Page:Language and the Study of Language.djvu/441

XI.] intellect. That, however, they are not so easily attained, that not a little time and reflection, and some special insight, were required for generating even an ordinary system of numeration, is clearly shown by the facts of language. There are dialects that name no higher numbers than 'three' or 'four:' all beyond is an undistinguished "many," the definite relations of which are as unmanageable by the speakers of those dialects as if they were speechless. Many others have not risen to the apprehension of a hundred; the Indo-European race, before its dispersion, had apparently formed no word for 'thousand;' the Greek popular mind had distinctly conceived no higher group than 'ten thousand' (myriad). We have ourselves given names only to a few of the first numbers in that infinite series which, having once hit upon the method of decimal multiplication and notation, we are capable of apprehending and of managing. And what more significant mark of the externality of the whole system of numerical names and signs could we ask to find than its decimal character, which, as every one knows, is altogether based upon the wholly irrelevant circumstance of the number of our fingers, those ready aids to an unready reckoner? Had we chanced to possess six digits on each hand, our series of arithmetical "digits" would also be twelve, and we should now be rejoicing in the use of a duodecimal system—the superior advantages of which in many respects are generally acknowledged.

In every department of thought, the mind derives from the possession of speech something of the same advantage, and in the same way, as in mathematical reasoning. The idea which has found its incarnation in a word becomes thereby a subject of clearer apprehension and more manageable use: it can be turned over, compared, limited, placed in distinct connection with other ideas; more than one mind, more than one generation of minds, can work at it, giving it shape, and relation, and significance. In every word is recorded the result of a mental process, of abstraction or of combination; which process, being thus recorded, can be taught along with its sign, or its result can be used as a step to something higher or deeper. There are grades of thought,