Studies of sequence learning have outlined one possible mechanism by which complex mental representations are constructed out of simpler primitives: the human ability to extract complex nested structures from sequential inputs. Experiments in infants, preschoolers, and adults without access to education have demonstrated the existence of innate “core knowledge” for space, endowing humans with spontaneous intuitions of geometry. The question therefore arises whether a capacity for the internal representation and manipulation of nested sequences also underlies the acquisition of mathematics. We propose to formalize the human sensitivity to mathematical rules through a “language of thought” that allows the formation of complex