The work of Lev Vygotsky (1934) has become the foundation of much research and theory in

cognitive development over the past several decades, particularly of what has become known as
Social Development Theory.

Vygotsky's theories stress the fundamental role of social interaction in the development of
cognition (Vygotsky, 1978), as he believed strongly that community plays a central role in the
process of "making meaning."

Unlike Piaget's notion that childrens' development must necessarily precede their learning,
Vygotsky argued, "learning is a necessary and universal aspect of the process of developing
culturally organized, specifically human psychological function" (1978, p. 90). In other words,
social learning tends to precede (i.e., come before) development.

Vygotsky has developed a sociocultural approach to cognitive development. He developed his

theories at around the same time as Jean Piaget was starting to develop his ideas (1920's and
30's), but he died at the age of 38, and so his theories are incomplete - although some of his
writings are still being translated from Russian.

Three Theories of Psycho-Cultural Development

The first problem involved in considering the problem of man’s historical development is to
define the distinctive traits of the development process with which we are concerned here.
Psychologists have put forward three successive viewpoints or principles characterizing human
historical development.

The first viewpoint, advanced by Taylor and Spenser, guided the first ethnographers and
ethnologists, who amassed a vast amount of factual material on the question of the laws, beliefs,
institutions and language of primitive peoples.

In psychology, these authors espoused the views of what is known as associationism. They
assumed that the basic law of psychology is the law of association, that is the connection
established between the elements of our experience on the basis of their close relationship or
their similarity. The laws of the human spirit, they believed, have always been the same, at all
times and in all places.

The mechanism of mental activity and the very structure of the processes of thought and
behavior are identical in both primitive and civilized man the theory also holds that any
peculiarities which distinguish the thought and behavior of primitive man from those of civilized
man can be understood and explained in terms of the conditions in which that primitive man lives
and thinks.

The authors argue that if we, as civilized people, were to find ourselves suddenly deprived of all
the vast body of accumulated human experience, and living in the conditions experienced by
primitive man, we would think and behave exactly as he does. The crucial factor, therefore, lies
not in the apparatus of thought and behavior or in the special mechanisms that distinguish the
civilized from the uncivilized psyche, but solely in the material, in the quantity of experience
available to each psyche.

Proceeding from this understanding, these authors considered primitive animism, or the theory
whereby all natural phenomena and objects are animated, to be the central phenomenon
underlying the whole of the cultural development of primitive man.

Primitive man, bewildered by dream-like phenomena, during which he would see dead or absent
people, and talk or fight with them, or find himself transported a long way from where he woke
up, etc., began to believe in the objectivity of those representations. He began to believe in the
duality of his own being. On the basis of an analogy with his own observations of himself, he
also accounted for natural phenomena, behind which, in his opinion, souls or spirits were active.

These authors attribute the emergence of animism, that natural philosophy of primitive man,
arising from the natural laws of the human spirit, to the law of the association of ideas and the
naive application of the causative principle. It is axiomatic, in their view, that the human spirit
has always been the same, throughout the whole of human development and in all parts of the
world. Their belief is corroborated, in particular, by the similarity of specific beliefs, customs
and institutions observed among peoples living in widely separated geographic regions.

The basic psychological mechanism of behavior, the law of the association of ideas, and the
basic principle of logical thought, the causative principle, are thus the common patrimony of
both primitive and civilized man. The only difference is that in civilized man both of these,
instruments of psychological associations and logical thought can draw on a vast body of
experience and material, whereas the experience of primitive man is limited and his material
small. Hence the difference between the psyche of one and the other.

It is easy to see that this approach to the question neatly disposes of the whole problem of human
psychological development in the process of history. True development is impossible when we
find exactly the same phenomena at both the beginning and the end of the road. Instead of
development, in the proper sense of the term, what we are talking about here is rather the
accumulation of experience. The actual mechanism for the accumulation and processing of that
experience is fundamentally the same at both the beginning and end. Throughout the process of
overall historical change, it alone remains unchanged.

This naive view has been abandoned long ago by psychology. Nothing could be more simple-
minded than to imagine primitive man as a natural philosopher and to attribute all his thinking
and behavior to the peculiarities of his philosophy. The development of human thought and
behavior is driven not by theoretical or ideal interest, but by material requirements. Primitive
man is motivated more by practical than theoretical considerations, and in his psyche logical
thought is subordinate to his instinctive and emotional reactions.

In the words of Pokrovsky, “Nothing could be further from the truth than to suppose that the
savage’s outlook on the world is the source of his religion; on the contrary, the worldview was
formed on the basis of certain existing religious emotions. Instead of an explanation, all one
finds at the root of primitive religion is an absence of explanation. The religious thinking of
savages is based not on representation, or the logical operation of thought, but on emotion, which
is in general the starting point of any conscious process."[3]

Research also showed that the psychological mechanism of the thought and behavior of primitive
man constitute a historical variable. The law of the association of ideas and of the principle of
causative thinking certainly do not encompass all aspects of the thinking of primitive man. Lévy-
Bruhl was the first who sought to demonstrate that the psychological mechanism of the thinking
of primitive and civilized man was different.

He also tried to define the nature of that difference, and establish the most general laws
governing the functioning of the psychological mechanism in primitive man. His fundamental
approach was quite the opposite of that espoused by Taylor.

He proceeds from two basic ideas. The first was that the laws of individual psychology, such as
the laws of the association of ideas, cannot provide explanations for the beliefs and collective
representations that emerge in any people or society, as social phenomena. These collective
representations emerge as a result of the social life of any particular people. All members of a
group have them in common. Here they are transmitted from generation to generation. Quite
often they are not elaborated in each individual, but are transmitted to that individual fully
formed. They both precede and succeed him, just as language has a social existence, independent
of any particular individual.

In this way, the basic view of the question itself changes. In the words of Conte, Lévy-Bruhl
seeks not to define mankind in terms of man, but man in terms of mankind. For him the
peculiarities of the primitive peoples cannot be deduced from the psychological laws of an
individual life; on the contrary, he tries to explain the psychology of the individual on the basis
of the nature of the collective representations emerging in those groups, and the type or structure
of the society in which those people live.

Lévy-Bruhl’s premise is that different types of society are associated with different types of
human psychology, each of them quite distinctive, just as the psychology of vertebrates can be
distinguished from that of invertebrates.

Like the various parts of the animal kingdom, the different social structures also have certain
common features inherent in any kind of human society language, traditions, institutions.
However, together with those common features, Lévy-Bruhl argues, human societies, like
organisms, can exhibit profoundly different structures, and thus corresponding differences in the
higher psychological functions. Therefore, it is quite wrong to begin by reducing psychological
operations to a single type, disregarding the structure of the society, and to attribute all collective
representations to a psychological and logical mechanism which remains unchanged throughout.

He set out to compare two psychological types that are as far apart as they could be: the type of
thinking of primitive and civilized man. The basic conclusion reached by Lévy-Bruhl in his
research is that the higher psychological functions of primitive man are profoundly different
from those same functions in civilized man; and that consequently the very type of thinking and
behavior constitutes a historical variable, and that in the process of historical development man’s
psychological nature changes as much as his social nature.

We have already noted that in the opinion of Lévy-Bruhl the type of psychological functions is
directly dependent on the social structure of the group to which an individual belongs. Wishing
to offer some general characterization of this special type of primitive thinking, Lévy-Bruhl
designates it as prelogical or mystical thinking.

By the use of this term, he did not mean to suggest that such thinking was contrary to logic
(antilogical) or totally unrelated to logical forms, and lying wholly outside the confines of logic
(alogical). By “prelogical” he simply meant a type of thinking that had not yet developed as far
as the form of logical thinking. Such thinking is characterized by insensitivity to contradictions;
its basic feature is the “law of participation” whereby, in the mind of primitive man, one and the
same thing may partake of several entirely different forms of being. This “law of participation”
leads primitive man to establish in his thinking the kind of connections which provide Lévy-
Bruhl with justification for ascribing a mystical character to primitive thinking as a whole.

Many researchers have already noted that this definition is incorrect. Externally, when viewed
from the standpoint of civilized man, this behavior and thinking seem alogical or mystical.
Thurnwald writes, “Primitive thinking only appears to be alogical.” In actual fact, however, from
the point of view of primitive man himself, it is quite logical, as Thurnwald explains by a simple
example.

When someone suffers from fits or illness of any sort, primitive man assumes that an evil spirit
has entered his body. To cure the sick person they try to drive out the spirit, by proceeding
exactly as they would it they were expelling an actual person: they call out the spirit’s name,
demand that he go away, and intimidate him with noise.

Such ceremonies seem meaningless to us, because we understand an epileptic fit or an illness
from the standpoint of modern science. Yet from the standpoint of primitive man, for whom all
changes in a person are the result of external influences, either favorable or unfavorable, his
attempts to act on those forces in the manner described in our example seem perfectly logical.

Lévy-Bruhl’s theory is open to serious objection not only on the basis of Thurnwald’s
arguments, but also on grounds of objective psychology. Thurnwald rightly observes that from
the subjective point of view of primitive man himself his magic ceremonial for the expulsion of
spirits, in order to heal the sick, is perfectly logical.

That same primitive man, however, as can be easily shown, also demonstrates objectively logical
thinking whenever the purpose of his actions is direct adaptation to nature. The invention and use
of tools, hunting, animal husbandry, agriculture, and fighting all demand from him real and not
just apparent logical thought.

In the sphere of practical activity, together with the type of thinking described by Lévy-Bruhl,
primitive man clearly also has a command of logical thought in the true sense of the term,
although it is inadequately developed.
Yet Lévy-Bruhl unquestionably deserves credit for being the first to raise the problem of the
historical development of thinking. He showed that the type of thinking, per se, is not a constant,
but a variable, which develops throughout history Researchers pursuing his line of inquiry have
tried to account more precisely for the difference in the historical types of thinking of civilized
and primitive man, as well as the distinctive features of the historical development of human
psychology. At the same time, a third view of the process of man’s cultural development was
established.

Primitive Man as a Biological Type

By virtue of the entire mold of his personality, and all his behavior, primitive man is profoundly
different from civilized man. In order to pinpoint the precise nature of that difference, which
basically defines the initial and concluding points of the historical development of human
behavior, we shall first consider those differences that are readily apparent.

The distinctive traits of primitive man and his behavior, as they appear at first sight, can easily be
divided into two groups. On the one hand, an observer first encountering primitive man,
particularly in his natural environment, is struck by his superiority over civilized man. This
superiority has been described by a great many travellers, some of whom have gone to the
extreme in claiming the primitive man is in all respects better equipped by nature than civilized
man.

Observers and travelers have praised the exceptional visual acuity of uncivilized man, the
extraordinary keenness of his hearing, his immense powers of endurance, his instinctive cunning,
his ability to find his way, and his knowledge of the environment, the forests, desert and sea.
Some authors have idealized his fundamental ethical qualities, seeing in his moral behavior
traces of the instinctive virtue instilled into him by nature itself. Finally, all have unanimously
praised (and scientific research has fully confirmed) primitive man’s command of the skill of
interpreting natural signs: his ability to reconstruct, from the faintest tracks, very complex
pictures of events, circumstances, etc.

Arsenyev described a tribesman with whom he traveled through the wilderness of the Ussur
region. “The tribesman positively read the tracks like a book, and was able to reconstruct events
in their exact sequence.” [4] This ability to reconstruct complex pictures of past events from tiny
tracks, imperceptible to civilized man, gives primitive man an immense advantage over civilized
man, making the latter highly dependent on the former in the circumstances in which travelers
find themselves.

The first group of distinctions thus centers on the superiority of uncivilized man, which has
generated profound respect for him as a perfect specimen of nature and also given rise to the
claim that he is distinguished by so many positive qualities in comparison with civilized man,
that the development of his natural psychological functions give him an immeasurable
advantage.

There is another, quite opposite, group of distinctions: the helplessness and backwardness of
primitive man, and his inability to perform operations of any real complexity, requiring
calculation, cogitation and recollection, and a host of other failings which civilized man readily
perceives when encountering uncivilized man. All of this long ago compelled observers to liken
primitive man to a child, or an animal, and note all that he lacks in comparison with civilized
man.

The result is a rather complex picture, with primitive man surpassing civilized man in a
considerable number of respects, while clearly inferior to him in others. Such is the picture
which becomes readily apparent, and which we shall now analyze.

