The Task of Social Hygiene Part 17

Thus the way was prepared for the favourable reception of a new artificial language, which had in the meanwhile been elaborated. Dr.

Zamenhof, a Russian physician living at Warsaw, had been from youth occupied with the project of an international language, and in 1887 he put forth in French his scheme for a new language to be called Esperanto. The scheme attracted little notice; Volapuk was then at the zenith of its career, and when it fell, its fall discredited all attempts at an artificial language. But, like Volapuk, Esperanto found its great apostle in France. M. Louis de Beaufront brought his high ability and immense enthusiasm to the work of propaganda, and the success of Esperanto in the world is attributed in large measure to him.

The extension of Esperanto is now threatening to rival that of Volapuk.

Many years ago Max Muller, and subsequently Skeat, notwithstanding the philologist's prejudice in favour of natural languages, expressed their approval of Esperanto, and many persons of distinction, moving in such widely remote spheres as Tolstoy and Sir William Ramsay, have since signified their acceptance and their sympathy. Esperanto Congresses are regularly held, Esperanto Societies and Esperanto Consulates are established in many parts of the world, a great number of books and journals are published in Esperanto, and some of the world's cla.s.sics have been translated into it.

It is generally recognized that Esperanto represents a great advance on Volapuk. Yet there are already signs that Esperanto is approaching the climax of its reputation, and that possibly its inventor may share the fate of the inventor of Volapuk and outlive his own language. The most serious attack on Esperanto has come from within. The most intelligent Esperantists have realized the weakness and defects of their language (in some measure due to the inevitable Slavonic prepossessions of its inventor) and demand radical reforms, which the conservative party resist. Even M. de Beaufront, to whom its success was largely due, has abandoned primitive Esperanto, and various scientific men of high distinction in several countries now advocate the supersession of Esperanto by an improved language based upon it and called Ido.

Professor Lorenz, who is among the advocates of Ido, admits that Esperanto has shown the possibility of a synthetic language, but states definitely that "according to the concordant testimony of all unbiased opinions" Esperanto in no wise represents the final solution of the problem. This new movement is embodied in the Delegation pour l'Adoption d'une Langue Auxiliaire Internationale, founded in Paris during the International Exhibition in 1900 by various eminent literary and scientific men, and having its head-quarters in Paris. The Delegation consider that the problem demands a purely scientific and technical solution, and it is claimed that 40 per cent of the stems of Ido are common to six languages: German, English, French, Italian, Russian and Spanish. The Delegation appear to have approached the question with a fairly open mind, and it was only after study of the subject that they finally reached the conclusion that Esperanto contained a sufficient number of good qualities to furnish a basis on which to work.[246]

The general programme of the Delegation is that (1) an auxiliary international language is required, adapted to written and oral language between persons of different mother tongues; (2) such language must be capable of serving the needs of science, daily life, commerce, and general intercourse, and must be of such a character that it may easily be learnt by persons of average elementary education, especially those of civilized European nationality; (3) the decision to rest with the International a.s.sociation of Academies, and, in case of their refusal, with the Committee of the Delegation.[247]

The Delegation is seeking to bring about an official international Congress which would either itself or through properly appointed experts establish an internationally and officially recognized auxiliary language. The chief step made in this direction has been the formation at Berne in 1911 of an international a.s.sociation whose object is to take immediate steps towards bringing the question before the Governments of Europe. The a.s.sociation is pledged to observe a strict neutrality in regard to the language to be chosen.

The whole question seems thus to have been placed on a sounder basis than hitherto. The international language of the future cannot be, and ought not to be, settled by a single individual seeking to impose his own invention on the world. This is not a matter for zealous propaganda of an almost religious character. The hasty and premature adoption of some privately invented language merely r.e.t.a.r.ds progress. No individual can settle the question by himself. What we need is calm study and deliberation between the nations and the cla.s.ses chiefly concerned, acting through the accredited representatives of their Governments and other professional bodies. Nothing effective can be done until the pressure of popular opinion has awakened Governments and scientific societies to the need for action. The question of international arbitration has become practical; the question of the international language ought to go hand in hand with that of international arbitration. They are closely allied and both equally necessary.

