PREFACE The List of Books on the History of Science, which was issued in 1911, recorded the books available in January of that year, numbering some 1500 titles. Since then, however, a large amount of material on this subject has been received and not a few have been catalogued from the Gerritsen and Senn collections. This addition has been large enough to make it worth while to issue a supplement to the previous list, and it is hereby offered as the twelfth of the Library's bibliographical publications. It contains nearly 800 titles. In 1915 a List of Books on the History of Industry and Industrial Arts, containing about 3300 titles, was issued as the eleventh publication. These three lists bring together a large and important class of books the titles of which are widely scattered through the classed catalogue and not readily available there as a class. The present list has the same scope and character as the first; it covers the social, physical, natural and medical sciences, while their technical applications are covered in the list on the history of industry. It deals with the history of the sciences; it does not deal with the history of movements or activities. The history of economics, for instance, is included here, while economic history is included in the List of Books on the History of Industry. In the preface to the earlier volume quotations were made from writings. of some historians of science. To this it seems fitting to add, as apropos of the times, two statements by two well known scientists, the one a German, the other a Belgian. The former discusses the comparative value of what is known as general history and the history of science, the second refers in a way that seems almost pathetic, to the relation of science to peace, and of scientists to internationalism. In one of Julius Pagel's monographs on Henri de Mondeville we read the following: "Different from the general history of world events is the history of science. There the roads are marked by blood and smoking ruins, here by the quiet mental labor of the peace loving, diligent scholar and investigator; there the macchiavellian arts of the diplomats, fraud and intrigue, here truth, honesty and light; there strife of the bodies with weapons of iron and often the supremacy of brute power, here strife indeed, for without strife. and without opposite views no evolution, no progress is possible - but it is a strife of opinions and a manifestation of the free activity of the spirit; there not seldom victory of the unrighteous, here always of the righteous, there often despotism and compulsion, here liberty and inner peace; there hatred and rancor between the nations, here communion of the nations and all civilized countries in noble competition; there secrecy decades, yes centuries pass before the veil of official secretiveness is lifted, showing the purposes and origins of actions of state,- here full publicity, for only in the |