The first issue confronting the researcher is the biological type to which primitive man belongs.
In biological terms, is he not merely a being with a higher, lower or different development than
civilized man? And is it therefore not possible that all these dual distinctions between civilized
and primitive man could be due simply to another biological type, as happens when we compare
man with any of the animals?

Unfortunately, despite the enormous amount of research done in this field, we still lack precise
and definitive results on the biological study of primitive man. Apart from certain insignificant
and unquestionably proven physiological differences (such as the faster healing of wounds in
primitive people, their relative immunity to contamination and infection when wounded, their
lower susceptibility to malaria, etc.) we are unaware of any irrefutably proven substantive
peculiarities. It is true that some researchers have seen a direct link between a host of other facts
and the cultural backwardness of primitive man.

If this assumption was correct, if primitive man really did belong to a different biological type
than civilized man, and if his organism was in fact found to function in a substantially different
manner, the behavioral difference between civilized and uncivilized man would have been fully
and unquestionably explained, because science has established beyond any doubt that the
behavior of any animal is a function of the structure of its organism. Organisms with different
structures behave differently.

The facts which could be adduced to support the notion of a difference of biological type
between primitive and civilized man include the assertion that primitive man’s cranial sutures
unite by the age of puberty, in other words before those of civilized man. With regard to the
development of the brain, which is the direct organic basis of behavior, it has been pointed out
that gray matter is less highly developed in the brain of primitive man, that his cerebral folds are
simpler and that the development of his brain ceases at an earlier age. The pace of overall
physical development in primitive man differs to some extent from that of civilized man. It has
been point out that the duration of overall development is briefer in primitive man, ending at or
shortly after puberty.

None of these facts, however, provides any basis for the idea that primitive man belongs to a
different organic type. The early union of the cranial sutures, as remarked by Thurnwald, cannot
imply any substantial limitation in the development of the brain; nor is the macroscopic structure
of the brain a direct expression of complexity or primitiveness of behavior. One should bear in
mind the more complex relationships mentioned by Thurnwald, who noted that “much of what
may be ascribed, on the basis of superficial observation, to physiological organization is really
due to profound cultural backwardness."[5] In this case, therefore, cause and effect may be
switched, and vice versa. It is much more plausible to argue that primitive behavior leads to a
premature halt the development, than to blame primitive behavior on such prematurely arrested
development.

Thurnwald rightly observes that contemporary anthropology is in the same phase of development
as botany in the time of Linnaeus. Current anthropological studies of the constitution of primitive
man in comparison with that of civilized man began only recently, in connection with the study
of the endocrine system. To clarify the extent to which the physiological characteristics of
primitive man may account for the observable differences between him and adult civilized man,
it becomes necessary to dwell on a question that has hitherto been considered highly important,
and that has a direct bearing on behavior: the functioning of the sensory organs.

Researchers have shown that travelers’ tales of the outstandingly acute vision, hearing and sense
of smell of primitive man actually have no basis in fact. By comparison with the civilized
European city dweller primitive man can, of course, be expected to have superior vision and
hearing, as civilized living conditions often induce a weakening of visual acuity and
shortsightedness. Here again, however, researchers warn us against hasty conclusions. In
Thurnwald’s words, “Acuity of the senses in primitive man is often the result of practice; while
sensory deficiencies in city-dwellers are often due to lack of practice related to their lifestyle in
enclosed surroundings.” [6]

It should also be noted that the behavior of primitive man is often based not on the direct
functioning of the sensory organs, but on their interpretation of certain tracks or phenomena. For
example, an experienced fisherman interprets ripples of a particular kind on smooth water as a
sign of a moving school of fish; a dustcloud of a particular height and shape suggests to the
hunter the presence of a herd of animals of a certain species, and in certain numbers. In these
instances we are dealing not at all with the acuity of this or that sensory organ, but with a trained
ability, enhanced by experience, to interpret tracks.

In experimental studies, it has been found that sensory – and particularly visual – acuity among
primitive peoples is not substantially different from ours. It can, of course, be taken as an
established fact that the shortsightedness of Europeans is undoubtedly the product of culture.
However, it has been found that this is not the only reason for the superior visual powers of
primitive man: Europeans needs a clearer picture in order to form a judgement about it, whereas
primitive man is accustomed to interpreting and guessing at the meaning of even unclear visual
images. Of decisive importance in this respect, are the studies done by Rivers (vision), Meyers
(hearing, smell and taste), MacDougal (tactile sensations, muscles and blood pressure), and
Meyers .(speed of reaction).

All of these studies have shown that the elementary physiological activity underlying our
perceptions and movements, and all the elements of the simplest reaction that go to make up
behavior are essentially the same in primitive and civilized man. No substantial difference could
be found even in respect of the perceptions of colors. Rivers, in his studies. found a very high
percentage of color-blindness in one group of Papuans, but none at all in another group.
However, no one has yet discovered such a primitive race with total color blindness; in fact it has
not proved possible to establish the existence of this condition even in apes. Thurnwald goes on
to say, “It must be admitted that the development of the perception of color was completed long
before the emergence of the human race, as such."[7]

The same can be said for keenness of hearing among the primitive peoples, which has been
judged to be superior to our own. Studies by Meyers and Brunner have shown that keenness of
hearing is usually greater in whites than. in primitive man. Primitive man’s powers of smell have
also been exaggerated. As Thurnwald puts it, “Research on Negroes and Papuans yielded the
same results that we had arrived at in the sphere of vision and hearing.” [8] The data obtained in
the study of the sense of touch is somewhat contradictory. MacDougal’s experiments detected a
slightly greater capacity for differentiation in Papuans. On the other hand in certain other
primitive peoples no significant deviation was observed from the level of development of this
function in civilized man.

Nor is there any evidence that the slightly higher tolerance of pain noticed by researchers has a
physiological basis. Even right-handedness, which is not found in the higher apes, is clearly a
common feature of the human Species, being found in primitive man to the same extent as in
civilized man.

To summarize the results of this research into the physiological peculiarities of primitive man,
we can conclude that scientific research at present has no evidence to suggest that there is a
special biological type from which all the distinctive behavioral traits of primitive man
originated. Indeed, those differences that have been identified by research turnout to be, on the
one hand, quite insignificant, and on the other hand highly contingent on practice or the lack of
it; in other words, they themselves prove to be closely connected to cultural development. For all
of these reasons, we should assume an inverse relationship between the cultural and biological
development of primitive man, and attribute the degree of backwardness in the sphere of
psychological functions found in primitive man to his cultural underdevelopment.

Thurnwald observed that, “Primitive man must be granted the full status of human being.” The
development of man as a biological type had on the whole been completed by the beginning of
human history. This of course does not mean that human biology has stood still since the
beginning of the historical development of human society. Such an idea is clearly wrong.[9]

Man’s plastic nature has continued to change. However, such biological change of the human
organism now became subordinate to and dependent upon the historical development of human
society. Contemporary scholars, among them Thurnwald, have established that the basic factors
in the development of the psychology of primitive man are technology and the social
organization that arises out of a certain stage in the development of that technology.

Human development, as we find it even in the most primitive peoples, is social development. We
must therefore expect to observe here a highly peculiar process of development, profoundly
unlike what we have seen in the evolution from ape to man.
First of all, we must note that the process whereby primitive man became transformed into
civilized man is inherently different from the process whereby the ape turned into man. Or
perhaps we should say that the process of the historical development of human behavior and the
process of his biological development do not coincide, and one is not the extension of the other;
rather, each of these processes is governed by its own laws.

The Memory of Primitive Man

We shall now focus on the concrete material of the studies and try to identify the distinctive traits
of the historical development of human behavior. In doing so we shall not consider every single
aspect of the behavior of primitive man. We shall merely dwell on the three areas of greatest
interest to us, as they will enable us to arrive at certain general conclusions on the history of
behavior in general. First we shall consider the memory, and then the thinking and speech of
primitive man, as well as his numerical operations, and we shall try to establish how these three
functions work.

Let us begin with memory. All observers and travelers have unanimously praised the outstanding
memory of primitive man. Lévy-Bruhl rightly points out that in the psychology and behavior of
primitive man memory plays a much greater role than in our mental life, because some of its
former functions in our behavior have been transferred elsewhere and changed.

As our experience is condensed in concepts, we are free from the need to retain a huge amount of
concrete impressions, whereas in primitive man almost the whole of experience relies on
memory. However, besides the quantitative differences between our memory and that of
primitive man, it has, as Lévy-Bruhl has observed, a special tonality which sets it apart from
ours.

The constant use of logical mechanisms and abstract concepts has profoundly altered the
functioning of our memory. The primitive memory is at once very accurate and very emotional.
It retains representations with a great abundance of detail, and always in exactly the same order
in which they are really connected to each other. The same author notes that in primitive man the
mechanism of memory supplants the mechanism of logic: if one representation reproduces
another, the latter is assumed to be a consequence or a conclusion. Signs are therefore almost
always interpreted as causes.

Lévy-Bruhl goes on to remark, “That is why we should expect to find a highly developed
memory in primitive man.” He attributes the astonishment of travelers relating the extraordinary
powers of the primitive memory to their naive belief that the memory of primitive man has the
same functions as our own. It appears to perform miracles, while at the same time functioning
quite normally.

Spenser and Gillen found the memory of Australian aboriginals phenomenal in many respects.
Not only can they recognize the tracks of each animal and each bird, but they can also
immediately tell, by looking at the freshest tracks on the ground, where a particular animal is
now. Another remarkable trait is their ability to recognize the footprints of someone they know.
Roth also remarked on the “miraculous powerful memory – of the natives of Queensland. He
heard them repeat the whole of a song cycle lasting more than five nights. These songs were
reproduced with amazing accuracy. Even more astonishing was the fact that they were performed
by tribes speaking different languages, in different dialects and living more than a hundred
kilometers apart.

Livingston remarked on the outstanding memory of the natives of Africa, such as that manifested
by the envoys of chiefs, who carried very lengthy messages over enormous distances and then
repeated them word for word. They usually traveled in groups of two or three, repeating their
message each evening as they moved along, so as not to alter its precise language. One of the
arguments adduced by the natives against learning to write was that these messengers could
transmit news over a long distance quite as well as the written word.

The commonest form of outstanding memory in primitive man is “topographical memory”, or

recollection of a particular place. It retains an image of a place, down to the tiniest details, that
enables primitive man to find his way with an assurance Europeans regard as astonishing.

As one author says, this kind of memory is practically miraculous. It is sufficient for North
American Indians to be in a place just once in order to have a perfectly accurate and permanently
indelible picture of it. No matter how vast or dense the forest, they move through it with ease
once they have become oriented.

Their sense of direction at sea is just as good. Charlevoix sees in this an innate ability. He wrote,
“They are born with this talent, which is the result of neither their observations, nor a large
amount of practice. Children who have yet to go beyond the confines of their village move about
just as confidently as those who have already travelled throughout the entire country.” [10]
Quoting travelers’ tales of extraordinary and seemingly miraculous topographical memory,
Lévy-Bruhl remarks that the only miracle involved is a highly developed local memory. Von
dem Steinem describes a primitive man he had observed: he saw and heard everything,
accumulating in his memory the most insignificant details, thus making it hard for the author to
believe that anyone could memorize so many things without written symbols. He had a map in
his head – or rather, he retained in a certain order a huge number of facts, regardless of their
relative importance.[11]

As Lévy-Bruhl points out, primitive man’s exceptionally well developed concrete memory,
which so impresses observers with its ability to reproduce previous perceptions in accurate and
fine detail, and in the proper order, can also be discerned in the wealth of vocabulary and the
grammatical complexity of the language of primitive man.

It is interesting to note that those same people who speak these languages and possess such
outstanding memories, in Australia or northern Brazil, for example, cannot count beyond two or
three. The slightest abstract reasoning frightens them so much that they promptly say they are
tired and give up.

Lévy-Bruhl had the following to say, “As far as concerns intellectual functions, our own memory
is. reduced to the subordinate role of recording the results arrived at through the logical
elaboration of concepts. The gap between an eleventh-century scribe who patiently reproduced
page after page of a manuscript, and the modern printing press which can print hundreds of
thousands of copies in a few hours, is no greater than that which separates the prelogical thinking
of primitive man, for whom only the connection between representations exists, and who relies
almost exclusively on memory, from logical thought using abstract concepts."[12]

However, such a description of the memory of primitive man, though essentially true, is
extremely one-sided. We shall now try to explain, from the scientific standpoint, this. superiority
of the primitive memory. At the same time, in order to convey a correct impression of the
operation of this memory, we should also note that in a great many respects the memory of
primitive man is markedly inferior to that of civilized man.