While the educational, commercial, and official advantages of an auxiliary international language are obvious, it seems to me that from the standpoint of social hygiene there are at least three interests which are especially and deeply concerned in the settlement of this question.

The first and chief is that of international democracy in its efforts to attain an understanding on labour questions. There can be no solution of this question until a simpler mode of personal communication has become widely prevalent. This matter has from time to time already been brought before international labour congresses, and those who attend such congresses have doubtless had occasion to realize how essential it is.

Perhaps it is a chief factor in the comparative failure of such congresses. .h.i.therto.

Science represents the second great interest which has shown an active concern in the settlement of this question. To follow up any line of scientific research is already a sufficiently gigantic work, on account of the absence of proper bibliographical organization; it becomes almost overwhelming now that the search has to extend over at least half a dozen languages, and still leaves the searcher a stranger to the important investigations which are appearing in Russian and in j.a.panese, and will before long appear in other languages. Sir Michael Foster once drew a humorous picture of the woes of the physiologist owing to these causes. In other fields--especially in the numerous branches of anthropological research, as I can myself bear witness--the worker is even worse off than the physiologist. Just now science is concentrating its energies on the organization of bibliography, but much attention has been given to this question of an international language from time to time, and it is likely before long to come pressingly to the front.

The medical profession is also practically concerned in this question; hitherto it has, indeed, taken a more lively interest in the effort to secure an international language than has pure science. It is of the first importance that new discoveries and methods in medicine and hygiene should be rendered immediately accessible; while the now enormously extended domain of medicine is full of great questions which can only be solved by international co-operation on an international basis. The responsibility of advocating a number of measures affecting the well-being of communities lies, in the first place, with the medical profession; but no general agreement is possible without full facilities for discussion in international session. This has been generally recognized; hence the numerous attempts to urge a single language on the organizers of the international medical congresses. I have already observed how large and active these congresses were. Yet it cannot be said that any results are achieved commensurate with the world-wide character of such congresses. Partly this is due to the fact that the organizers of international congresses have not yet learnt what should be the scope of such conferences, and what they may legitimately hope to perform; but very largely because there is no international method of communication; and, except for a few seasoned cosmopolitans, no truly international exchange of opinions takes place. This can only be possible when we have a really common and familiar method of intercommunication.

These three interests--democratic, scientific, medical--seem at present those chiefly concerned in the task of putting this matter on a definite basis, and it is much to be desired that they should come to some common agreement. They represent three immensely important modes of social and intellectual activity, and the progress of every nation is bound up with an international progress of which they are now the natural pioneers. It cannot be too often repeated that the day has gone by when any progress worthy of the name can be purely national. All the most vital questions of national progress tend to merge themselves into international questions. But before any question of international progress can result in anything but noisy confusion, we need a recognized mode of international intelligence and communication. That is why the question of the auxiliary international language is of actual and vital interest to all who are concerned with the tasks of social hygiene.

THE QUESTION ON INTERNATIONAL COINAGE

It must be remembered that the international auxiliary language is an organic part of a larger internationalization which must inevitably be effected, and is indeed already coming into being. Two related measures of intercommunication are an international system of postage stamps, and an international coinage, to which may be added an international system of weights and measures, which seems to be already in course of settlement by the increasingly general adoption of the metric system.

