SELF-DIRECTING VOLITION IN ACTION. [SECT. III. a very deficient subjectivity corresponding to deficient originality of self-direction in their ordinary occupations is to be noted in the verb in the languages of these races (see Gram. Sk., IV. 8, 14, 1; 40, 42, 55), the verb has person elements in the Tartar languages, and in the Tungusian of Nertchinsk, of which it is destitute in Mongolian, and which are only partially developed in Buriat Mongolian, in which the pronominal subject is not always quite taken up by the verb (ibid. 50) so as to become truly a person. Perhaps Mongolian and Manju both lost the persons of the verb owing to their cultivation under Chinese influence. However that may be, the person element of the verb in the other languages is developed the more where there is the more of free volition in the race. Not only the Tartar, but the Tungusian also, is a stronger race with more of independent volition than the Mongolian; the latter being in great part subjected to Tungusian dominion. In Turkish the verb has more subjectivity than in any of the other languages, just as the race has shown more enterprise and strength of independent volition (ibid. 25). 5. In Finnish (ibid. 150, 151), Lapponic (ibid. 159, 160), Tscheremissian (ibid. 130, 132), and Sirianian (ibid. 142, 143), the person elements of the verb differ generally from the possessive suffixes of the noun, the difference, however, being less in the two latter languages than in the two former; so that at least in Finnish and Lapponic they seem to be more distinctly subjective than in the preceding languages. And also the Dravidian languages of India have person elements (ibid. III., 93) appropriated to the verb. And this corresponds to the fact that these races are less bound to the one routine occupation than those Asiatic nomads, and have a more free development of their own enterprise and volition. But in Samoiede there is little subjectivity; and attainment of possession, which, under the urgency of want, is an object rather of desire than of volition, is thought with such interest that the conception of the verb as transitive to its object tends to be cast in this mould, the verb taking up a sense of its direct object, unless this be thought with special distinction, and the person element being then a possessive suffix (ibid. IV., 76). The Ostiaks, and also the original Hungarians, belonged to regions where want is less pressing, and the attainment of possession less urgent, because there is a better supply of game, and in these regions life, though also nomad, is partly that of the hunter, as is proved by Castren's account of the Ostiaks (ibid. 99), and by the accounts of the original Magyars and their kinsmen quoted by Prichard. In Ostiak and Hungarian the direct object suggests not possession as in Samoiede, but rather the hunter's interest which gives energy to the action, and this it does more strongly the more distinctly it is conceived. The verb shows a stronger sense of the succession of the subject's doing when it has an object thus distinctly thought; and the person elements are mostly distinguished as subjective in corre 1 Prichard, vol. iv. p. 297. 2 Ibid. vol. iii. pp. 325, 327. SECT. III.] SELF-DIRECTING VOLITION IN ACTION. spondence with the free volition of those races (ibid. 104, 106, 119) whose energy is not limited to a traditional industry. 6. It is, however, in the languages of America that the hunter's interest is most expressly developed. The hunter's action is partly the outcome of self-directing volition, and partly the suggestion of the object awakening his energy. And his transitive verb, instead of being purely subjective, has generally a person element representing the object combined with the person element representing the subject, and sometimes united with the latter, so that the two are indistinguishable from each other. Of this, the Eskimo language furnishes a most striking illustration. And it is to be observed that as this language has been shown by the massive nature of its formations to be essentially an American language (Gram. Sk., II. 5, &c.), it must be regarded as the language of an American race specially adapted to the Greenland region; and therefore a hunter's language though the principal game is seals. Now, in the wonderful system of person suffixes which belong to the Eskimo verb (ibid. 15), it may be noted that the transitive person elements are in the indicative connected with a stronger element of process than the intransitive (ibid. 15); which is a point of resemblance to what has been said above of Ostiak and Hungarian. In Greenland also, the urgency of want is as great as in the region of the Northern Samoiedes, and the attainment of possession being more difficult, has even greater interest. Hence the subject when separate from the verb is in the genitive case when the verb has an object (ibid. 14); because the action passing to its object suggests the idea of attainment of possession. 