THE METRIC SYSTEM. 201 



weight expressed in the new nomenclature shall be in simple numbers. 

 Thus, for example, the ration of the soldier is expressed in the old nomen- 

 clature as twenty-foiir ounces; this is a very simple number. Translated 

 into the new nomenclature, it gives seven hundred and thirty-four grammes 

 and two hundred and fifty-nine thousandths. It is, then, evident that it is 

 necessary to increase or diminish the weight so as to make seven hundred 

 and thirty-four or seven hundred and thirty-five grammes. 



All the component pieces or lines of architecture; all the pieces and 

 tools used in watch-making, jewelry, book-selling, and all the arts ; all in- 

 struments and machines, have been devised and calculated in the old 

 nomenclature, and are expressed in simple numbers, which can be trans- 

 lated in the new system only into numbers composed of five or six figures. 

 It will be necessary, therefore, to do everything over again. 



The scientific men also conceived another idea wholly foreign to the ben- 

 efit of unity of weights and measures: they adopted the decimal numera- 

 tion, taking the metre for the unit; they suppressed all complex numbers. 

 Nothing is more contrary to the organization of the mind, the memory, and 

 the imagination. A toise, a foot, an inch, a line, a point, are fixed portions 

 of extension, which the imagination conceives independently of their rela- 

 tions to one another; if, then, we ask for the third of an inch, the mind 

 goes into instant operation. The length called an inch is divided into 

 three parts. By the new system, on the contrary, the mind has, not to di- 

 vide an inch into thirds, but a metre into a hundred and eleven parts. The 

 experience of all ages had made the difficulty of dividing a space or a 

 weight by more than twelve so evident that a new name was created for 

 each of the divisions. If the twelfth of an inch was asked for — the opera- 

 tion was already performed — we had the measui*e called the line. 



The decimal numeration was applied to all the complex numbers as a 

 unit; and if we wanted a hundredth of a point, a hundredth of a line, a 

 hundredth was written. By the new system, if we want to express a hun- 

 dredth of a line, we have to consider its relation to the metre, and this 

 involves us in an infinite calculation. 



The divisor 12 was preferred to the divisor 10, because 10 has only two 

 factors, 2 and 5, while 12 has four factors, 2, 3, 4, and 6. 



It is true that the decimal system; generalized and adapted to the metre 

 as the unit, gives facilities to astronomers and calculators ; but these advan- 

 tages are far from compensating for the inconvenience of rendering 

 thought more difiicult. The prime characteristic of eveiy method should 

 be that of aiding the conception and the imagination, of facilitating the 

 memory, of giving more force to the thought. 



The compound numbers are as old as man, because they are in the 

 nature of his organization, quite as it is in the nature of the decimal numera- 

 tion to adapt itself to every unit, to every complex- number, and not exclu- 

 sively to one unit. 



Finally, they use Greek roots, and that augments the difficulties ; the 

 denominations, which may be useful for men of science, were not good for 

 the people. The system of weights and measures was one of the greatest 

 achievements of the Directory. Instead of letting time do its work, and be- 

 ing satisfied to encourage the new system by means of example and fash- 

 ion, it made coercive laws and executed them vigorously. 



The merchants and the citizens were vexed by affairs indifferent in 



VOL. XI.IX. — 18 



