Thus, these reflections concerning the social relations of primitive man lead us to a further field of phenomena which likewise affords a glimpse into the mental characteristics of primitive peoples. For that which differentiates the horde from the herd is the _language_ of primitive man, together with the activity most closely bound up with language, namely, _thinking_. 5. THE BEGINNINGS OF LANGUAGE. Our knowledge of those peoples whom we, avoiding the errors of the past, may now regard as primitive, led to the conviction that the Asiatic and African tribes described above were actually primitive, in the above-mentioned relative sense of the word. Naturally the question concerning the language of these peoples then began to arouse considerable attention, on the part, not only of ethnologists, but also of those interested in philology. The question is of equal importance, to say the least, for the psychologist. For language is bound up with thought. From the phenomena of language, therefore, we may draw inferences concerning the most general characteristics of thought. Such fundamental differences of language as exist, for example, between the Chinese and the Indo-Germanic tongues do not, of course, allow the direct conclusion that there are quantitative differences in mental culture. They do imply, however, that there are divergent directions and forms of thought. In their ceaseless change, the latter react upon language, and this, in turn, again influences mental characteristics. We cannot suppose that, in the period of Old High German, much less in that of the original German, our ancestors employed the same forms of thought with which we of to-day are familiar. To a lesser degree, similar changes have undoubtedly transpired within much shorter spaces of time.