7. The language of the Cree is remarkable as an example of a hunter's language. The prevailing interest is the subject exerting his energy on the object (ibid. 18). The person elements of the transitive verb express the volition of the subject as suggested by the thought of the object; for the two persons tend to be united indistinguishably (ibid. 19). The only exception is when the subject is first or second person, and the mood indicative. The first and second persons are thought in this language with remarkable strength and distinction of personality. It is a characteristic of the American races in general, that in their intercourse great attention is paid to the person addressed, and to self, that discourse may be duly adjusted to both (Book II., chap. i., Part I., Sect. II., 1). And this would naturally strengthen the thought of the two persons, and the distinction of the one from the other. In the indicative, whether of transitives or intransitives, the realisation in the first or second person awakens the full thought of those persons respectively, by reason of their habitual nearness to the attention of the speaker. And being thus thought in the general associations of their personality, their person element precedes the verbal stem, their plural element, if they be plural, coming after the verbal stem, so slight is the connection between the plurality and the personality. The object person follows the stem, and thus the person element of the first and second person SELF-DIRECTING VOLITION IN ACTION. [SECT. III. But indicative is separated from the object in the transitive verbs. in the other moods the first and second persons, and in all moods the third person, follow the verbal stem, and combine with the object person when the verb is transitive (Gram. Sk., II. 26, 27). The volition of the hunter, which is thus seen in the association of the subject with the object in the transitive verb, may also be observed in the strong distinction in Cree between the subject and the object, the life of the former dominating that of the latter. For it is thus only that we can understand the law that the second person cannot be object to either the first or third, nor the first to the third (ibid. 27). Such constructions are avoided by making the verb passive; because the person who is object of the action becomes then a subject instead of being an object, and the high sense of the personal life of the second person and of the first, which is natural to the race, is not violated by the predominance of the life of another person whose life is less strongly thought. This great difference between the subject and object also explains the law, that in a compound sentence the subject of the first clause cannot be object of the second (ibid. 27); the change of thought would be too great, and it is made the subject of a passive verb instead. So that the principal peculiarities in the use of the persons in the Cree verb correspond to the peculiarities in the volitions of a hunting race. 8. The Dakota also is a hunter, but less exclusively than the Cree; as he has an interest in agriculture too (this chap. II. 8). His transitive verb has person elements of the subject and of the object associated together, but not combined so closely as in Cree; for the object may be distinguished as preceding the subject, except when the second person is object to the first, the two persons then coalescing in one element (Gram. Sk., II. 43). This is probably due to the difficulty of thinking with distinctness the second person as dominated by the first, the second being thought the more strongly in its personal life. The difficulty does not arise when the second person is object to the third, for the third person has no subject element, and there is therefore no express predominance of that person over the second as there would be if they were in juxtaposition. That the second person can be thought even indistinctly as object to the first, indicates that the sense of predominance of the subject over the object is less in Dakota than in Cree, which corresponds to the life of the race being less devoted to hunting. The volition of the subject also does not embrace the whole act which is to be accomplished, but only part of it, and the remainder follows the subject which is engaged with that part, and follows it as determined by it; for the persons in Dakota intervene between the root and the verbal element when there is one (ibid. 41); whereas in Cree they follow or precede both the energising element and the root. This also corresponds to the volitions of a race less bound to the attentive prosecution of their aims. Their circumstances are easier than those of the Cree, and there is less need for intelligent attention in carrying through the accomplishment of their ends. And the comparative freedom of self SECT. III.] SELF-DIRECTING VOLITION IN ACTION. directing volition which they enjoy, corresponds to the superior subjectivity of the subject persons of the verb, as evidenced by their difference from the possessive suffixes as well as from the object suffixes (ibid. 41). There is more subjectivity in the Dakota persons than in the Cree; though the Cree verb has a stronger sense of the subject, as appears from its having a third person, which the Dakota has not. The Cree subject persons being the same elements as the possessive are not as true persons as the Dakota (1). They rather represent the subject than express the subjectivity, and hence it is that the first and second tend to precede. And there is a strong sense of the subject as the source of the strong doing or being that is in the Cree verb, rather than a sense of his inner volition. 9. The agricultural Choctaw does not combine the subject person with the object person. The subject person of his verb is the same suffix as the possessive of his noun (ibid. 54), indicating a low subjectivity, which corresponds to the small exercise of self-directing volition in following the routine of a traditional industry. 