1922] Auxiliary International Languages 531 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 



Friday, March 24, 1922. 



Sir James Reid, Bart., G.C.V.O. K.C.B. M.D. LL.u., 



Vice-President, in the Chair. 



F. G. Doxxan, C.B.E. D.Sc. F.R.S. M.R.I., Professor of Chemistry, 

 University of London. 



Auxiliary International Languages. 



At the present day the rights of all nations to unity, to the preserva- 

 tion and independent development of national life and customs, are 

 fully recognised and admitted. Partly as a result of the war, long- 

 dormant hopes and moribund languages have awakened to a new 

 period of life and activity. We live amidst a remarkable efflorescence 

 of national diversity and national pride. 



At the same time the material means of intercommunication by 

 land, sea, and air are rapidly increasing in speed, efficiency and 

 cheapness. You can lunch quietly and leisurely in Amsterdam, and 

 the same afternoon have tea with a friend in London. Science 

 and industry are advancing with giant strides, and in rapidly 

 increasing measure all nations are taking part in this work. The 

 modern world is thus a vast arena of conflict between separating and 

 intermixing forces. In the loom of life a myriad coloured threads 

 are intertwined in the strange fabric of modern civilisation. But 

 where are the integrating influences that will give us that unity in 

 diversity which all wise men seek ? It is not a monotonous unison 

 of thought that I mean, but a harmony of independent notes — an 

 integration, and not a unification, of separate ideas. What is it that, 

 whilst conserving the independent life of nations, will produce a 

 common liberality of thought and action ? There is only one answer 

 — the intercommunication, the internationalisation of thought. Men 

 have dreamed of a common political organisation of the world, of a 

 human family one in government, speech and religion. Such things 

 may, perhaps*, come to be, but they lie in the shadowy realm of a 

 very distant future. The practical problem of to-day is the problem 

 of mutual intercomprehension, of unity of understanding, amidst 

 variety of thought, speech and action. The solution of this problem 

 lies in the existence of an auxiliary language common to all the 



