The Search for the Perfect Language

Started diving in this fascinating book by Umberto Eco last week-end. Discovered the French translation available in my local library. Really worth reading, to understand that what we are doing here and in many other places today is just another episode of a very long story. A quote among many, this one from Descartes in a letter to Marin Mersenne in 1629 (my own translation from French, hope it makes sense).

I take that such a language is possible, and that the science on which it depends can be found, by mean of which farmers could best grasp the truth of things than philosophers do today. But don't hope to ever see it in use; that would suppose great changes in the order of things, and would need the world to be a heaven on earth, something worth to propose only in the world of novels.