Page:British Weights and Measures - Superior to the Metric, by James W. Evans.djvu/55

Rh nation from primeval times for apparently a Divine purpose. Speculations upon these points would, for the present, be as profitless as research into the merits of ancient methods, and in what way, if any, our system is founded upon them. The question is, above all things, a practical one, and has to be considered in a practical way.

On the other side, the advocates of metricalisation have been, and frequently still are, guilty of overstating their case. They have set up fanciful claims of superiority, which have no solid foundation. How shallow some of these pretensions are has been indicated. Much more could easily be said. The mass of material at hand makes it difficult to keep within reasonable dimensions. The claim to scientific accuracy of the metric system is absurd. The base is incorrect; the standards formed upon it are faulty for aught we know, for they have not been subject to examination since they were enshrined and secluded strictly from public gaze; and, we are assured, “the standard metric weights of Europe are copies of an inexact copy.” This has led to the caustic criticism contained in these words: “The ancient Egyptians may have built pyramids as mural standards of measures, the Romans may have laboriously adopted the Greek and the Egyptian measures to practical purposes and wants; were the English to reconstruct their metrical system they would scientifically weigh a cubic yard, or at least a cubic foot, of water, but the French alone would make a single miserable decimetre of such dimensions (the kilogramme), borrow decimalisation from the Chinese, and propagate the result by presents of Sèvres vases, large medals, and sentiments of mutual admiration.”