CHAP. IV.] LANGUAGE. 91 



penalty of being set down as wanting in language, for no worse fault 

 than using a combination of words and signs in order to make what 

 they meant as clear as possible to her comprehension.&quot; 



As to the universality of the verbum mentale in man he 

 observes (p. 80) : 



&quot; As the gesture-language is substantially the same among savage 

 tribes all over the world, and also among children who cannot speak, 

 so the picture-writings of savages are not only similar to one another, 

 but are like what children make untaught even in civilised countries. 

 Like the universal language of gestures, the art of picture-writing 

 tends to prove that the mind of the uncultured man works in much 

 the same way at all times and everywhere. . . . Man is essentially, 

 what the derivation of his name among our Aryan race imports, not 

 the speaker, but he who thinks, he who means.&quot; 



In other words, he is a rational animal Mr. Tylor rein 

 forces these remarks elsewhere * by saying : 



&quot; It always happens, in the study of the lower races, that the more 

 means we have of understanding their thoughts, the more sense and 

 reason do we find in them.&quot; 



A great deal has been sometimes made of the alleged 

 inability of some savages to count more than five, or even 

 three, and this fact is occasionally advanced as pointing 

 to a transition from the psychical powers of brutes to the 

 intelligence of man. We shall return to this hereafter, but 

 some fitting remarks by Mr. Tylor may be here quoted : 



&quot; Of course, it no more follows among savages than among ourselves, 

 that because a man counts on his fingers his language must be wanting 

 in words to express the number he wishes to reckon. For example, it 

 was noticed that when natives of Kamskatka were set to count, they 

 would reckon all their fingers, and then all their toes, getting up to 

 20, and then would ask, What are we to do next ? Yet it was found 

 on examination that numbers up to 100 existed in their language.&quot; 



Concerning the origin of existing articulate words, Mr. 

 Tylor distinctly repudiates the &quot;bow-wow hypothesis&quot; as 

 insufficient. For instance, with respect to the family of 



* Primitive Culture, vol. i. p. 322. 



