RELATIONSHIP OF LANGUAGE TO SCIENCE 57 



must be satisfied by an international language suitable for 

 science. 



Apart from the practical value of the principle of interna- 

 tionality, there exists in science another very special reason 

 for regarding it as a necessary condition to be satisfied by 

 an international auxiliary language. 



We may inquire, in fact, from a purely scientific stand- 

 point, how far the systems which have been devised up to 

 the present have adjusted themselves to the international 

 language which already exists in science. For all the 

 thousands of words in scientific and technical nomenclature 

 which, apart from their nationality, the scientific men of all 

 countries have been inventing for centuries according to 

 very uniform principles, as well as the likewise largely inter- 

 national expressions of "unofficial" nomenclature, form a 

 possession of modern scientific civilisation of such magni- 

 tude, importance, and value, that it cannot on any account 

 be sacrificed. On the contrary, all these words, as well as 

 many similar ones derived from daily life, form the true, 

 natural, and practical basis of international language. 



This international auxiliary language, which forms one of 

 the foundation stones of our general, scientific, and technical 

 culture, is so closely bound up with the life and existence of 

 science and has become so much the second nature of all 

 scientific men, especially investigators, that they have long 

 become accustomed to write and think in this language 

 apart from their nationality. It is an easily ascertained 

 fact, and one that is well known to the scientific men of all 

 countries, that the latter can read foreign scientific literature 

 much more easily than newspapers or novels written in the 

 same languages. The explanation of this is that the foreign 

 scientific works, on account of their technical vocabulary, 

 are written in a language which possesses a much more 

 international character than that of the novels or newspapers. 

 It cannot, therefore, be denied that there actually exist 



