In one region we find sticks or splints
used; in another, pebbles or shells; in another, simple scratches, or
notches cut in a stick, Robinson Crusoe fashion; in another, kernels or
little heaps of grain; in another, knots on a string; and so on, in
diversity of method almost endless. Such are the devices which have been,
and still are, to be found in the daily habit of great numbers of Indian,
negro, Mongolian, and Malay tribes; while, to pass at a single step to the
other extremity of intellectual development, the German student keeps his
beer score by chalk marks on the table or on the wall. But back of all
these devices, and forming a common origin to which all may be referred, is
the universal finger method; the method with which all begin, and which all
find too convenient ever to relinquish entirely, even though their
civilization be of the highest type. Any such mode of counting, whether
involving the use of the fingers or not, is to be regarded simply as an
extraneous aid in the expression or comprehension of an idea which the mind
cannot grasp, or cannot retain, without assistance. The German student
scores his reckoning with chalk marks because he might otherwise forget;
while the Andaman Islander counts on his fingers because he has no other
method of counting,--or, in other words, of grasping the idea of number. A
single illustration may be given which typifies all practical methods of
numeration.
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