ity; it
is to render the second group hidebound.

When we take a broad and impartial survey of the question we thus see
that there is reason to believe that, while English is an admirable
literary language (this is the ground that its eulogists always take),
and sufficiently concise for commercial purposes, it is by no means an
adequate international tongue, especially for purposes of oral speech,
and, moreover, its exclusive use for this purpose would be a misfortune
for the nations already using it, since they would be deprived of that
mental flexibility and emotional sympathy which no discipline can give
so well as knowledge of a living foreign tongue.

Many who realized these difficulties put forward French as the auxiliary
international language. It is quite true that the power behind French is
now relatively less than it was two centuries ago.[241] At that time
France by its relatively large population, the tradition of its military
greatness, and its influential political position, was able to exert an
immense influence; French was the language of intellect and society in
Germany, in England, in Russia, everywhere in fact. During the
eighteenth century internal maladministration, the cataclysm of the
Revolution, and finally the fatal influence of Napoleon alienated
foreign sympathy, and France lost her commanding position. Yet it was
reasonably felt that, if a natural language is to be used for
international purposes, after English there is no practicable
alternative to French.

French is the language not indeed in any special sense of science or of
commerce, but of the finest human culture. It is a well-organized
tongue, capable of the finest shades of expression, and it is the key to
a great literature. In most respects it is the best favoured child of
Latin; it commends itself to all who speak Romance languages, and, as
Alphonse de Candolle has remarked, a Spaniard and an Italian know
three-quarters of French beforehand, and every one who has learnt Latin
knows half of French already. It is more admirably adapted for speaking
purposes than perhaps any other language which has any claim to be used
for international purposes, as we should expect of the tongue spoken by
a people who have excelled in oratory, who possess such widely diffused
dramatic ability, and who have carried the arts of social intercourse to
the highest point.

Paris remains for most people the intellectual capital of Europe; French
is s