, that there have been epochs when the more eminent minds were able to compass the entire range of knowledge. Amongst the vanishing heroic figures of the past it seems possible, indeed, to discern, here and there, a Galileo, a Huygens, a Descartes, a Leibnitz, a Newton, a Laplace, or a Humboldt, each capable, at least, of summing up with great completeness the state of contemporary knowledge. Traditions, however, are generally more or less mythical, and the myth in this case seems to be in flat contradiction with the fact that there never was such an epoch, that the great masters of our distinguished predecessors were, after all, much like the masters of to-day, simply the leading specialists of their times. But however this may be, if we grant the possibility of the requisite attainments, even in a few individuals at any epoch, we shall speedily conclude that there never was an epoch so much in need of them as the immediate present, when the divisional speakers of this Congress are called upon to explain the unities which pervade the ever-widening and largely diverse fields of their several domains. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.