The same is true of the syntax of the two kinds of language. This also is no more irregular and accidental in the Soudan language than it is in gesture-language. As a rule, indeed, it is stricter than the syntax of our languages, for in the latter inflection makes possible a certain variation in the arrangement of words within a sentence according to the particular shade of meaning desired. In primitive language, the arrangement is much more uniform, being governed absolutely and alone by the same law as prevails in gesture-language--namely, the arrangement of words in their perceptual order. Without exception, therefore, object precedes attribute, and substantive, adjective. Less constant, however, is the relation of verb and object, in the Ewe language; the verb generally precedes, but the object may come first; the verb, however, always follows the subject whose action it expresses. This perceptual character of primitive language appears most strikingly when we translate any thought that is at all complicated from a primitive language into our own, first in its general meaning, and then word for word. Take an illustration from the language of the Bushmen. The meaning would be substantially this: 'The Bushman was at first received kindly by the white man in order that he might be brought to herd his sheep; then the white man maltreated the Bushman; the latter ran away, whereupon the white man took another Bushman, who suffered the same experience,' The language of the Bushmen expresses this in the following way: 'Bushman-there-go, here-run-to-white man, white man-give-tobacco, Bushman-go-smoke, go-fill-tobacco-pouch, white man-give-meat-Bushman, Bushman-go-eat-meat, stand-up-go-home, go happily, go-sit-down, herd-sheep-white man, white man-go-strike Bushman, Bushman-cry-loud-pain, Bushman-go-run-away-white man, white man-run-after-Bushman, Bushman-then-another, this one-herd-sheep, Bushman-all-gone.' In this complaint of the man of nature against his oppressor, everything is concrete, perceptual. He does not say, The Bushman was at first kindly taken up by the white man, but, The white man gives him tobacco, he fills his pouch and smokes; the white man gives him meat, he eats this and is happy, etc. He does not say, The white man maltreats the Bushman, but, He strikes him, the Bushman cries with pain, etc. What we express in relatively abstract concepts is entirely reduced by him to separate perceptual images. His thought always attaches to individual objects. Moreover, just as primitive language has no specific means for expressing a verb, so also are change and action overshadowed in primitive thought by the concrete image. The thinking itself, therefore, may be called _concrete_. Primitive man sees the image with its separate parts; and, as he sees it, so he reproduces it in his language. It is for this very reason that he is unfamiliar with differences of grammatical categories and with abstract concepts.