Levi L. Conant
The Number Concept: Its Origin and Development
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4057664180209
Table of Contents
The Number Concept: Its Origin And Development.
The Origin of Number Words. (Continued .)
Preface.
In the selection of authorities which have been consulted in the preparation of this work, and to which reference is made in the following pages, great care has been taken. Original sources have been drawn upon in the majority of cases, and nearly all of these are the most recent attainable. Whenever it has not been possible to cite original and recent works, the author has quoted only such as are most standard and trustworthy. In the choice of orthography of proper names and numeral words, the forms have, in almost all cases, been written as they were found, with no attempt to reduce them to a systematic English basis. In many instances this would have been quite impossible; and, even if possible, it would have been altogether unimportant. Hence the forms, whether German, French, Italian, Spanish, or Danish in their transcription, are left unchanged. Diacritical marks are omitted, however, since the proper key could hardly be furnished in a work of this kind.
With the above exceptions, this study will, it is hoped, be found to be quite complete; and as the subject here investigated has never before been treated in any thorough and comprehensive manner, it is hoped that this book may be found helpful. The collections of numeral systems illustrating the use of the binary, the quinary, and other number systems, are, taken together, believed to be the most extensive now existing in any language. Only the cardinal numerals have been considered. The ordinals present no marked peculiarities which would, in a work of this kind, render a separate discussion necessary. Accordingly they have, though with some reluctance, been omitted entirely.
Sincere thanks are due to those who have assisted the author in the preparation of his materials. Especial acknowledgment should be made to Horatio Hale, Dr. D. G. Brinton, Frank Hamilton Cushing, and Dr. A. F. Chamberlain.
Worcester, Mass., Nov. 12, 1895.
The Number Concept: Its Origin And Development.
Chapter I.
Counting.
Among the speculative questions which arise in connection with the study of arithmetic from a historical standpoint, the origin of number is one that has provoked much lively discussion, and has led to a great amount of learned research among the primitive and savage languages of the human race. A few simple considerations will, however, show that such research must necessarily leave this question entirely unsettled, and will indicate clearly that it is, from the very nature of things, a question to which no definite and final answer can be given.
Among the barbarous tribes whose languages have been studied, even in a most cursory manner, none have ever been discovered which did not show some familiarity with the number concept. The knowledge thus indicated has often proved to be most limited; not extending beyond the numbers 1 and 2, or 1, 2, and 3. Examples of this poverty of number knowledge are found among the forest tribes of Brazil, the native races of Australia and elsewhere, and they are considered in some detail in the next chapter. At first thought it seems quite inconceivable that any human being should be destitute of the power of counting beyond 2. But such is the case; and in a few instances languages have been found to be absolutely destitute of pure numeral words. The Chiquitos of Bolivia had no real numerals whatever,1 but expressed their idea for “one” by the word etama, meaning alone. The Tacanas of the same country have no numerals except those borrowed from Spanish, or from Aymara or Peno, languages with which they have long been in contact.2 A few other South American languages are almost equally destitute of numeral words. But even here, rudimentary as the number sense undoubtedly is, it is not wholly lacking; and some indirect expression, or some form of circumlocution, shows a conception of the difference between one and two, or at least, between one and many.
These facts must of necessity deter the mathematician from seeking to push his investigation too far back toward the very origin of number. Philosophers have endeavoured to establish certain propositions concerning this subject, but, as might have been expected, have failed to reach any common ground of agreement. Whewell has maintained that “such propositions as that two and three make five are necessary truths, containing in them an element of certainty beyond that which mere experience