10. Crossing the Rocky Mountains to the west, we find races who live along the rivers by fishing; or who inhabit regions which, compared with the plains towards the east, remind one of Mongolia compared with the pasture-grounds of the Tartar race. For though the Tartar steppes differ greatly from the American prairies, yet the region west of the Rocky Mountains and southward to Mexico may be compared to Mongolia in the elevation of its tablelands and in the intermixture of desert and fertile country. In such a region the struggle for life is less keen; for the habitable parts are more secluded from attack than in the open plains east of the Mississippi. Those who live by fishing in the rivers have a comparatively easy subsistence; so that all those races are under less necessity to exercise an enterprising activity or a self-directing guidance of action in their ordinary life. In Central America also and in South America life is comparatively easy on account of the abundant production of vegetable and animal life within the tropics and in the adjoining regions. Only on the dry tableland of Mexico would a searching outlook be needed to secure subsistence; and there and in the mountain region of the Andes attentive intelligent action would be required for success. 11. Now of all these American languages of the west and south, the Peruvian or Quichua and the Chilian are the only ones which, like the Eskimo and the Choctaw, put the person as a general rule at the end of the verb. And as the excessive rigour of the Eskimo region demands, that action shall be carefully aimed at its intended effect, in order that life may be sustained at all, a similar necessity in a much less degree, in the mountain region of the Andes, would require in the native races somewhat of the same utilitarian character. For the hunters who had to subsist there would need well-directed energy to supply themselves with the necessaries of life, and in their self-directing volition would note strongly the efficacy of their actions to that end. That the Choctaws were strongly marked with a utili SELF-DIRECTING VOLITION IN ACTION. [SECT. III. tarian character appears from their industrial habits; while the Cree and still more the Dakota could follow the suggestion of object or circumstance with less regard to the effect. So that the tendency to note in the volition the effect of action seems to correspond to the tendency to put the person at the end of the verb, according to the theoretical deduction of Book I., chap. iii., 3. This connection of person endings in the verb, with a regard to the effects of action in the life of the race, is confirmed by the concomitance of the same features in the life and languages of the races of Central and Northern Asia and Northern Europe, and in those of the Dravidian and Indo-European families. For the life of all those races was more or less governed by self-directing volition of an industrial character, and which, therefore, looked habitually beyond the objects to the effects of action. And they all put the person element at the end of the verb. On the other hand, the Syro-Arabian races, occupied always with doing and being rather than with material effects, put the essential element of the person before the verb, unless when a sense of completion so weakens the sense of the subject in the verb, that the verb is thought rather as an external fact than as an experience of the subject. 12. In their treatment of the person there is a noticeable similarity between the Syro-Arabian languages and some of those American languages of the west and south. For while those languages generally except the Peruvian and the Chilian put the essential element of the person before the verb, they generally, like the SyroArabian languages, put the plural element of the person when there is one at the end of the verb. And some of them in the past tense put the person itself at the end. Such is the place of the person in the past tense of transitives in Selish except in first plural (Gram. Sk., II. 63), in the past and future of neuter verbs in Maya (ibid. 97), in the perfect of transitives, and in negatived verbs and verbs of being in Caraib (ibid. 102); in all which the sense of the subject is weakened either by the verb not being in present realisation, or because it is thought more in the object or with weaker volition of the subject. In Yakama the first and second persons are at the end in all the tenses, while the third is at the beginning (ibid. 56), as if there was a sense of effect in connection with the first and second person which was absent from the third. In Quichée a verbal element expressive of tense comes first and is followed by the person, this being followed by the verbal stem (ibid. 94), as if the thought of the position in time took the verbal element out of the limitation of the subject into the realm of external fact. When the volition of the race does not contemplate the effect, the person precedes the stem, unless it be possessive, and as such has to follow. 13. In accordance with Book I., chap. iii., 3, a weakness of subjectivity may be observed in the verb in these languages proportional to the small degree of self-direction which their life demands. Thus the subjective and the possessive personal affixes are the same in the following intertropical languages, the abundant production of nature |