Volaptik. ] 4 (Jan. 6, 
both in this country and in Europe, that the neologisms required by 
the sciences be derived according to a uniform plan from the Greek, and 
that those heretofore obtained from Greek or Latin be brought into one 
general form. There is no practical difficulty about this except that 
which arises from the Chauvinism of some nations which are blinded 
by egotism or narrow notions to the welfare of the whole. Such a ten- 
dency is observable in Germany, a country once noted for its cosmo- 
politan sympathies. Its medical teachers, for example, have of late 
frequently dismissed the terms of their science derived from the Latin 
and Greek, in order to substitute in their place long, awkward and 
inharmonious Teutonic compounds. No effort at a uniform interna- 
tional scientific terminology can be successful if the learned in each 
nation be governed by national prepossessions. 
Another obstacle to a universal tongue, and which at the same time 
is a cogent argument for the adoption of one, is the sentimental love of 
local dialects and forms of speech by those who have imbibed them in 
infancy. To-day there are active societies organized for the preserva- 
tion of the Welsh, the Armorican, the Basque, the Finnish and the 
Flemish. For many generations nearly all learned writings in Europe 
were in Latin. In the eighteenth century the Latin threatened to be 
superseded by the French. The Transactions of Academy of Sciences 
of Berlin were in French ; so were the articles by the Russian profes- 
sors; and in the earlier decades of the present century French pre- 
vailed in the reports of the Royal Northern Society of Antiquaries, 
and in most scientific publications in Slavic and Northern Teutonic 
countries. This is the case no longer. Every little principality claims 
that it should print what it has to tell the world of science in its own 
dialect, and claims that the world of science should learn this dialect. 
Thus we have on the list of our scientific exchanges publications in 
Roumanian and Bohemian, in Icelandic and Basque, in Swedish and 
Hungarian, in Armenian and modern Greek, in Japanese and in Por- 
tuguese, without counting the more familiar tongues. Even a linguist 
by profession, such as Max Miiller, has exclaimed against the very 
Babel, the confusion of tongues, which exists in modern scientific lit- 
erature. He has sounded an earnest appeal to the learned writers of 
the world to express themselves in one of the half-dozen languages which 
every man of wide education is supposed to read, to wit, the English, 
French, German, Spanish, Italian or Latin. 
But even with the advantage of a well-developed international scien- 
tific terminology, it is a good deal to ask of a student of science that 
he should spend the time to acquire a reading knowledge of these six 
tongues. In many cases it is wholly impossible for lack of time. But 
time could always be spared to learn one language, if that were enough, 
particularly if this one were exceptionally simple and easy in its 
grammar. : 
Again, the commercial and traveling world demands one tongue 
at 
