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(6) It will not come in in our time, so the question is of no interest except to our grandchildren.

(7) It is doomed to failure—look at Volapük!

(8) There are quite enough languages already.

(9) You have to learn three or four languages in order to understand Esperanto.

(10) You cannot know it without learning it.

(11) You have to wear a green star.

Pains have been taken to make this list exhaustive. If any reader can think of another objection, he is requested to communicate with the author.

Most of the serious arguments have been already dealt with, so that not many words need be said here. As regards No. VII. (Technical), this is not the place to deal with actual criticisms of the language (Esperanto) that holds the field. The reader will not be in a position to judge of them till he has learnt it. Suffice it to say that they can all be met, and some of the points criticised as vices are, in reality, virtues in an artificial language.

As for Nos. II. and IV. (Sentimental and Literary), most of these objections are due to the old heresy of the literary man, that an artificial language claims to compete with natural languages as a language. Once realize that it is primarily a labour-saving device, and therefore to be judged like any other modern invention such as telegraphy or shorthand, and most of these objections fall to the ground.

A good many of the objections cannot be taken seriously (though they have all been seriously made), or refute themselves or each other. No. VIII. (10) sounds like a fake, but this was the criticism of a scholar and linguist who had been persuaded to look at Esperanto. He complained that though he, knowing Latin, French, Italian, German, and English, could read it without ever having learnt it, ordinary Englishmen could not. It is usual to judge an invention by efficiency compared to cost, but if an appliance is to be condemned because it needs some trouble to master it, then not many inventions will survive.