LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY Of 
 CAUFOfttMA
 
 V
 
 THE HUMAN WORTH OF RIGOROUS THINKING
 
 8 tit t) or 
 
 SCIENCE AND RELIGION: THE RATIONAL AND THE 
 STTPERRATIONAL The Yale University Press 
 
 THE NEW INFINITE AND THE OLD THEOLOGY 
 
 The Yale University Press 
 
 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 SALES AGENTS 
 
 NEW YORK LONDON 
 
 LEMCKE AND BUECHNER HUMPHREY MILFORD 
 
 30-32 WEST 27TH STREET AMEN CORNER, E. C.
 
 THE HUMAN WORTH OF 
 RIGOROUS THINKING 
 
 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES 
 
 BY 
 
 CASSIUS J. KEYSER, PH.D., LL.D. 
 
 ADRA1N PROFESSOR OF MATHEMATICS 
 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 
 
 flrto 
 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 1916 
 Alt rights reserved 
 
 PRINTED IN U. ft?
 
 Copyright, 1916 
 BY COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 Printed from type, May, 1916
 
 PREFACE 
 
 THE following fifteen essays and addresses have ap- 
 peared, in the course of the last fifteen years, as articles 
 in various scientific, literary, and philosophical journals. 
 For permission to reprint I have to thank the editors and 
 managers of The Columbia University Quarterly, The Co- 
 lumbia University Press, Science, The Educational Review, 
 The Bookman, The Monist, The Hibbert Journal, and The 
 Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods. 
 
 The title of the volume indicates its subject. The fact 
 that one of the essays, the initial one, bears the same title 
 is hardly more than a mere coincidence, for all of the dis- 
 cussions deal with the subject in question and nearly all 
 of them deal with it directly, consciously, and in terms. 
 
 In passing from essay to essay the attentive reader will 
 notice a few repetitions of thought and possibly a few 
 in forms of expression. Such reiterations, which owe 
 their presence to the occasional character of the essays 
 and to the aims and circumstances that originally con- 
 trolled their composition, may, it is hoped, be regarded 
 by the charitable reader less as blemishes than as means 
 of emphasizing important considerations. 
 
 CASSIUS J. KEYSER. 
 April 14, 1916.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. The Human Worth of Rigorous Thinking i 
 
 II. The Human Significance of Mathematics 26 
 
 m. The Humanization of the Teaching of Mathematics 61 
 
 IV. The Walls of the World; or Concerning the Figure and the 
 
 Dimensions of the Universe of Space 81 
 
 V. Mathematical Emancipations: Dimensionality and Hyperspace xox 
 
 VI. The Universe and Beyond: The Existence of the Hypercosmic 122 
 
 VII. The Axiom of Infinity: A New Presupposition of Thought . 139 
 
 VIII. The Permanent Basis of a Liberal Education 163 
 
 DC. Graduate Mathematical Instruction for Graduate Students not 
 
 Intending to Become Mathematicians 176 
 
 X. The Source and Functions of a University 201 
 
 XI. Research in American Universities 209 
 
 XII. Principia Mathematica 220 
 
 XIII. Concerning Multiple Interpretations of Postulate Systems and 
 
 the " Existence " of Hyperspace 233 
 
 XIV. Mathematical Productivity in the United States 257 
 
 XV. Mathematics 271
 
 THE HUMAN WORTH OF RIGOROUS 
 THINKING 1 
 
 But in the strong recess of Harmony 
 Established firm abides the rounded Sphere. 
 
 EMPEDOCLES 
 
 NEXT to the peaceful pleasure of meeting genuine 
 curiosity, half-way, upon its own ground, comes the 
 joy of combat when an attack upon some valued right 
 or precious interest of the human spirit requires to be 
 repelled. Indeed, given a competent jury, hardly any 
 other undertaking could be more stimulating than to 
 defend mathematics from a charge of being unworthy 
 to occupy, in the hierarchy of arts and sciences, the 
 high place to which, from the earliest times, the judg- 
 ment of mankind has assigned it. But, unfortunately, 
 no such accusation has been brought, brought, that is, 
 by persons of such scientific qualifications as to give 
 their opinion in the premises weight enough to call 
 for serious consideration. Mathematics has been often 
 praised by the scientifically incompetent; it has not, 
 so far as I am aware, been dispraised, or its worth 
 challenged or denied, by the scientifically competent. 
 The age-long immunity of mathematics from authorita- 
 
 1 An address delivered before the Mathematical Colloquium of Columbia 
 University, October 13, 1913. Printed, with slight change, in Science, 
 December 5, 1913; also, with other slight changes, printed in The Columbia 
 University Quarterly, June, 1914, under the title "The Study of Mathe- 
 matics." The substance of the address was delivered before the mathe- 
 matics section of the California High School Teachers Association, August, 
 1915, at Berkeley, California.
 