An Australian child who has never left his village, may impress a civilized European with his
ability to find his way around a region where he has never been before. Yet a European
schoolchild who has taken just a single geography course will thereby have absorbed more
knowledge than primitive man could absorb in a whole lifetime.

Besides the excellent development of the natural memory which records external impressions
with virtually photographic precision, primitive memory is also distinguished by the qualitative
peculiarity of its functions. This second aspect, when compared with the excellence of the natural
memory, sheds some light on the memory of primitive man.

Leroi rightly attributes all the peculiarities of the primitive memory to its functions. Lacking the
written word, primitive man has to rely entirely on his immediate memory. This is why we find a
similar form of primitive memory in illiterate people. In that same author’s opinion, the
explanation for primitive man’s ability to find his way and to reconstruct complex events from
tracks, however, lies not in the superiority of the immediate memory, but elsewhere. Most
primitive men, as one observer testifies, cannot find their way without some external sign. Leroi
assumes that orientation has nothing to do with memory. Similarly, when primitive man
reconstructs some event from tracks, he uses his memory no more than when a magistrate
investigates a crime on the basis of the evidence. Observation and speculation play a more
important role here than memory. Practice has made the sensory organs of primitive man more
highly developed than ours – in fact this is all that distinguished him from us in this regard.
However, this ability to interpret tracks derives from training and not from instinct. It develops in
primitive man from early childhood. Children teach their children to recognize tracks; adults
imitate animal tracks, and children reproduce them.

Experimental psychology has quite recently discovered a special and highly interesting form of
memory, which many psychologists compare to the astonishing memory of primitive man.
Although experimental studies on primitive man in this sphere are being conducted only now,
and are still not completed, nonetheless there is such a similarity between the facts collected by
psychologists in their laboratories, on the one hand, and those reported about primitive man by
researchers and travelers, on the other, that one may safely assume that this form of memory is in
fact characteristic of primitive man.
As Pensch has observed, this form of memory essentially enables some humans to actually see
an object or picture again, moments after it has been presented to them once, or even a long time
thereafter. Such people are known as eidetics, and that form of memory as eidetism. The
phenomenon was discovered by Urbanchich in 1907, though experimental studies and research
have been conducted on it, by the school of Pensch, only in the past decade.

In the chapter on child psychology, we shall dwell in greater detail on the results of research into
eidetism. Here we shall merely discuss the methods, used in such research. For a brief period, of
some 10-30 seconds, the eidetic child is shown some highly complex picture with a vast number
of details. The picture is then taken away, and is replaced by a gray screen, on which the child
continues to see the missing picture in such detail that he can give a thorough description of what
is before him, reading the words it contains, etc.

An example illustrating the nature of eidetic memory is given in Figure 12, which is a photo of
the picture shown to eidetic children in the experiments of our colleague K.I. Veresotskaya.
After being shown the picture briefly (30 seconds) the child continues to see its image on the
screen, as verified by control questions and a comparison between the answers and the original
of the picture. The child reads the text to the letter, counts up the number of windows on each
floor, defines exact arrangement of objects and names their color, describing the tiniest details.

Research has shown that such eidetic images are subject to all – the laws of perception. The
physiological basis of such a memory is clearly the inertia of the stimulation of the optical nerve,
which lasts after the effect of the original stimulus has ceased. Eidetism of this sort manifests
itself not only in vision, but also in auditory and tactile sensations.
Among the civilized peoples, eidetism is found mainly in children. In adults, it is a rare
exception. Psychologists believe that eidetism represents an early primitive phase in the
development of memory – one that usually ends before puberty and rarely lasts into adulthood. It
is found most frequently among mentally retarded and culturally underdeveloped children.
Biologically speaking, this form of memory is very important because, as it develops, it turns
into two other types of memory. First of all, research has shown that, as develop~ ment
progresses, eidetic images merge with our perceptions, rendering them stable and constant. On
the other hand, they are transformed into visual images of the memory, in the true sense of the
term.

Researchers therefore believe that eidetic memory is a primary undifferentiated stage of the unity
of perception and memory, which become differentiated and develop into two separate functions.
Eidetic memory is the basis of all graphic, concrete thinking.

The above facts about the outstanding memory of primitive man, collected by Lévy-Bruhl, lead
Pensch to the conclusion that it has much in common with eidetic memory. Moreover, primitive
man’s mode of perception, thought and representation is also clearly at a stage of development
remarkably close to the eidetic stage. Pensch likened the visionaries found among primitive
peoples to two eidetic boys he once studied, who sometimes saw the most extraordinary places
and buildings.

Bearing in mind that visual images can be strengthened in eidetics by emotional stimulus or
exercise as well as by various pharmacological substances, it seems that the famous
pharmacologist Levin was right to assert that the shamans, or medicine men, of primitive peoples
artificially induce eidetic activity in themselves. Mythological creativity on the part of primitive
man is also close to the seeing of visions and eidetism.

Comparing all these facts with those of eidetic research, Pensch concludes that our knowledge of
the memory of primitive man suggests that it is in the eidetic phase of memory development.
Mythological images, in his opinion, are also due to eidetism.

Blonsky observes that, “We need only add that such elves and goblins, coming into being in the
right circumstances and under the influence of powerful emotions among primitive eidetics, are
then reinforced by the longlasting state of mind characteristic of eidetics. Eidetism among the
primitive peoples accounts not only for the emergence of mythological images, but also of
certain peculiarities of primitive language and art.

With its abundance of concrete details and words, the language of primitive man, which we shall
discuss below, is far more colorful and graphic than the languages of civilized peoples. With
regard to art, Wundt raised the question of why, of all places, the graphic art of cave-dwellers
flourished in the dark interior of caves. Blonsky believed that this was “because eidetic images
are. brighter in the dark, or when one’s eye is closed.”

Dantsel has reached similar conclusions on this question, arguing that memory plays an
immeasurably greater role in the mental life of primitive man than in our own. A remarkable
feature of the operation of this type of memory is the “unprocessed nature of the materials”
retained by the memory, and its persistently photographic quality. The reproductive function of
such a memory is far higher than in civilized man.

As Dantsel has observed, aside from its fidelity and objectivity, primitive memory is also
astonishingly well integrated. The memory of primitive man does not move incrementally from
one element to the next, since his memory retains the entire phenomenon for him as a whole, and
not parts of it.

The last distinctive trait of the memory of primitive man, in the opinion of Dantsel, is that
primitive man still finds it very difficult to separate perceptions from recollections. In his mind,
those objective things that he has actually perceived merge with what he has merely imagined.
The only explanation for this can the eidetic nature of the recollections of primitive man.[13]

The organic memory of primitive man, or the so-called mnema, based on the plasticity of our
nervous system – its ability to retain and reproduce the imprint of external stimuli – reaches its
most highly developed state in primitive man. Beyond that, no further development is possible.

As primitive man gradually absorbs culture, we find this type of memory declining, just as it
does during the cultural development of the child. The question then arises: which path does the
development of the memory of primitive man follow? Does the memory we have just described
become improved in the shift from a low to a higher level?

Research has invariably shown that this does not happen in actual fact. Here we hasten to
emphasize the distinctive form memory takes in this case, a form which is extremely significant
in the historical development of behavior. As an objective scrutiny of primitive man will show, it
functions spontaneously, like a natural force.

In the words of Engels that we have quoted earlier, man uses it but does not dominate it. Indeed,
this type of memory dominates him, by suggesting to him unreal fictions, and imaginary images
and constructions. It leads him to establish mythologies that often impede the development of his
experience, by screening the objective picture of the world behind subjective structures.

The historical development of memory begins from the point at which man first shifts from using
memory, as a natural force, to dominating it. This dominion, like any dominion over a natural
force, simply means that at a certain stage of his development man accumulates sufficient
experience – in this case .psychological experience – and sufficient knowledge of the laws
governing the operation of memory, and then shifts to the actual use of those laws. This process
of accumulation of psychological experience leading to control of behavior should not be viewed
as a process of conscious experience, the deliberate accumulation of knowledge and theoretical
research. This experience should be called “naive psychology” by analogy with what Köhler
calls “naive physics”, with reference to the naive experience of apes with regard to the physical
properties of their own bodies and of objects in the external world.

There comes a stage of his development in which primitive man first graduates from the ability
to interpret tracks as signs suggesting and recalling entire complex pictures, in other words, from
the use of signs to the creation of artificial signs. This truly marks a turning point in the history
of the development of the memory of primitive man.

Thurnwald describes a primitive man in his service who used to take “auxiliary memory tools”
with him when sent to the main camp with instructions, precisely in order to remember them.
Despite the case made by Dantsel, Thurnwald believes that the use of auxiliary means need not
be viewed from the standpoint of their magical origins. In its earliest form, writing acted
precisely as such an auxiliary, by means of which man began to dominate his memory.

Writing has a long history. The original tools of memory were symbols, such as the golden
figurines of West African storytellers, each which of brings to mind a special tale. Each of these
figurines is a kind of initial title of a long story, for example the moon. A bag containing such
figurines represents the primitive title of such early storytellers.

Other symbols are of an abstract character. As Thurnwald has observed, one typical abstract
symbol of this sort is the knot, tied as a reminder of something, just the way we do today. He
further noted that as these tools of memory are used in an identical fashion within certain groups,
they become convention and begin to serve for purposes of communication.

In Figure 13 we see a sample of the writing of primitive man. It consists of stringy reed fiber,
two pieces of reed, four shells and a piece of fruit skin. There is a letter from an incurably ill
father to his friends and relatives, saying that his illness is worsening and that help can come
only from God.

Among the Indians of the Dakota tribe such signs have acquired a general meaning. In Figure 14,
the hole in feather (a), means that its bearer has killed his enemy; the triangular indentation in
feather (b) means that he has slit his enemy’s throat and scalped him; the truncated end of feather
(c) means that he has slit his throat; and the split feather (d) means that he has wounded his
enemy.
The most ancient monuments in the history of writing are the kvinus (“knots” in Peruvian) shown
in Figures 15 and 16, which were used in ancient Peru, China, Japan and other parts of the world.
These are conventional auxiliary signs for the memory which are in widespread use among the
primitive peoples and require precise knowledge on the part of those tying the knots.
Such kvinus are still used today in Bolivia by herdsmen as a means of counting their livestock;
they are also found in Tibet and elsewhere. The system within which the signs and the counting
methods is used are closely linked to the economic way of life of these primitive peoples. Not
only the knots but also the colors of the string have their own significance. White strings means
silver and peace; red, warriors or war; green, corn; and yellow, gold.
Klodd considers the mnemonic stage to be the first stage in the development of writing.
According to Herodotus, when Darius ordered the lonians to stay behind to defend a pontoon
bridge across the river Ister Danube, he tied sixty knots on a strap, saying, “People of lonia, take
this strap and do as I say. As soon as you see that I have attacked the Scythians, from then on
you must untie one knot on each succeeding day, and when you find that the days marked by
these knots have passed, then you may go home.”

This kind of knot, tied as a memory aid, is clearly the oldest vestige of man’s shift from the use
of memory to control over it.

These kvinus were used in ancient Peru for recording the chronicles, for the transmission of
instructions to remote provinces and detailed information about the state of the army. They were
even placed inside tombs to preserve the memory of the deceased.

The Chudi tribe of Peru, according to Taylor, had a special officer assigned to the task of tying
and interpreting kvinus. Although they became highly proficient at their craft, they were rarely
able to read other people’s kvinus, unless they were accompanied by oral comment. Anyone
arriving from a remote province with a kvinu had to explain whether it was in connection with a
census, the collection of taxes, war, etc.

Through constant practice the officials improved their system to such an extent that they could
use these knots to record all the major matters of state, and depict laws and events. Taylor reports
that in southern Peru there are still some Indians who are thoroughly familiar with the contents of
several historical kvinus that have been preserved since ancient times, but that they keep their
knowledge a closely guarded secret, and are particularly anxious to hide it from whites.

Nowadays, this kind of knot-based mnemotechnical system is most frequently used for the
memorization of various counting operations. Peruvian herdsmen record their bulls on one string
of the kvinu, their cows, subdivided into milking and dry, on the second, and then their calves,
sheep, etc. The products of animal husbandry are recorded by means of knots tied on special
strings. The color of the string and the different ways the knots are tied indicate the nature of the
record being kept.

