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PHILOSOPHICAL TERMINOLOGY. 57 position far above all the jealousies of nations with the resistance of which such an enlightened and free act as the foundation of this academy would certainly have to reckon. In an oarlier connexion we regarded it as probable that English would spontaneously take the lead as the language of commercial and personal universal intercourse ; but this is not contradicted by the suggested re-acceptation of neo- Latin. Just as a language of intercourse and a written language, though very different from each other, often exist together, so also a universal language of intercourse and thought may proceed on the one side, and a language of writing and thought upon the other, without friction. 94. In this language of writing and thought, however it might be constituted, there would have to be represented the great philosophical system, as also the special Corpora of the mental sciences, the drawing up of which we regard as the work of our academy, though many successive genera- tions of its members may be occupied with it. Forced to coin model-concepts it would not be at a loss to find expres- sions for them, and ultimately to realise Leibniz's words in which he refers to the imperfections of natural languages for scientific ends as enumerated by Locke. " Car il depend de nous," he says, in proof that those deficiencies persist only because of our carelessness, " de fixer les significations, au moins dans quelque lancjue savante, et d'en convenir^xrar detruire cette tour de Babel." 95. Those who regard this as Utopian we would remind of the Utopia of the metric system for weight and measure, and their attention is called to old literature about it, wherein it is lamented that it is not given to science to break the power of tradition, which (those writers say) can only be con- juered by force. It is not yet a hundred years ago since the 'r'arisian Academy of Sciences finished the measurements of the earth upon the basis of which the deposited standards were elevated as meter and kilogram into legal units for the le of France ; and already for more than twenty years a srmanent international bureau for weight and measure has existed upon the basis of agreements between seventeen States. In conceiving of an international office for psycho- logical and sociological concepts analogous to this we shall 10 doubt be told that we are associating things which can- lot be compared ; above all, its practical value will not be allowed, it will be pointed out that the motive power of 'nterest will always be wanting to such ideal things. We lave ourselves indicated how the ideal interests are as it were overlaid by fancy, art and religion. But here we may