SCIENTIFIC ACADEMIES Austria.—The Akademie der Wissenschaften at Vienna, orig inally projected by Leibnitz, was founded by the emperor Ferdi nand I. in 1846, and has two classes—mathematics and natural science, and history and philology.
A literary society founded at Brussels in 1769 by Count Cobenzl, the prime minister of Maria Theresa, became in 1816 the Academie royale des sciences et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, under the patronage of William I. of the Netherlands. In 1834 it became Academie Royale Belgique, while the Dutch portion took the name of the Koninklijk Nederlander Institut. The Royal Institute of the Low Countries was founded in
by King Louis Bonaparte. It was replaced in 1851 by the Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen at Amsterdam, to which in 1856 a literary section was added.
The Kongelige danske videnskabernes selskab (Royal Academy of Sciences) at Copenhagen owes its origin to Christian VI. (1742). It developed into a sort of learned club. The king took it under his protection, enlarged its scope by the addition of natural history, physics and mathematics, and in
constituted it a royal academy with an endowment fund. France.—The old Academie des sciences had the same origin as the more celebrated Academie francaise. A number of men of science had for some 3o years met together. They included Des cartes, Gassendi, Blaise and Etienne Pascal. Hobbes, the author of Leviathan, was presented to it during his first visit to Paris in 164o. Colbert conceived the idea of giving an official status to this learned club. A number of chemists, physicians, anatomists and eminent mathematicians—among whom were Christian Huy ghens and Bernard Frenicle de Bessy (1605-75), the author of a famous treatise on magic squares—were chosen to form the nucleus of the new society. Pensions were granted by Louis XIV. to each of the members, and a fund for instruments and experi ment was placed at their disposal. They began their session on Dec. 22, 1666, in the royal library. At first the academy was rather a laboratory and observatory than an academy proper. Several foreign savants, in particular the Danish astronomer Roe mer, joined the society ; and the German physician and geometer, Tschirnhausen, and Sir Isaac Newton were made foreign associ ates. After the death of Colbert the labours of the academicians were diverted from the pursuit of pure science to such works as the construction of fountains and cascades at Versailles, and the mathematicians were employed to calculate the odds of the games of lansquenet and basset. In 1699 the academy was reconstituted. By its new constitution it consisted of 25 members, ten honorary, men of high rank interested in science, and 15 pensionaries, who were the working members. Of these three were geometricians, three astronomers, three mechanicians, three anatomists and three chemists. Each of these three had two associates, and, besides, each pensionary had the privilege of naming a pupil. There were eight foreign and four free associates. The constitution was purely aristocratical, differing in that respect from that of the French Academy, in which the principle of equality among the members was never violated. The leading spirits of the academy at this period were Clairault, Reaumur and Fontenelle, the popularizer of science. In the 18th century other prominent members were Laplace, Buffon, Lagrange, D'Alembert, Lavoisier and Jussieu, the father of modern botany. It was suppressed on April 8, 1793.
In 1795 the Convention decided on founding an Institut Na tional which was to replace all the academies. In 1816 the Academie des sciences was reconstituted as a branch of the Insti tute. The new academy has reckoned among its members, besides many other brilliant men, Carnot the engineer, the physicists Fres nel, Ampere, Arago, Biot, the chemists Gay-Lussac and Thenard. the zoologists G. Cuvier and the two Geoffroy Saint-Hilaires. In France there were also academies in most of the large towns. Montpellier, for example, had a royal academy of sciences, founded in 1706 by Louis XIV., reconstituted in 1847, and organ ized under three sections—medicine, science and letters. There were analogous institutions at Toulouse, Nimes, Arles, Lyons, Di jon, Bordeaux and elsewhere.
The Collegium Curiosum was a scientific society, founded by J. C. Sturm, professor in the University of Altorf, in Franconia, in 1672, on the plan of the Accademia del Cimento. It originally consisted of 20 members, and continued to flourish long of ter the death of its founder. Two volumes (1676-85) of pro ceedings were published by Sturm. The former, Collegium Ex perimentale sive Curiosum, begins with an account of the diving bell, "a new invention"; next follow chapters on the camera obscura, the Torricellian experiment, the air-pump, microscope, telescope, etc. It is now extinct.
The Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften in Berlin holds the first place in Germany. Its origin was the Societas Regia Sci entiarum constituted in i70o by Frederick I. on the comprehensive plan of its first president, Leibnitz. It was reorganized under Fred erick II. on the French model furnished by Maupertuis, and received its present constitution in 1812. It is divided into two classes and four sections—physical and mathematical, philosoph ical and historical. Among the contributors to its transactions (first volume published in 171o), to name only the dead, we find Immanuel Bekker, Bockling, Bernoulli, F. Bopp, P. Buttmann, Encke (of comet fame), L. Euler, the brothers Grimm, the two Humboldts, Lachmann, Lagrange, Leibnitz, T. Mommsen, J. Milner, G. Niebuhr, C. Ritter (the geographer), Savigny and Zumpt. To the Berlin Academy we owe the Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum, the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, and the Mon umenta Germaniae Historica.
The Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, at Munich, founded in 1759, is distinguished by the part it has played in na tional education. Maximilian Joseph, the enlightened elector (af terwards king) of Bavaria, induced the Government to hand over to it the organization and superintendence of public instruction, and this work was carried out by Privy-councillor Jacobi, the president of the academy. In recent years the academy has specially occupied itself with natural history.
The Preussische Akademie gemeinniitziger Wissenschaf ten, at Erfurt, which dates from 1754 and devotes itself to applied science, and the Hessian academy of sciences at Giessen, which publishes medical transactions, also deserve mention.
In 1616 a scheme for founding a royal academy was started by Edmund Bolton, an eminent scholar and antiquary, who in his petition to King James I. pro posed that the title of the academy should be "King James, his Academe or College of honour." A list of the proposed original members is still extant, and includes the names of George Chap man, Michael Drayton, Ben Jonson, John Selden, Sir Kenelm Digby and Sir Henry Wotton. The death of King James put an end to the undertaking. About 1645 the more ardent followers of Bacon used to meet, some in London, some at Oxford, for the dis cussion of subjects connected with experimental science. This was the original of the Royal Society (q.v.) which received its charter in 1662.
A society was formed in Dublin similar to the Royal Society in London, as early as 1683 ; but it was short-lived. The Royal Irish Academy grew from a society established in Dublin about 1782 by a number of gentlemen, most of whom belonged to the university. The first volume of transactions appeared in 1788.
The Magyar Tudomdnyos Tcirsasay (Hungarian Academy of Sciences) was founded in 1825 by Count Stephen Szechenyi for the encouragement of the study of the Hungarian language and the various sciences. It has a fine building in Buda pest containing a picture gallery and housing various national collections.
The Academia Secretorum Naturae was founded at Naples in 156o by Giambattista della Porta. The condition of membership was to have made some discovery in natural science. Della Porta was suspected of practising the black arts and sum moned to Rome to justify himself before the papal court. He was acquitted on those charges by Paul V., but commanded to close his academy.
The Academia dei Lincei was founded in 1603 by Federigo Cesi, the marchese di Monticelli. Galileo and Colonna were among its earliest members. As a monument the Lincei have left the mag nificent edition of Fernandez de Oviedo's Natural History of Mexico (Rome, 1651, fol.), printed at the expense of the founder and elaborately annotated by the members. This academy was resuscitated in 1870 under the title of Reale Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, with a literary as well as a scientific side, endowed in 1878 by King Humbert, and in 1883 it received official recognition from the Italian Government, being thereafter lodged in the Corsini palace, whose owner made over to it his valuable library and collections.
The Accademia del Cimento was founded at Florence in 1657 by Leopold de' Medici, brother of the grand duke Ferdinand II., at the instigation of Vincenzo Viviani, the geometrician. It was an academy of experiment, a deliberate protest against the deduc tive science of the quadrivium. It lasted only ten years, but the grand folio published in Italian (afterwards translated into Latin) in 1667 is a landmark in the history of science. It contains experi ments on the pressure of the air (Torricelli and Borelli were among its members), on the incompressibility of water and on universal gravity.
