"Baudelaire had the true intuition of number as a tactile hand or
nervous system for interrelating separate units, when he said that
'number is within the individual. Intoxication is a number.' That
explains why 'the pleasure of being in a crowd is a mysterious
expression of delight in the multiplication of number.' Number, that is
to say, is not only auditory and resonant, like the spoken word, but
originates in the sense of touch, of which it is an extension."
Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media.
