-perhaps a matter of four million.' Four
millions of _extra_ people in little Carnarvon, that could barely find
accommodation (I should calculate) for an extra four hundred!" So the
Eskimo and the South American Indian are, after all, not so very far behind
the "elderly person" of Carnarvon, in the distinct perception of a number
which familiarity renders to us absurdly small.

CHAPTER III.

THE ORIGIN OF NUMBER WORDS.

In the comparison of languages and the search for primitive root forms, no
class of expressions has been subjected to closer scrutiny than the little
cluster of words, found in each language, which constitutes a part of the
daily vocabulary of almost every human being--the words with which we begin
our counting. It is assumed, and with good reason, that these are among the
earlier words to appear in any language; and in the mutations of human
speech, they are found to suffer less than almost any other portion of a
language. Kinship between tongues remote from each other has in many
instances been detected by the similarity found to exist among the
every-day words of each; and among these words one may look with a good
degree of certainty for the 1, 2, 3, etc., of the number scale. So fruitful
has been this line of research, that the attempt has been made, even, to
establish a common origin for all the races of mankind by means of a
comparison of numeral words.[51] But in this instance, as in so many others
that will readily occur to the mind, the result has been that the theory
has finally taken possession of the author and reduced him to complete
subjugation, instead of remaining his servant and submitting to the
legitimate results of patient and careful investigation. Linguistic
research is so full of snares and pitfalls that the student must needs
employ the greatest degree of discrimination before asserting kinship of
race because of resemblances in vocabulary; or even relationship between
words in the same language because of some chance likeness of form that may
exist between them. Probably no one would argue that the English and the
Babusesse of Central Africa were of the same primitive stock simply because
in the language of the latter _five atano_ means 5, and _ten kumi_ means
10.[52] But, on the other hand, many will argue that, because the German
_zehn_ means 10, and _zehen_ means toes, the ancestors of the Germans
counted on their toes; and that with them, 10 was the complete count