1892,] Mental Evolution in Man and Lower Animals. 597 
the scope of their minds. Numerous instances of this fact are 
given by Mr. Tylorin his Primitive Culture, but I will cite 
some of those given by Mr. Romanes. “The Society Island- 
ers have names for dog’s tail, bird’s tail, sheep’s tail, ete., but 
no word for tail itself, i. e., tail in general. The Mohicans 
have words to signify different kinds of cutting but no verb ‘to 
eut;’ and forms for ‘I love him,’ ‘I love you, ete., but no 
verb ‘to love;’ while the Choctaw’s have names for different 
species of oak, but no name for the genus ‘oak.’ Again the 
Australians have no name for tree or even for bird, fish, etc., 
and the Esquimau, although he has verbs which signify to 
fish seal, to fish whale, etc., has not any verb ‘to fish.’ ‘Les 
langues’ De’ Ponceau remarks ‘ généralisent rarement, and he 
shows they have not even any verb to imply ‘I will’ or ‘I 
wish,’ although they have separate verbal forms for ‘I wish to 
eat meat,’ ‘I wish to eat soup;’ neither have they any noun 
substantive which signifies ‘a blow,’ although they have a 
variety which severally mean blows with as many different 
kinds of instruments.” Similarly Mr. Crawford tells us “ the 
Malay is very deficient in abstract words; and the usual train 
of ideas of the people who speak it does not lead them to 
make a frequent use even of those they possess. With this 
poverty of the abstract is united a redundancy of the con- 
crete,” and he gives many instances of the same kind as those 
cited from other languages. So likewise we are told ‘the dia- 
lect of the Yubes is rich in nouns denoting different objects of 
the same genus, according to some variety of color or defi- 
ciency of members or some other peculiarity, such as ‘ white 
cow,’ ‘ brown cow,’ ‘red cow ;’ and the Sechuano has no fewer 
than ten words all meaning ‘horned cattle.’ Cherokee pre- 
sents thirteen different verbs to signify different kinds of wash- 
ing without any to indicate washing itself. The Tasmanians 
had no words representing abstract ideas; for each variety of 
gum tree, wattle tree, etc., they had a name, but none for tree; 
neither could they express abstract qualities, such as hard, 
warm, soft, cold, long, short, round. A Kurd of the Yuga 
tribe who gave Dr. Latham a list of native words was not able 
