Pag. 62.
(14.) Plato ſhewing how neceſſary the Ideas of diſcrete Quantity and its Relations are in the moſt trifling Arts, laughs with great Reaſon at the Authors of his Age who pretended that Palamedes had invented Numbers at the Siege of Troy, as if, ſays he, it was poſſible that Agamemnon ſhould not know 'till then how many Legs he had. In fact, every one muſt ſee how impoſſible it was that Society and the Arts ſhould have attained the Degree of Perfection in which they were at the Time of that famous Siege, unleſs Men had been acquainted with the Uſe of Numbers and Calculation: But the Neceſſity of underſtanding Numbers previous to the Acquiſition of other Sciences does by no Means help us to account for the Invention of them; the Names of Numbers once known, it is an eaſy Matter to explain the Meaning of them, and excite the Ideas which theſe Names preſent; but to invent them, it was neceſſary, before theſe Ideas could be conceived, that Man ſhould have exerciſed himſelf in conſidering Beings merely according to their Eſſence, and independently of every other Perception; an Abſtraction very painful and very
