STAN D ARDIZATION 137

thousands of such-like regularities, is nothing else
than standardization called by another name, To
complete the picture of this universal standardi-
zation, accepted without complaint by the majority
of rational beings, would involve a description of
the entire order of nature and a recapitulation of
all the positive sciences. Out of this vast
totality I must content myself with selecting a
single item, and I select it because it reveals a
principle in which the meaning of standardization
(American or other) stands out perfectly clear.

In the age preceding that unfortunate turn in
human affairs when the Tower of Babel brought
confusion into the world it is reported that man-
kind were all of one speech. Language in those
days was standardized on a uniform pattern;
the confusion of tongues which now makes the
Assembly of the League of Nations so difficult to
manage was unknown. It was an age, therefore,
in which a man could make an original remark,
or an important one, with a reasonable
expectation that the point of it would be im-
mediately intelligible to every other man in the
world. This, one would think, must have been a
great incentive to originality. On the other hand,
nothing could be more unfavourable to originality
than'the conditions whith subsequently prevailed
on the Plain of Shinar. For how can you make
an original remark in a world where nobody
understands what you are saying ? Not only
would the incentive to make it be lacking but you