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 the future, but the universal language which must spread all over the world and supersede and drive out all others by a kind of survival of the fittest.
This notion of a universal language is now everywhere regarded as a delusion, but at that time there was still thought by many to be a kind of special procreative activity in the communities of Anglo-Saxon origin which would naturally tend to replace all other peoples, both the people and the language being regarded as the fittest to survive.
4English was, however, rightly felt to be a language with very great force behind it, being spoken by vast communities possessing a peculiarly energetic and progressive temperament, and with much power of peaceful penetration in other lands. It is generally acknowledged also that English fully deserves to be ranked as one of the first of languages by its fine aptitude for powerful expression, while at the same time it is equally fitted for routine commercial purposes. The wide extension of English and its fine qualities have often been emphasized, and it is unnecessary to dwell on them here. The decision of