Instead of dwelling on the further development of human writing, we shall simply say that this
transition from the natural development of memory to the development of writing – from
eidetism to the use of external systems of signs, from mnema to mnemotechics – was an
absolutely pivotal change, which determined the entire subsequent course of the development of
human memory. Internal development had now become external.

Memory is enhanced to the extent that systems of writing and of symbols, together with the
methods for using those symbols, are enhanced. This corresponds to what was known in ancient
and medieval times as memoria technica, or artificial memory. The historical development of
human memory essentially consists of the development and enhancement of the auxiliary means
elaborated by social man in the process of his cultural life.
At the same time, however, while the natural or organic memory obviously does not remain
unchanged the changes that do occur are determined by two vital factors. Firstly, those changes
are not autonomous. The memory of a man capable of recording what he needs to remember is
used and exercised, and therefore develops, differently from the memory of a man who is quite
incapable of using symbols. The internal development and enhancement of memory is
accordingly not an autonomous process; it is dependent and subordinate, since its course is
determined by external influences within man’s social environment.

A second and equally important limitation is the highly one-sided nature of the development and
enhancement of this kind of memory. Since it adapts to the type of writing system prevalent in
any given society, in many respects it does not develop at all. Instead, degeneration and
involution occur; in other words, it loses its properties, or undergoes retrograde development.

In this way, for example, during the process of cultural development the outstanding natural
memory of primitive man tends to wither away. Baldwin was therefore quite right to uphold the
idea that all evolution is to an equal extent involution; in other words, retrograde processes,
whereby old forms shrink and wither away are themselves inherent in any process of
development.

We need only compare the memory of an African envoy, transmitting word for word the lengthy
message of some tribal chief, relying solely on his natural eidetic memory, with the memory of a
Peruvian “officer in charge of knots”, Who had to tie and read the kvinu, to see the direction in
which human memory developed under the influence of the growth of culture. In particular, such
a comparison shows us the driving force behind such development, and the precise manner in
which it occurred.

The “officer in charge of knots” stands higher on the ladder of cultural development than the
African ambassador, not because of a commensurate improvement in his natural memory, but
because he has learned to make better use of memory, and to dominate it by means of artificial
signs.
We shall now go one step higher and consider the kind of memory corresponding to the next
stage in the development of writing. Figure 17 gives an example of what is known as
“pictographic” writing, in which visual images serve to convey certain thoughts and concepts.
On a piece of birch bark, a girl from the Ojibwa tribe is writing a letter to her lover in white
territory. Her totem is a bear, and his, an ant chrysalis. These symbols refer to the sender and the
recipient of the letter. Two lines from the site of these symbols, converge and then continue as
far as a place lying between two lakes. A path leading to two tents branches off from this line.
Three girls who are converts to the Catholic faith – as indicated by three crosses – live here in
their tents. The tent on the left is open, and a hand making a beckoning gesture is protruding
from it. The hand, which belongs to the author of the letter, is making the Indian sign of
welcome to her lover – with the palm held forward and pointed down – while the extended index
finger points to the place occupied by the speaker, showing her guest the path to be followed.

Writing at this stage already requires the memory to function in a completely different manner
(see Figure 18). Yet another form enters the picture when man moves on to ideographic or
hieroglyphic writing, using symbols whose relationship with objects becomes increasingly
remote. Mallory has rightly observed that in most cases these were merely mnemonic
inscriptions, but that they were interpreted in connection with physical objects used for
mnemonic purposes.[14]

The remarkable story of writing, of man’s efforts to control his memory, is uniquely
characteristic of human psychology. The decisive point in the transition from natural to cultural
development of memory lies in the watershed dividing mnema from mnemotechnics, the use of
memory from dominion over it, the biological or internal form of its development from the
historical or external form.
We should note that such dominion over memory first took the form of signs intended less for
oneself than for others, with social purposes, which only later came also to have a personal use.
Arsenyev, noted for his research on. the Ussur region, describes a visit to an Udekheitsy village,
in an extremely remote location. The Udekheitsy complained of encroachments by the Chinese,
and asked him, on his return to Vladivostok, to convey their feelings to the Russian authorities
and seek their help.

When the traveler left the next day, a crowd of its inhabitants escorted him to the outskirts of the
village. A gray-haired elder stepped out of the crowd, handed him a lynx claw and instructed him
to put it in his pocket, so as not to forget their request concerning Li-Tai-Kui. Not trusting their
natural memory, the Udekheitsy used an artificial symbol, totally unrelated to the things the
traveler had to remember, which was an auxiliary technical tool of memory, a way of steering
memorization into the proper channel and controlling its flow.

The operation of memorization with the aid of a lynx claw, addressed first to another and then to
oneself, marks the beginning of the path followed by the development of memory in civilized
man. Everything that civilized humanity remembers and knows at present, all the accumulated
experience in books, monuments and manuscripts – all this colossal expansion of the human
memory, without which there could be no historical and cultural development, Is due precisely to
external human memorization based on symbols.

The Connection Between Thought and the Development of Language in

Primitive Society
We find that same path of development in another equally crucial sphere of the psychology of
primitive man – language and thought. As in the case of memory, here again it becomes
immediately apparent that primitive man is different from civilized man not only in that his
language is poorer, cruder and less developed, as it unquestionably is. At the same time,
however, the language of primitive nun impresses us with its vast wealth of vocabulary. Such
languages are so very difficult to learn and understand primarily because they far surpass those
of civilized peoples in terms of the wealth, abundance and luxuriance of various designations
completely lacking in our language.

Lévy-Bruhl and Pensch rightly point out that there is a close link between these dual
characteristics of the language of primitive man and his extraordinary memory. The first thing
that impresses about the language of primitive man is precisely the vast wealth of designations at
his disposal. Concrete designations pervade such languages; concrete details are expressed by
means of a vast quantity of words and expressions.

Gatschet writes, “We intend to speak precisely, whereas an Indian draws as he speaks; we
classify, he individualizes.” [15] For these reasons, the speech of primitive man, in comparison
with our language, truly resembles an endlessly complex, accurate, plastic and photographic
description of an event, with the finest details.

The development of language is accordingly characterized by a gradual tendency for this

enormous abundance of concrete terms to disappear. The languages of the Australian peoples,
for example, have practically no word: denoting general concepts, whereas they are inundated
with a huge number of specific terms, painstakingly distinguishing the features and the
individuality of objects.

Ayer, referring to the Australians, says, “They have no general words, such as tree, fish, bird,
and so on, but exclusively specific terms applicable to each species of tree, fish and bird."[16] The
same absence of words for tree, fish and bird, accompanied by the use of proper nouns for all
objects and creatures occurs in other primitive peoples.

Tasmanians have no word to designate such qualities as sweet, hot, hard cold, long, short or
round. Instead of “hard” they say “like a stone”; instead of “high”, “high legs”; instead of
“round”, “like a ball, like the moon”, adding an explanatory gesture. Similarly, on the Bismarck
Archipelago there are no words for colors, which are designated in the same way, by naming an
object that brings them to mind.

According to Powers, “In California, there are no species or breeds. Each oak, each pine, each
kind of grass has its own special name."[17] All of this generates the huge wealth of vocabulary of
primitive languages. The Australians have separate names for almost each small part of the
human body; for example, instead of “hand” they have several separate words denoting the upper
part of the hand, the front of the hand, the right hand, or the left hand etc.

The Maoris have an exceptionally thorough system of nomenclature for the flora of New
Zealand, with special names for the male and female trees of certain species. They also have
separate names for trees whose leaves change shape at various stages of growth. Coco or Tui
birds have four names: two each for the male and the female, depending on the season; there are
different word for the tail of a bird, the tail of an animal and that of a fish. There are three word
for the call of the parrot, when at rest, angry or frightened.

The Bavenda tribe of South Africa has a special name for each kind of rain North American
Indians also have a huge number of precise, almost scientific definitions for clouds of various
shapes and for descriptions of the sky that are quite untranslatable.

Lévy-Bruhl further notes that, “It would be futile to search for anything similar in the European
languages.” One tribe, for example, has a special word to denote the sun shining between two
clouds. It is almost impossible to count the number of nouns in such languages. One of the
northern primitive people., for example, has a host of terms for the different species of reindeer.
There is a special word for a reindeer aged 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 years; twenty words for ice,
eleven for the cold, forty-one for snow in its various forms; and twenty-six verbs for freezing and
thawing, etc. It is for this reason that they oppose the attempt to make them change from their
own language to Norwegian, which they find too poor in this regard.” This also accounts for the
vast number of proper nouns given to the most different objects.

Among the Maoris of New Zealand, each thing has its own proper noun. Their boats, houses,
weapons, even their clothes – every single object is given its own name. All of their lands and
roads have their own names, as do the shores around the islands, horses, cows, pigs, even trees,
cliffs and springs. In southern Australia every mountain range and every mountain has its own
name. The natives knows the precise name of each individual hill, so it would seem that the
geography of primitive man is far richer than our own.

In the Zambezi region, each piece of higher ground, each hill, knoll and peak in a range, just as
each spring, plain or meadow, and each area and place is known by a special name. As
Livingston observed, it would take an entire lifetime to decipher the meaning of each of these
names.

Such a wealth of vocabulary is directly dependent on the concreteness and preciseness of the
language of primitive man. His language corresponds to his memory and his mentality. He
photographs and reproduces all of his experience just as precisely as he memorizes it. He does
not know how to express himself abstractly and conventionally, as does civilized man.

This means that where a European would use two or three words, primitive Tan sometimes uses
ten. In the language of the Ponca Indian tribe, the sentence “a man killed a rabbit” is rendered
literally, “man he one alive standing killed deliberately shoot arrow rabbit him one alive sitting.”

This precision is also evident in the definition of certain complex notions. For example, among
the Botakud tribe the word “island"’ is rendered by four words, with the following literal
meaning; “land water middle is here.” Werner compares this with Pidgin English, in which semi-
primitive man renders the word “piano” by the term “box, when it is hit, it shouts.” [18]

Such detailed plastic description is both a big advantage and a serious shortcoming of primitive
language. It is a big advantage because this type of language creates a sign almost for each
specific object, and with remarkable accuracy gives primitive man virtual duplicates of all the
objects he has to deal with. Understandably, therefore, bearing in mind the way of life of
primitive man, shifting from such a language to a European language would mean being
instantly deprived of a most powerful means of orientation in life.

At the. same time, however, such a language endlessly burdens thinking with a host of details; it
does not process the data of experience; it reproduces them in an unabridged form, just as they
are in real life. In order to convey the simple thought that a man killed a rabbit, the Indian has to
describe the entire scene of the event in fine detail. This means that the words of primitive man
have not yet become differentiated from things, and are still closely linked to immediate sensory
impressions.

Wertheimer describes the case of a semi-primitive man who had been taught a European
language but refused, during an exercise, to translate the sentence “The white man killed six
bears”.[19] A white man is incapable of killing six bears, so the expression itself seemed
impossible. For such a person, language is still understood and used exclusively as a means of
reflecting reality, and is far from acquired an autonomous function.

Thurnwald reports a similar case. He once asked a primitive man to count; as one has inevitably
to count something, the man started to count imaginary pigs. Having reached sixty he stopped
and said that it was impossible to go any higher, because no one owner possesses more than sixty
pigs.[20]

The operations of language and counting prove possible only to the extent that they are
connected to those concrete situations that gave rise to them. The concrete and figurative nature
of primitive language is instantly evident in its grammatical forms, whose purpose is to transmit
the finest concrete details. Verb forms change according to subtle details of meaning. For
example, in the language of one primitive people there are large numbers of separate specific
expressions instead of “us": “me and you” (singular and plural), “me and two’ of you , me and
him”, “me and them”, all of which may be further combined with the dual number, to produce
“two of us and you (singular)"/"two of us and you (plural)” and then with the plural number, as
in “me, you (singular) and him or them”. In the simple conjugation of the indicative present
tense, there are more than seventy different forms, which show whether the object was alive or
inanimate. In several languages, the singular and plural are replaced by dual, triple or even
quadruple numbers. All of this is linked to the concrete nature of the language, as well as the
concrete nature of primitive memory.

