THE OUTLOOK I7 
Prof. Joji Sakurai, speaking recently at the third Pacific 
Science Congress, 1926, said: “ Multiplicity of lan- 
guages 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 com- 
pelled to realise that, so long as communities—races 
or nations—are individualistic, the instinct of self- 
preservation 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 popula- 
tions are recognising more and more that a world- 
solidarity 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 per- 
force 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-