4 M. C. COOKE ON UNIVERSAL 



twelve parts, and then commence decimals ; true to the same 

 spirit of contrariety whereby we take the sovereign as the unit, 

 and then divide it into twenty parts, each into twelve, and then 

 each again into four. 



It will scarcely be supjiosed that all Eiirope will do us the honour 

 of accepting either oiir inch, or our yard, as the standard ; biit we 

 may do ourselves honour by following the example of Germany and 

 Italy, and adopt the French standard, and recognise the millemetre 

 as the unit of microscopical admeasurement. The fact that the 

 metre, of which the millemetre is a portion, forms no ]3art of our 

 English measure, is no objection, because our experience of the 

 length of a foot is of no service to us when we descend to the 

 minute fractions of a microscopical object. In the latter case, we 

 lose all appreciation of the foot or yard, and really establish some 

 new standard, with which comparison is made, whether ^-J^ or 

 i-sW *^f ^^^ ^"^^1* ; ^^*^ that becomes the standard with which, 

 practically, we compare the dimensions of our object. In a month, 

 we should be able to realise the relative dimensions of objects ex- 

 pressed in millemetres, even more readily than we now express them 

 in thousandths of an inch, because the integer is one-twenty-fifth of 

 the dimensions, and the fractions would come nearer to our expe- 

 rience ; we have a nmch better conception of the 25th of a 

 small object than of the 625th of a larger one. Let us, for 

 example, take the frustide of a diatom, the length of which 

 ^^ ■g'oTy of ^^^ inch. It requires a greater mental effort 

 to realise the dimensions thus stated, than it would to 

 realise the 20th of a millemetre. If we take more minute objects, 

 the same argument will be even more applicable : a vegetable cell 

 ■yjy^Q-jjth of an inch is entirely out of our range of experiences in 

 dimensions, as thus expressed, because we speak of thousandths 

 oftener than we realise them. If it were stated as the ^^th of 

 a millemetre, though now less familiar with the positive length of 

 the millemetre than the inch, we should learn to realise the mille- 

 metre, and its 280th part, before we could compass j-^xyu of an inch. 

 There is another argument, Avhich, I think, should have its weight. 

 Wc are becoming microscopical as a nation, and by employing at 

 once an unit known all over the continent, we introduce ourselves, 

 and our literature, into an equal competition with their own; 

 whereas, we now meet other Europeans at a disadvantage. We all 

 know how generally the Latin language is employed in scientific 



