ARABIC NUMERALS

The history of the Arabic numerals, as they are generally called, is so mixed up with that of the use of the decimal scale, that they form, in fact, but a single inquiry. The mere history of the bare forms of symbols has, doubtless, its use: but then it is only in the character of *matériel* for a philosophical discussion of the question—a discussion into which the natural progress of the human mind and the urgency of social wants must enter largely. It might at first sight appear, from the cognate character of the Hebrew and Arabic languages, that the idea of using a single symbol for each nu…