 2 THE HUMAN WORTH OF RIGOROUS THINKING 
 
 tive arraignment, and the high estimation in which 
 the science has been almost universally held in enlight- 
 ened times and places, unite to give it a position nearly, 
 if not quite, unique in the history of criticism. Perhaps 
 it were better not so. Mathematicians have a sense 
 of security to which, it may be, they are not entitled 
 in a critical age and a reeling world. Conceivably it 
 might have been to the advantage of mathematics and 
 not only of mathematics but of science in general, of 
 philosophy, too, and the general enlightenment, if in 
 course of the centuries mathematicians had been now 
 and then really compelled by adverse criticism of their 
 science to discover and to present not only to themselves 
 but acceptably to their fellow-men the deeper justifica- 
 tions, if such there be, of the world's approval and 
 applause of their work. However that may be, no 
 one is likely to dissent from the opinion of Mr. Bertrand 
 Russell that "in regard to every form of activity it is 
 necessary that the question should be asked from time 
 to time: what is its purpose and ideal? In what way 
 does it contribute to the beauty of human existence?" 
 An inquiry that is thus necessary for the general wel- 
 fare ought to be felt as. a duty, unless, more fortunately, 
 it be felt as a pleasure. 
 
 Why study mathematics? What are the rightful 
 claims of the science to human regard? What are the 
 grounds upon which a university may justify the annual 
 expenditure of thirty to fifty thousands of dollars to 
 provide for mathematical instruction and mathematical 
 research? 
 
 A slight transformation of the questions will help to 
 .disclose their significance and may give a quicker sense 
 of their poignancy and edge. What is mathematics? 
 I hasten to say that I do not intend to detain the reader
 
 THE HUMAN WORTH OP RIGOROUS THINKING 3 
 
 and thus perhaps to dampen his interest with a defini- 
 tion of mathematics, though it must be said that the 
 discovery of what mathematics is, is doubtless one of the 
 very great scientific achievements of the nineteenth 
 century. The question asks, not for a definition of the 
 science, but for a brief and helpful description of it 
 for an obvious mark or aspect of it that will enable us 
 to know what it is that we are here writing or reading 
 about. Well, mathematics may be viewed either as an 
 enterprise or as a body of achievements. As an enter- 
 prise mathematics is characterized by its aim, and its 
 aim is to think rigorously whatever is rigorously think- 
 able or whatever may become rigorously thinkable in 
 course of the upward striving and refining evolution of 
 ideas. As a body of achievements mathematics con- 
 sists of all the results that have come, in the course 
 of the centuries, from the prosecution of that enter- 
 prise: the truth discovered by it; the doctrines created 
 by it; the influence of these, through their applications 
 and their beauty, upon the advancement of civiliza- 
 tion and the weal of man. 
 
 Our questions now stand: Why should a human being 
 desire to share in that spiritual enterprise which has 
 for its aim to think rigorously whatever is or may 
 become rigorously thinkable and to "frame a world 
 according to a rule of divine perfection"? Why should 
 men and women seek some knowledge of that variety 
 of perfection with which men and women have enriched 
 life and the world by rigorous thought? What are the 
 just claims to human regard of perfect thought and the 
 spirit of perfect thinking? Upon what grounds may a 
 university justify the annual expenditure of thirty to 
 fifty thousands of dollars to provide for the disciplining 
 of men and women in the art of thinking rigorously
 
 4 THE HUMAN WORTH OF RIGOROUS THINKING 
 
 and for the promotion of research in the realm of exact 
 thought? 
 
 Such are the questions. They plainly sum themselves 
 in one: among the human agencies that ameliorate life, 
 what is the rdle of rigorous thinking? What is the role 
 of the spirit that always aspires to the attainment of 
 logical perfection? 
 
 Evidently that question is not one for adequate 
 handling in a brief magazine article by an ordinary 
 student of mathematics. Rather is it a subject for a 
 long series of lectures by a learned professor of the 
 history of civilization. Indeed so vast is the subject 
 that even an ordinary student of mathematics can 
 detect some of the more obvious tasks such a philosophic 
 historian would have to perform and a few of the dif- 
 ficulties he would doubtless encounter. It may be 
 worth while to mention some of them. 
 
 Certainly one of the tasks, and probably one of the 
 difficulties also, would be that of securing an audience 
 an audience, I mean, capable of understanding the 
 lectures, for is not a genuine auditor a listener who 
 understands? To understand the lectures it would 
 seem to be necessary to know what that is which the 
 lectures are about that is, it would be necessary to 
 know what is meant by rigorous thinking. To know 
 this, however, one must either have consciously done 
 some rigorous thinking or else, at the very least, have 
 examined some specimens of it pretty carefully, just 
 as, in order to know what good art is, it is, in general, 
 essential either to have produced good art or to have 
 attentively examined some specimens of it, or to have 
 done both of these things. Here, then, at the outset 
 our historian would meet a serious difficulty, unless 
 his audience chanced to be one of mathematicians,
 
 THE HUMAN WORTH OF RIGOROUS THINKING 5 
 
 which is (unfortunately) not likely, inasmuch as the 
 great majority of mathematicians are so exclusively 
 interested in mathematical study or teaching or research 
 as to be but little concerned with the philosophical 
 question of the human worth of their science. It is, 
 therefore, easy to see how our lecturer would have to 
 begin. 
 
 Ladies and gentlemen, we have met, he would say, 
 we have met to open a course of lectures dealing with the 
 role of rigorous thinking in the history of civilization. 
 In order that the course may be profitable to you, in 
 order that it may be a course in ideas and not merely 
 or mainly a verbal course, it is essential that you should 
 know what rigorous thinking is and what it is not. 
 Even I, your speaker, he will own, might reasonably 
 be held to the obligation of knowing that. 
 
