LANGUAGE AND LOGIC 499 



into vogue. Shortly after Chinese trade was thrown open to American 

 shipping a vessel was lying in one of the treaty ports. A Yankee sailor 

 who happened to be on shore noticed some natives digging a ditch and 

 carrying away the earth in their blouses. Thinking to teach them a 

 valuable lesson, he provided them with a wheelbarrow and showed them 

 how to use it. Coming to the same workmen some time afterward he 

 saw them carrying the wheelbarrow. They found it less trouble to do 

 so than to learn to use it in the proper manner. We have here a prac- 

 tical illustration of what Lord Bacon had in mind when he said that 

 new ideas are conceived in tbp old way. Mauy word« eTrpftrience the 

 same fate. They are used for purposes for which they were not in- 

 tended originally. The mind expands faster than the vocabulary in- 

 creases, and it is easier to use the old word with a new meaning than 

 to invent a new one. In this way a great number of new significations 

 are sometimes grafted on a stem that may be called hoary with age. 

 According to de Mortillet who has probably devoted more time to the 

 study of the problem than any one else, man has existed upon the earth 

 not far from 240,000 years. Of these about ten thousand belong to the 

 culture period, and six to the historical. We may greatly reduce the 

 first period and it still remains very long. Primitive man had need of 

 but few words. In the nature of the case his vocabulary would increase 

 very slowly. If not more than one or two words a year were added to 

 it he would enter the historic stage with a relatively large stock. The 

 Hebrew Bible contains less than nine thousand words. A writer says, 

 in the introduction to Worcester's dictionary, that the English language 

 embraces about thirty-eight thousand words. " This includes not only 

 radical words, but all derivatives, except preterites and participles of 

 verbs." The Anglo-Saxon vocabulary is about one third smaller. The 

 Greek language up to the time of Aristotle includes about forty thou- 

 sand words. Why our modem lexicons are so much more comprehen- 

 sive is easily explained. The fundamental problem, as it looks to us, 

 that primitive man had to solve was how to designate by the sound of 

 his voice objects that were hushed in perpetual silence. He might 

 imitate, however imperfectly the roar of the tempest, the thunder-clap, 

 the noises made by birds and beasts; but how should he designate the 

 sun, the moon, the stars, the flowers of the field ? Did his fancy come 

 to his aid so that he felt like the Psalmist when he speaks of the time 

 when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted 

 for joy? To this question science has no answer and the answer fur- 

 nished by the imagination is worthless except as a curiosity. Hence 

 the problem of the origin of language has almost ceased to engage the 

 attention of investigators. Every possible theory has been advanced, 

 but none has gained general assent. It may aptly be said to have been 

 consigned to the limbo of unrealizable possibilities. 



