gible to those of other nations. Evidently moved by the desire for human welfare at large, scientific men have been of late years "urging that the metric system should be made universal, in the belief that immense advantages, like those which they themselves find, will be found by all who are engaged in trade. Here comes in the error. They have identified two quite different requirements. For what purpose does the man of science use the metric system? For processes of measurement. For what purpose is the trader to use it? For processes of measurement plus processes of exchange. This additional element alters the problem essentially. It matters not to a chemist whether the volumes he specifies in cubic centimetres or the weights he gives in grammes are or are not easily divisible with exactness. Whether the quantities of liquids or gases which the physicist states in litres can or can not be readily divided into aliquot parts is indifferent. And to the morphologist or microscopist who writes down dimensions in subdivisions of the metre, the easy divisibility of the lengths he states is utterly irrelevant. But it is far otherwise with the man who, all day long, has to portion out commodities to customers and receive money in return. To satisfy the various wants of those multitudes whose purchases are in small quantities, he needs measures that fall into easy divisions and a coinage which facilitates calculation and the giving of change. Ask him to do his business in tenths, and he will inevitably be impeded.
"But you forget that the metric system is approved by many mercantile men, and that its adoption is urged by the chambers of commerce." No, I have not forgotten; and if I had I should have been reminded of the fact by the fears now expressed that our commerce will suffer if we do not follow in the steps of sundry other nations. The fears are absurd. French and German merchants, when sending goods to England, find no difficulty in marking them or invoicing them in English measures. And if English merchants imply that they are too stupid to follow the example in a converse way, they can scarcely expect to be believed. Surely the manufacturers who supply them with piece goods will make these up in so many metres instead of in so many yards, if asked to do so; and similarly in all cases. Or, if not, it needs but a table on the wall in the clerk's office, giving in parallel columns the equivalents of quantity in English denominations and French denominations, to make easy the needful invoicing and labeling. But it is not on this flimsiest of reasons that I wish chiefly to comment. The fact here to be specially emphasized is that merchants are not in the least concerned with the chief uses of the metric system. Their bales and chests and casks contain large quantities—dozens of yards, hundredweights, gallons. They do not deal with subdivisions of these. Whether
