ilosophical speculation. I would
not, for instance, feel daunted if I were set the task of translating
into any of these main types, say, the dialectics of Socrates. To do
this I would first reduce the more complex terms to such simple and
common Anglo-Saxon words as when built together would give the same
meaning, and then translate these into their Bantu equivalents. The
substitution of Anglo-Saxon words for those of modern English would, no
doubt, involve a good deal of repetition but the sense would be
adequately rendered. I would proceed in the same way as the early
teachers and writers who had to build up the language they used as they
went along. The English indeed, have not built up their world-wide
speech with their own materials but have, with characteristic
acquisitiveness taken the combinations they wanted, ready made, mainly
from Greek, Latin and French. How far and how well a Native would
understand my presentation of metaphysical speculation would depend upon
the degree of familiarity he might have acquired, through Missionary
teaching or otherwise, with abstract notions in general. In my opinion
the average "raw" Native would understand as well and as much as the
average uneducated European peasant. Both would probably find my
disquisition "sad stuff"; both would require time for that repetition of
the words which is necessary to familiarise the mind with the
unaccustomed ideas they represent; in both cases one would have to "give
them the words that the ideas may come." A single illustration will show
my meaning. When the first Missionaries rendered the word "soul" into
Zulu by the word signifying "breath" in that language they simply
followed the example of their predecessors of antiquity who employed the
Latin _spiritus_, which also means "breath," for the same purpose,
namely, to convey to their hearers the idea of a breath-like or
ethereal something housed in, but separable from, the human body.

"The essence of language," said Aristotle, "is that it should be clear
and not mean." The raw Bantu material is ample for compliance with this
demand, and the process of development will not be as protracted as in
early Europe for it may be accomplished here, largely, by the simple
means of translating the words already thought out and provided in the
white man's language. In so far, then, as we attempt to measure the
mentality of the Natives by their language we find that they cannot be
relegated to a lowe