56 SOCIAL HEREDITY AND SOCIAL EVOLUTION 



for a class name ' ' tree " or ' ' cow. ' ' That such sav- 

 ages have a notion of a tree we may not doubt ; but 

 possibly any dog has a notion of class objects too, 

 for he certainly places cats in a different class from 

 dogs. With the dog the idea has not become clear 

 enough to demand a name, and with the savage also 

 hosts of these class ideas are still too vague to 

 demand a name. Savage languages have a ''hope- 

 less poverty in the power of abstraction." The sav- 

 age lives largely in a world of concrete thoughts, and 

 his language fits his world. 



In still another direction does the simplicity of 

 early language show itself. Not only do words van- 

 ish as we come toward simpler languages, but some 

 of the parts of speech disappear entirely. In prim- 

 itive tongues the distinctions between nouns and 

 verbs vanish, and nouns, verbs, and adjectives may 

 merge in one comprehensive word. For example, the 

 word ' ' round ' ' may mean a round thing, or it may be 

 used as an adjective, or it may be a verb indicating 

 the making of a thing round, this serving at once as 

 noun, verb, or adjective. Such a use of words won- 

 derfully simplifies language, but it makes it corre- 

 spondingly less clear and definite. 



The use of words with several meanings points 

 unmistakably to a simpler condition still, frequently 

 found illustrated even to-day among some peoples, 

 where a single word represents a whole sentence. 

 Such a sentence word may serve to give not only a 

 thought of the object but of an action as well. For 

 example, a savage hearing a cuckoo singing in a 

 tree might simply utter the word ''cuckoo." This 

 word, especially if used with a certain intonation or 

 a gesture, might mean not only that he heard a 



