figures 2, 3, 4, which are not self-expressive, have driven into the background the Roman numerals II, III, IIII, which are — this, again, is an operation which has its place in savage as in cultivated speech. Moreover, to look closely at language as a practical means of expressing thought, is to face evidence of no slight bearing on the history of civilization. We come back to the fact, so full of suggestion, that the languages of the world represent substantially the same intellectual art, the higher nations indeed gaining more expressive power than the lowest tribes, yet doing this not by introducing new and more effective central principles, but by mere addition and improvement in detail. The two great methods of naming thoughts and stating their relation to one another, viz., metaphor and syntax, belong to the infancy of human expression, and are as thoroughly at home in the language of savages as of philosophers. If it be argued that this similarity in principles of language is due to savage tribes having descended from higher culture, carrying down with them in their speech the relics of their former excellence, the answer is that linguistic expedients are actually worked out with as much originality, and more extensively if not more profitably, among savages than among cultured men. Take for example the Algonquin system of compounding words, and the vast Esquimaux scheme of grammatical inflexion. Language belongs in essential principle both to low grades and high of civilization; to which should its origin be attributed? An answer may be had by comparing the methods of language with the work it has to do. Take language all in all over the world, it is obvious that the processes by which words are made and adapted have far less to do with systematic arrangement and scientific classification, than with mere rough and ready ingenuity and the great rule of thumb. Let any one whose vocation it is to realize philosophical or scientific conceptions and to express them in words, ask himself whether ordinary language is an instrument planned for such purposes. Of course it is not.
