AmDecUri9Pi8arni'5      Haslitt  on  the  Metric  System.  861 
them  are  recorded  here,  but  they  opened  the  way  for  later  work. 
The  services  of  Hu  Ch'ing  T'ang  were  invaluable  in  earlier  days, 
especially  in  the  collection  of  curious  material,  and  to  him  I  owe 
much  of  my  knowledge  of  the  intricate  ways  of  opium  dealers 
(legal  and  illicit)  of  China,  and  my  appreciation  of  the  problems 
these  cause  to  be  presented.  To  these  and  to  others  not  named, 
I  wish  to  render  my  grateful  thanks. 
Analytical  Laboratory, 
Department  of  Customs, 
Ottawa. 
HAZLITT  ON  THE  METRIC  SYSTEM. 
By  James  F.  Couch. 
English  thinkers  have,  as  a  general  rule,  always  been  opposed 
to  the  adoption  and  use  of  the  metric  system  in  spite  of  its,  to  us, 
obvious  advantages  over  the  cumbrous  and  time-wasteful  inch, 
pound,  gallon  measures  in  use  by  Anglo-Saxon  countries.  The 
obstinacy  with  which  they  reject  efforts  to  substitute  the  metric  for 
the  English  system  must  be  due,  in  large  part,  to  native  prejudice 
and  conservatism  which  rejects  innovations  that  appear  experimental 
and  resists,  through  intellectual  inertia,  all  fundamental  changes  in 
the  established  order  of  things.  Unfortunately,  from  its  very  nature, 
the  metric  system  must  be  adopted  by  any  people  in  its  entirety  at 
one  time :  in  a  moment  there  must  be  a  change  from  the  old  system 
to  the  new,  a  revolution  which  cannot  help  but  cause  confusion  in 
practically  all  true  industries.  The  metric  system  does  not  admit  of 
a  gradual  adoption,  replacing  the  English  system  little  by  little  and 
so  permitting  the  great  mass  of  business  men  and  traders  to  become 
accustomed  to  it  in  the  slow  method  by  which  most  great  revolutions 
in  human  thought  and  activity  are  brought  about. 
Over  a  decade  ago  the  views  of  Herbert  Spencer,1  that  giant  of 
British  intellectuality,  were  published  in  this  journal  by  Florence 
Yaple.  In  that  paper  Spencer  presents  what  is  probably  the  strongest 
case  against  the  metric  system  ever  written.  I  wish  to  quote  here 
the  argument  against  the  metric  system  advanced  by  another  British 
philosopher  because  it  considers  the  case  from  an  entirely  different 
1  This  Journal,  76,  125-128. 
