1 76 
The  Metric  System. 
Am.  .lour.  Pharm. 
April,  1904. 
would  be,  generally  adopted,  and  that  he  was  not  above  recognizing 
the  fact  that  the  metric  system  had  done  much  toward  achieving  this 
ideal,  is  evident  from  the  following  quotation. 
In  speaking  of  the  history  and  development  of  the  metric  system, 
he  says:  "The  idea  was  a  great  one,  and,  allowing  for  the  funda- 
mental defect  on  which  I  have  been  insisting,  it  was  admirably 
carried  out.  As  this  defect  does  not  diminish  its  great  convenience 
for  scientific  purposes,  the  system  has  been  gradually  adopted  by 
scientific  men  all  over  the  world ;  the  great  advantage  being  that 
measurements  registered  by  a  scientific  man  of  one  nation  are  with- 
out trouble  made  intelligible  to  those  of  another." 
Recognizing  and  admitting  the  numerous  advantages  that  scientific 
men  have  derived  from  the  introduction  and  use  of  the  metric  sys- 
tem, Mr.  Spencer  was,  nevertheless,  not  willing  to  admit  that  the 
small  tradesman  or  his  customers  would  or  could  appreciate  or  use 
a  system  of  weights  and  measures,  or  a  system  of  coinage,  based  on 
a  decimal  plan,  without  seriously  interfering  with  their  ability  to  do 
business. 
This  line  of  argument  sounds  strange  to  us  in  this  country,  where, 
we  think  at  least,  we  have  adapted  ourselves  to  a  decimal  system  of 
currency. 
How  complicated  our  monetary  system  appeared  to  Mr.  Spencer 
is  evidenced  when  he  says,  referring  to  quotations  on  the  New  York 
Stock  Exchange :  "  Are  the  quotations  of  prices  in  dollars,  tenths, 
and  cents  ?  Not  at  all.  They  are  in  dollars,  halves,  quarters  and 
eighths."  "That  is  to  say,  the  decimal  divisions  of  the  dollar  are 
entirely  ignored,  and  the  division  into  parts  produced  by  halving, 
re-halving,  and  again  halving,  is  adopted." 
In  this  practice  Mr.  Spencer  does  not  recognize  a  possible  adapta- 
tion of  the  decimal  system  of  numeration,  but  accepts  it  as  evidence 
of  an  impediment  or  even — retrogression. 
The  same  line  of  thought  is  evident  when  he  quotes  from  the 
communication  of  a  French  correspondent,  who  says  :  "  By  adopting 
the  decimal  metric  system,  we  have  not  made  the  old  denomina- 
tions to  disappear  entirely,  but  we  have  greatly  reduced  their  use." 
Instead  of  accepting  this  as  evidence  of  the  adaptability  of  metric 
weights  and  measures,  Mr.  Spencer  puts  it  forward  as  an  argu- 
ment against  the  popularity  of  the  decimal  system  among  the 
French  people.   This  objection  to  our  decimal  system  of  numeration 
