90 galton.org
90
Inquiries into Human Faculty
letter o pronounced short as in “on,” then instead of ten, eleven, twelve,
thirteen, etc., we might say on-naught, on-one, on-two, on-three, etc.
The conflict between the two systems creates a perplexity, to which
conclusive testimony is borne by these numerical forms. In most of them
there is a marked hitch at the 1 2 and this repeats itself at the 120. The run
of the lines between 1 and 20 is rarely analogous to that between 20 and
100, where it usually first becomes regular. The ‘teens frequently occupy
a larger space than their due. It is not easy to define in words the variety
of traces of the difficulty and annoyance caused by our unscientific
nomenclature, that are portrayed vividly, and, so to speak, painfully in
these pictures. They are indelible scars that testify to the effort and
ingenuity with which a sort of compromise was struggled for and has
finally been effected between the verbal and decimal systems. I am sure
that this difficulty is more serious and abiding than has been suspected,
not only from the persistency of these twists, which would have long since
been smoothed away if they did not continue to subserve some useful
purpose, but also from experiments on my own mind. I find I can deal
mentally with simple sums with much less strain if I audibly conceive the
figures as on-naught, on-one, etc., and I can both dictate and write from
dictation with much less trouble when that system or some similar one is
adopted. I have little doubt that our nomenclature is a serious though
unsuspected hindrance to the ready adoption by the public of a decimal
system of weights and measures. Three quarters of the Forms bear a
duodecimal impress.
I will now give brief explanations of the Number-Forms drawn in
Plates I., II., and III., and in the two front figures in Plate IV.
DESCRIPTION OF PLATE I.
Fig 1 is by Mr. Walter Larden, science-master of Cheltenham College,
who sent me a very interesting and elaborate account of his own case,
which by itself would make a memoir; and he has collected other
information for me. The Number-Forms of one of his colleagues and of
that
