THE UNIVERSE OF INFORMATION.pdf - ideals

for this conference. The first, a Table of International Organisations^
was simply a list of international associations
arranged systematically under a dozen main headings and
a number of sub-headings. It was intended to show their
multiplicity and all-encompassing variety. The second, however,
containing the program for the conference and a
lengthy report to the associations was of considerable importance.
Once again, but now in extremely general terms,
Otlet set out his views about what international life should
be like, now it should be organised, how international organisations
should be formed and work «for the co-ordination
of international forces 'for progress, in peace, by co-operation
and putting into effect the capacity of the intellect'*. 20 While
it reiterated much of what Otlet had said before, the present
report provided a clear statement of his philosophy of internationalism
as now developed, what he described as «the
directing principles and the bases upon which it is desirable
to rest the organisation, as a whole, of world life». 21
International organisation, he said, should be conceived
as linking «in a constantly improving unification particular
pieces of acquired knowledge*, and as stimulating subsequent
programs «set down by common agreement, of investigation
of common interests*. For a century, he claimed, analytical
work had prevailed, but now the needs of synthesis areaffirmed
more and more». 22 He noted that society had evolved
through a number of stages in the course of history, but had
at last reached a point where
Society craved a scientific direction, what August Comte, giving it an
entirely positive sense, called the restoration of the spiritual power —
of now being able to formulate rational directives, having the necessary
science, disengaged from the immediate suppositions of action, and
placed in a central position, in some way panoramic and synthetic,,
which is necessary for the consideration of matters from a point of
view high enough to discover the general causes of the social evils
from which all nations suffer equally .. . 23
For Otlet, the only way of finally achieving the «scientific
direction* positivists like himself so much desired and
believed in so passionately that they spoke paradoxically and
without hesitation of its providing a «restoration of the
spiritual power of men*, was by means of a synthesis of
knowledge. What was original in Otlet's statement of this
positivistic conventionalism was that the necessary synthesis,
the necessary panoramic view, could only be had, in his
opinion, through international intellectual organisation which
could be accomplished only by means of the organisation of
international associations, for these alone were general:
enough, sufficiently all-embracing in their spheres of activity,
and disinterested enough, to achieve the desired goal.
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