NEW FRONTIERS 207Weitling ended this flight into linguistics and phonetics with
additional speculations on the nature of the universe and the unity
of all life and concluded that no matter how much their learning
might increase men would never be able to comprehend "eternity"
or "reach the boundaries of the Universe"; for everything was
part of a "single, unified, endless, indivisible whole," a "great,
organic unity." Scientific observation alone would never solve
the riddle of the universe, and Weitling believed that man's con
cepts extended far beyond his senses and his nervous system and
that man possessed a spirit which sharply differentiated him from
the animals, enabling him to function in the realm of fantasy,
working hypotheses, and ideals.
Weitling realized that his theories of language would be scorned
and ridiculed by professors living in their "scholar's nimbus," but
he contended that time would prove that his universal language
was as much superior to existing languages as the "railroad to the
medieval cart" and the "telegraph to the postrider." His old com
munist comrade Becker had maintained long ago that unity among
the nations was possible without a universal language, and that the
quest for a common tongue was all nonsense and doomed to failure
from the outset;^3 but to Weitling, this new system of thought
and language, incomplete as it was, was the key with which man
could open the door to a new life based on pure reason and
"trampel the monster of national hatreds underfoot."
(^3) Becker, Was Wollen die Kommunisten?, 45.
proposals with which Weitling hoped to revolutionize man's ex
isting means of communication:
GERMAN
Du wirst das Mädchen haben
Ich werde das Mädchen ge-
habt haben
Ich werde Mann werden
Ich war gesund geworden
Wir werden gesund gewor
den sein
Du warst gesund
ENGLISH
You will have the girl
I will have had the girl
I will become a man
I became well
We will have become
well
You were well
NEW LANGUAGE
Pi Papai li sas
Pi Papai sas
Pi wavivi fif
bi sanoe
by sanoa
ba sanou