 It is reasonable, ladies and gentlemen, it is reasonable 
 to assume, he would say, that in the course of your 
 education you neglected mathematics, and it is there- 
 fore probable or indeed quite certain that, notwith- 
 standing your many accomplishments, you do not quite 
 know or rather, perhaps I should say, you are very far 
 from knowing what rigorous thinking is or what it is 
 not. Of course, as you know, it is, generally speaking, 
 much easier to tell what a thing is not than to tell what 
 it is, and I might, he would say, I might proceed by 
 way of a preliminary to indicate roughly what rigorous 
 thinking is not. Thus I might explain that rigorous 
 thinking, though much of it has been done in the world 
 and though it has produced a large literature, is never- 
 theless a relatively rare phenomenon. I might point 
 out that a vast majority of mankind, a vast majority of 
 educated men and women, have not been disciplined 
 to think rigorously even those things that are most
 
 6 THE HUMAN WORTH OF RIGOROUS THINKING 
 
 available for such thinking. I might point out that, 
 on the other hand, most of the ideas with which men 
 and women have constantly to deal are as yet too nebu- 
 lous and vague, too little advanced in the course of 
 their evolution, to be available for concatenative think- 
 ing and rigorous discourse. I should have to say, he 
 would add, that, on these accounts, most of the think- 
 ing done in the world in a given day, whether done by 
 men in the street or by farmers or factory-hands or 
 administrators or historians or physicians or lawyers 
 or jurists or statesmen or philosophers or men of letters 
 or students of natural science or even mathematicians 
 (when not strictly employed in their own subject), 
 comes far short of the demands and standards of rig- 
 orous thinking. 
 
 I might go on to caution you, our speaker would say, 
 against the current fallacy, recently advanced by elo- 
 quent writers to the dignity of a philosophical tenet, 
 of regarding what is called successful action as the 
 touchstone of rigorous thinking. For you should know 
 that much of what passes in the world for successful 
 action proceeds from impulse or instinct and not from 
 thinking of any kind; .you should know that no action 
 under the control of non-rigorous thinking can be 
 strictly successful except by the favor of chance or 
 through accidental compensation of errors; you should 
 know that most of what passes for successful action, 
 most of what the world applauds and even commem- 
 morates as successful action, so far from being really 
 successful, varies from partial failure to failure that, 
 if not total, would at all events be fatal in any universe 
 that had the economic decency to forbid, under pain 
 of death, the unlimited wasting of its resources. The 
 dominant animal of such a universe would be, in fact,
 
 THE HUMAN WORTH OF RIGOROUS THINKING ^ 
 
 a superman. In our world the natural resources of 
 life are superabundant, and man is poor in reason 
 because he has been the prodigal son of a too opulent 
 mother. But, ladies and gentlemen, our speaker will 
 conclude, you will know better what rigorous thinking 
 is not when once you have learned what it is. This, 
 however, cannot well be learned in a course of lectures 
 in which that knowledge is presumed. I have, there- 
 fore, to adjourn this course until such time as you shall 
 have gained that knowledge. It cannot be gained by 
 reading about it or hearing about it. The easiest way, 
 for most persons the only way, to gain it is to examine 
 with exceeding patience and care some specimens, at 
 least one specimen, of the literature in which rigorous 
 thinking is embodied. Such a specimen, he could 
 add, is Dr. Thomas L. Heath's magnificent edition of 
 Euclid, where an excellent translation of the Elements 
 from the definitive text of Heiberg is set in the composite 
 light of critical commentary from Aristotle down to 
 the keenest logical microscopists and histologists of our 
 own day. If you think Euclid too ancient or too stale 
 even when seasoned with the wit of more than two 
 thousand years of the acutest criticism, you may find 
 a shorter and possibly a fresher way by examining 
 minutely such a work as Veronese's GrundzUge der 
 Geometric or Hilbert's famous Foundations of Geom- 
 etry or Peano's Sui Numeri Irrazionali. In works of 
 this kind and not elsewhere you will find in its nakedness, 
 purity, and spirit, what you have neglected and what 
 you need. You will note that in the beginning of such 
 a work there is found a system of assumptions or postu- 
 lates, discovered the Lord only and a few men of genius 
 know where or how, selected perhaps with reference to 
 simplicity and clearness, certainly selected and tested
 
 8 THE HUMAN WORTH OF RIGOROUS THINKING 
 
 with respect to their compatibility and independence, 
 and, it may be, with respect also to categoricity. You 
 will not fail to observe with the utmost minuteness, 
 and from every possible angle, how it is that upon these 
 postulates as a basis there is built up by a kind of 
 divine masonry, little step by step, a stately struc- 
 ture of ideas, an imposing edifice of rigorous thought, 
 a towering architecture of doctrine that is at once 
 beautiful, austere, sublime, and eternal. Ladies and 
 gentlemen, our speaker will say, to accomplish that ex- 
 amination will require twelve months of pretty assiduous 
 application. The next lecture of this course will be 
 given one year from date. 
 
 On resuming the course what will our philosopher 
 and historian proceed to say? He will begin to say what, 
 if he says it concisely, will make up a very large vol- 
 ume. Room is lacking here, even if competence were 
 not, for so much as an adequate outline of the matter. 
 It is possible, however, to draw with confidence a few 
 of the larger lines that such a sketch would have to 
 contain. 
 
