Hakding. — Certain Decimal and Metrical Fallacies. 105 



Can creation furnish a better unit ? I do not think so. 

 All men are not six feet high, nor are their feet usually twelve 

 inches in length, and it is obviously true that any one who 

 should in his own person combine all the precise measure- 

 ments which derive their names from the human frame would 

 not be a model for an artist. The necessity that each 

 measure should bear an aliquot relation to all the others — the 

 variations in human stature and build — make exact corre- 

 spondence with any of them the exception rather than the 

 rule. They are, as it were, the rough draft, from which, 

 by comparisons and averages, the actual standards of reference 

 have been derived. They are, however, near enough for most 

 of the practical needs of daily life ; they are universally 

 accessible as no external standard can possibly be ; and the 

 man who takes the trouble to ascertain and make due allow- 

 ance for his own " personal equation " may still serve as his 

 own standard, and be to a great extent independent of 

 external aid. I have seen a tall Maori measuring off a fabric 

 by the "faddom," using his arms as a gauge, and he did not 

 give himself short measure, as a tape afterwards proved. I 

 have seen women measure off yards with great correctness 

 by hand and eye alone ; and the accuracy with which dis- 

 tances can be " paced " does not need to be pointed out. 

 The so-called " patriotic " exercises in our schools, instead 

 of taking the questionable form of homage to a flag, would 

 be better devoted to explaining the beauty and value of 

 our far more ancient standards. If the children were 

 exercised in weighmg and measuring by the eye and hand, 

 their work being afterwards tested — m drawing and sub- 

 dividing six- or twelve -inch scales from memory — they 

 might in after-life be to a great extent independent of artificial 

 standards, except where commercial or scientific accuracy was 

 required. 



The antiquity of our measures may be inferred from the 

 fact — which is abundantly demonstrated — that they are built 

 into the Great Pyramid of Egypt, the oldest of all the pyra- 

 mids, the others being very indifferent imitations — sepulchral 



an allied language, the expression for "to embrace" is at tage i favn, 

 literally " to take in fathom," the two nouns being identical. The cubit, 

 yard, and ell refer to arm-measurements ; the span, the hand, the foot 

 need no interpretation. " Inch " and " thumb " are convertible terms in 

 more than one living language, and the old " finger-breadth " was two- 

 thirds of an inch. The "pace" is the unit of the longer measures; 

 " mile," a numerical term, literally means a thousand paces. Measures 

 were also calculated by days' or hours' journeys and variously subdivided. 

 Naturally among different peoples these have diverged more widely than 

 the smaller measures ; hence we have the modern mile varying from 

 11,700 yards in Sweden to 1,165 yards in Russia. But from the finger- 

 breadth to the league the man himself is always the ultimate standard. 