Other pre-eminent Italian Academies are the new Reale Ac cademia d'Italia, and the Reale Accademia delle Scienze di Torino. The latter was founded in 1757 as a private society by a group of learned men (among whom was Joseph Louis la Grange), and incorporated by royal warrant in 1783. It consists of 6o Soci Nazionali, 20 Soci Stranieri, and i6o Soci Corrispondenti. It pub lishes volumes of Memorie and a yearly volume of proceedings, and awards prizes for learned works. There are, besides, royal academies of science at Naples, Lucca and Palermo.
The Academia Real das Sciencias (now Acad. das Sciencias de Lisboa) dates from 1779. It was reorganized in 1851 and since then has been chiefly occupied in the publication of Portugaliae Monumenta Historica.
The Academie Imperiale des sciences de Saint-Peters bourg (Imperatorskaya Akademiyanaiik), was established on Dec. 21, 1725, by Catherine I. Shortly afterwards the empress settled a fund of 14,982 per annum for the support of the academy; and 15 eminent members were admitted and pensioned, under the title of professors in the various branches of science and literature. The most distinguished of these were Nicholas and Daniel Bernou illi, the two Delisles, Bilfinger and Wolff. At the accession of Elizabeth the original plan was enlarged and improved; learned foreigners were drawn to St. Petersburg (Leningrad) ; and, what was considered a good omen for the literature of Russia, two natives, Lomonosov and Rumovsky, men of genius who had prose cuted their studies in foreign universities, were enrolled among its members. The annual income was increased to £10,659. Cath erine II. utilized the academy for the advancement of national culture. By her recommendation the most intelligent professors visited all the provinces of her vast dominions, with most minute and ample instructions to investigate the natural resources, con ditions and requirements, and report on the real state of the empire. The result was that no country at that time could boast, within so few years, such a number of excellent official publica tions on its internal state, its natural productions, its topography, geography and history, and on the manners, customs and languages of the different tribes that inhabited it, as came from the press of this academy. In its researches in Asiatic languages, oriental customs and religions, it proved itself the worthy rival of the Royal Asiatic Society in England. The first transactions, Corn mentarii Academiae Scientiarum Imperialis Petropolitanae ad annum 1726, with a dedication to Peter II., were published in 1728. In 1747 the transactions were called Novi Commentarii Academiae, etc.; and in 1777, Acta Academiae Scientiarum Im perialis Petropolitanae. The papers, hitherto in Latin only, were now written indifferently in Latin or in French. Of the Commen taries, 14 volumes were published; of the New Commentaries (1750-76) twenty. Of the Acta Academiae two volumes are printed every year. In 1872 there was published at St. Petersburg, in 2 vols., the valuable Tableau general des matieres contenues dans les publications de l' Academie Imperiale des Sciences de St. Petersbourg. The academy of to-day has three divisions : (I) physical and mathematical sciences; (2) Russian language and literature; (3) historical science and philology. A large number of laboratories and museums are affiliated to it, as well as a physico-mathematical and an Indo-European Institute. The Asiatic museum and the mineralogical museum are housed in this building, and also the academical botanical museum. The vast library of the Academy of Sciences is situated in a separate build ing, erected 1718-25. Its scientific publications are exempt from censorship and include transactions of its various sections, a monthly and a yearly journal. These are edited by the scientific staff of the academy, but published by the Soviet Government Publishing Department.
The Real Academia Espanola at Madrid (see below) had a predecessor in the Academia Naturae curiosorum (dating from 1657) modelled on that of Naples. It was reconstituted in 1847 after the model of the French Academy.
The Kongliga Svenska Vetenskaps-academien owes its institution to six persons of distinguished learning, among whom was Linnaeus. In 1739 they formed a private society, the Collegium Curiosorum. In March 1741 it was incorporated as the Royal Swedish Academy. Though under royal patronage and largely endowed, it is, like the Royal Society in England, entirely self-governed. The dissertations read at each meeting are pub lished in the Swedish language, quarterly, and make an annual volume. The first 4o volumes, octavo, completed in 1779, are called the Old Transactions.
Norway has an active Academy of Sciences at Oslo; Japan has an Imperial Academy at Tokyo ; Yugoslavia has two academies, one Serbian at Belgrade and one Yugoslav at Zagreb. Czecho slovakia has the Czech Academy of Sciences and Arts at Prague.
