The Metrical System 429 



not accepted it. The principal of these are Japan, China, 

 Russia, Great Britain, with India and the Colonies, and the 

 United States. It is quite an open question whether these 

 great countries, if they made common cause, might not even 

 now make the alteration of the fundamental unit a condition 

 of the acceptance of the system, simply on the ground that, 

 if an alteration must be made, it should be the one which 

 would inconvenience the smallest number of people. When 

 we are asked to forsake our old system of weights and 

 measures of all kinds, we ought to be offered in exchange 

 something which has not already been proved to be a 

 failure. We may freely admit that a universally adopted 

 system of weights and measures would be an advantage 

 without our admitting that that system must be the French 

 metrical one. 



A system which is to be universally adopted should be 

 convenient all round, and it should be fitted to be useful for 

 all time. The metrical system as offered to us fails in both 

 these particulars. Now is the time to improve and perfect 

 it, so that we shall hand on to posterity something that we 

 may reasonably expect it to be grateful for. At present, if 

 Great Britain, with the other outstanding nations, accepts the 

 surviving fragment of the French system, we leave to posterity 

 nothing but a heritage of strife over the division of the day 

 into ten hours, and that of the circle into 400 degrees. We 

 ought to be able to do better by it. 



