The etymology of the word _as_ has long been a puzzle. Scholars starting with the assumption that _as_ was the Roman abstract term for unity have accordingly searched for an appropriate derivation. Some have identified it with the Greek _heis_ one (εἶς through a Tarentine ἇς), whilst the most recent attempt connects it with the first syllable of _el_ementum. The same principle has been carried out with regard to _uncia_, which has been treated simply as meaning _unit_ and connected with _unus_ and _unicus_. Now it is notorious that the Roman mind was essentially concrete, and found great difficulty in arriving at abstract ideas, and consequently at abstract terms. This alone would make us hesitate to believe that _as_ had originally begun as an abstract term meaning unit, and rather incline us to believe that it started in life as a name for some common concrete object. But we have seen above that the numerals in all languages seem originally to have meant certain actual physical objects which served as counters, such as the fingers and toes (_decem_ δέκα, _digitus_ δάκτυλος), seeds or pebbles. If such has been the origin of the various names for _unit_, we can hardly believe that any term for _unity_ can have originated independently of some concrete object. To add to the mists which hang round the origin of the _as_, its division into 12 parts is taken to indicate a Babylonian source. Now the Roman foot was divided, not merely into 16 fingers like the Greek, but also into 12 unciae or inches like our own. The latter is most probably the true Italian system, as it is that found among their cousins and neighbours the Kelts, as well as amongst the Teutonic peoples. With ourselves still the rustic measures inches by his thumb, just as he measures feet by means of his own natural foot. The ancient Irish foot was divided into 12 thumbs or inches (_ordlach_, Lat. _pollex_, the initial _p_ being lost in Irish)[424]. The Romans too (as did likewise the Teutonic peoples, _e.g._ Icelandic _tomme_, an inch) used the thumb (_pollex_) as the ordinary measure in practical life[425]. The division then into 12 unciae is simply the result of the fact that a certain natural relation exists between the breadth of the thumb and the length of the foot, and as the relation held true just as much for the Kelt as the Chaldaean, there was no need for the ancient Italians to borrow their duodecimal system from the East. Now what are we to say as to the origin of the word _uncia_? Does it mean anything more or less than the breadth of the (thumb) _nail_? The use of _unguis_, a nail, as a measure was common in Latin, as we know from the phrases _transversum unguem_ (the thickness of a nail) and _latum unguem_ (a nail’s breadth) side by side with _transversum digitum_ (a fingers thickness) in Plautus. _Uncia_ may be simply a derivative from _unguis_; there is no phonetic impossibility, and even if there were any