In these languages, individual prefixes serve to express the tiniest shades of distinction, which
are always rendered concretely in words. The unusual abundance of verb forms in the languages
of the North American Indians was described many years ago. Dobrizhoffer thought that the
language of the Abipones was the most frightful maze imaginable. According to Benyaminov,
the Aleutian language has more than 400 inflections, for tense., declension, and person, each of
which corresponds to a particular and precise shade of meaning.

Many authors agree that it is a pictorial or graphic language, and emphasize its tendency to
“speak to the eyes”, to draw and depict the meaning to be expressed. Different expressions are
used to convey motion in a straight line, motion to the side, or along a curve, or some distance
from the speaker. As Lévy-Bruhl notes, “In a word, the spatial relationships that the Klamath
language expresses so precisely may in particular be retained and reproduced by the visual and
muscular memory.”

The prevalence of the spatial element reflects a tendency of many primitive languages. Gatschet
found that considerations of space and distance prove to be exceedingly important in the
representation of primitive peoples, and quite as fundamental as those of time and causality in
our own thinking. Any phrase or sentence must express the relationship between objects in
space.

In the words of Lévy-Bruhl, “Primitive mentality does not demand alone that the relative
positions of things and persons in space, as well as their distance from each other, be expressed.
It is not satisfied unless the language also specifies explicitly, the details regarding the form of
objects, their dimensions and way of moving about in the various circumstances in which they
may be placed. To accomplish this, the most diverse forms are employed.”

These include prefixes and suffixes denoting the form and movement of form and size; the
nature of the environment in which the movement occurs, the position, etc. The number of these
additional linguistic particles is unlimited in the languages of primitive peoples. The language of
one primitive tribe has ten thousand verbs, further augmented by the use of numerous prefixes
and suffixes. The Abipones have a huge number of synonyms. They have separate words for
injuring an animal or a person with one’s teeth, a knife, sword or arrow; separate words for
fighting with a spear; to say that a man’s two wives are fighting over him; separate particles for
different arrangements of objects – from above, from below, around, in the water, in the air, etc.

Livingstone has pointed out, with reference to South African tribes, that what travelers find most
disconcerting is not a shortage of words, but rather their extraordinary abundance. “I heard
twenty terms for various ways of walking; walking while leaning forward or backward; swaying
from side to side; at a sluggish or brisk pace; with dignity; swinging both arms or just one – there
was a special verb for each of these ways of walking.”

In addition to the plastic and eidetic memory of primitive man, our quest for an explanation of
these linguistic features also discloses a second and extremely important reason: the language of
primitive man conveys images of objects and transmits them exactly as they pr esent themselves
to the eyes and ears. For such a language, accurate reproduction is the ultimate goal.

In the words of Lévy-Bruhl, “These languages have a common tendency to describe not only the
impression which the subject receives, but the shape and contour, position, movement, way of
acting, of objects in space – in a word, all that can be perceived and delineated ... We may
perhaps understand this need of theirs if we note that the same peoples, as a rule, speak another
language as well, a language whose. characteristics necessarily react upon the minds of those
who use it, influencing their way of thought and, as a consequence, their speech.”

While this second language, that of signs and gestures, is extremely common among primitive
peoples, its usage varies according to circumstances, and it may be combined in various ways
with verbal language. Geson, for example, reports that one tribe, in addition to its spoken
language, also has a sign language. There are special individual signs for all animals, for the
native people, for men and women, the sky, the earth, walking, sitting on a horse, jumping,
stealing, swimming, eating and drinking, as well as hundreds of other objects and actions. An
entire conversation can thus take place, without a single word being uttered.

Rather than considering how widely this gesture language is used and the circumstances in which
it occurs, we need only point out the enormous influence of this language as a thinking tool, on
the actual operations of thought. It also becomes obvious that the impact of this language and its
various characteristics on the nature and structure of mental operations parallels that of the
properties of implements on the structure and makeup of the different types of work done by
humans.

Lévy-Bruhl concludes that most primitive societies have a dual language: the spoken word and
the gesture. He thus finds it inconceivable that they could exist without influencing each other. In
a remarkable study entitled Manual Concepts, Cushing has analyzed the influence of the
language of the hand on that of the spoken word, showing how in one of the primitive languages
the order of the parts of a sentence, the method for conveying numerals, etc., had originated from
motions of the hand.

As is well known, in order to study the mental life of primitive man, Cushing actually moved in
with a primitive tribe, and tried to live, not as a European, but as one of the natives, taking part in
their ceremonies and belonging to their various social groups. Through lengthy training he
patiently instilled primitive functions in his hands, making them perform in all respects just as
hands once had in prehistoric times. Moreover he did so with the same materials, and in the same
conditions as had prevailed in the age when the hands were so closely united with the intellect
that they became an integral part of it.

Lévy-Bruhl observes that “the progress of civilization is due to the mutual influence of hand and
mind. In order to study the mental life of primitive man we must rediscover those motions of the
hands from which their language and thinking are inseparable. Primitives who cannot speak
without their hands also cannot think without them.”

Cushing has shown the extent to which the specialization of verbs that we find in the language of
primitive man is a natural consequence of the role played by hand motion in the development of
primitive mental activity. In his words, “This is a matter of grammatical necessity. In the mind of
primitive man, complex yet mechanically systematized thought-expressions and expression-
concepts must have arisen quite as rapidly as the equivalent verbal expression.”

Lévy-Bruhl has this to say, “Speaking with the hands is literally thinking with the hands, to a
certain extent, therefore the features of these “manual concepts” will necessarily be reproduced
in the verbal expression of thought. The two languages, based on such widely differing symbols
as gestures and articulate sounds, are affiliated by their structure and their method of interpreting
objects, actions and states. If verbal language, therefore, describes and delineates in detail
positions, motions, distances, forms and contours, it is because gesture language uses exactly the
same means of expression.”
Research has shown that these two languages were originally not isolated and divided; rather,
each phrase represented a complex form combining gestures and sounds. These gestures
reproduced motion, accurately delineating and describing objects and actions.

In order to say “water”, this ideogram showed how a native drinks, by scooping water in his
hands. The word “weapon” was conveyed by the threatening gestures that people make when
using one. “In short, the man who speaks this language” in the words of Lévy-Bruhl, “has at his
disposal a great number of fully formed visual motor associations” between objects and
movements. “We may say that he imagines them at the moment he describes them. His verbal
language, therefore, can but be descriptive also.”

Mallory has remarked that in one Indian language words resemble gestures and that primitive
language cannot be explained without a study of those gestures. He has found that one language
explains the other, and neither can be studied separately. The vocabulary of the sign language
compiled by Mallory sheds light on the mental operations of speakers of that language, and
explains why primitive speech is of necessity descriptive.

German scholars have used the term “sound pictures” as a name for this urge to depict. In the
language of one primitive tribe, Lévy-Bruhl has counted thirty-three verbs for various ways of
walking; he has also pointed out that this number does not include the diversity of all the adverbs
which, when used in conjunction with the verb, serve to describe various subtle distinctions in
the way people walk.

Junod has remarked that anyone listening to a conversation between Negroes might be inclined
to say that theirs is a childish way of speaking, whereas the truth is the exact opposite, as words
in such a colorful language convey shades of meaning that the higher languages would be
incapable of expressing. Without a doubt, this aspect of the language of primitive man leaves a
deep imprint on the whole structure of his thinking.

Thinking that uses this language, just like the language itself, is thoroughly concrete, graphic and
pictorial and full of details; it also functions on the basis of directly reproduced real-life
situations. Lévy-Bruhl refers to the inadequate power of abstraction involved in such use of
language, and also to the peculiar “internal pictures” or “image-concepts” which are the material
for such thinking.

We can safely say that the thinking of primitive man, using such a language, is eidetic – a
conclusion also reached by Pensch on the basis of his own research material. In his opinion this
language points to a sensory memory which has at its disposal truly vast numbers of visual and
auditory impressions, and this pictorial function of primitive language is direct evidence of the
eidetic nature of. primitive man. As the cultural development of language and thought
progresses, the eidetic propensity recedes, taking with it any interest in using the language to
convey separate concrete peculiarities.

Humboldt has rightly observed that when using these languages, one feels transported into
another, very different world, as the perception and interpretation of the world that they suggest
really is profoundly different from the mode of thinking of a civilized European.
Thurnwald, who fully concurs with these findings, notes that by virtue of its lexical abundance,
the language of primitive man cannot be described as poor in expressions. In concreteness of
expression it surpasses the language of civilized man. “It is, however, too closely tied to narrow
activity in a small space, and with the circumstances in which the small group speaking that
language lives. The language of primitive man is a mirror image of the special traits of the life of
that group.”

The language of a group engaged in agriculture will contain a vast number of terms for coconut
in the various stages of its growth, or for the different strains of corn. The nomads of Central
Asia distinguish between their horses by sex and color. The Bedouin use similar designations for
camels, and other peoples for dogs, while having no generic name for these species of animals.
Thurnwald sees the concreteness of primitive language as a manifestation of vigor and
expressive power, but also as evidence of its bonds to the particular, and its inability to express
anything separate or general, or to define a relationship to other things. In the absence of
abstraction, the language is dominated by a numerative listing of objects.

The reverse influence of thought on speech, noted by Thurnwald, is very important. We have
already seen the extent to which the structure of mental operations depends on the resources of
the language. Thurnwald has shown that when a language is borrowed by another people, or
when two languages merge, the vocabulary itself is easily transferred from one tribe to another;
but the grammatical structure is altered by the “thinking technique” of the people taking over the
language. The thinking processes themselves are also closely dependent on such thinking
resources.

Primitive man has no concepts, and finds abstract generic names completely alien. Primitive and
civilized man use words in quite different ways. Words can be put to different functional uses.
The mental operations performed with the aid of a word will also depend on how it is used.

A word can be used as a proper name, or a sound linked by association with this or that
individual object. In this case, it is a proper noun helping the memory’ to perform a simple
associative operation. As we have seen, to a significant extent, primitive language is situated
precisely at that level of development.

As we have seen, the language of primitive man contains large numbers of proper names and
tends to specify to the maximum extent each individual property and object. In this case the
actual way words are used also determines the mode of thinking. This is why, in primitive man,
the operation of memory takes precedence over thinking.

The second stage in the development of the use of words occurs when they function as an
associative symbol not of an individual object, but of a set or group of objects. Here the word
becomes a sort of family or group name. Besides its associative function, it also performs a
mental operation by helping classify different individual objects, placing them together in a set.

The resulting new combination, however, still remains a group of separate concrete objects, each
of which, on joining it, retains all its individuality and uniqueness. In this phase, words are a
means for the formation of sets. Our family names are a typical example of this function. When I
talk about a family name, say, Petrov, I use that word to designate a certain group of actual
people, not because they share some common feature, but because they belong to a certain
common group.

A set differs from a concept by virtue of the relationship between the individual object and the
group name. By looking at an object I can say with full objectivity whether it is a tree or a dog,
because ‘tree’ and ‘dog’ serve as the signations of concepts – in other words, generic groups to
which, by virtue of substantive features various individual objects belong. I cannot, by looking at
a man, tell whether or not he is a Petrov, because in order to do so it is simply necessary to know,
as a matter of fact, whether he goes by such a name. The individual thus remains, as such, in the
set, but the set comprises different elements, united not by some inherent, substantial connection,
but by an actual, concrete affinity which exists as a matter of fact.

To a large extent primitive man is at this stage of set-based thinking. His words are proper names
or family names, that is, signs for separate objects or signs for sets. Primitive man thinks not in
concepts but in sets. This is the most substantial difference between his thinking and ours.

When Lévy-Bruhl characterized the thinking of primitive man as “prelogical”, and

simultaneously capable of making the most divergent connections, he saw the basic feature of
that thinking in what he called the “law of participation”. This law holds that primitive thinking
is not governed by the laws of our logic, but has its own special primitive logic, based on quite
different representational links. This special type of connection, characteristic of primitive logic,
permits the same object to participate in different sets, and to form an integral part of wholly
different connections.

This means that the law of the excluded middle is not valid for primitive man. For him, the fact a
man belongs to the set “man” still does not mean that he is not a parrot; he can belong at the
same time to the set “man” and to the set “parrot”. The Indians of the Bororo tribe, for example,
used to claim that they were red parrots. They did not thereby mean that after death they became
parrots, or that parrots were transformed Indians, but that Indians really were parrots. A
connection of this sort is impossible in logic based on concepts, where the mere fact that a man is
a man ipso facto means that he is not a parrot.

