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THE " DELEGATION." 19 



The idea of a powerful organisation has undoubtedly at 

 first sight something very attractive about it. One must, 

 however, not forget, even in the case of an international 

 language, that no organisation in the world can arrest the 

 progress of a necessary development. Every human con- 

 trivance and invention is subject to change, errors and 

 deficiencies being corrected. Especially is a rational 

 development inevitable in the case of things, such as an 

 international language, which are subject to the control of 

 our intelligence. Conversely it is not difficult to reply to 

 the question, How is it then possible, when a system has 

 once been chosen, to carry it out and preserve it ? For 

 there are two fundamental qualities which, happily for us, 

 are apparent in the history of inventions, and each of which 

 confers stability quite apart from any conventions, namely, a 

 high degree of rational development based on the most pro- 

 found knowledge and an extraordinary empirical perfection. 

 As examples of the latter may be mentioned the notation of 

 music, which since Guido d'Arezzo (born in 990), or at 

 any rate since Johann Sebastian Bach, has not appreciably 

 changed ; the division of time into twenty-four hours and of 

 the hour into sixty minutes, which is at least three hundred 

 years old ; the face, mechanism, and hands of a watch, which 

 date, with unimportant changes, from the Renaissance ; and, 

 finally, the violin, which retains up to the present day the 

 characteristic form which the ancient Italians gave it. Is 

 it not wonderful that this strangely carved piece of wood 

 must possess just that particular form in order to yield its 

 harmonious tones ? 



As examples of the former may be quoted almost all 

 modern achievements. The metric and decimal systems 

 have come to stay. The bicycle, the motor car, and the 

 typewriting machine have undergone successive improve- 

 ments till finally they have attained to their more or less 

 definite form. We see from this that when inventions have 



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