 What is it that our speaker will be obliged to deal 
 with first? I do not mean obliged logically nor obliged 
 by an orderly development of his subject. I mean 
 obliged by the expectation of his hearers. Every one 
 can answer that question. For presumably the audience 
 represents the spirit of the times, and this age is, at 
 least to a superficial observer, an age of engineering. 
 Now, what is engineering? Well, the Charter of the 
 Institution of Civil Engineers tells us that engineering 
 is the "art of directing the great sources of power in 
 Nature for the use and convenience of man." By 
 Nature here must be meant external or physical nature, 
 for, if internal nature were also meant, every good form
 
 THE HUMAN WORTH OF RIGOROUS THINKING 9 
 
 of activity would be a species of engineering, and maybe 
 it is such, but that is a claim which even engineers 
 would hardly make and poets would certainly deny. 
 Use and convenience these are the key-bearing words. 
 It is perfectly evident that our lecturer will have to deal 
 first of all with what the world would call the "utility" 
 of rigorous thinking, that is to say, with the applica- 
 tions of mathematics and especially with its applica- 
 tions to problems of engineering. If he really knows 
 profoundly what mathematics is, he will not wish to 
 begin with applications nor even to make applications 
 a major theme of his discourse, but he must, and he will 
 do so uncomplainingly as a concession to the external- 
 mindedness of his time and his audience. He will not only 
 desire to show his audience applications of mathematics 
 to engineering, but, being an historian of civilization, he 
 will especially desire to show them the development of 
 such applications from the earliest times, from the 
 building of pyramids and the mensuration of land in 
 ancient Egypt down to such splendid modern achieve- 
 ments as the designing and construction of an Eads 
 Bridge, an ocean Imperator or a Panama Canal. The 
 story will be long and difficult, but it will edify. The 
 audience will be amazed at the truth if they under- 
 stand. If they do not understand the truth fully, our 
 speaker must at all events contrive that they shall see 
 it in glimmers and gleams and, above all, that they shall 
 acquire a feeling for it. They must be led to some 
 acquaintance with the great engineering works of the 
 world, past and present; they must be given an intel- 
 ligible conception of the immeasurable contribution 
 such works have made to the comfort, convenience, and 
 power of man; and especially must they be convinced 
 of the fact that, not only would the greatest of such
 
 10 THE HUMAN WORTH OF RIGOROUS THINKING 
 
 achievements have been, except for mathematics, utterly 
 impossible, but that such of the lesser ones as could 
 have been wrought without mathematical help could 
 not have been thus accomplished without wicked and 
 pathetic waste both of material resources and of human 
 toil. In respect to this latter point, the relation of 
 mathematics to practical economy in large affairs, our 
 speaker will no doubt invite his hearers to read and 
 reflect upon the ancient work of Frontinus on the Water 
 Supply of the City of Rome in order that thus they may 
 gain a vivid idea of the fact that the most practical 
 people of history, despising mathematics and the finer 
 intellectualizations of the Greeks, were unable to accom- 
 plish their own great engineering feats except through 
 appalling waste of materials and men. Our lecturer 
 will not be content, however, with showing the service 
 of mathematics in the prevention of waste; he will 
 show that it is indispensable to the productivity and 
 trade of the modern world. Before quitting this divi- 
 sion of his subject he will have demonstrated that, if 
 all the contributions which mathematics has made, and 
 which nothing else could make, to navigation, to the 
 building of railways, to the construction of ships, to the 
 subjugation of wind and wave, electricity and heat, and 
 many other forms and manifestations of energy, he 
 will have demonstrated, I say, and the audience will 
 finally understand, that, if all these contributions of 
 mathematics were suddenly withdrawn, the life and body 
 of industry and commerce would suddenly collapse as 
 by a paralytic stroke, the now splendid outer tokens 
 of material civilization would perish, and the face of 
 our planet would quickly assume the aspect of a ruined 
 and bankrupt world. 
 
 As our lecturer has been constrained by circumstances
 
 HUMAN WORTH OF RIGOROUS THINKING II 
 
 to back into his subject, as he has, that is, been com- 
 pelled to treat first of the service that mathematics has 
 rendered engineering, he will probably next speak of 
 the applications of mathematics to the so-called natural 
 sciences the more properly called experimental sciences 
 of physics, chemistry, biology, economics, psychology, 
 and the like. Here his task, if it is to be, as it ought to 
 be, expository as well as narrative, will be exceedingly 
 hard. For how can he weave into his narrative an intel- 
 ligible exposition of Newton's Principia, Laplace's Me- 
 canique Celeste, Lagrange's Mecanique Analytique, Gauss's 
 Theoria Motus Corporum Coelestium, Fourier's Thtorie 
 Analytique de la Chaleur, Maxwell's Electricity and 
 Magnetism, not to mention scores of other equally dif- 
 ficult and hardly less important works of a mathemat- 
 ical-physical character? Even if our speaker knew it 
 all, which no man can, he could not tell it all in- 
 telligibly to his hearers. These will have to be con- 
 tent with a rather general and superficial view, with a 
 somewhat vague intuition of the truth, with fragmentary 
 and analogical insights gained through settings forth of 
 great things by small; and they will have to help them- 
 selves and their speaker, too, by much pertinent read- 
 ing. No doubt the speaker will require his hearers, 
 in order that they may thus gain a tolerable perspective, 
 to read well not only the first two volumes of the 
 magnificent work of John Theodore Merz dealing with 
 the History of European Thought in the Nineteenth Cen- 
 tury, but also many selected portions of the kindred 
 literature there cited in richest profusion. The work 
 treats mainly of natural science, but it deals with it 
 philosophically, under the larger aspect, that is, of 
 science regarded as Thought. By the help of such 
 literature in the hands of his auditors, our lecturer will
 
