Messianic measurements

Writing in 1821, John Quincy Adams observed the massive difficulty of introducing metric measurements. Measurement so permeats society that an immediate change in standards would "affect the well-being of man, woman and child, in the community."

He noted, "Weights and measures may be ranked among the necessities of life to every human individual and society. They enter into the economical arrangements and daily concerns of every family. They are necessary to every occupation of human industry; to the distribution and security of every species of property; to every transaction of trade or commerce; to the labours of the husbandman; to the ingenuity of the artificer; to the studies of the philosopher; to the researches of the antiquarian; to the navigation of the mariner; to the marches of the soldier; to all exchanges of peace and all the operations of war."

Adams, however, reviewed the principles of the metric system, and found that the difficulty would be worth the trouble: "It is one of those attempts to improve the condition of human kind, hiwhc, should ie even be destined to fail ultimately, would, in its failure, deserve little less admiration than in its success." He was particularly impressed by the "world-wide ambition" of the plan, the fact that introducing the metric system would "form an era, not only in the history of weights and measures, but in that of human science."

And not only science, but all human society: "if man upon earth be an improvable being, if that universal peace, which was the object of a Saviour's mission, which is the desire of the philosopher, the longing of the philanthropist, the trembling hope of the Christian, is a blessing to which the futurity of mortal man has a claim of more than mortal promise; if the Spirit of Evil is, before the final consummation of things, to be cast down from his dominion over men, and bound in the chains of a thousand years, the foretaste here of man's eternal felicity, then this system of common instruments to accomplish all the changes of social and friendly commerce, will furnish the links of sympathy between the inhabitants of the most distant regions; the meter will surround the globe in use, as well as in mutiplied extension, andone language of weights and measures will be spoken from the equator to the poles."

posted by Peter J. Leithart on Wednesday, January 10, 2007 at 04:12 PM

Permission is given to use material on this site, provided the source is cited, blog entries are republished in full, and the author is notified in advance.