534 Professor F. G. Don nan [March 24 r 



international code language may be seen in the nomenclature and 

 symbolism of chemistry. Thus 



H 2 S0 4 and para-nitro-anilin 

 are intelligible to chemists of every nationality. But for general 

 purposes such systems would become exceedingly complex. More- 

 over, it would be very difficult to draw up a simple and fixed table 

 of primary and fundamental ideas, for although the fundamental 

 data of sense may remain invariable, the intellectual activity of the 

 human mind is constantly penetrating the screen of sense-perception. 

 Thus new concepts and ideas in accord with our progressive discovery of 

 the real structure and activity of the world are being constantly formed. 



The inventors of a priori philosophical languages have, however, 

 usually proceeded in a somewhat different fashion, their object being 

 to construct a vocabulary that would be based on a rational system 

 of classification corresponding to our knowledge of things. Thus, 

 in the 17th Century a Scotchman, George Dalgarno, and also the 

 celebrated Bishop Wilkins — one of the founders of the Royal Society 

 — produced two such philosophical systems. That of Bishop Wilkins 

 was entitled " The Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical 

 Language " (London, 1G68). In the 18th Century the disciples of 

 Condillac, the Ideologists, took up the problem of an artificial lan- 

 guage considered as a classification and notation of ideas ; whilst 

 in the middle of the 19th Century the learned Spanish professor, 

 Bonifacio Sotos Ochando, published a very perfect system of this 

 type, in which both the grammar and the vocabulary were very fully 

 worked out. 



In his " Lectures on the Science of Language," delivered bef ore 

 the Royal Institution fifty-nine years ago, Max Muller discussed the 

 possibility of an artificial language, and gave an account of the 

 system of Bishop AVilkins. Speaking in this connection, he said : — 

 " It is the fashion to laugh at the idea of an artificial, still more of 

 a universal language. But if this problem were really so absurd a 

 man like Leibniz would hardly have taken so deep an interest in its 

 solution. That such a language should ever come into practical use. 

 or that the whole earth should in that manner ever be of one language 

 and one speech again, is hard to conceive. But that the problem 

 itself admits of a solution, and of a very perfect solution, cannot be 

 doubted." 



In order to understand the method employed by Bishop "Wilkins 

 I give here the basis of his system of classification : — 



A. Transcendental Divided into 



Notions 6 Genera 



/ B. Substances \ 



Five Categories I -p/ /C55+L!? 8 Divided into 



F. Relations J 