Such thinking and such logic, as we have seen, are based on sets, which in turn are based on
concrete connections. The same object, of course, may have vast numbers of such concrete
connections. The same man may belong to different family groups; his family may make him a
Petrov, and his place of residence may make him a Muscovite, etc.

All the peculiarities of primitive thinking may ultimately be reduced to one basic fact: primitive
man thinks in sets, not concepts. As Werner has put it, “Any primitive concept is at the same
time a visual picture.”

Leroi has rightly warned against basing judgements about the abstractness or concreteness of
primitive thinking on the external structure and character of language. He has argued that,
instead of merely considering the tool, we should also study the manner of its potential or actual
use. For example, an abundance of special terms is not exclusively a primitive trait, as it also
occurs in our own technology. It reflects the need for precision in the technical operations of
fishermen and hunters. In his language, primitive man distinguishes between different types of
snow because he is obliged to do so, in real life. In this case, a wealth of vocabulary merely
reflects a wealth of experience, which in turn is caused by the need to adapt or perish. In the
view of that same author, primitive man cannot decide, for example, to exchange his language
for Norwegian, in which “contact with things would become very distant.”

The real reason for these special features of primitive language therefore lies in technical
requirements and vital necessity. As Leroi has shown, the language of gestures arises in certain
economic and geographical circumstances, and is born of necessity (relocation among alien
tribes, hunting game, war, long-distance communication across plains). It would therefore be
wrong to view all the peculiarities of such language and thinking in absolute terms and to
consider them as primary. While some tribes lack generic terms for tree, fish and bird, others,
such as the tribes of Queensland, have generic terms for fish, bird and snake. Such designations
are often different from ours. For example, in the language of the Pitta-Pitta tribe the root ni
occurs in all words meaning “things that move through the air”, including birds, boomerang, the
moon, stars, lightning and hawks.

A parallel with our technical language, which tends to introduce large numbers of concrete terms
instead of a few, abstract ones, and with our widespread habit of naming objects after colors
(tobacco-colored, strawcolored, cherry, coral, etc.) strongly suggests that many of the features of
primitive language may be attributed not only to the peculiarities of primitive thought, including
its primary characteristics, but also to the need for “direct contact with things” and the
requirements of technical activity.”

We can thus see that primitive thinking, linked to primitive language, exhibits the same kind of
special development as memory. We should recall that the development of memory consists of a
transition from the enhancement of organic memory to the development and enhancement of the
mnemotechnical signs used by memory. Similarly, the development of primitive thinking lies not
in the accumulation or the increasingly subtle reproduction of details, or in the expansion of
vocabulary. In essence, it undergoes a fundamental change, shifting to the development and
enhancement or language and the ways it is used – to the development of that basic resource by
means of which thinking takes place.

Fundamental progress in the development of thinking manifests itself in the transition from the
first method of using words as proper names to a second method, whereby words serve as
symbols for sets, and lastly to a third, involving the use of words as tools or means for the
elaboration of concepts. Just as the cultural development of memory is closely linked to the
history of the development of writing, so also the cultural development of thinking is quite as
closely tied to the history of the development of human language.

Numerical Operations of Primitive Man

Primitive man’s numerical operations provide the best illustration of the development of his
thinking and its dependence on the enhancement of the external signs on which it relies. Many
primitive peoples do not count beyond 2 or 3.
We should not conclude from this, however, that they are incapable of counting above three. It
simply means that they lack abstract concepts, extending beyond those numbers. They are
incapable of using operations that are inherent in our mode of thinking, yet, as Lévy-Bruhl has
observed, “up to a point they are able, by means of operations which are peculiarly their own, to
reach the same results.”

These operations rely more heavily on memory. Primitive man counts differently from us – for
the most part by concrete means; and in this concrete counting mode he again surpasses civilized
man. In other words, research into the processes of counting in primitive man has shown that in
this respect, as with memory and speech, primitive man is both poorer and, at the same time,
richer than civilized man. It would therefore be more correct here,. to speak not of a quantitative
difference, but of a qualitatively different mode of counting in primitive man.

If we were to attempt a concise description of the counting processes used by primitive man we
would have to say that its dominant feature is the development of his natural arithmetic. He
counts by means of concrete perception, natural memorization and comparison, without resorting
to the technical operations devised by civilized man as aides to counting. Since we count
exclusively with numbers, We are inclined to believe that anyone lacking numbers higher than
three is unable to count above three. Lévy-Bruhl argues as follows: “Does it make sense for us to
claim that the same results cannot be achieved in any other way? Is it really out of the question
for the primitive mind to have its own operations and its own special processes in order to
achieve the same goals that we achieve with our numerical system?” Primitive man perceives a
group of objects from a quantitative point of view. In this case, the quantitative sign acts as a
directly perceived quality, distinguishing that group from other groups. Primitive man can judge
externally as to whether it is complete.

It should be noted that direct perception of quantities can also be found in civilized man, mainly
where ordered quantities are concerned. If a musician were to omit a single measure in a piece of
music, or if someone reading a poem were to omit a single syllable, we would immediately
conclude, without resort to counting, and on the basis of our direct perception of the rhythm, that
one measure or one syllable was missing. It was for this reason that Leibnitz called music
“unconscious arithmetic.”

Something similar occurs with primitive man when he perceives groups consisting of different
numbers of objects. The difference, for example, between 12 apples and 3 apples is evident from
an immediate impression. The difference between these two quantities may be perceived
concretely, with no need for any counting. We do not find this surprising; in this respect we
possess the same ability to tell at a glance which is the bigger group of objects.

What researchers have usually found astonishing is the subtle differentiation of which primitive
man is capable in this art. They report that primitive man, relying on an exceptional memory, has
enhanced this direct perception to a very high degree. He is capable, by comparing current
impressions with the image stored in his memory, of telling whether a single object is missing in
any larger group.
Dobrizhoffer finds that “primitive man not only does not know arithmetic, he avoids it. His
memory proves to be a major handicap; counting bores him, so he is unwilling to use it. “When
members of a primitive tribe return from an expedition hunting from wild horses, nobody asks
how many wild horses they have brought back. The question asked is, “How large an area would
the herd you brought back occupy?”

When a primitive tribe is about to set out on a hunting trip they glance over their many dogs, and
tell instantly if one is missing. Primitive man is similarly able to notice the absence of a single
head of livestock from a herd of several hundred. Such precise differentiation is essentially a
further development of the same direct perception of quantities that we find in ourselves.

While distinguishing a group of 12 apples from a group of 3 is as easy as distinguishing red from
blue, telling the difference between a herd of 100 head of livestock from one with 101 is a
difficult as telling the difference between two blues, one a shade darker than the other.
Fundamentally, however, it is the same operation, raised by practice to a higher level of
differentiation.

It is interesting to note that contemporary civilized man also has to revert to this concrete visual
perception whenever he seeks a clear visual sense of the difference between two quantities.
Wertheimer is right to argue that the natural arithmetic of primitive peoples, like their entire
mode of thinking, yields results that are both higher and lower than ours. Lower, because certain
operations are entirely beyond the reach of primitive man, and his capabilities in this regard are
severely limited. Higher, because his thinking is permanently rooted in reality; lacking
abstraction it directly renders the live concrete situation. As we ourselves find in everyday life
and in art, such concrete images prove much more true-to-life than abstract representations.

When a modern pacifist wants to convey a compelling idea of the number of people killed in a
war, to drive his point home he translates the abstract arithmetical total into new concrete,
though artificial terms. He might say that if the bodies of those killed in the war were laid out
shoulder to shoulder they would stretch all the say from Vladivostok to Paris. By means of such
vivid imagery he hopes to convey an immediate sense of the colossal number of lives lost, as in a
visual perception.

Similarly, when we use a conventional diagram to represent the simplest thing, such as the
respective consumption of soap in China and Germany, we might draw the figure of an
enormous Chinaman and a much smaller German, symbolizing how much more populous China
is than Germany; beneath them we might draw two pieces of soap, one tiny and the other
enormous, so that the entire picture and the diagram create a greater impact than mere abstract
arithmetical data. It is precisely this kind of picture and graphic device that figures prominently
in the natural arithmetic of primitive man.

Lévy-Bruhl notes that primitive man regards our numbers as unnecessary and is incapable of
using them. For him numbers are quite irrelevant to the large quantities he is able to count in
quite a different way.
This concrete or figurative aspect of primitive counting manifests itself in a number of special
traits. According to Thurnwald, if primitive man wishes to refer to a small group of people, he
does not name the total number, but says the name of each one known to him personally; those
whose name he does not know he enumerates on the basis of some other concrete feature, for
example, the man with the big nose, the old man, the child and the man with the skin disease –
all in order to say that four people have arrived.

A large number is initially perceived as the image of some kind of picture the image and the
quantity merging into a single set. That is why, as we have seen, the primitive mind is incapable
of abstract counting, being capable of counting only as long as the process of counting seems
linked to reality. Among the primitive peoples, therefore, numerals are always names designating
something concrete – a numeral image or form used as a symbol for a certain quantity. Very
often these are simply auxiliary devices of memory.

The decisive factor, however, is not this, but the direction taken by the development of counting
in primitive man, which proceeds not via the enhancement of natural arithmetic, but along
exactly the same lines as the development of memory and thinking in primitive man – the
creation of special signs whereby natural arithmetic is transformed into civilized arithmetic.

Admittedly, among the primitive peoples even this use of signs is still purely concrete and visual.
The simplest method used by primitive man for counting is a comparison between the parts of
the body and various groups of objects. At his highest level of development, therefore, he not
only glances at such groups, but is already making a quantitative comparison between them and
another group, such as his own five fingers. In a single, quantitative respect he compares a group
of objects that needs to be counted with some kind of counting tool.

Primitive man thereby makes a major step towards abstraction, and a major transition to
completely new paths of development. Yet his use of this new tool, to begin with, remains purely
concrete. Even here primitives count in a purely visual manner. They touch all their fingers, and
parts of their hands, shoulders. eyes, nose, forehead in succession, and then all those same areas
again from the other side, thus equating by purely visual means the number of objects to the parts
of the body, as counted in a certain order.

There are still no real numerals in such a process. As Lévy-Bruhl has pointed out, this is a
concrete operation of memory designed to define a certain plurality. Haddon sees this system as
an auxiliary counting tool. It is used in the same way as the string with knots, and not at all as a
series of true numbers. It is a mnemonic device. rather than a numerical operation. Here there are
no that in such a method of counting, the same word may designate different quantities: for
example, in New Guinea, the word ano (neck) means both tens and fourteen.

Similarly, among other peoples, the words for finger, shoulder and hand mean different
quantities, depending on whether they are used in counting on the left or the right side of the
body. The same author concludes that these words certainly do not stand for numbers. He poses
the following question: “How could the same word, doro, stand for 2, 3 and 4 as well as 19, 20
and 21, unless it were so defined by a simultaneous gesture involving one of three fingers on the
right hand, or one of the corresponding fingers on the left hand?”
Brooke quotes a remarkable instance in which a native of Borneo tried to remember his
instructions. He was required to visit forty-five formerly rebellious but now subdued villages and
tell them the amount of the fines they had to pay. How did he go about it? He produced several
dry leaves, which he divided into pieces. His supervisor replaced them with paper. He laid these
out, one at a time, on the table, while counting them on the fingers of both hands. He placed his
foot on the table, and then began counting, on his toes, more pieces of paper, each of which stood
for the name of a village, the name of its chief, the number of its warriors and the amount of the
fine. Having exhausted his toes, he went back to his fingers. When he had finished counting,
there were 45 pieces of paper laid out on the table.

He asked to have his instructions repeated. While this was being done, he ran his hands along his
pieces of paper and counted on his fingers and toes, as before. “This is how we write”, he said;
“you white people cannot read like us.” Late in the evening he repeated everything accurately,
putting a finger on each separate piece of paper. He said, “If I can remember all this tomorrow
morning, everything will be fine, we will leave these bits of paper on the table.” He then piled
them all up at random. Next morning he laid out the pieces of paper in exactly the same order as
the day before, and repeated all the details, with complete accuracy. Throughout the month he
spend going from one village to the next, far in the hinterland, he did not forget one of these
different amounts.”

