The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28,
February, 1860, by Various

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Title: The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860

Author: Various

Release Date: December 2, 2006 [EBook #19995]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY ***

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THE

ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.

VOL. V.--FEBRUARY, 1860.--NO. XXVIII.

Transcriber's Note: Minor typos have been corrected. Footnotes have been
moved to the end of the article.

COUNTING AND MEASURING.

Though, from the rapid action of the eye and the mind, grouping and
counting by groups appear to be a single operation, yet, as things can
be seen in succession only, however rapidly, the counting of things,
whether ideal or real, is necessarily one by one. This is the first step
of the art. The second step is grouping. The use of grouping is to
economize speech in numeration, and writing in notation, by the exercise
of the memory. The memorizing of groups is, therefore, a part of the
primary education of every individual. Until this art is attained, to a
certain extent, it is very convenient to use the fingers as
representatives of the individuals of which the groups are composed.
This practice led to the general adoption of a group derived from the
fingers of the left hand. The adoption of this group was the first
distinct step toward mental arithmetic. Previous groupings were for
particular numerations; this for numeration in general; being, in fact,
the first numeric base,--the quinary. As men advanced in the use of
numbers, they adopted a group derived from the fingers of both hands;
thus ten became the base of numeration.

Notation, like numeration, began with ones, advanced to fives, then to
tens, etc. Roman notation consisted of a series of signs signifying 1,
5, 10, 50, 100, 500, 1000, etc.,--a series evidently t