116 



When travellers assert, that whole nations in 

 America do not count above five, we ought to 

 pay no more credit to this assertion, than we 

 should to a Chinese, were he to report, that 

 Europeans do not reckon above ten, because 

 seven-teen and eight-teen are composed of te n 

 and units. We must not confound the pre- 

 tended impossibility of expressing great quanti - 

 ties, with the limits prescribed by the genius of 

 the different languages to the numbers of the 

 uncompounded numerical signs. These limits 

 are attained at five, at ten, or at twenty, accord- 

 ing to the disposition of the people to stop, in 

 reckoning the units, at the fingers of one hand, 

 those of both, or at the fingers and toes together. 



In the idioms of the American nations the 

 most remote from the unfolding of their faculties,, 

 six is expressed by four with two, seven by four 

 with three, eight by Jive with three. Such are 

 the languages of the Guaranis and the Luloes. 

 Other tribes, already somewhat more advanced, 

 for instance the Omaguas, and in Africa the 

 Yalofs and the Foulahs, make use of words 

 which signify both hand and five, as we employ 

 the word ten. With these seven are expressed 

 by hand and two, and fifteen by three hands. 

 In Persian pendji signifies five, and pentcha the 

 hand. In the Roman ciphers we observe some 

 traces of a system of quinary numeration ; the 



