THE OUTLOOK I7
Prof. Joji Sakurai, speaking recently at the third Pacific
Science Congress, 1926, said: “ Multiplicity of languages
 is one of the greatest misfortunes of man”;
and, it may be added, he gives cogent reasons for his
view.
Do these things matter? One is assuredly compelled
 to realise that, so long as communities—races
or nations—are individualistic, the instinct of selfpreservation
 must inevitably operate. For this reason,
with Man’s present outlook, collisions of races or
peoples are almost unavoidable, and his social and
economic organisation in no way tides him over the
difficulty. Notwithstanding that the world’s populations
 are recognising more and more that a worldsolidarity
 is rapidly developing, and that human
interests generally have become a complex in which
all have the deepest interest, the individualistic point
of view still menaces the well-being of the whole.
National megalomanias and economic greeds make
even a fancied danger of a collision of interest a cause
of disturbance, and they prompt situations that will
almost certainly lead to catastrophe.
For the reasons indicated thus far, Man must perforce
 in the very near future undertake surveys of the
world’s possibilities of population and of the facts
of its distributions and growth... We are involved in
all the consequences of diverse racial characteristics,
of diverse social and ethical ideals, and of diverse
economic developments. Though really cultured men
of high character are sensibly the same the world over,
this is by no means true of the masses. A highly
civilised people finds little in common with a so-called
barbaric people. It is astonishing, too, that mere
differences of langdage awaken distrust and arouse
prejudice. By a trick of national vanity, any one
people 1s tempted to compare its best with the common
sort of another people, notwithstanding that all in-