'quality,' there being considered to be three Ramas, three kinds of fire,
three qualities (guna); for 4 were used 'veda,' 'age,' or 'ocean,' there
being four of each recognized; 'season' for 6, because they reckoned six
seasons; 'sage' or 'vowel,' for 7, from the seven sages and the seven
vowels; and so on with higher numbers, 'sun' for 12, because of his twelve
annual denominations, or 'zodiac' from his twelve signs, and 'nail' for 20,
a word incidentally bringing in finger notation. As Sanskrit is very rich
in synonyms, and as even the numerals themselves might be used, it became
very easy to draw up phrases or nonsense verses to record series of numbers
by this system of artificial memory."[164]

More than enough has been said to show how baseless is the claim that all
numeral words are derived, either directly or indirectly, from the names of
fingers, hands, or feet. Connected with the origin of each number word
there may be some metaphor, which cannot always be distinctly traced; and
where the metaphor was born of the hand or of the foot, we inevitably
associate it with the practice of finger counting. But races as fond of
metaphor and of linguistic embellishment as are those of the East, or as
are our American Indians even, might readily resort to some other source
than that furnished by the members of the human body, when in want of a
term with which to describe the 5, 10, or any other number of the numeral
scale they were unconsciously forming. That the first numbers of a numeral
scale are usually derived from other sources, we have some reason to
believe; but that all above 2, 3, or at most 4, are almost universally of
digital origin we must admit. Exception should properly be made of higher
units, say 1000 or anything greater, which could not be expected to conform
to any law of derivation governing the first few units of a system.

Collecting together and comparing with one another the great mass of terms
by which we find any number expressed in different languages, and, while