ABSTRACT
All rigorous science demands that thought free itself from the constraint of the word, that it become mature and independent of it. Thought presses beyond the sphere of language; however, precisely in doing so, it takes up a tendency that is originally contained in language and that from the beginning was effective as a living motive in its own development. As the processes of “dematerialization” as well as that of “detachment” progresses, the sign tears itself away from the sphere of things, in order to become purely relational sign and ordinal sign. The sequence of numerical signs is the first example and enduring prototype of all pure “ordinal signs.” The scientific concept of number arises when the first beginning is freed from all accidental barriers and raised to the level of the absolutely universal. It requires a universal system of ordinal signs that progresses from an initial positing according to a determinate, generally valid principle.
