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" point. They might," he faid " by means of their languages, 

 *' enable nations who were ftrangers to each other to converfe 

 -' together, but they had not caught the true real charaders, which," 

 he faid, " fhould referable algebraic charaders, which would in- 

 " finitely aflift the memory and invention." If Leibnitz could 

 have found thefe real charaders, the greateft difficulty, as Fonte- 

 nelle obferves, would have flill remained, to have perfuaded 

 mankind to agree in the ufe of them. 



Lavoisier, who invented, on truly ingenious and philofophi- 

 cal principles, a new language for chemiftry, found it for fome 

 time difficult to introduce it amongft chemifts ; and the cha- 

 raders which, with the approbation of the Academy of Sciences, 

 Monf! BerthoUet has annexed to Lavoifier's vocabulary, have 

 never been adopted in the fcientific world. 



The averfion which the learned, as" well as the vulgar, have 

 fhewn to adopt any univerfal language that has ever yet been 

 propofed to them, arifes from various caufes. The peculiar af- 

 fociations and habits of different perfons are incompatible, fb 

 that an arrangement of founds or ideas, which may be conve- 

 nient to the memory of one perfon appears prepofterous to the 

 judgment of another ; and the analogies which ftrike the un- 

 derftanding of one clafs of people are fo foreign to the minds 

 of another that they tend rather to bewilder and difguft than 



Q, 2 to 



