Chapter VI.; Kleinpaul, _Zeitschrift für Völkerpsych._, VI., 353.

[37] Lubbock. _The Origin of Civilisation and the Primitive Condition of Man_, p. 417.

[38] Gérando, _op. cit._, II., note K, p. 203. Among the gestures that are identical under their double form may be noted stone, water, large, tall, to see, finished, man, house, good, pretty, now, etc.

[39] _Philosophy of the Human Mind_, Ch. I., sect. 2.

[40] Kleinpaul, _loc. cit._

[41] Writing, ideography, originated in an analytical process analogous with the language of gestures. Like the latter, it (1) isolates terms, (2) arranges them in a certain order, (3) translates thought in a crude and somewhat vague form. Curious examples of this may be found in Max Müller’s _Chips from a German Workshop_, XIV. The aborigines of the Caroline Islands sent a letter to a Spanish captain, as follows: Above, a man with extended arms, sign of greeting. Below, to the left, the objects he has to offer; five big shells, seven little ones, three others of different forms. To the right and centre, drawing of the objects wanted in exchange: three large fish hooks, four small ones, two axes, and two pieces of iron.

[42] _Ants, Bees, and Wasps_, VII.—Romanes, _Animal Intelligence_, IV.

[43] _Animal Intelligence_, XVI., p. 445.

[44] The most interesting of the many observations on this subject are those of Dr. Wilks, F. R. S., published in the _Journal of Mental Science_, July, 1879.

[45] _Mental Evolution in Man_, p. 137.

[46] _Der Ursprung der Sprache_ (1877). Fr. Müller maintained a similar view.

[47] A. Lefèvre, _Les races et les langues_ (_Bibliothèque scientifique internationale_), pp. 5-6.

[48] _Loc. cit._, 372.

[49] Heinicke, _Beobachtungen über Stumme_, 75, 137.

[50] Romanes, _Mental Evolution in Man_, pp. 377-379.

[51] For documents, consult especially Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, V; Sayce _Principles of Comparative Philology_, I., § 17.

[52] This list may be found in _The Science of Thought_, p. 406.

[53] How were primitive terms (roots or words) formed? A much-debated and still unsolved question. Man had at his disposal one primary element, the interjection. By all accounts this remained sterile, unfertile; it did not give birth to words; it remained in articulate language as a mark of its emotional origin. A second proceeding was that of imitation with the aid of sound, onomatopœia. From antiquity to the present time, it has been regarded as the parent, _par excellence_. This was accepted by Renan, Whitney, Tylor, H. Paul, etc.; rejected by M. Müller, Bréal, P. Regnaud, etc. No one disputes the formation of many words by onomatopœia, but those who question its value as a universal process say that “if in certain sounds of our idioms we seem to hear an imitation of the sounds of nature, we must recollect that the same noises are represented by quite different sounds in other languages, which are also held by those who utter them to be onomatopœia. Thus it would be more just to say that we hear the sounds of nature through the words to which our ear has been accustomed from infancy” (Bréal). I have observed that those who study the spontaneous formation of language in children, claim for them but little onomatopœism. On the other hand, a word created by undoubted onomatopœia is sometimes by means of association, or of strange analogies, transferred successively to so many objects that all trace of the transformations of meaning may be lost, and the imitative origin actually denied. Such was Darwin’s case, cited above, where the onomatopœia of the duck finally served to designate all liquids, all that flies, all pieces of money. If the successive extensions of the term had not been observed, who could have recovered its origin?

[54] Sayce, _loc. cit._, IV., §§ 3-5.

[55] We cannot doubt, however, that there is in the child (and so too for primitive man) a period of pure and simple denomination, when, in the face of perceived objects, he utters a word, as a spontaneous action, a reflex, with no understood affirmation. But this act is rather the prelude, and attempt at speech, an advance towards language proper.

[56] There is in Iroquois a word that signifies, “I demand money from those who have come to buy garments from me.” Esquimaux is equally rich in terms of this sort. Yet we must recognise that these immense composite words, themselves formed from abbreviated and fused words, virtually imply the beginning of decomposition.

[57] _Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion_, ed. 1891, p. 196.

[58] Whitney, _The Life and Growth of Language_, Chap. X. Sayce, _op. cit._, VI., 28, rejects them absolutely.

[59] Renan, _Histoire générale des langues sémitiques_, pp. 128 and 363.

