180 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



The methods of terminating such controversy are various, and may 

 not here be entered upon. But, in Savagery, the stj-uggle is for 

 peace, and peace is secured by preventing and terminating contro- 

 versy. Such are the institutions of Savagery. 



THE LANGUAGE OF SAVAGERY. 



It is not easy to characterize savage languages in such a manner 

 that the subject may be clearly understood by scholars who are not 

 specialists in philology. This is due to the fact that a false stand- 

 ard of linguistic excellence has been set up through the worship of 

 Greek and Latin. These languages, at the time when they were 

 taken as classical models, were very highly specialized, but not highly 

 developed as compared with the languages of modern civilization. 

 But having been taken as the models of excellence and the stand- 

 ards of comparison, erroneous ideas of the course of linguistic 

 growth and of the value or excellence of linguistic methods 

 have obtained currency. In order to understand clearly what 

 savage, barbaric, and civilized languages are, and how they rank, 

 it becomes necessary to eradicate these preconceived ideas, and 

 this cannot be attempted in a short address. It can only be 

 stated in a general way, and without hope that the statement will 

 be fully understood, that savage languages have the parts of speech 

 very imperfectly differentiated, that the grammatic processes and 

 methods are heterogeneous and inconsistent, and that the body of 

 thought which they are competent to express is greatly limited. 

 But there is one linguistic characteristic of Savagery that may be 

 made very clear; it is this: That simple picture-writing is found 

 among savage peoples as a linguistic art, and that in such picture- 

 writing conventional characters are rarely used. Hieroglyphs are 

 never found among savage peoples, and of course alphabets are un- 

 known. 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF SAVAGERY. 



It seems probable that, in the lowest stage of Savagery, all change, 

 motion, or activity — in fact, all phenomena — are attributed to life 

 supposed to exist in the objects exhibiting the phenomena. Thus, 

 all things, animate and inanimate, are supposed to have life and to 

 exercise will. But gradually, in the development of savagery it- 

 self, the animate and the inanimate are distinguished ; and finally 

 these ideas are usually woven into the grammatic structure of savage 