“The act of arranging pieces of paper”, as Lévy-Bruhl remarks “instead of the hands or toes, is
particularly remarkable. It provides us with an absolutely pure example of the ‘concrete
abstraction’ inherent in prelogical thinking, that has lost none of its original concreteness.” It is
truly hard to image a more striking example of the most essential difference between human and
animal memorization. When confronted with a task beyond his abilities, primitive man resorts to
paper, fingers and the creation of external symbols.

He tries to act upon his memory from the outside. He organizes the internal processes of
memorization from the outside, supplanting internal operations by external activity over which
he has more control. By organizing this external activity he dominates his memory with the aid
of symbols. Therein lies the essential difference between human and animal memory. At the
same time, this example also shows how closely operations of counting are associated, in
primitive man, with those of memory.

Roth asked one primitive how many fingers and toes he had, and invited him to mark their
number with lines in the sand. He began to bend two fingers on each hand and for each pair drew
a double line in the sand. A similar method is used by tribal chieftains for counting people. We
interpret this as an indirect instrumental way of formulating a representation of quantity with the
aid of symbols. As we can see, the transition from natural arithmetic, based on the direct
perception of quantities, to a mediate operation performed with the aid of symbols, is already
situated at the first stages of the cultural development of man.

Such counting, using the parts of the body, and such concrete numeration, which gradually
becomes semi-abstract and semi-concrete, forms the first phase of our arithmetic. Haddon writes,
“One cannot say that nagibet is the name of the number five. It merely means that there are as
many objects as there are fingers on one hand!’ Such counting is therefore based on a tacit
graphic of pictorial comparison, a manual or – as this author puts it, a visual-concept, without
which the development of primitive numerical operations would be incomprehensible.

This graphic origin of numerical terms is also made evident by the fact that primitives tend to
count not in ones, but in the most diverse groups, in twos, fours, fives and so on. This is why,
though they often have at their disposal only the very few numerals to which that group is
limited, they can still count very large numbers, by the repeated use of the, same numerals.

The concrete nature of this process is further illustrated by the existence, among primitive tribes,
of different systems of counting, for example, flat or round objects, animals and people, time,
long objects, etc. Different objects must be counted differently. The Mikir language, for
example, has separate counting systems for people, animals, trees, houses, flat and round objects
and parts of the body. The numeral is always the number of a given object.

Vestiges of this survive in the counting methods we apply to different objects. To this day, for
example, we count pencils in dozens and gross, etc. In this respect, the auxiliary words used by
many primitive peoples when counting are of particular interest. Their function is, as it were, to
help people visualize the subsequent stages of the arithmetical operation. In such a language, for
example, “twenty-one pieces of fruit” sounds literally as follows: “Over twenty pieces of fruit I
place one on the very top!’ “Twenty-six pieces of fruit” will sound like “Over two groups each
of ten pieces of fruit I place six on top.”

Here, as noted by Levy-Bruhl, we see in arithmetic that same graphic quality that we have found
in the general structure of primitive language. Paradoxically, he notes, one has to conclude that
in the lower societies man counted for many centuries without any numbers at all. It would be
wrong to argue that the human mind constructed numbers in order to count, because in actual
fact people began to count before they had succeeded in creating numbers.

Wertheimer provides a sound explanation of the link between the numerical operation and
concrete situations, by showing that the numerical images used by primitives are focussed on
real possibilities. Whatever they find impossible in real life is also impossible for them in their
counting operations. Wherever there is no live concrete connection between things, there is also
no logical relationship for them. From the standpoint of primitive man, for example, 1 horse + 1
horse = 2 horses; 1 man + 1 man = 2 men; 1 horse + 1 man = 1 horseman.

Wertheimer has raised the general question of how these people behave when confronted with
such mental tasks, in real life situations where we would use numbers. It appears that primitive
man is very frequently obliged to cope with such situations. In so doing he operates at the lowest
levels of his development, by means of direct perceptions of quantity, but at the highest levels by
means of numerical images which are used as symbols or tools, while still retaining their purely
concrete nature.

The symbols or auxiliary tools at the early stage include pebbles, fingers and sticks, which later
developed into notched sticks (Figure 19). Eventually, when the primitive runs out of fingers for
counting, he will count on the fingers of a friend, inviting, if necessary, a third person, it being
understood that the fingers of each new person stand for a new series of ten.
In the counting systems employed by primitive peoples, we often come across signs resembling
those in the Roman system. The Zunis, for example, use knots to designate all numbers: a simple
knot stands for one, a more complex knot, five; and an even more complex one, ten. Two means
one plus one. Five with the preceding simple knot means four; five with the next knot means six.
This system for denoting a lower quantity by deducting one from a higher quantity suggests that
primitive man is arithmetically inclined towards rounded and completed natural groups (fingers,
etc).

One researcher reports a remarkable instance of primitive counting, which illustrates the
development of numerical systems. Primitives first count on the fingers of one hand, while
saying out loud as they go, “that’s one”, etc. When they get to the last finger, they add: “one
hand”. They then count the fingers of the other hand in the same way, and then their toes. If they
have not finished counting, they thereafter count “one hand” as a unit of a higher order. Now,
when counting on fingers and toes, each one counts as five, or as whole hand.

Psychologists have induced this operation in a purely experimental manner. Let us suppose that
we invite any group of civilized people to count 27 objects, warning them at the same time that
for the purposes of the exercise they, like certain primitive peoples, do not know how to count
higher than five. As our experiments have shown, some members of the group cannot solve the
problem at all; some others solve it by departing from the rules; while the rest solve it perfectly
correctly, and each in an entirely identical fashion.
‘They count up the objects, repeating all the time the series from one to five; then they count up
the fives and express the result as follows: five fives plus two. Research has shown that our
decimal counting system is also based precisely on this device. It is always like counting on two
threads; we count the objects themselves, and then count our count, or the groups of those
objects. When I count 21, 22, 23 ... and then 31, 32, 33, I am actually relying solely on the 1, 2, 3
for the purpose of counting, whereas the word “twenty” and “thirty”, which is added each time,
tells me that I am counting within the second range of tens.

Experimental research has led to the extremely interesting conclusion that our counting system
does the counting for us. Whereas primitive man is obliged to divide his attention, by first
counting single objects on his fingers, and then, on those same fingers, the total number of hands,
our decimal system itself performs that same function on our behalf. Psychologists argue, for this
reason, that from a psychological standpoint, when we count we are really recalling, rather than
counting. We automatically use our numerical system, reproduce a numerical series in order,
and, on reaching a certain point, recognize the ready result. What we see in a hidden, automated
and already developed form in adult civilized man, also occurs in primitive man, but still in a
visible form that is in the process of development.

It is interesting to note that such specific aids are used not only in simple counting, but also in
some rather complicated arithmetical operations. Wertheimer describes a remarkable method of
computation, which was found among the Kurds along the Russo-Persian border. As they still
lack an abstract counting operation, the Kurds multiply in the following manner: figures from 6
to 10 are designated by bending one, two, three or five fingers (meaning, of course. plus five).
Multiplication from 5 x 5 to 10 x 10 is done in such a way that bent figures are interpreted as
tens, and straight fingers are multiplied as units.

For example, let us multiply 7 x 8. On one hand, two fingers are bent (2+5=7); and on the other,
three (3+5=8); the hands are joined; the bent fingers are added (2+3=5), and the straight fingers
are multiplied (2x3=6). Result: 56.

Leroi has observed that among the civilized peoples it is possible to find numerical pluralities or
images (century, year, week, month, squadron are all numerical images). He inquires, “What
makes the Fijian word kogo, meaning a hundred coconuts, more primitive than the word century,
meaning a hundred years?” In our society, ten soldiers walking separately are ten men; but when
in formation with a corporal, they become a platoon. In the example, Leroi sees a parallel with
the fact that in primitive languages numbers “describe special circumstances” and accounts.

His main conclusion seems irrefutable: the numeration of primitives cannot be compared with
the “numeration” of animals: in other words, the whole of primitive arithmetic must not be
treated as the mere direct perception of quantities. Whenever it seeks to cross certain boundaries,
this embryonic numeration has to resort to the aid of concrete mnemotechnics (the use of fingers
or sticks): in fact this combination of natural arithmetic (the direct perception of quantities) and
mnemotechnics is the most essential feature of primitive numeration. Leroi rightly compares this
arithmetic with the counting of the illiterate and the use of visual numbers (diagrams) in our
society.
The further development of “civilized mathematics” is very closely linked to the evolution of
signs and the ways of using them. This applies not only to the lower, but also to the highest
levels of the development of scientific mathematics. When explaining the substance of the
algebraic method, Newton said that in order to solve questions related to numbers or abstract
relations between magnitudes, one has simply to translate the problem from English or another
language in which it is proposed into algebraic language, which is capable of expressing our
concepts about the relations between magnitudes.

Sheremetyevsky, in his study entitled “History of Mathematics”, thoroughly illustrates the role of
symbols as tools. “As for mathematical analysis itself, it has one characteristic which makes it a
genuine thinking machine, working with the speed and accuracy one expects from a well-tuned
mechanism. I refer to the device of the symbolic recording, by means of algebraic signs, of all
the conclusions of analysis.”

Comparing contemporary algebra, which uses these signs, and the rhetoritical algebra of the
ancients, he concludes that the entire psychological effort devoted to the solution of problems
assumed a new structure under the impact of the new technique for designating operations.
Referring to the mathematicians of antiquity, he writes, ‘They were deprived of the symbolism
that serves to mechanize reasoning, and from which modern algebra derives its immense
superiority. In their unsymbolized or rhetorical algebra, memory and imagination had to be
exercised intensively in order to retain a constant grasp of all the logical threads connecting the
ultimate conclusions and the terms of the problem. Ancient mathematicians had to develop that
very special type of mind set one finds in chess players who do not look at the board during a
game. The fact that Euclid gave rise to no imitators, and that the theory of incommensurables
remained unchanged for 1,800 years conveys some idea of the superhuman powers of abstract
reasoning that were required for this kind of work.

Primitive Behavior

It thus becomes clear that primitive man, in his own development, had already taken that vital
step of shifting from natural arithmetic to the use of signs. As we have found the same shift in
the development of memory and thinking, we may therefore assume that this is the general
direction taken by the historical development of human behavior.

just as man’s increasing domination of nature is founded less on the development of his natural
organs than on the enhancement of his technology, so also his control over himself, and the
unrelenting development of his behavior is founded mainly on the enhancement of external
symbols, devices and techniques elaborated in a particular social environment under the pressure
of technical and economic demands.

All of man’s natural psychological operations became radically altered by these influences.
Some withered away, while others became more highly developed. However, the most
important, decisive and characteristic element in this process is the fact that it was enhanced
from the outside, and was ultimately determined by the social life of the group or the people to
which an individual belonged.
Whereas we have found that apes used tools but not symbols, in the case of primitive man we
find work, as the basis of his existence, arising from the use of primitive tools, and the transition
from natural psychological processes (such as eidetic memory and direct perception of
quantities) to the use of civilized symbols and to the creation of a special civilized technology
enabling him to control his own behavior.

There is, however, in this regard, one feature which characterizes the stage reached by primitive
man in his development. If we are asked to name one essential trait of primitive man, magic or
magical thinking most usually come to mind. As we shall try to show, this trait characterizes not
only man’s external behavior, aimed at achieving control over nature, but also his behavior
aimed at achieving control over himself.

Any simple example will suffice to illustrate the essence of magic. Let us say that a man wants it
to rain. For this purpose he proceeds to depict rain by means of a special ceremony, in which he
blows hard, waves his arms and strikes a drum, in order to simulate the wind, lightning and
thunder; he also pours water. In other words, he imitates rain, creating a visual picture similar to
the one he hopes to elicit in nature. When primitive or semi-primitive man copulates on a sown
field, in the hope of stirring the soil to fertility, he is also engaging in similar magic, based on
analogy.

As Dantsel has correctly observed, primitive man performs the fertility ceremony in those
instances where we would use agricultural technique. These simple examples make it clear that
primitive man resorts to magical operations as a means of achieving control or dominion over
nature, or of bringing about, at will, various phenomena.

This is what makes magical behavior essentially human, and beyond the reach of animals. For
the same reason it is wrong to regard magic merely as an inadequacy of thinking. In a sense, in
fact, it is an enormous step ahead in comparison with animal behavior. It expresses a mature
human tendency to dominate nature, in other words, a tendency to shift to a fundamentally new
form of adaptation.