 12 THE HUMAN WORTH OF RIGOROUS THINKING 
 
 be able to give them a pretty vivid sense of the great 
 and increasing role of mathematics in suggesting, formu- 
 lating, and solving problems in all branches of natural 
 science. Whether it be with "the astronomical view 
 of nature" that he is dealing, or "the atomic view" or 
 "the mechanical view" or "the physical view" or 
 "the morphological view" or "the genetic view" or "the 
 vitalistic view" or "the psychophysical view" or "the 
 statistical view," in every case, in all these great at- 
 tempts of reason to create or to find a cosmos amid the 
 chaos of the external world, the presence of mathe- 
 matics and its manifold service, both as instrument and 
 as norm, illustrate and confirm the Kantian and Rie- 
 mannian conception of natural science as "the attempt 
 to understand nature by means of exact concepts." 
 
 In connection with this division of his subject, our 
 speaker will find it easy to enter more deeply into the 
 spirit and marrow of it. He will be able to make it 
 clear that there is a sense, a just and important sense, 
 in which all thinkers and especially students of natural 
 science, though their thinking is for the most part not 
 rigorous, are yet themselves contributors to mathematics. 
 I do not refer to the powerful stimulation of mathe- 
 matics by natural science in furnishing it with many of 
 its problems and in constantly seeking its aid. What 
 I mean is that all thinkers and especially students of 
 natural science are engaged, both consciously and un- 
 consciously, both intentionally and unintentionally, 
 in the mathematicization of concepts that is to say, 
 in so transforming and refining concepts as to fit them 
 finally for the amenities of logic and the austerities of 
 rigorous thinking, We are dealing here, our speaker 
 will say, with a process transcending conscious design. 
 We are dealing with a process deep in the nature and
 
 THE HUMAN WORTH OF RIGOROUS THINKING 13 
 
 being of the psychic world. Like a child, an idea, once 
 it is born, once it has come into the realm of spiritual 
 light, possibly long before such birth, enters upon a 
 career, a career, however, that, unlike the child's, seems 
 to be immortal. In most cases and probably in all, 
 an idea, on entering the world of consciousness, is vague, 
 nebulous, formless, not at once betraying either what 
 it is or what it is destined to become. Ideas, however, 
 are under an impulse and law of amelioration. The 
 path of their upward striving and evolution often 
 a long and winding way leads towards precision and 
 perfection of form. The goal is mathematics. Witness, 
 for example, our lecturer will say, the age-long travail 
 and aspiration of the great concept now known as mathe- 
 matical continuity, a concept whose inner structure is 
 even now known and understood only of mathematicians, 
 though the ancient Greeks helped in molding its form 
 and though it has long been, if somewhat blindly, yet 
 constantly employed in natural science, as when a 
 physicist, for example, or an astronomer uses such 
 numbers as e and tr in computation. Witness, again, 
 how that supreme concept of mathematics, the concept 
 of function, has struggled through thousands of years 
 to win at length its present precision of form out of 
 the nebulous sense, which all minds have, of the mere 
 dependence of things on other things. Witness, too, he 
 will say, the mathematical concept of infinity, which 
 prior to a half-century ago was still too vague for logical 
 discourse, though from remotest antiquity the great 
 idea has played a conspicuous role, mainly emotional, 
 in theology, philosophy, and science. Like examples 
 abound, showing that one of the most impressive and 
 significant phenomena in the life of the psychic world, 
 if we will but discern and contemplate it, is the process
 
 14 THE HUMAN WORTH OF RIGOROUS THINKING 
 
 by which ideas advance, often slowly indeed but surely, 
 from their initial condition of formlessness and inde- 
 termination to the mathematical estate. The chemic- 
 ization of biology, the physicization of chemistry, the 
 mechanicization of physics, the mathematicization of 
 mechanics, the arithmeticization of mathematics, these 
 well-known tendencies and drifts in science do but illus- 
 trate on a large scale the ubiquitous process in question. 
 
 At length, ladies and gentlemen, our speaker will say, 
 in the light of the last consideration the deeper and 
 larger aspects of our subject are beginning to show 
 themselves and there is dawning upon us an impressive 
 vision. The nature, function, and life of the entire 
 conceptual world seem to come within the circle and 
 scope of our present enterprise. We are beginning to 
 see that to challenge the human worth of mathematics, 
 to challenge the worth of rigorous thinking, is to chal- 
 lenge the worth of all thinking, for now we see that 
 mathematics is but the ideal to which all thinking, by 
 an inevitable process and law of the human spirit, 
 constantly aspires. We see that to challenge the worth 
 of that ideal is to arraign before the bar of values what 
 seems the deepest process and inmost law of the uni- 
 verse of thought. Indeed we see that in defending 
 mathematics we are really defending a cause yet more 
 momentous, the whole cause, namely, of the conceptual 
 procedure of science and the conceptual activity of the 
 human mind, for mathematics is nothing but such con- 
 ceptual procedure and activity come to its maturity, 
 purity, and perfection. 
 
