In a sense, every form of expression is imposed upon one by social factors, one's own language above all.

We see and hear and otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation.

It would be naïve to imagine that any analysis of experience is dependent on pattern expressed in language. Any concept, whether or not it forms part of the system of grammatical categories, can be conveyed in any language. If a notion is lacking in a given series, it implies a different configuration and not a lack of expressive power.

A logical analysis of reflexive usages in French shows, however, that this simplicity is an illusion and that, so far from helping the foreigner, it is more calculated to bother him.

National languages are all huge systems of vested interests which sullenly resist critical inquiry.

A second type of direct evidence is formed by statements, whether as formal legends or personal information, regarding the age or relative sequence of events in tribal history made by the natives themselves.

What fetters the mind and benumbs the spirit is ever the dogged acceptance of absolutes.