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 
ancompounded 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 hjfour 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 
