Full Idea
It is claimed that ordinals are prior to cardinals, because they form the progression which is relevant to mathematics, but they both form progressions and have the same ordinal properties. There is nothing to choose in logical priority between them.
Gist of Idea
Some claim priority for the ordinals over cardinals, but there is no logical priority between them
Source
Bertrand Russell (The Principles of Mathematics [1903], §230)
Book Reference
Russell,Bertrand: 'Principles of Mathematics' [Routledge 1992], p.241
A Reaction
We have an intuitive notion of the size of a set without number, but you can't actually start counting without number, so the ordering seems to be the key to the business, which (I would have thought) points to ordinals as prior.
Related Idea
Idea 14129 Ordinals presuppose two relations, where cardinals only presuppose one [Russell]