Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 72.djvu/172

168 By way of illustration, compare the Paternoster in Esperanto and Latin.

It will suffice to conclude with a translated extract from a recent French memoir, entitled, "La Langue Universelle" (Hachette et Cie., Paris, 1904), by Couturat and Leau. This memoir is the result of a comparative study and research into all the published systems of international speech appearing within the past two hundred years. The authors are two members of an official delegation, appointed by the International Association of Academies, which undertook, at the instance of the French Academy of Sciences, to consider the adoption of an international auxiliary language. Concluding their critique of Esperanto, the writers say:

In spite of its imperfections, easy to correct, the system of formation of words in Esperanto is one possessed of remarkable regularity and fecundity. It is this, especially, which contributes to give it the striking character of a "natural" language, of a living tongue, which good judges recognize in it. It is truly an autonomous language, which possesses intrinsic and unlimited resources, which has an original physiognomy and a genius all its own. . . . It is therefore not an "artificial" language, dried and dead, a simple replica of our idioms; it is a language capable of living, of developing, and of surpassing in richness, suppleness and variety the natural tongues. Finally, it is a language susceptible of elegance and style, if one admits that true elegance subsists in simplicity and clearness, and that style is but the order which one takes in the expression of thought.