From time to time enthusiasts have attempted to invent a lan= guage which shall serve as common means of communica~ tion among the nations. It is no doubt the zeal of the inventor which blinds them to the fact that a language is a_ living thing the result of an evolutionary process and therefore cannot be invented. At various times in history there have been Janguages which have served a3 the "world" language of their day. In the third century of our era a sort of "commercial Greek" was spoken by large numbers of the inhabitants of the countries bordering the shores of the Mediterranean. During the Middle Ages a know. ledge of Latin would carry a man over the greater part of Europe, while in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries French almost attained the rank of world" language, and still remains the tongue of diplomacy, though it is dificult to imagine why our diplomatists should have chosen so exact and clear-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.