COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



to fivG or six, and cannot tell us the number of 

 fingers on his two hands, since so large a num- 

 ber as ten excites in him only an indefinite im- 

 pression of plurality.^ Our conception of the 



1 The Dammaras, according to Mr. Galton, are even 

 worse off than this. ** When they wish to express four, they 

 take to their fingers, which are to them as formidable instru- 

 ments of calculation as a sliding rule is to an English school- 

 boy. They puzzle very much after five, because no spare 

 hand remains to grasp and secure the fingers that are required 

 for units. Yet they seldom lose oxen ; the way in which they 

 discover the loss of one is not by the number of the herd being 

 diminished, but by the absence of a face they know. When 

 bartering is going on, each sheep must be paid for separately. 

 Thus, suppose two sticks of tolDacco to be the rate of exchange 

 for one sheep, it would sorely puzzle a Dammara to take two 

 sheep and give him four sticks. I have done so, and seen a 

 man put two of the sticks apart, and take a sight over them 

 at one of the sheep he was about to sell. Having satisfied him- 

 self that that one was honestly paid for, and finding to his sur- 

 prise that exactly two sticks remained in hand to settle the 

 account for the other sheep, he would be afilicted with doubts ; 

 the transaction seemed to come out too * pat ' to be correct, 

 and he would refer back to the first couple of sticks ; and then 

 his mind got hazy and confused, and wandered from one sheep 

 to the other, and he broke off the transaction until two sticks 

 were put into his hand, and one sheep driven away, and then 

 the other two sticks given him, and the second sheep driven 

 away. . . . Once while I watched a Dammara floundering 

 hopelessly in a calculation on one side of me, I observed 

 Dinah, my spaniel, equally embarrassed on the other. She 

 was overlooking half a dozen of her new-born puppies, which 

 had been removed two or three times from her, and her anx- 

 iety was excessive, as she tried to find out if they were all 



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