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Delegates who are to make the choice, that MM. Couturat and Leau composed their admirable Histoire de la langue universelle. It contains a brief but scientific account of each language mentioned, the leading principles of its construction, and an excellent critique. The main principles are disengaged by the authors with a masterly clearness and precision of analysis from the mass of material before them. Though they are careful to express no personal preference, and let fall nothing which might unfairly prejudice the delegates in favour of any scheme, it is not difficult to judge, by a comparison of the scientific critiques, which of the competing schemes analysed most fully carries out the principles which experience now shows to be essential to success for any artificial language.

The impression left is, that whether judged by the test of conformity to necessary principles, or by the old maxim "possession is nine points of the law," Esperanto has no serious rival.

There are some who fully admit the desirability of an international language, but say that we have no need to invent one, as we have Latin. This tends to be the argument of literary persons.^[1] They back it up by pointing out that Latin has already done duty in the Middle Ages as a common medium, and therefore, they say, what it has once done with success it can do again.

It is hard to argue with such persons, because they have not grasped the fact that the nature of international communication has undergone a complete change, and that therefore there is no