 Now, ladies and gentlemen, our lecturer will say, I 
 cannot in this course deal explicitly and fully with this 
 larger issue. But, he will say, we are living in a day 
 when that issue has been raised; we happen to be living
 
 THE HUMAN WORTH OP RIGOROUS THINKING 15 
 
 in a time when, under the brilliant and effective leader- 
 ship of such thinkers as Professor Bergson and the late 
 Professor James, the method of concepts, the method of 
 intellect, the method of science, is being powerfully 
 assailed; and, he will say, whilst I heartily welcome this 
 attack of criticism as causing scientific men to reflect 
 more deeply upon the method of science, as exhibiting 
 more clearly the inherent limitations of its method, and 
 as showing that life is so rich as to have many precious 
 interests and the world much truth beyond the reach 
 of that method, yet I cannot refrain, he will say, from 
 attempting to point out what seems to me a radical 
 error of the critics, a fundamental error of theirs, in 
 respect to what is the highest function of conception 
 and in respect to what is the real aim and ideal of the 
 life of intellect. For we shall thus be led to a deeper 
 view of our subject proper. 
 
 These critics find, as all of us find, that what we call 
 mind or our minds is, in some mysterious way, func- 
 tionally connected with certain living organisms known 
 as human bodies; they find that these living bodies 
 are constantly immersed in a universe of matter and 
 motion in which they are continually pushed and pulled, 
 heated and cooled, buffeted and jostled about a 
 universe that, according to James, would, in the "ab- 
 sence of concepts," reveal itself as "a big blooming 
 buzzing confusion" though it is hard to see how such 
 a revelation could happen to any one devoid of the 
 concept "confusion," but let that pass; our critics find 
 that our minds get into some initial sort of knowing 
 connection with that external blooming confusion through 
 what they call the sensibility of our bodies, yielding 
 all manner of sensations as of weights, pressures, pushes 
 and pulls, of intensities and extensities of brightness,
 
 1 6 THE, HUMAN WORTH OF RIGOROUS THINKING 
 
 sound, time, colors, space, odors, tastes, and so on; they 
 find that we must, on pain of organic extinction, take 
 some account of these elements of the material world; 
 they find that, as a fact, we human beings constantly 
 deal with these elements through the instrumentality 
 of concepts; they find that the effectiveness of our 
 dealing with the material world is precisely due to our 
 dealing with it conceptually; they infer that, there- 
 fore, dealing with matter is exactly what concepts are 
 for, saying with Ostwald, for example, that the goal of 
 natural science, the goal of the conceptual method of 
 mind, "is the domination of nature by man"; not only, 
 our speaker will say, do our critics find that we deal 
 with the material world conceptually, and effectively 
 because conceptually, but they find also that life has 
 interests and the world values not accessible to the con- 
 ceptual method, and as this method is the method of 
 the intellect, they conclude, not only that the intellect 
 cannot grasp life, but that the aim and ideal of intellect 
 is the understanding and subjugation of matter, saying 
 with Professor Bergson "that our intellect is intended 
 to think matter," "that our concepts have been formed 
 on the model of solids," "that the essential function 
 of our intellect . . . is to be a light for our conduct, 
 to make ready for our action on things," that "the 
 intellect always behaves as if it were fascinated by the 
 contemplation of inert matter," that "intelligence . . . 
 aims at a practically useful end," that "the intellect is 
 never quite at its ease, . . . except when it is working 
 upon inert matter, more particularly upon solids," and 
 much more to the same effect. 
 
 Now, ladies and gentlemen, our speaker will ask, 
 what are we to think of this? What are we to think of 
 this evaluation of the science-making method of con-
 
 THE HUMAN WORTH OF RIGOROUS THINKING 17 
 
 cepts? What are we to think of the aim and ideal 
 here ascribed to the intellect and of the station assigned 
 it among the faculties of the human mind? In the first 
 place, he will say, it ought to be evident to the critics 
 themselves, and evident to them even in what they 
 esteem the poor light of intellect, that the above- 
 sketched movement of their minds is a logically unsound 
 movement. They do not indeed contend that, because 
 a living being in order to live must deal with the material 
 world, it must, therefore, do so by means of concepts. 
 The lower animals have taught them better. But 
 neither does it follow that, because certain bipeds in 
 dealing with the material world deal with it concep- 
 tually, the essential function of concepts is just to deal 
 with matter. Nor does such an inference respecting 
 the essential function of concepts follow from the fact 
 that the superior effectiveness of man's dealing with the 
 physical world is due to his dealing with it conceptually. 
 For it is obviously conceivable and supposable that 
 such conceptual dealing with matter is only an incident 
 or byplay or subordinate interest in the career of con- 
 cepts. It is conceivably possible that such employ- 
 ment with matter is only an avocation, more or less 
 serious indeed and more or less advantageous, yet an 
 avocation, and not the vocation, of intellect. Is it 
 not evidently possible to go even further? Is it not 
 logically possible to admit or to contend that, inasmuch 
 as the human intellect is functionally attached to a 
 living body which is itself plunged in a physical uni- 
 verse, it is absolutely necessary for the intellect to con- 
 cern itself with matter in order to preserve, not indeed 
 the animal life of man, but his intellectual life is it 
 not allowable, he will say, to admit or to maintain that 
 and at the same time to deny that such concernment
 
 1 8 THE HUMAN WORTH OF RIGOROUS THINKING 
 
 with matter is the intellect's chief or essential function 
 and that the subjugation of matter is its ideal and aim? 
 