The introduction of the exchangeable international stamp coupon represents the beginning of a truly international postal system; but it is only a beginning. If a completely developed international postal system were incidentally to deliver some nations, and especially the English, from the depressingly ugly postage stamps they are now condemned to use, this reform would possess a further advantage almost as great as its practical utility. An international coinage is, again, a prime necessity, which would possess immense commercial advantages in addition to the great saving of trouble it would effect. The progress of civilization is already working towards an international coinage. In an interesting paper on this subject ("International Coinage," _Popular Science Monthly_, March, 1910) T.F. van Wagenen writes; "Each in its way, the great commercial nations of the day are unconsciously engaged in the task. The English s.h.i.+lling is working northwards from the Cape of Good Hope, has already come in touch with the German mark and the Portuguese peseta which have been introduced on both the east and west sides of the Continent, and will in due time meet the French franc and Italian lira coming south from the sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean. In Asia, the Indian rupee, the Russian rouble, the j.a.panese yen, and the American-Philippine coins are already competing for the patronage of the Malay and the Chinaman. In South America neither American nor European coins have any foot-hold, the Latin-American nations being well supplied by systems of their own, all related more or less closely to the coinage of Mexico or Portugal. Thus the plainly evolutionary task of pus.h.i.+ng civilization into the uneducated parts of the world through commerce is as badly hampered by the different coins offered to the barbarian as are the efforts of the evangelists to introduce Christianity by the existence of the various denominations and creeds. The Church is beginning to appreciate the wastage in its efforts, and is trying to minimize it by combinations among the denominations having for their object to standardize Christianity, so to speak, by reducing tenet and dogma to the lowest possible terms. Commerce must do the same. The white man's coins must be standardized and simplified.... The international coin will come in a comparatively short time, just as will arrive the international postage stamp, which, by the way, is very badly needed.

For the upper cla.s.ses of all countries, the people who travel, and have to stand the nuisance and loss of changing their money at every frontier, the bankers and international merchants who have to c.u.mber their accounts with the fluctuating item of exchange between commercial centres will insist upon it. All the European nations, with the exception of Russia and Turkey, are ready for the change, and when these reach the stage of real const.i.tutionalism in their progress upward, they will be compelled to follow, being already deeply in debt to the French, English, and Germans. j.a.pan may be counted upon to acquiesce instantly in any unit agreed upon by the rest of the civilized world."

This writer points out that the opening out of the uncivilized parts of the world to commerce will alone serve to make an international coinage absolutely indispensable.

Without, however, introducing a really new 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 Princ.i.p.al 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 language has been, the speech of the whole world." We do not nowadays meet with these wild statements.

[240] The stumbling-stones for the foreigner presented by English words in "ough" have often been referred to, and are clearly set forth in the verses in which Mr. C.B. Loomis has sought to represent a French learner's experiences--and the same time to show the criminal impulses which these irregularities arouse in the pupil.

"I'm taught p-l-o-u-g-h Shall be p.r.o.nounced 'plow,'

'Zat's easy when you know,' I say, 'Mon Anglais I'll get through.'

"My teacher say zat in zat case O-u-g-h is 'oo,'

And zen I laugh and say to him 'Zees Anglais make me cough.'

"He say, 'Not coo, but in zat word O-u-g-h is "off,"'

Oh, _sacre bleu_! such varied sounds Of words make me hiccough!

"He say, 'Again, mon friend ees wrong!

O-u-g-h is "up,"

In hiccough,' Zen I cry, 'No more, You make my throat feel rough,'

"'Non! non!' he cry, 'you are not right-- O-u-g-h is "uff."'

I say, 'I try to speak your words, I can't p.r.o.nonz zem though,'

"'In time you'll learn, but now you're wrong, O-u-g-h is "owe."'

'I'll try no more. I sall go mad, I'll drown me in ze lough!'

"'But ere you drown yourself,' said he, 'O-u-g-h is "ock."'

He taught no more! I held him fast, And killed him wiz a rough!"

