-/- 



MENTAL EVOLUTJOX IX MAX. 



vital importance to the needs of a primitive communit}', as to 

 demand priority of naming by any aboriginal framcrs of 

 language. Moreover, as Professor Max Miillcr himself else- 

 where observes, "even these 121 concepts might be reduced 

 to a much smaller number, if we cared to do so. Any one 

 who examines them carcfulh', will sec how easy it would 

 have been to express to dig by to cut or to strike ; to bite 

 by to cut or to crush ; to milk by to squeeze ; to glean by 

 to gather ; to steal b\- to lift. . . . If we see how many special 

 purposes can be served by one root, as /, to go, or Pas, to 

 fasten, the idea that a dozen of roots might have been made 

 to supply the whole wealth of our dictionary, appears in itself 

 by no means so ridiculous as is often supposed." * 



Again, in the second place, a large proportional number 

 of the words have reference to a grade of culture already far 

 in advance of that which has been attained by most existing 

 savages. " Many concepts, such as to cook, to roast, to 

 measure, to dress, to adorn, belong clearly to a later phase of 

 civilized life." f It might have been suitably added that such 

 " concepts" as to dig, to plat, to milk, &c., betoken a condition 

 of pastoral life, which, as we know^ from abundant evidence, 

 is representative of a comparatively high level of social 

 evolution. + But if " many " of these concepts are thus 



» Science of Thought, pp. 551, 552. 



t Ibid.,'^^. 551, 552. 



X "The Arj-an languages are ihe languages of a civilized race; the parent 

 speech to which we may inductively trace them was spoken by men who stood on 

 a relatively high level of culture " (Sayce, Introduction, &-=<-., i. 56). " The primitive 

 tribe which spoke the mother-tongue of the Indo-European family was not nomadic 

 alone, but had settled habitations, even towns and fortified places, and addicted 

 itself in part to the rearing of cattle, in part to the cultivation of the earth. It 

 possessed our chief domesticated animals — the horse, the ox, the goat, and the 

 swine, besides the dog : the bear and the wolf were foes that ravaged its flocks ; 

 the mouse and the fly were already domestic pests. . . . Barley, and perhaps also 

 wheat, was raised for food, and converted into meal. Mead was prepared from 

 honey, as a cheering and inebriating drink. The use of certain metals was 

 known ; whether iron was one of them admits of question. The art of weaving 

 was practised ; wool and hemp, and possibly flax, being the materials employed. 

 . . . The weapons of offence and defence were those which are usual among 

 primitive peoples, the sword, spear, bow, and shield. Boats were manufactured 

 and moved by oars. . . . The art of numeration was learned, at least up to a 



