1888. ] 221 : (Brinton. 
aspects of the same thought.* This highly important distinction 
explains how in primitive speech, before the idea had risen into clear 
cognition, both it and its privative were expressed by the same 
sound; and when it did rise into such cognition, and then into 
expression, the original unity is exhibited by the identity of the 
radical. Thus it happens that from such an unexpected quarter as an 
analysis of Cree grammar do we obtain a confirmation of the start- 
ing point of the logic of Hegel in his proposition of the identity 
of the Being and the /Vo/-derng as the ultimate equation of thought. 
The gradual development of grammar is strikingly illustrated in 
these languages. Their most prominent trait is what is called zzcor- 
poration. Subject, verb, direct object and remote object are all 
expressed in one word. Some have claimed that there are Ameri- 
can languages of which this is not true; but I think I have shown 
in an essay published a few years ago,} that this opinion arises from 
our insufficient knowledge of the alleged exceptions. At any rate, 
this incorporation was undoubtedly a trait of primitive speech in 
America and elsewhere. Primitive man, said Herder, was like a 
baby; he wanted to say all at once. He condensed his whole sen- 
tence into a single word. Archdeacon Hunter, in his ‘‘ Lecture on 
the Cree Language,’’ gives as an example the Scriptural phrase, ‘I 
shall have you for my disciples,’’ which, in that tongue, is expressed 
by one word.} 
So far as I have been able to analyze these primitive sentence- 
words, they always express deing im relation; and hence they par- 
take of the nature of verbs rather than nouns. In this conclusion 
Iam obliged to differ with the eminent linguist Professor Steinthal 
who, in his profound exposition of the relations of psychology to 
grammar, maintains that while the primitive sentence was a single 
word, that word was a noun, a name.§ 
It is evident that the primitive man did not connect his sentences. 
One followed the other disjointedly, unconnectedly. This is so 
*® The Religious Sentiment; Its Source and Aim. A Contribution to the Science of 
Religion. By D. G. Brinton, p. 81 (New York, 1876). The statement in the text can be 
algebraically demonstrated in the mathematical form of logic as set forth by Prof. 
Boole, thus: 4A = not (not - A); which, in its mathematical expression becomes, 
« = a. Whence by transposition and substitution we derive, xe =1; in which equa- 
tion 1= A. See Boole, An Investigation into the Laws of Thought (London, 1854). 
t On Polysynthesis and Incorporation, in Proceedings of the American Philosophical 
Society, 1885. 
t On the Grammatical Construction of the Oree Language, p. 12 (London, 1875). 
2 Steinthal, Gramatik, Logik und Psychologie, 8, 825. 
