Starting with every advantage in its favour, as has been pointed out, the metric system has not been adopted so readily and with such smoothness of working as the advocates of its “simplicity” would have us believe. We are in a different position to that which those other countries, held up to us as patterns, were in before the adoption of the metric system, as we happen to have an excellent system which the people have no difficulty in dealing with. And Professor De Morgan emphasises, in a few words, a paramount objection in “the greatness of the change and the comparative inutility of it.”
CHAPTER VIII.
National Opposition to Change.
It has been well said that “amongst almost all nations an adherence to the customary measures of the people is generally a deep-rooted sentiment, much akin to conformity to habitual forms of religious ceremony, old political institutions, and ancient modes of linguistic expression.” Britishers are specially noted for their tenacity, and it requires no prophet to foretell that they would offer enormous resistance to any attempt to change their habits and customs in any respect. They have been cradled in a different political atmosphere to the people of most European countries. There would be well-nigh insuperable difficulties in obtaining obedi-
