Die Mathematik die Fackelträgerin einer neuen Zeit (Stuttgart, 1889), p. 12.
Number, the inducer of philosophies,
The synthesis of letters,....
—Aeschylus.
Quoted in, Thomson, J. A., Introduction to Science, chap. 1 (London).
[1607]. Amongst all the ideas we have, as there is none suggested to the mind by more ways, so there is none more simple, than that of unity, or one: it has no shadow of variety or composition in it; every object our senses are employed about; every idea in our understanding; every thought of our minds, brings this idea along with it. And therefore it is the most intimate to our thoughts, as well as it is, in its agreement to all other things, the most universal idea we have.—Locke, John.
An Essay concerning Human Understanding, Bk. 2, chap. 16, sect. 1.
[1608]. The simple modes of number are of all other the most distinct; every the least variation, which is an unit, making each combination as clearly different from that which approacheth nearest to it, as the most remote; two being as distinct from one, as two hundred; and the idea of two as distinct from the idea of three, as the magnitude of the whole earth is from that of a mite.—Locke, John.
An Essay concerning Human Understanding, Bk. 2, chap. 16, sect. 3.