ON TRACES OF THE EARLY MENTAL CONDITION OF MAN. 393 



But there is also evidence in the systems of numeration of most civihzed lan- 

 guages that they, too, arc the successors of a rude unspoken s\'stem of gesture 

 counting. The lule of the whole world is to count by lives, tens, and twenties; 

 the exceptions are so late or so incidental that Ave may neglect them and say that 

 the original counting of mankind is the quinar}^, the decimal, or the vigesimal 

 system, or a combination of these. We need not go abroad lV)r examples. In 

 the Roman numerals, which count to V, and then begin again VI, VII, we have 

 the quinary system. The decimal system is our familiar one. And when we 

 speak of ''threescore and ten," "fourscore and thirteen," we are counting by the 

 vigesimal system, each "score" or notch, thus ideally made, standing for 20, for 

 "one man," as a Mexican or Carib would put it. It is a very curious thing that 

 both we and the French, having two good decimal systems of our own, should have 

 run oft" into vigesimalism. Why should we have ever said "fourscore and thir- 

 teen" for the 93, which we have good Saxon tens to express? and why should 

 they say in France, " quatre-vingt-treize," instead of holding to the Latin original 

 of their language, and saying "nonante-trois?" The reason seems to be that 

 counting by scores is a strongly marked Keltic characteristic, found in Welsh, 

 Irish, Gaelic, and Breton, and has been taken up into the alien numeral systems 

 of France and England. At any rate, the rule of the world is to count by fives, 

 tens, and twenties ; and the connection of this rule with the practice of counting 

 on the fingers and toes will hardly be disputed. Indeed the remark has often 

 been made that the fact of our having 10 fingers and 10 toes has led us into a 

 system which is actually not the best; while if we had had 6 fingers on each 

 hand, and 6 toes on each foot, Ave should probably have taken to using, like the 

 carpenter, the more couA^enient SA'stem of duodecimals. 



TLese are examples of the facts Avhich tend to shoAV that man's early way of 

 counting AAas upon his fingers; as Massieu, the Abbe Sicard's celebrated deaf 

 and dumb pui)il, records in describing his recollections of his yet uneducated 

 childhood : "I knew the numbers before my instruction ; my fingers had taught 

 me them. I did not know the ciphers. I counted on my fingers." Among the 

 lower j-aces, the use of Avord language has only to a small extent encroached 

 upon gesture language in counting ; among races ab'ove these, numeral Avords 

 are more largely used, but preserve evident traces of a growth out of gesture 

 counting; Avhile among the higher peoples, though language gives little trace of 

 the original signification of numerals, tiiere still prevails the SA'stem of counting 

 by fives, tens, and tAventies, of Avhich Ave can hardly doubt that the norm is given 

 by the arrangement of the lingers and toes. Thus it appears that in the mental 

 history of mankind Ave may see back to a condition so much loAver than our OAvn, 

 that the numerals, Avhich Ave look upon as so settled a part of speech that Ave 

 use them as one of the first tests of the common deriA-ation of languages, were 

 still unspoken, and their purpose Avas served by the ruder, visible signs Avhich 

 belong to the department of gesture. 



II. The next argiunent to be brought forward belongs to a very different 

 province of thought, and touciies on tiie early opinions of mankind as to the 

 nature and habits of spiritual beings. It is avcU known that the lower races of 

 mankind account for tha facts and events of the outer Avorld l)y ascribing a sort 

 of human life and personality to animals, and even to plants, rocks, streams, 

 Avinds, the sun and stars, and so on through the phenomena of nature. It is 

 also knoAvn that a Ioav stratum of the religion of the Avorld consists in belief in, 

 and adoration of, spiritual beings who inhabit the Avinds and trees and streams, 

 Avho preside OA^er the ripening of fruits and the falling of rain, give success in 

 Avar, or inflict disease or misfortune on the savage hunter. Thus the Mintira, a 

 low tribe on the Malayan peninsula, ascribe every ailment that happens to them 

 to a spirit or hantu. One causes smallpox, another brings SAvelling and inflam- 

 mation in hands and feet, another causes the blood to floAv from Avounds ; indeed, 

 to enumerate all these hantus Avould be to s\vq a list of all their knoAvn ailments. 



