tive
of number_ (Sec.828). 2:4:: 6:12, should be read, 'As 2 _is_ to 4, so _is_ 6
to 12;' not 'As two _are_ to four, so _are_ six to twelve.' But when
numerals denoting more than one, are used as adjectives, with a substantive
expressed or understood, they must have a plural construction."--_Bullions,
Analyt. and Pract. Gram._, 1849, p. 39.

OBS. 18.--Since nouns and adjectives are different parts of speech, the
suggestion, that, "Numeral _adjectives_ are _also names_, or _nouns_," is,
upon the very face of it, a flat absurdity; and the notion that "the name
of a number" above unity, conveys only and always the idea of unity, like
an ordinary "singular noun," is an other. A number in arithmetic is most
commonly an _adjective_ in grammar; and it is always, in form, an
expression that tells _how many_, or--"denotes _how many things_ are spoken
of."--_Chase_, p. 11. But the _name_ of a number is also a number, whenever
it is _not made plural_ in form. Thus _four_ is a number, but _fours_ is
not; so _ten_ is a number, but _tens_ is not. Arithmetical numbers, which
run on to infinity, severally _consist_ of a _definite idea of how many_;
each is a _precise count_ by the unit; _one_ being the beginning of the
series, and the measure of every successive step. Grammatical numbers are
only the verbal forms which distinguish one thing from more of the same
sort. Thus the word _fours_ or _tens_, unless some arithmetical number be
prefixed to it, signifies nothing but a mere plurality which repeats
indefinitely the collective idea of _four_ or _ten_.

OBS. 19.--All actual _names_ of numbers calculative, except _one_, (for
_naught_, though it fills a place among numbers, is, in itself, a mere
negation of number; and such terms as _oneness, unity, duality_, are not
used in calculation,) are _collective nouns_--a circumstance which seems to
make the discussion of the present topic appropriate to the location which
is here given it under Rule 15th. Each of them denotes a particular
aggregate _of units_. And if each, as signifying one whole, may convey the
idea of unity, and take a singular verb; each, again, as denoting so many
units, may quite as naturally take a plural verb, and be made to convey the
idea of plurality. For the mere abstractness of numbers, or their
separation from all "_particular objects_," by no means obliges us to limit
them always to the construction with verbs singular. If it is right to say,
"Two _is_ an even n