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Daniel Defoe famously applied double-entry bookkeeping in his novel Robinson Crusoe, published in 1719. Shipwrecked and alone on the island, Crusoe uses double entry to assess his life, drawing up his 'State of Affairs' and stating 'very impartially, like Debtor and Creditor, the Comforts I'd enjoyed, against the Miseries I suffered', the left-hand side headed 'Evil' and the right-hand side 'Good'. Like the best English shopkeeper, Crusoe keeps account of himself in two columns and 'by this experiment I was made master of my business'.

— Double entry by Jane Gleeson-White (25%)

John Mair, in 1765, expresses this view of double entry: 'The theory of this art or science is beautiful and curious, very fit for improving the minds of youth, exercising their wit and invention, and disposing them to a close and accurate way of thinking.' But what of those 'slothful' and 'ignorant' merchants and shopkeepers who failed to use double entry? Nineteenth-century French entrepreneur and jeweller Charles Christofle believed that: 'First, it causes trouble in mind and disquietness of body with hindrance in substance. Secondarily, it is great shame and dishonesty to him that keeps not his book exactly. Thirdly, the evil keeping thereof so vexes the body that it breeds fevers and diseases.'

— Double entry by Jane Gleeson-White (25%)

Q: Why make you Cash Debtor? A: Because Cash (having received my money unto it) is obliged to restore it again at my pleasure: for Cash representeth (to me) a man, to whom I (only upon confidence) have put my money into his keeping; the which by reason is obliged to render it back, or to give me an account what is become of it: even so if Cash be broken open, it giveth me notice what's become of my money, else it would redound it wholly back to me.

— Double entry by Jane Gleeson-White (24%)

The Pythagoreans divided mathematics into four subjects—arithmetic (or numbers absolute), music (numbers applied), geometry (magnitudes at rest), and astronomy (magnitudes in motion)—with geometry as the cornerstone of all education

— Double entry by Jane Gleeson-White (7%)

The same century also saw the merging of two streams of mathematics which had been split since the sixth century BC: the philosophical-speculative mathematics of Pythagoras and his successors, and the commercial arithmetic used by merchants. The mix would prove epoch-changing. It spurred the gradual rise of mathematics to its eventual usurpation of Latin as the lingua franca of Europe and ushered in a new era: the Age of Science.

— Double entry by Jane Gleeson-White (6%)

As Guardian journalist Jonathan Watts wrote in October 2010: 'So it has come to this. The global biodiversity crisis is so severe that brilliant scientists, political leaders, eco-warriors, and religious gurus can no longer save us from ourselves. The military are powerless. But there may be one last hope for life on earth: accountants.'

— Double entry by Jane Gleeson-White (2%)