 Of course, our lecturer will say, our critics might be 
 wrong in their logic and right in their opinion, just as 
 they might be wrong in their opinion and right in their 
 logic, for opinion is often a matter, not of logic or proof, 
 but of temperament, taste, and insight. But, he will 
 say, if the issue as to the chief function of concepts and 
 the ideal of the intellect is to be decided in accordance 
 with temperament, taste, and insight, then there is room 
 for exercise of the preferential faculty, and alternatives 
 far superior to the choice of our critics are easy enough 
 to find. It may accord better with our insight and 
 taste to agree with Aristotle that "It is owing," not to 
 the necessity of maintaining animal life or the desire 
 of subjugating matter, but "it is owing to their wonder 
 that men both now begin and first began to philoso- 
 phize; they wondered originally at the obvious diffi- 
 culties, then advanced little by little and stated the 
 difficulties about the greater matters." The striking 
 contrast of this with the deliverances of Bergson is 
 not surprising, for Aristotle was a pupil of Plato and 
 the doctrine of Bergson is that of Plato completely 
 inverted. It may accord better with our insight and 
 taste to agree with the great K. G. J. Jacobi, who, when 
 he had been reproached by Fourier for not devoting his 
 splendid genius to physical investigations instead of 
 pure mathematics, replied that a philosopher like his 
 critic "ought to know that the unique end of science 
 is," not public utility and application to natural phe- 
 nomena, but "is the honor of the human spirit." It 
 may accord better with our temperament and insight 
 to agree with the sentiment of Diotima: "I am per- 
 suaded that all men do all things, and the better they
 
 THE HUMAN WORTH OF RIGOROUS THINKING 19 
 
 are, the better they do them, in the hope," not of 
 subjugating matter, but "in the hope of the glorious 
 fame of immortal virtue." 
 
 But it is unnecessary, ladies and gentlemen, it is un- 
 necessary, our speaker will say, to bring the issue to 
 final trial in the court of temperaments and tastes. 
 We should gain there a too easy victory. The critics 
 are psychologists, some of them eminent psychologists. 
 Let the issue be tried in the court of psychology, for 
 it is there that of right it belongs. They know the 
 fundamental and relevant facts. What is the verdict 
 according to these? The critics know the experiments 
 that have led to and confirmed the psychophysical law 
 of Weber and Fechner and the doctrine of thresholds; 
 they know that, in accordance with that doctrine and 
 that law, an appropriate stimulus, no matter what the 
 department of sense, may be finite in amount and yet 
 too small, or finite and yet too large, to yield a sensa- 
 tion; they know that the difference between two stimuli 
 of a kind appropriate to a given sense department, no 
 matter what department, may be a finite difference and 
 yet too small for sensibility to detect, or to work a 
 change of sensation; they ought to know, though they 
 seem not to have recognized, much less to have weighed, 
 the fact that, owing to the presence of thresholds, the 
 greatest number of distinct sensations possible in any 
 department of sense is a finite number; they ought to 
 know that the number of different departments of sense 
 is also a. finite number; they ought to know that, there- 
 fore, the total number of distinct or different sensations 
 of which a human being is capable is a finite number; 
 they ought to know, though they seem not to have 
 recognized the fact, that, on the other hand, the world 
 of concepts is of infinite multiplicity, that concepts, the
 
 20 THE HUMAN WORTH OF RIGOROUS THINKING 
 
 fruit of intellect, as distinguished from sensations, the 
 fruit of sensibility, are infinite in number; they ought, 
 therefore, to see, our speaker will say, though none of 
 them has seen, that in attempting to derive intellect 
 out of sensibility, in attempting to show that (as James 
 says) "concepts flow out of percepts," they are con- 
 fronted with the problem of bridging the immeasurable 
 gulf between the finite and the infinite, of showing, that 
 is, how an infinite multiplicity can arise from one that 
 is finite. But even if they solved that apparently 
 insuperable problem, they could not yet be in position 
 to affirm that the function of intellect and its concepts 
 is, like that of sensibility, just the function of dealing 
 with matter, as the function of teeth is biting and 
 chewing. Far from it. 
 
 Let us have another look, the lecturer will say, at 
 the psychological facts of the case. Owing to the pres- 
 ence of thresholds in every department of sense it may 
 happen and indeed it does happen constantly in every 
 department, that three different amounts of stimulus of 
 a same kind give three sensations such that two of them 
 are each indistinguishable from the third and yet are dis- 
 tinguishable from one -another. Now, for sensibility in 
 any department of sense, two magnitudes of stimulus 
 are unequal or equal according as the sensations given 
 by them are or are not distinguishable. Accordingly in 
 the world of sensible magnitudes, in the sensible universe, 
 in the world, that is, of felt weights and thrusts and 
 pulls and pressures, of felt brightnesses and warmths and 
 lengths and breadths and thicknesses and so on, in this 
 world, which is the world of matter, magnitudes are such 
 that two of them may each be equal to a third without being 
 equal to one another. That, our speaker will say, is a 
 most significant fact and it means that the sensible
 
 THE HUMAN WORTH OF RIGOROUS THINKING 21 
 
 world, the world of matter, is irrational, infected with 
 contradiction, contravening the essential laws of thought. 
 No wonder, he will say, that old Heracleitus declared 
 the unaided senses "give a fraud and a lie." 
 
