LANGUAGE, UNIVERSAL
LANGUAGE, UNIVERSAL The invention of a universal language, which men of all nations could understand and through which they could communicate their thoughts, has always been one of the dreams of certain philologists. In the seventeenth century, Dalgarno had written his Ars Signorum to prove the possibility of a universal character and a philosophical language. About the same time Bishop Wilkins published his Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language; and even the mathematical Leibnitz entertained the project of a universal language for all the world. It is not, therefore, surprising, that when the so-called Leland Manuscript stated that the Freemasons concealed a "Universal Language," John Locke, or whoever was the commentator on that document, should have been attracted by the statement. He says: A universal language has been much desired by the learned of many ages. It is a thing rather to be wished than hoped for. But it seems the Masons pretend to have...