LOGISTIC

nary mark, and the octonary. The ninth, nine, the mark of the nonary, and the nonary. The tenth, the mark of nothing, and in its shape, a ring or circle. There are

7

9 marks, 9 numbers, 10 digits, 0 nothing, 0 proportional

other names for these among our Logisticians, but these are common to many: such as significants and digits. For they called the remaining nine SIGNIFICANTS, since the tenth, 0, signified nothing.

They called the first nine DIGITS: because among the ancients, as we read in the Geometrics of Severinus, all numbers that were below ten were so called, namely: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine: just as ARTICLES, of which Augustine also makes mention in the first book of Music, which could be divided into ten equal parts: as ten into ten monads, twenty into ten duads, thirty, forty, a thousand, and other numbers. COMPOSITE numbers, however, are those which consist of an article and a digit: as fifteen, from ten and five; twenty-four, from twenty and four; one hundred and seven, one thousand five hundred and sixty-four, and other innumerable ones.

8

three places

See 5.

These Logistic marks, although they are nothing other than what we have said, nevertheless designate any number, however great, with wonderful artifice by their arrangement. For they signify variously according to the places in which they sit, of which there are entirely three. The first, which is established on the right, is the least, as above. The second and third follow toward the left. For example, when the three hundred and sixty-five days of the year are noted thus, 3 6 5: the first place is occupied by five; the second,