Among the various characteristics which distinguish man from the lower animals, there are two which stand out in bold relief; namely, the language concept and the number concept. These will be made the basis of study and contrast in the present discussion. It will be found that these two concepts did not develop in the human mind with equal ease or with equal speed, and it will be of more than passing interest to examine some of the reasons for such great disparity and possibly to suggest and support an explanation which has not been dwelt upon by the historians. In a word we shall try to find out some of the reasons why mathematics lagged so far behind literature and art in the early centuries. The case for language is comparatively simple to state, though its interpretation and full understanding may often-times be obscure and difficult. The fact is that every nation or tribe of men, ancient or modern, pagan or civilized, has a language which may be crude or well developed but, at any rate, is adequate for their needs of intercommunication. Witness the North American Indian tribes among whom there were some sixty different language stocks; or the inhabitants of Asiatic India who are said to have developed more than one hundred dialects; or the great group of Indo-European languages of which there are eight main divisions and fifty or more subdivisions spread over a large part of Europe and of Asia. In complete bewilderment one exclaims: truly man is a language producing animal. As a leading example of language development of the highest type, let us look more closely into the case of the Greek language which is one of the eight main divisions of the Indo-European family. The first essential in the development of a written language is an adequate alphabet. Perhaps the earliest attempt at alphabetic structure is to be found in the hieratic writings of the Egyptian priests three to five thousand years ago, as for instance in the Ahmes Papyrus of about 1700 B.C. However, such writings were in the nature of a mystery to the common people and little used except by the priests. But it may be that these early attempts at alphabet making inspired the Phoenicians to strive for mastery along this line. At any rate, by the end of the ninth century B.C. they were in possession of a fairly complete alphabet which was in common use, and from this source the Greeks undoubtedly imported the first draft of their own alphabet. Then began a long period, perhaps two or three hundred years, during which the Greeks gradually modified and perfected their alphabet. For instance, the Phoenicians had too many consonants and not enough vowels, they had too many aspirates but no symbols for a number of sounds used by the Greeks. As a result of this long and careful development, the Greeks