ng circumcision--seven days of the week--six books of
the Mishnah--five books of the Law--four matrons--three
patriarchs--two tables of the covenant--but One is our God,
who is over the heavens and the earth.

This list may be regarded as a mere aid to memory, and no doubt it is
to some extent that. But it is also an example of the religious use of
numbers--a use which has given various numbers a magic significance.
One has an example of this magic significance in the custom, among
those who resort to holy wells, of walking round the well nine times
in the opposite direction to the sun. One always has to do things by
threes or sevens or nines. Similarly, the belief in the maleficent
power of thirteen is commoner in London than in Patagonia, where,
indeed, they do not know how to count up to thirteen. One remembers,
too, how in recent years the prophetic sort of evangelical Christians
were on the look out for some great statesman or conqueror upon whom
they could fix the dreaded number of the Antichrist, 666. First it was
Napoleon; later it was Gladstone, the letters of whose name, if you
slightly misspelt it in Greek, stood for numbers which added up to the
awful total. I recall the relief with which in my own childhood I
discovered the fact that, however wrongly my name was spelt, and in
whatever language, it was not possible to work out 666 as the answer.

So much for the mysteries of numbers. To most people the whole thing
will appear a chronicle of superstitions, as astrology does. But, just
as astronomy has taken the place of the superstitions of the stars, so
statistics has taken the place of the superstitions of numbers. It is
as though men had suspected all along that stars and numbers had some
significance beyond their immediate use and beauty, but for hundreds
of years they could only guess what it was. It was not till the
eighteenth century indeed that the science of statistics was
discovered--under its present name, at least--and ever since then men
have been debating whether it is a science or only a method. Whichever
you prefer to call it, it may be described as an explanation of human
society in terms of number. It is the discovery of the most efficient
symbols that have yet been invented for the realistic portraiture of
men in the mass. Symbols, I say advisedly, for statistics is more
closely allied to Oriental than to Western art in that it avoids the
direct imitation of life and appeals