cated the adoption of
Spanish; he regarded English as really more suitable, but, he pointed
out, it is so difficult for the Latin races to speak non-Latin tongues
that a Romance language is essential, and Spanish is the simplest and
most logical of the Romance tongues.[237] It is, moreover, spoken by a
vast number of people in South America and elsewhere.

A few enthusiasts have advocated Greek, and have supported their claim
with the argument that it is still a living language. But although Greek
is the key to a small but precious literature, and is one of the sources
of latter-day speech and scientific terminology, it is difficult, it is
without special adaptation to modern uses, and there are no adequate
reasons why it should be made an international language.

Latin cannot be dismissed quite so hastily. It has in its favour the
powerful argument that it has once already been found adequate to serve
as the universal language. There is a widespread opinion to-day among
the medical profession--the profession most actively interested in the
establishment of a universal language--that Latin should be adopted, and
before the International Medical Congress at Rome in 1894, a petition to
this effect was presented by some eight hundred doctors in India.[238] It
is undoubtedly an admirable language, expressive, concentrated, precise.
But the objections are serious. The relative importance of Latin to-day
is very far from what it was a thousand years ago, for conditions have
wholly changed. There is now no great influence, such as the Catholic
Church was of old, to enforce Latin, even if it possessed greater
advantages. And the advantages are very mixed. Latin is a wholly dead
tongue, and except in a degenerate form not by any means an easy one to
learn, for its genius is wholly opposed to the genius even of those
modern languages which are most closely allied to it. The world never
returns on its own path. Although the prestige of Latin is still
enormous, a language could only be brought from death to life by some
widespread motor force; such a force no longer exists behind Latin.

There remain English and French, and these are undoubtedly the two
natural languages most often put forward--even outside England and
France--as possessing the best claims for adoption as auxiliary
international mediums of communication.

English, especially, was claimed by many, some twenty years ago, to be
not merely the auxiliary language of