History of the Devil, Vol. I

First Section: Religious Dualism.

processed, is then expressed again as a word. "By naming, the external world is conquered like an island; it is prepared for the mind just as animals are tamed by being given names," ¹ and one is reminded here of the excellent account in Genesis, where man’s dominion over the animals—aside from their practical use—is signified by the fact that he is to name them. In children, the mastery of the spirit reveals itself in those "bold" and yet "correct" word formations, several of which Jean Paul ² Jean Paul (1763–1825) was a prolific German Romantic writer famous for his humorous and psychological insights into childhood. cites having heard from three- and four-year-old children, such as: "the beer-barrel-er, stringer, bottler" original: "der Bierfässer, Saiter, Fläscher" — the child is inventively creating nouns for craftsmen who make barrels, strings, or bottles, "the air-mouse" for a bat, "the music is violining," "to shear out the light" (referring to the use of candle snuffers), "to flail-thresh," "to thresh-el"; "I am the see-through-man" (standing behind a telescope), "I wish I were employed as a pepper-nut-eater, or as a pepper-nut-ler"; "in the end I shall become too smarter"; "he joked me down from the chair"; "see how One original: "Eins" — meaning one o'clock it already is," and so forth. Similarly, the North American Indians call objects that are foreign to them by self-created names, such as "hole-maker" instead of a drill, and the like. ³

Just as consciousness and self-consciousness progress from a state of lesser clarity to a firmer certainty, the gradual development of language can also be observed in children. From vague vocal sounds, pure vowels first emerge, to which blunt consonants are initially added to form indistinct syllables, until finally the vowels achieve clarity, the consonants consonants: Mitlauter — literally "with-sounders," letters that require a vowel to be sounded gain their sharpness, and the syllables receive a distinct character. A similar progression is also evident in the use of word forms: the child moves gradually from the infinitive and the third person to the first person, then to conjugation and declension, and finally incorporates syntax into their speech.

Of equal interest in this regard is the methodology of the natural peoples original: Naturvölker — a 19th-century term for indigenous cultures, often viewed by scholars of that era as representing the "childhood" of humanity, who, in the childhood of the—

¹ Jean Paul, Levana, 1814 edition, p. 420.
² cited above, p. 423. original: "a. a. O." (am angegebenen Ort)
³ Bastian, Man in History, I, 431. Adolf Bastian (1826–1905) was a pioneer of ethnology and the founding father of anthropology in Germany.