LOGIC AND INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE 49 



is particularly useful to philosophers, it is that which enables 

 one to derive from an adjective the name of the correspond- 

 ing abstract quality ; that is the Greek suffix -otet and the 

 Latin suffix -itat (-itud), whence have come the French -iU, 

 the English -ity, the Italian -ita, the Spanish -itad ; and the 

 German suffix -heit or -keit, etc. We perceive here a logical 

 relation well known and made use of in all our languages. 

 It must find a place in the international language, but by 

 what suffix ought it to be represented ? Now, if one 

 analyses the idea involved in this suffix, one will find that 

 beauty, health, blindness, are simply the states or facts of 

 being beautiful, healthy, blind. The idea involved in this 

 suffix is then the idea of being, not the idea of existence, but 

 the idea of being such and such, the idea of attribution 

 which is expressed by the copula est. It is natural, there- 

 fore, to represent it by the Indo-European stem of the verb 

 to be, namely, es ; bel-es-o = beauty ; san-es-o = health ; 

 blind-es-o = blindness. The fact that this suffix recalls 

 a French suffix (richesse), an Italian suffix (bellezza), and 

 an English suffix -ness (happiness) employed in the same 

 sense can only serve as an accessory confirmation of the 

 above choice, which was dictated by logical motives. More- 

 over, this agrees perfectly with our general rules ; to be well 

 will be translated by esar sana or san-esar, and the fact of 

 being well will be saneso = health. Conversely, if we start 

 from saneso health, we can form the verb sanesar = to 

 be in (good) health. Whatever may be the point of departure, 

 there is no fear of making a mistake or "going off the rails" 

 in forming these derivatives, if we observe the principle of 

 reversibility. It would, therefore, be not only arbitrary, 

 but absurd, to express health by sano, which latter can only 

 mean a healthy being. For one must not imagine, as is 

 often stated, that an adjective expresses a quality ; it 

 expresses precisely he who, or that which, possesses the 

 quality in question. That is why all our languages employ 



I.L. E 



