THE TRENDS OF EVOLUTION 187 



first adopted as an auxiliary to our native speech, and finally 

 as the only world language. Perhaps it was Descartes in 

 1629 who first advocated this reform. He saw the need of 

 creating an artificial, universal language to overcome the 

 utterly illogical difficulties of the many world tongues. He 

 did not feel, and we are still in agreement, that any one 

 tongue would ever become universal, or that it would be 

 desirable in view of the faults of all languages. In the same 

 century (1661) the first attempt to set up artificially such a 

 system was published by George Dalgamo, a Scotsman. 

 His was an ingenious contribution to say the least, what 

 with its subdivisions of all knowledge into 17 categories, all 

 represented by a consonant and the further representation 

 of subsections and sub-subsections by vowels and conso- 

 nants alternating. Thus, every word in the language, so de- 

 signed as to be pronounceable, denoted an object or an idea 

 by a succession of letters calling to mind the pre-arranged 

 sections and subsections of all knowledge. To a certain 

 primitive extent, Dalgarno's idea and those of Descartes are 

 the beginning of the modern theory of information and 

 have been of use in developing modem devices and codes of 

 communication. 



Since the seventeenth century some 300 international or 

 universal languages have been proposed; and some, such as 

 Ido, Occidental, and Esperanto have built up a considerable 

 literature. However none has been adopted as an interna- 

 tional tool for communication. A new one is now making its 

 appearance, one that is rooted in many world languages. It 

 has been given the name Interlingua and is sponsored by a 

 scientific and educational organization, the International 

 Auxiliary Language Association, a group which includes 

 the Bell Telephone Co., The New York Thnes, Columbia 

 University, the Institute of International Education, Radio 

 Corporation of America, and many famous scientists and 

 educators. Interlingua is not an overnight creation. The re- 



