The times., 1898-02-13
Spencerian Fragments.

| In Various Fragments" by Herbert
Spencer. a moderate sized volume which
| has just seen the light, the author states
| that he has collected some letters, pa
pers, essays and like embodiments of
| ideas and sugg gestions, which he thinks
ought not't TO remain buried. 1t is not to
be understood by this. he adds, that ali
of the letters, papers, etc. possess great
| intrinsic merit, but that some Of them do,
and while he was about it, to use
colloquial phrase, he published the 9TH
ers in the same volume.
| They will undoubtedly prove interest
! ing 10 many readers, both as Mr.. Spen-
GERS views and as original suggestions
and theories. The subjects are extreme
! ly varied, four of the papers being con-
nected with bOokselling and book-pub-
| fishing; another discussing the metric
system; another "Anglo-AmErican Arbi-
tration," another Social Evolution and
Social Duty" and another Evolutionary
Ethics" The paper on the metric sys-
tenn may be OF especial interest 20 Amer
! lean readers, as presenting somewhat
original view of a subject on which the
mass Of the people have never done much
thinking. 1t was written at a time when
il was thought that the British govern
lnNlll dbOllSIl lflt dtl. lIle puSIIti,
the quart, and all other measures made
venerable by tradition, and take TO the
metric system for convenience in deal
ing with foreign nations, and in the in
terest of scientific accuracy. In this pa
per there is quoted letter from Profess
sor Hazen, Of the Weather Bureau in
Washington, in which that gentleman
protests vigorously against the Cent?
grade system in thermometers, and says
haf NJ only &c the f'putipg9np degree
twice too large for ordinary studies, but
the use Of the Centigrade scale below
freezing involves the continual use of the
minus sign, which is nuisance. 1t is
thus shown that there is no particular
convenience in the metric system in
thermometers. so far as scientific men
are concerned. and MIR. Spencer goes on
10 show that although man had from the
beginning the nucleus of decimal scale
in his zen fingers, he has made his own
scale of measures on a different basis, to
facilitate division into aliquot parts. To
prove that the scale Of twelve is more
natural and more convenient than that
of ten, ne points to general usage in the
United States. Our dollar. he observes.
is divided. into one hundred parts; yet we
still sell things in dozens. quote prices in
quarters and halves instead of tenths,
and write our stock quotations in halves,
quarters and eighths. not in tenthS and
hundredthS. He might have added that
twelve and half cents is one Of the ia
vorite bargain prices. and three for
a dollar, or 80 cents each" is another
which SHOWS still further the inconve-
nience Of a monetary unit which can be
divided neither into eighths, thirds nor
sixths. IF we must correct our meas
ure to correspond with a certain frac-
ton of the earths circumference, he
says. '1et us leng then the present yard by
one thousandth part" And he also
makes the pertinent query whether these
devotees of the number ten propose to
make a year ten months long, in DELI
ance of the lunar months, and rearrange
the degrees of a circle, the mariners
compass, and the signs of the zodiac to
correspond with their ideas. In reading
this essay one is particularly impressed
with the wisdom of tradition In fixing
such elementary things as weights and
measures, and the short-sightedness of
gentlemen who, for the convenience of a
limited class, propose to put whole ma
ton of common people who deal in small
quantities to the inconvenience Of chang
ing their system of trade. New York:
D. Appleton & Co. Washington: All
booksellers. S.25)