system, an auxiliary
international money system (corresponding to an auxiliary international
language) could be introduced as a medium of exchange without
interfering with the existing coinages of the various nations. Rene de
Saussure (writing in the _Journal de Geneve_, in 1907) has insisted on
the immense benefit such a system of "monnaie de compte" would be in
removing the burden imposed upon all international financial relations
by the diversity of money values. He argues that the best point of union
would be a gold piece of eight grammes--almost exactly equivalent to one
pound, twenty marks, five dollars, and twenty-five francs--being, in
fact, but one-third of a penny different from the value of a pound
sterling. For the subdivisions the point of union must be decimally
divided, and M. de Saussure would give the name of speso to a
ten-thousandth part of the gold coin.

FOOTNOTES:

[236] The history of the efforts to attain a universal language has been
written by Couturat and Leau, _Histoire de la Langue Universelle_, 1903.

[237] The distinguished French physician, Dr. Sollier, also, in an address
to the Lisbon International Medical Congress, on "La Question de la
Langue Auxiliaire Internationale," in 1906, advocating the adoption of
one of the existing Romance tongues, said: "Spanish is the simplest of
all and the easiest, and if it were chosen for this purpose I should be
the first to accept it."

[238] It has even been stated by a distinguished English man of science
that Latin is sometimes easier for the English to use than is their own
language. "I have known Englishmen who could be trusted to write a more
intelligible treatise, possibly even to make a more lucid speech, in
Latin than in English," says Dr. Miers, the Principal of London
University (_Lancet_, 7th October, 1911), and he adds: "Quite seriously,
I think some part of the cause is to be sought in the difficulty of our
language, and many educated persons get lost in its intricacies, just as
they get lost in its spelling." Without questioning the fact, however, I
would venture to question this explanation of it.

[239] Thus in one article on the growing extension of the English language
throughout the world (_Macmillan's Magazine_, March, 1892) we read:
"English is practically certain to become the language of the world....
The speech of Shakespeare and Milton, of Dryden and Swift, of Byron and
Wordsworth, will be, in a sense in which no other