[241] It is interesting to remember that at one period in European history, French seemed likely to absorb English, and thus to acquire, in addition to its own motor force, all the motor force which now lies behind English. When the Normans--a vigorous people of Scandinavian origin, speaking a Romance tongue, and therefore well fitted to accomplish a harmonizing task of this kind--occupied both sides of the English Channel, it seemed probable that they would dominate the speech of England as well as of France. "At that time," says Meray (_La Vie aux Temps des Cours d'Amour_, p. 367), who puts forward this view, "the people of the two coasts of the Channel were closer in customs and in speech than were for a long time the French on the opposite banks of the Loire.... The influential part of the English nation and all the people of its southern regions spoke the _Romance_ of the north of France. In the Crusades the Knights of the two peoples often mixed, and were greeted as Franks wherever their adventurous spirit led them. If Edward III, with the object of envenoming an antagonism which served his own ends, had not broken this link of language, the two peoples would perhaps have been united to-day in the same efforts of progress and of liberty.... Of what a fine instrument of culture and of progress has not that fatal decree of Edward III deprived civilization!"

[242] I was at one time (_Progressive Review_, April, 1897) inclined to think that the adoption of both English and French, as joint auxiliary international languages--the first for writing and the second for speaking--might solve the problem. I have since recognized that such a solution, however advantageous it might be for human culture, would present many difficulties, and is quite impracticable.

[243] I may refer to three able papers which have appeared in recent years in the _Popular Science Monthly_: Anna Monsch Roberts, "The Problem of International Speech" (February, 1908); Ivy Kellerman, "The Necessity for an International Language," (September, 1909); Albert Leon Guerard, "English as an International Language" (October, 1911). All these writers reject as impracticable the adoption of either English or French as the auxiliary international language, and view with more favour the adoption of an artificial language such as Esperanto.

[244] A.M. Roberts, _op. cit._

[245] It should be added, however, that the auxiliary language need not be used as a medium for literary art, and it is a mistake, as Pfaundler points out, to translate poems into such a language.

[246] See _International Language and Science_, 1910, by Couturat, Jespersen, Lorenz, Ostwald, Pfaundler, and Donnan, five professors living in five different countries.

[247] The progress of the movement is recorded in its official journal, _Progreso_, edited by Couturat, and in De Beaufront's journal, _La Langue Auxiliaire_.

XII

INDIVIDUALISM AND SOCIALISM

Social Hygiene in Relation to the Alleged Opposition between Socialism and Individualism--The Two Parties in Politics--The Relation of Conservatism and Radicalism to Socialism and Individualism--The Basis of Socialism--The Basis of Individualism--The seeming Opposition between Socialism and Individualism merely a Division of Labour--Both Socialism and Individualism equally Necessary--Not only Necessary but Indispensable to each other--The Conflict between the Advocates of Environment and Heredity--A New Embodiment of the supposed Conflict between Socialism and Individualism--The Place of Eugenics--Social Hygiene ultimately one with the Hygiene of the Soul--The Function of Utopias.

The controversy between Individualism and Socialism, the claim of the personal unit as against the claim of the collective community, is of ancient date. Yet it is ever new and constantly presented afresh. It even seems to become more acute as civilization progresses. Every scheme of social reform, every powerful manifestation of individual energy, raise anew a problem that is never out of date.

It is inevitable, indeed, that with the development of social hygiene during the past hundred years there should also develop a radical opposition of opinion as to the methods by which such hygiene ought to be accomplished. There has always been this opposition in the political sphere; it is natural to find it also in the social sphere. The very fact that old-fas.h.i.+oned politics are becoming more and more transformed into questions of social hygiene itself ensures the continuance of such an opposition.

In politics, and especially in the politics of const.i.tutional countries of which England is the type, there are normally two parties. There is the party that holds by tradition, by established order and solidarity, the maintenance of the ancient hierarchical const.i.tution of society, and in general distinguishes itself by a preference for the old over the new. There is, on the other side, the party that insists on progress, on freedom, on the reasonable demands of the individual, on the adaptation of the accepted order to changing conditions, and in general distinguishes itself by a preference for the new over the old. The first may be called the party of structure, and the second the party of function. In England we know the adherents of one party as Conservatives and those of the other party as Liberals or Radicals.