images of the several
derivatives from the root. In these days the word coulter and the
Sanscrit _kartari_ are simply signs or phonetic notations, insignificant
in themselves, and everything else has disappeared. But in primitive
times an image animated the word, which by the necessary faculty of
perception so often described was transformed into a kind of subject
which effected the action indicated by the root. As this personality
gradually faded away, the actual representation of the image was lost,
and even its remote echo finally vanished, while the phonetic notation
remained, devoid of life and memory, and without the recurrence of
cognate images which strengthened the original idea by association. All
words undergo the like evolution, and this may be called the mythical
evolution of speech.

Thus the Sanscrit word for daughter is _duhitar_; in Persian it is
_dochtar_, in Greek [Greek: Thugater], in Gothic _dauhtar_, in German
_Tochter_. The word is derived from the root _duh_, to milk, since this
was the girl's business in a pastoral family. The sign still remains,
but it has lost its meaning, since the image and the drama have
vanished. This analysis applies to all languages, and it may also be
traced in the words for numbers. The number _five_, for example, among
the Aryans and in many other tongues, signifies _hand_. This is the
case in Thibet, in Siam, and cognate languages, in the Indian
Archipelago and in the whole of Oceania, in Africa, and in many of the
American peoples and tribes, where it is the origin of the decimal
system. In Homer we find the verb [Greek: pempazein], to count in fives,
and then for counting in general; in Lapland _lokket_, and in Finland
_lukea_, to count, is derived from _lokke_, ten; and the Bambarese
_adang_, to count, is the origin of _tank_, ten.

When the numerical idea of five was first grasped, the conception was
altogether material, and was expressed by the image of the five-fingered
hand. In the mind of the earliest rude calculators, the number five was
presented to them as a material hand, and the word involved a real
image, of which they became conscious in uttering it. The number and the
hand were consequently fused together in their respective images, and
signified something actually combined together, which effected in a
material form the genesis of this numerical representation. But the
material entity gradually disappeared, the image faded and was divested
of its p