86 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



arithmetical notation would be fairly comparable with our 

 orthography, and computation would be as difficult as Eng- 

 lish spelling. 



But it is quite easy to be in bondage to arithmetical nota- 

 tion. Thousands of folk skilled in computation, using figures 

 daily, confound them with the things they represent, never 

 realising that after all tliey are merely counters — symbols, 

 perfect and efficient within their own very limited range, but 

 representing in reality only a convention, and no solid fact. 

 The mathematician knows their place and their limitations ; 

 the mere computer, finding them ready to his hand, imagines 

 them to be rooted in the very nature of things. He knows. 

 for example, some of the curious properties of the number 9, 

 but would be unable to discriminate between the inherent 

 properties of that number — those, for example, which are 

 peculiar to the square of 3, and which no notational system 

 could affect — and those other qualities which are accidental and 

 notational, and would be transferred to another number were 

 any other radix substituted for that of ten. 



This is a point of basic importance in the consideration of 

 the subject of any proposed change in measures and weights, 

 and especially when a change of standard is involved. The 

 subject is of practical importance now, when the foreign sys- 

 tem, already permissive, has advanced another stage in our 

 Parliament, and will, unless resistance is offered, displace in a 

 few years — legally if not actually — our Imperial standards. 

 There has been no popular demand for the change ; there is 

 absolutely no popular discontent with our present standards : 

 but an active minority has carried its point so far, as agitators 

 can — without public sympathy or approval, but in the face of 

 that massive apathy and general indifference to any change 

 that does not threaten some immediate loss or disability. And 

 it is noteworthy that the arguments urged in support of the 

 change appeal to popular notational fallacies rather than to 

 mathematical facts or scientific truths. 



Of late years we have seen, at annual meetings of Institutes 

 of Accountants, Chambers of Commerce, and similar bodies, 

 formal resokitions passed on the subject as casually and per- 

 functorily as the vote of thanks to the chairman. In our own 

 Parliament during the current session a Bill, further-reaching 

 in its effects (should it ever become effective) and more 

 revolutionary in its scope than any legislation ever before 

 proposed in this colony, passed its preliminary stages with less 

 notice than is sometimes given to a fifty-pound item on the 

 estimates. It does not seem unreasonable to infer that those 

 who deal thus lightly with grave matters have neither studied 

 them nor realised their importance. They know that oui- 

 system of money-computation is defective and causes unneces- 



