To add another out of many examples,
it is found to-day that various rude nations go through the
simplest arithmetical processes by means of pebbles. Into our
own language, through the Latin, has come a word showing that
our distant progenitors reckoned in this way: the word
_calculate_ gives us an absolute proof of this. According to the
theory of the Duke of Argyll, men ages ago used pebbles
(_calculi_) in performing the simplest arithmetical calculations
because we to-day "_calculate_." No reduction to absurdity could
be more thorough. The simple fact must be that we "calculate"
because our remote ancestors used pebbles in their arithmetic.
Comparative Literature and Folklore also show among peoples of
a low culture to-day childish modes of viewing nature, and
childish ways of expressing the relations of man to nature, such
as clearly survive from a remote ancestry; noteworthy among
these are the beliefs in witches and fairies, and multitudes of
popular and poetic expressions in the most civilized nations.
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