THE MIND OF SAVAGES. 363 
life of wild savages and of children™ At the lowest 
stage of human mental development are the Australians, 
some tribes of the Polynesians, and the Bushmen, Hotten- 
tots, and some of the Negro tribes. Language, the chief 
characteristic of genuine men, has with them remained at the 
lowest stage of development, and hence also their formation 
of ideas has remained at a low stage. Many of these wild 
tribes have not even a name for animal, plant, colour, and 
such most simple ideas, whereas they have a word for every 
single, striking form of animal and plant, and for every 
single sound or colour. Thus even the most simple 
abstractions are wanting. In many of these languages 
there are numerals on!y for one, two, and three: no Austra- 
lian language counts beyond four. Very many wild tribes 
can count no further than ten or twenty, whereas some very 
clever dogs have been made to count up to forty and even 
beyond sixty. And yet the faculty of appreciating number 
is the beginning of mathematics! Nothing, however, is per- 
haps more remarkable in this respect, than that some of the 
wildest tribes in southern Asia and eastern Africa have no 
trace whatever of the first foundations of all human civiliz- 
ation, of family life,and marriage. They live together in 
herds, like apes, generally climbing on trees and eating 
fruits ; they do not know of fire, and use stones and clubs as 
weapons, just like the higher apes. All attempts to intro- 
duce civilization among these, and many of the other tribes 
of the lowest human species, have hitherto been of no 
avail; it is impossible to implant human culture where 
the requisite soil, namely, the perfecting of the brain, is 
wanting. Not one of these tribes has ever been ennobled 
by civilization; it rather accelerates their extinction. 