Magic exhibits not only a tendency to dominate nature but to an equal extent a tendency to
dominate oneself. In this respect, we find in it the embryo of another purely human form of
behavior: control of one’s own reactions. Magic envisages a basically identical influence on the
forces of nature and on human behavior. It may conspire to an equal degree to induce either love
or rain. For this reason, it contains the undivided nucleus of future technique designed to
dominate nature, and of civilized technique for the control of man’s own behavior.

Dantsel accordingly finds that, contrary to the objective practice of our own technique, we may
to some extent classify magical behavior as a kind of subjective, instinctively applied
psychotechnique. In his opinion, the lack of differentiation between the objective and the
subjective, and their gradual polarization, mark the starting point and the most vital path of
cultural development.

In actual fact, the complete separation of the objective and the subjective becomes possible only
on the basis of a highly developed technique whereby man, while influencing nature, comes to
know it as something outside himself and subject to its own special laws. In the process of his
own behavior, as he accumulates a certain psychological experience, he comes to know the laws
governing his behavior.

Man influences nature by repelling its forces and compelling some of them to act upon others.
He acts upon himself in a similar way, by repelling external forces (stimuli) and compelling them
to act upon themselves. This experience of exerting influence through the intermediate external
force of nature, this way of using psychological tools is identical for both technique and
behavior.

Bühler and Koffka have rightly observed that, when it first occurs in the child, the use of words
to symbolize things parallels psychologically the use of sticks in experiments with chimpanzees.
Observations of the child have shown that, from the psychological point of view, all the features
of the process we have seen in apes occur once again here. What distinguishes the magical
thinking of primitive man is the fact that two modes of his behavior, aimed respectively at
dominating nature and dominating himself, have not yet become two separate entities.

Reinach defines magic as the strategy of animism. Other authors, such a Hubert and Mauss, have
defined it as the technique of animism. And of course it is true that primitive man, viewing
nature as a system of animate objects and forces, acts on those forces just as he acts on an
animate creature. For this reason, Taylor is right to consider magic as an erroneous emphasis on
the ideal at the expense of the real.

Frazer is right when he says that magic regards control over thoughts as control over things:
natural laws are supplanted by psychological laws, and, for primitive man, whatever is similar in
the mind is similar in reality. Therein lies the basis of imitative magic. The above examples make
it clear that in magical operations the attempt to act upon nature is governed by the law of simple
association through similarity.

Since the ceremony performed is reminiscent of rain, it must therefore prompt rainfall in nature;
since the sexual act leads to fertility, it must guarantee a good harvest. Acts such as these prove
possible only if one assumes that the laws of nature and of thought are one and the same. A
similar identification between the laws of nature and, those of thought also underlies other
magical operations, for example, the practice of damaging, tearing or piercing the image of
someone to whom one wishes to do harm, or of burning pieces of his hair, etc.

Our account of the magical behavior of man would be incomplete if we did not point out that
man displays the same attitude not only towards nature, but also towards himself.

Words, numbers and knots used for memorization also gradually begin to play the role of
magical devices, because primitive man has not yet mastered his own behavior to the point
where he can understand the real laws governing language, numbers or mnemotechical symbols.
To him, the successful effect of those devices seems magical, just as primitives used to ascribe to
magic the white man’s ability to communicate thoughts in writing, etc.
It would, however, be a great mistake to attach absolute importance to the magical character of
primitive thinking and behavior, as Lévy-Bruhl does, and to confer on it the status of a primary
feature, of independent origin. As Thurnwald notes, research has shown that magic is certainly
not found most commonly among the most primitive peoples. A suitable medium for its
development is found only among the semi-primitives, while it flourishes among the higher
primitives and the ancient civilized peoples. Considerable cultural development is needed in
order for the prerequisites for magic to be fulfilled.

It is therefore evident that primitive and magical behavior really cannot be said to be co-
extensive, and that magic is not a primary but a relatively late feature of thinking. Leroi writes,
“In magic Lévy-Bruhl has found a fundamental sphere which confirms his ideas. But magic also
exists among the civilized peoples; like belief in magical forces, it is not ipso facto synonymous
with thinking contrary to the natural laws of logic. “This latter point is particularly important, as
it enables us to understand the true place and significance of magic in primitive behavior. We
have already referred to Thurnwald’s fine analysis in which he shows that the magical ceremony
of driving out spirits from a sick person is entirely logical from the standpoint of primitive man’s
understanding of the causes of the illness.

Thurnwald has also demonstrated that in order for magic to emerge, the technical powers of
primitive man must have developed to a certain level. Without that degree of technical and
mental development, behavior cannot assume magical traits. Magic does not, therefore, generate
primitive technique and the primitive mentality: instead, magic is generated by technique and the
related technique of primitive thinking.

This becomes particularly clear when we consider not only that magic came on the scene quite
late and is relatively independent of the primitive Way of life, but also that even where magic is
highly developed it is not the sole dominant influence on primitive behavior and thinking, and
certainly does not color primitive behavior as a whole. Indeed, as research has shown, it
represents only one of the many facets of behavior, which, though internally or organically
linked to all the others, cannot replace them and is not identical with them.

One researcher, whose opinion we have already quoted, argues that if primitive man really
thought in the manner prescribed by Lévy-Bruhl he would not survive more than a single day.
This is certainly true. The whole of adaptation to nature, the whole of primitive technical
activity, hunting, fishing and war – in a word, all the essential components of the life of primitive
man, would be absolutely impossible if based solely on magical thinking, as would the control of
behavior, mnemotechnical activity, the beginnings of writing and numeration, and the use of
symbols. In order to achieve mastery over the forces of nature and one’s own behavior, one’s
thinking must be real, not imaginary; logical, not mystical; and technical, not magical.

We have already seen that the magical significance of primary mnemotechnical devices, words
and numbers – and of symbols in general – is of later origin, and in any case cannot be said to be
original or primary. Leroi is right when he says that there is nothing primitive about the mystical
significance of numbers. This is also true of late increments of magic. In any case, magic is not
the primary origin of cultural development, nor is it a synonym of the primitive, the primeval and
the rudimentary in thinking. Yet even where it does occur, as we have already seen, it does not
encompass behavior as a whole.

In the words of Leroi, “primitive man exists on two different planes, one of which is natural or
experimental, while the other is supernatural or mystical. This applies in equal degree to the
mind of the primitive and to his life. The two planes may merge, though this is not the rule,
notwithstanding the claims of Lévy-Bruhl.” While the importance of magicians should not be
underestimated, say Leroi in another connection, it should also not be exaggerated; above all, it
should be considered in its proper context. “In other words, it is wrong to assert that the primitive
mind constantly mixes up magical powers and technical skill.” People who become chiefs, for
example, are not magicians, but those with the greatest age and experience, valor and eloquence.

Lévy-Bruhl’s principal mistake is his failure to give due weight to the technical activity and the
practical intellect of primitive man. His use of implements, which, though genetically linked to
the operations of the chimpanzee is of an infinitely higher caliber, is fundamentally different
from magic.

Lévy-Bruhl frequently misinterprets the thinking of primitive man as being identical with his
instinctive and automatic activity.

As Leroi has the following to say on this Point: “One cannot compare, as Lévy-Bruhl does, the
technical activity of primitive man with the skill of a billiard player. This is a fit subject for
comparison with the way primitive man swims, or climbs trees, but the making of a bow or an
axe amount to much more than an instinctive operation: the material has to be chosen and its
properties recognized; it then has to be dried, softened and cut, etc. In all of this, skill may impart
precision to a person’s movements, but cannot analyze or combine them. A billiard player may
have no mathematical ability at all, but the designer of the billiard game must have had
something more than instinctive skill. Does a lack of abstract theory mean the absence of logic?
On seeing that a boomerang is returning to him, how can a primitive not attribute this to the
effect of the spirit? He would have had to see in this the result of its shape, and identify the
functional details in order to reproduce them.”

It is not our purpose here. to delve further into this matter. The problem of magic far transcends
the confines of our topic, and requires something more than psychological investigation and
explanation; nonetheless, we wish to hazard the theoretical assumption that magical thinking,
considered as the difference between the need to control natural forces and one’s actual ability to
do so, is not only due to an inadequate development of technique and reason, accompanied by an
exaggeration of one’s own powers, as Thurnwald argues, but emerges properly at a certain stage
in the development of technique and thinking, as the necessary product of the tendency, as yet
undivided, to control both nature and one’s own behavior, from the primitive union of “naive
psychology and naive physics.”

Throughout this presentation, we have sought to show that the thinking devices with which
primitive nun is endowed inevitably lead to integrated thinking, preparing the psychological
ground for magic. A divergence in the course of development of the practical intellect, or
technical thinking, and oral or verbal thinking is the second prerequisite for the emergence of
magic. The need for the early development of technical thinking, and the adaptation and
subjugation of the forces of nature to one’s own power constitutes the major difference between
the intellect of primitive man and that of the child.

The third theory of psycho-cultural development, to which we have referred in one of the first
paragraphs of this chapter, and whose main aspects we have tried to develop in this study, holds
that the basic components of the psychological development of primitive man are to be found in
the development of technique, and the corresponding development of social structure. It is not
magic that gives rise to technique, but the corresponding development of technique, under the
special conditions of primitive life, that give rise to magical thinking.

This primitive union of “naive psychology” and “naive physics” can be seen with special clarity
in the processes of primitive work, which we, to our great regret, have been obliged to leave
aside, but which truly are the key to understanding the whole of the behavior of primitive man.
This union finds its material symbolic expression in the combination of tool and symbol that is
so common among the primitive peoples. For example, as Bucher says, “In Borneo and the
Celebes special digging sticks have been found, with a smaller stick attached at one end. When
this stick is used to loosen the soil during the planting of rice, the smaller stick emits a sound.”
This sound is rather similar to the commands of shouts intended to regulate the pace of work.
The sound of the device attached to the digging stick takes the place of the human voice. Here a
tool, as a means of acting upon nature, and a symbol, as a stimulant to behavior, are combined in
the same device, from which the primitive spade and drum were later to evolve.

The combination in magical action of the tendency toward control of nature and the tendency
toward control over one’s own behavior, reflecting in the distorting mirror of magic the start of
cultural development – the full title of man, in the words of Thurnwald – is the most
characteristic trait of the personality of primitive man. Subsequent cultural development, driven
by man’s growing domination of nature, causes those two tendencies to diverge. More advanced
technical development eventually separates the laws of nature from the laws of thinking, and
magical action begins to fade away.

In parallel with the higher degree of domination over nature, social life and work begin to make
control over one’s own behavior increasingly imperative. Language, numbers, writing and other
technical devices all develop. With their’ help, man’s behavior itself rises to new levels.

Social Development Theory (Lev Vygotsky)

Overview
 The major theme of
Vygotsky’s theoretical framework is that social interaction plays a fundamental role in the
development of cognition. Vygotsky (1978) states: “Every function in the child’s cultural
development appears twice: first, on the social level, and later, on the individual level; first,
between people (interpsychological) and then inside the child (intrapsychological). This applies
equally to voluntary attention, to logical memory, and to the formation of concepts. All the
higher functions originate as actual relationships between individuals.” (p57).

A second aspect of Vygotsky’s theory is the idea that the potential for cognitive development
depends upon the “zone of proximal development” (ZPD): a level of development attained when
children engage in social behavior. Full development of the ZPD depends upon full social
interaction. The range of skill that can be developed with adult guidance or peer collaboration
exceeds what can be attained alone.

Vygotsky’s theory was an attempt to explain consciousness as the end product of socialization.
For example, in the learning of language, our first utterances with peers or adults are for the
purpose of communication but once mastered they become internalized and allow “inner
speech”.

Vygotsky’s theory is complementary to Bandura’s work on social learning and a key component
of situated learning theory as well. Because Vygotsky’s focus was on cognitive development, it
is interesting to compare his views with those a constructivist (Bruner) and a genetic
epistemologist(Piaget).

Application
This is a general theory of cognitive development. Most of the original work was done in the
context of language learning in children (Vygotsky, 1962), although later applications of the
framework have been broader (see Wertsch, 1985).

Example
Vygotsky (1978, p56) provides the example of pointing a finger. Initially, this behavior begins as
a meaningless grasping motion; however, as people react to the gesture, it becomes a movement
that has meaning. In particular, the pointing gesture represents an interpersonal connection
between individuals.

Principles
1. Cognitive development is limited to a certain range at any given age.
2. Full cognitive development requires social interaction.