MCGEE] MYSTICAL NUMBERS S84 
of the developmental lines from an obscure beginning in higher ani- 
mality to a conspicuous culmination somewhere in that lower humanity 
in which the direction-sense is fixed by generation on generation of 
direction-worship. And it is not to be forgotten that the quatern con- 
cept, born of unrecorded myriads of experiences and nurtured by 
unwritten eons of ceremonies, is much more than an idle fancy of kiva 
and camp-fire. Intensified by the strongest motives of primitive life, 
it doubtless attained maximum strength before writing arose to divide 
its functions; yet despite the decadence of millenniums, it still survives 
in one, if not both, of the two strongest instincts of higher humanity— 
the instinct of orientation, with the correlative instinct of right- 
handedness. 
On the whole, it would seem safe provisionally to trace the begin- 
nings of the number-concept in the light of common attributes of 
animals and men, and especially in the strong light afforded by the 
late-studied workings of primitive minds; and when this is done, the 
lines of natural development seem clearly to define a crude philosophy, 
or rather a series of intuitive thought-modes, whence all almacabalic 
and mathematical systems must necessarily have sprung. 
MODERN VESTIGES OF ALMACABALA 
The character of almacabala, and the strength of its hold on the 
haman mind, are illustrated by numberless vestiges, mainly mystical 
numbers and cognate graphic symbols. The entire series of mystical 
numbers may readily be ascertained by juxtaposing the three almaca- 
balic number systems and the products of their augmentation under 
the almacabalic rule. They are as follow (the super-mystical numbers 
accentuated): 
2-3—3, 5 75 9) ete. 
45— 5, 9, 13, 17, 21, 25, 29, 33, 37, 41, 45, 49, 53, 57, 61, 65, 69, 73, etc. 
6-7— Th, 65 Ie ay Sil, Bi, ZY Cehe GbR TS ye bhai 
The vestigial uses of the binary-ternary system are innumerable. 
Two persists as the basis of the semi-mystical Aristotelian classifica- 
tion, which still exerts strong influence on Aryan thought; 2 is the 
basis, also, of the largely-mystical Chinese philosophy in which the 
complementary cosmologic elements, Yang and Yin, are developed 
into the Book of Changes’; and it finds expression, either alone or in 
its normal union, in most Aryan cults. The mystical 3 pervades nine- 
tenths of modern literature and all modern folklore; it finds classic 
expression in the Graces and the Fates; it is particularly strong in 
Germanic and Celtic literature, cropping out in the conventional Three 
Wishes and Three Tests (a survival of the ordeal), and also as a cus- 
tomary charm number; and in these or related ways it persits in half 

1 Chinese Philosophy, by Paul Carus, 1898, p. 3 et seq. 
