ntors.[245]

The art of numbering was unknown in some American tribes, and even among
the most advanced it was very imperfect; the savage had no property to
estimate, no coins to count, no variety of ideas to enumerate. Many
nations could not reckon above three, and had no words in their language
to distinguish a greater number; some proceeded as far as ten, others to
twenty; when they desired to convey an idea of a larger amount, they
pointed to the hair of the head, or declared that it could not be
counted. Computation is a mystery to all rude nations; when, however,
they acquire the knowledge of a number of objects, and find the
necessity of combining or dividing them, their acquaintance with
arithmetic increases; the state of this art is therefore, to a
considerable extent, a criterion of their degree of progress. The wise
and politic Iroquois had advanced the farthest, but even they had not
got beyond one thousand; the smaller tribes seldom reached above ten.

The first ideas are suggested to the mind of man by the senses: the
Indian acquires no other. The objects around him are all important; if
they be available for his present purposes, they attract his attention,
otherwise they excite no curiosity: he neither combines nor arranges
them, nor does he examine the operations of his own mind upon them; he
has no abstract or universal ideas, and his reasoning powers are
generally employed upon matters merely obvious to the senses. In the
languages of the ruder tribes there were no words to express any thing
that is not material, such as faith, time, imagination, and the like.
When the mind of the savage is not occupied with matters relating to his
animal existence, it is altogether inactive. In the islands, and upon
the exuberant plains of the south, where little exertion of ingenuity
was required to obtain the necessaries of life, the rational faculties
were frequently dormant, and the countenance remained vacant and
inexpressive. Even the superior races of the north loiter away their
time in thoughtless indolence, when not engaged in war or the chase,
deeming other objects unworthy of their consideration. Where reason is
so limited in a field for exertion, the mind can hardly acquire any
considerable degree of vigor or enlargement. In civilized life men are
urged to activity and perseverance by a desire to gratify numerous
artificial wants; but the necessities of the Indian are few, and
provided for by nature almo