[1]But only, of course, in those lines in which an international
auxiliary language can produce equally good results. This excludes
home use, national literature, philology, scholarly study of national
languages, etc.

So much, then, for the question of principle. In treating it, certain
large assumptions have been made; e.g. it is said above, "if an easy
artificial language can with equal efficiency... produce the same
results," etc. Here it is assumed that the artificial language is (1)
easy, and (2) that it is possible for it to produce the same results.
Again, however easy and possible, its introduction might cost more than
it saved. These are questions of fact, and are treated in the three
following chapters under the heading of "The Question of Practice."


III

THE QUESTION OF PRACTICE—AN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE IS POSSIBLE

The man who says a thing is impossible without troubling to find out
whether it has been done is merely "talking through his hat," to use
an Americanism, and we need not waste much time on him. Any one, who
maintains that it is impossible to transact the ordinary business of
life and write lucid treatises on scientific and other subjects in an
artificial language, is simply in the position of the French engineer,
who gave a full scientific demonstration of the fact that an engine
could not possibly travel by steam.

The plain fact is that not only one artificial language, but several,