To notice this state of things among savages and children raises interesting points as to the early history of grammar. W. von Humboldt suggested the analogy between the savage notion of 3 as 'many' and the grammatical use of 3 to form a kind of superlative, in forms of which 'trismegistus,' 'ter felix,' 'thrice blest,' are familiar instances. The relation of single, dual, and plural is well shown pictorially in the Egyptian hieroglyphics, where the picture of an object, a horse for instance, is marked by a single line | if but one is meant, by two lines || if two are meant, by three lines ||| if three or an indefinite plural number are meant. The scheme of grammatical number in some of the most ancient and important languages of the world is laid down on the same savage principle. Egyptian, Arabic, Hebrew, Sanskrit, Greek, Gothic, are examples of languages using singular, dual, and plural number; but the tendency of higher intellectual culture has been to discard the plan as inconvenient and unprofitable, and only to distinguish singular and plural. No doubt the dual held its place by inheritance from an early period of culture, and Dr. D. Wilson seems justified in his opinion that it 'preserves to us the memorial of that stage of thought when all beyond two was an idea of indefinite number.'[1]
When two races at different levels of culture come into contact, the ruder people adopt new art and knowledge, but at the same time their own special culture usually comes to a standstill, and even falls off. It is thus with the art of counting. We may be able to prove that the lower race had actually been making great and independent progress in it, but when the higher race comes with a convenient and unlimited means of not only naming all imaginable numbers, but of writing them down and reckoning with them by means of a few simple figures, what likelihood is there that the barbarian's clumsy methods should be farther worked out? As to the ways in which the numerals of the
- ↑ D. Wilson, 'Prehistoric Man,' p. 616.
