312 
SAtiVE LANGUAGES. 
and Europe ; but no one of these latter has a more neat, 
regular, and simple system of numeration, than the Quichua 
and the Aztec, which were spoken in the great empires of 
Cuzco and Anahuac. It is a mistake to suppose that those 
languages do not admit of counting beyond four, because in 
villages where they are spoken by the poor labourers of 
I ei umn and iVTcxicmi ruco, individuals ure found, who can* 
not count beyond that number. The singular opinion, that 
so many American nations reckon only as far as five', ten, 
or twenty, has been propagated by travellers, who have not 
reflected, that, according to the genius of different idioms, 
men of all nations stop at groups of five, ten, or twenty 
units (that is, the number of the lingers of one hand, or of 
both hands, or of the fingers and toes together) ; and that 
six, thirteen, or twenty are differently expressed, by five-one. 
ten-three, and fcet-ten* Can it be' said that the numbers 
ot the Europeans do not extend beyond ten, because we 
stop after having formed a group of ten units ? 
The construction of the languages of America is so oppo- 
site to that of the languages derived from the Latin, that 
the Jesuits, who had thoroughly examined everything that 
could contribute to extend their establishments, introduced 
among their neophytes, instead of the Spanish, some Indian 
tongues, remarkable for their regularity and copiousness, 
such as the Quichua and the Guarani. They endeavoured 
to substitute these languages for others which were poorer 
and more irregular in their syntax. This substitution was 
found easy : the Indians of the different tribes adopted it 
with docility, and thenceforward those American languages 
generalized became a ready medium of communication be- 
tween the missionaries and the neophytes. It would be 
a mistake to suppose, that the preference given to the 
language of the Incas oyer the Spanish tongue had no other 
aim than that of isolating the Missions, and withdrawing 
them from the influence of two rival powers, the bishops 
and civil governors. The Jesuits had other motives, in- 
dependently ot their policy, for wishing to generalize certain 
Indian tongues. -I hey found in those languages a common 
* Savages, to express great numbers with more facility, are in the habit 
of forming groups of five, ten, or twenty grains of maize, according as 
they reckon in their language by fives, tens, or twenties. 
