this universall reduction but then the
rest of the Europaean world (which I have no reason to slur or contemne)
would have as ill resented the project, as we did it in the Germans, who
would long agoe have challenged this honour to themselves. I had in the end
no other course to take, but to throw myselfe upon the _Latine_, in which I
luckily met with all the necessary conditions that did easily, and
plausibly conduce to my design'd attempt.

To say the truth _Aristotle_ himselfe, a man of a judgement in such things
the most exact that ever was to take a _measure_ from, demanded but three
qualifications, viz. _Universality_, _Certainty_, and _Proportion_; that it
should be generally known to all those that are to make use of it in the
quality of a measure, that it should be fixt, and determin'd in its selfe,
and then that it should be proportion'd to all those things, to which it
prescribes their bounds, all which characters do with advantage combine in
the Latine, and that with such propriety that they cannot be attributed to
any other without some sort of injustice; for the greatest part of the
other Languages they are determind to the extent of a particular Kingdom or
Country, the Latine hath no such disadvantage upon it. It is to speak
properly the Language of Europe: Religion, and the Sciences have more
enlarg'd its dominions, then all the conquests of the Romans; tis almost
the common Idiom of the North, and universally knowne to persons of birth
and education, who alone are presum'd to stand in need of the assistance of
forraigne Languages.

It disownes the common imperfection of others, which by nature being
subject to change, cannot by consequence, serve for a certain determinate
rule in all ages; and if it now survive through the large extent of its
entertainment, it hath much the advantage of others, that are in a manner
deceas'd to this that is fixt, and retaind by a well assur'd custome and if
its being universally known allows all persons to share its uses, so its
being steddy, and unalterable, secures it from all the uneven changes of
time.

As to its proportion, it in a manner keeps a mean between the Ancient and
Modern Languages, it is neither altogether so pure as the one, nor so
corrupt as the other, and so with the same ease is applicable to both; and
in earnest is infinitely the most compendious, it being farre less trouble
to passe from the mean to an extream, or from the extream to the mean, then