[60] We can see how little the _real_ order of evolution resembles the theoretical order of the XVIII. century, evolved from pure reasoning: “The complex notions of substances were the _first_ known, since they came from the senses, and must therefore have been the first to have names” (Condillac). “With regard to adjectives, the notion must have developed with _exceeding difficulty_, since every adjective is an abstract term, and abstraction is a painful, or unnatural operation” (J. J. Rousseau).

[61] P. Regnaud, _Origine et philosophie du langage_, p. 317.

[62] On this point, consult especially Sayce, _op. cit._, II., § 9, and P. Regnaud, _op. cit._, pp. 296-299.

[63] “The word _être_ is irreducible, indecomposable, primitive, and wholly intellectual. I know no language in which the French word _être_ is expressed by a corresponding word representing a sensible idea. Hence it is not true that all the roots of the language are in last resort signs of sensory ideas.” (V. Cousin, _Histoire de la phil. au XIII siècle_, 1841, II., p. 274.)

[64] For the psychology of relation consult Herbert Spencer, _Psychology_, I., p. 65, II., pp., 360 et seq.; James, _Psychology_, I., pp., 203 et seq. The latter gives the history of the subject, which is very brief, and remarks that the idealogues form an honorable exception to the general abstention. Thus Destutt de Tracy established a distinction between feelings of _sensation_ and feelings of _relation_.

[65] Regnaud, _op. cit._, pp. 304 et seq.

[66] It is superfluous to give examples of such a well-known fact. See Darmesteter, _The Life of Words_.

[67] Intelligence is taken here in its restricted sense, as the synonym of abstracting, generalising, judging, reasoning.

[68] _De l’intelligence_, Vol. I., Bk. IV., Chap. I., p. 254, first edition.

[69] _De l’intelligence_, I., Bk. IV., Chap. I., p. 254, first ed.

[70] _Mental Evolution in Man_, pp. 74 and 75.

[71] As Paulhan remarks, “L’abstraction et les idées abstraites” (_Revue Philosophique_, Jan., 1889, p. 26 et seq.), these two processes are initially linked one with the other, so that we find analytical syntheses, and synthetical analyses.

[72] _Op. cit._, VIII., 158-165.

[73] We have touched on this subject incidentally in _La psychologie des sentiments_ (Part II, IX, § 2, pp. 305 et seq.). Many tribes do not get beyond polydemonism, peopling the universe with innumerable genii; this is the reign of the concrete. A certain progress is marked by subordinating the genius of each tree to the god of the forest, the different genii of a river to the god of the river, etc. At a degree higher, the intellect constitutes a single god for water, one for fire, one for the earth, etc. Thus there come to be genii of individual, specific, and generic origin.

[74] Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, I., gives abundant data on this question. Chap. VII. is entirely devoted to it.

[75] In the account of his travels among the Damaras (in his _Tropical South Africa_, p. 133) Galton says: “In practice, whatever they may possess in their language, they certainly use no numeral greater than three. When they wish to express four, they take to their fingers, which are to them as formidable instruments of calculation as a sliding-rule is to our English schoolboy. They puzzle very much after five, because no spare hand remains to grasp and secure the fingers that are required for ‘units,’—yet they seldom lose oxen: the way in which they discover the loss of one, is not by the number of the herd being diminished, but by the absence of a face they know.” [This tallies with what we said above, Chap. I., as to so-called numeration in animals and children.] “When bartering is going on, each sheep must be paid for separately. Thus suppose two sticks of tobacco to be the rate of exchange for one sheep, it would sorely puzzle a Damara to take two sheep and give him four sticks. I have done so and seen a man first put two of the sticks apart and take a sight over them at one of the sheep he was about to sell. Having satisfied himself that one was honestly paid for, and finding to his surprise that exactly two sticks remained in hand to settle the account for the other sheep, he would be afflicted with doubts; the transaction seemed to come out too pat to be correct, and he would refer back to the first couple of sticks, and then his mind got hazy and confused, and wandered from one sheep to the other, and he broke off the transaction until two sticks were put into his hand and one sheep driven away, and then the other two sticks given him and the second sheep driven away.” Galton relates many other similar facts which he had himself witnessed.

[76] And the barley-corn of English measure.—_Tr._

[77] Wundt (_Logik_, I., pp. 113 et seq.) gives what he regards as a complete classification of concepts, but it does not correspond with our design. It may be summarised as follows. Four classes: I. Identical or equivalent concepts; Aristotle = Alexander’s tutor. II. Subordinate or superordinate concepts; mammals and vertebrates, etc. III. Co-ordinated concepts, comprising five species: i. Disjunctive concepts; sound and noise, French and German, etc. They are subordinate to a larger concept.