1887.] ^^' [Taylor. 



has always strikingly displayed itself wherever this scale has been brought 

 into popular use, for the estimation either of lengths, bulks, weights or 

 values. In our own country'' the decimal scale has been applied only to 

 the currency, and we find that in spite of the legal division of the dollar 

 into tentlis, and its seeming establishment by the coinage and circulation 

 . of dimes, tlie people persist in cutting it up into quarters, eighths, six- 

 teenths, and even thirty-seconds, to the utter neglect of the coins actually 

 established by law, and to the inconvenience, confusion, and loss, result- 

 ing from the necessary involvement of interminable and unmanageable 

 fractions. 



For all the transactions of retail trade the eighth and sixteenth of a 

 dollar are among the most useful and convenient divisions, and although 

 our government has never coined them, their want has been continually 

 felt, thereby showing the insufficiency of our much admired and boasted 

 decimalization of moneys to meet the actual wants and necessities of trade 

 and daily business life. So far, therefore, from our decimal currency pos- 

 sessing the excellencies that have so often and so inconsiderately been 

 ascribed to it, it has but the single merit of facility of computation. A 

 single division of the number 10 brings us at once upon a prime number; 

 and as the twelve pennies of the English shilling are far more convenient 

 to the tradesman, than the 10 cents of the American dime, so the 12 inches 

 of our present foot can never be usefully replaced b}^ the 10 centimetres 

 of the decimetre. 



Many have supposed that this is all a matter of practical indifference, 

 and that it merely requires the decisive sanction of legislative authority to 

 accustom a people to any set of subdivisions. Such an opinion, however, 

 exhibits both a blindness to the lessons of all experience, and an inatten- 

 tion to many of the most important and subtle theoretical considerations 

 affecting the relations of value and our apprehension thereof. 



Binal progression may be regarded as pre-eminently the natural 

 scale of division. This fundamental fact is indeed illustrated in the very 

 origin of the word division. The binary scale is in the first place the 

 lowest and simplest of all tlie geometrical progressions. It is that of 

 which we have the most ready and precise conception ; indeed, it may be 

 said to be the only one of which we have any accurate appreciation be- 

 yond the second or third term.* It is that by which we most rapidly 

 and nearly approach any vague quantity we may desire to employ ; hence 

 its universal use in trade. It is that which in any system of indepen- 

 dent units of measure (as in weights, or coins) furnishes us with the 

 means of representing the greatest range of particular values, by the 

 smallest number of pieces. It ia that which aUbrds us the easiest prac- 

 tical measure ; thus we can fold a string, a sheet of paper, or any other 

 flexible material, or we can cut an apple, or a loaf bread, at once and 



* Thus, 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, etc., cfiii be readily apprehended as repeated doublings, 

 while 1, 3, 9, 27, 81, etc., leave the mind confused in the attempt to follow up successive 

 triplings, 



