coinage (or lose the exchange-value), the worry expended in struggling for stamps or dinners in the less familiar tongues, the confusion of train-rules and street-usages and civic regulations, reflect a system of chaotic disorder; to say nothing of the “sizes” of boots or collars you need, the weight of tobacco or fruit, and so on.
All this is a portentous example of slavery to tradition, whether the tradition be reasonable or no. We have not the slightest regard for the historical development of this muddle and the peculiar folly of retaining it in our generation. Our earlier ancestors measured their woollens or their corn or their mead by the simple standards that are apt to occur to primitive peoples. Even, however, where the same standard occurred to, or commended itself to, different and remote communities, its vagueness was fatal. “A thousand paces” (a mille, as the Romans said) seemed a fair reckoning for long distances, but the stretch varied, and we have Irish miles and German miles and English miles and nautical miles. Our ounces and yards and pints are as intelligent as most of the other things which the ancient Briton invented, but, being British, they seem sacred to us. A hundred years ago a far superior standard, the decimal system, was put before us, but our fathers felt that it smacked of the French Revolution and Napoleon and atheism. We smile at their prejudice, yet we have no greater disposition to alter our unintelligent ways. The German would be horrified at having to reckon