 Now, our speaker will ask, what has been and is the 
 behavior of intellect in the presence of such contra- 
 diction? Observe, he will say, that it is intellect, and 
 not sensibility, that detects the contradiction. Of the 
 irrationality in question sensibility remains insensible. 
 The data among which the contradiction subsists are 
 indeed rooted in the sensible world, they inhere in the 
 world of matter, but the contradiction itself is known 
 only to the logical faculty called intellect. Observe 
 also, he will say, and the observation is important, that 
 such contradictions do not compel the intellect to any 
 activity whatever intended to preserve the life of the 
 living organism to which the intellect is functionally 
 attached. That is a lesson we have from our physical 
 kin, the beasts. What, then, has the intellect done 
 because of or about the contradiction? Has it gone on 
 all these centuries, as our critics would have us believe, 
 trying to "think matter," as if it did not know that 
 matter, being irrational, is not thinkable? Far from it, 
 he will say, the intellect is no such ass. 
 
 What it has done, instead of endlessly and stupidly 
 besieging the illogical world of sensible magnitudes 
 with the machinery of logic, what it has done, our lec- 
 turer will say, is this: it has created for itself another 
 world. It has not rationalized the world of sensible 
 magnitudes. That, it knows, cannot be done. It has 
 discerned the ineradicable contradictions inherent in 
 them, and by means of its creative power of conception 
 it has made a new world, a world of conceptual magni- 
 tudes that, like the continue of mathematics, are so
 
 22 THE HUMAN WORTH OF RIGOROUS THINKING 
 
 constructed by the spiritual architect and so endowed 
 by it as to be free alike from the contradictions of the 
 sensible world and from all thresholds that could give 
 them birth. Indeed conception, to speak metaphorically 
 hi terms borrowed from the realm of sense, is a kind of 
 infinite sensibility, transcending any finite distinction, 
 difference or threshold, however minute or fine. And 
 now, our speaker will say, it is such magnitudes, magni- 
 tudes created by intellect and not those discovered by 
 sense, though the two varieties are frequently not 
 discriminated by their names; it is such conceptual mag- 
 nitudes that constitute the subject-matter of science. 
 If the magnitudes of science, apart from their ration- 
 ality, often bear in conformation a kind of close resem- 
 blance to magnitudes of sense, what is the meaning of 
 the fact? It means, contrary to the view of Bergson 
 but in accord with that of Poincare, that the free crea- 
 ative artist, intellect, though it is not constrained, yet 
 has chosen to be guided, in so far as its task allows, 
 by facts of sense. Thus we have, for example, concep- 
 tual space and sensible space so much alike in conforma- 
 tion that, though one of them is rational and the other 
 is not, the undiscriminating hold them as the same. 
 
 And now, our lecturer will ask, for we are nearing the 
 goal, what, then, is the motive and aim of this creative 
 activity of the intellect? Evidently it is not to preserve 
 and promote the life of the human body, for animals 
 flourish without the aid of concepts, without "discourse 
 of reason," and despite the contradictions in the world 
 of sense. The aim is, he will say, to preserve and pro- 
 mote the life of the intellect itself. In a realm infected 
 with irrationality, with omnipresent contradictions of 
 the laws of thought, intellect cannot live, much less 
 flourish; in the world of sense, it has no proper subject-
 
 THE HUMAN WORTH OF RIGOROUS THINKING 23 
 
 matter, no home, no life. To live, to flourish, it must 
 be able to think, to think in accordance with the laws 
 of its being. It is stimulated and its activity is sus- 
 tained by two opposite forces: discord and concord. 
 By the one it is driven; by the other, drawn. Intel- 
 lect is a perpetual suitor. The object of the suit is, 
 not the conquest of matter, it is a thing of mind, it is 
 the music of the spirit, it is Harmonia, the beautiful 
 daughter of the Muses. The aim, the ideal, the beati- 
 tude of intellect is harmony. That is the meaning 
 of its endless talk about compatibilities, consistencies 
 and concords, and that is the meaning of its endless 
 battling and circumvention and transcendence of con- 
 tradiction. But what of the applications of science and 
 public service? These are by-products of the intellect's 
 aim and of the pursuit of its ideal. Many things it 
 regards as worthy, high, and holy applications of 
 science, public service, the "wonder" of Aristotle, 
 Jacobi's "honor of the human spirit," Diotima's "glori- 
 ous fame of immortal virtue" -but that which, by 
 the law of its being, Intellect seeks above all and per- 
 petually pursues and loves, is Harmony. It is for a 
 home and a dwelling with her that intellect creates a 
 world; and its admonition is: Seek ye first the kingdom 
 of harmony, and all these things shall be added unto 
 you. 
 
 And the ideal and admonition, thus revealed in the 
 light of analysis, are. justified of history. Inverting the 
 order of time, we have only to contemplate the great 
 periods in the intellectual life of Paris, Florence, and 
 Athens. If, among these mightiest contributors to the 
 spiritual wealth of man, Athens is supreme, she is also 
 supreme in her devotion to the intellect's ideal. It is 
 of Athens that Euripides sings:
 
 24 THE HUMAN WORTH OF RIGOROUS THINKING 
 
 The sons of Erechtheus, the olden, 
 
 Whom high gods planted of yore 
 In an old land of heaven upholden, 
 
 A proud land untrodden of war: 
 They are hungered, and lo, their desire 
 
 With wisdom is fed as with meat: 
 In their skies is a shining of fire, 
 
 A joy in the fall of their feet: 
 And thither with manifold dowers, 
 
 From the North, from the hills, from the morn, 
 The Muses did gather their powers, 
 
 That a child of the Nine should be born; 
 And Harmony, sown as the flowers, 
 
 Grew gold in the acres of corn. 
 
 And thus, ladies and gentlemen, our lecturer will say, 
 what I wish you to see here is, that science and espe- 
 cially mathematics, the ideal form of science, are crea- 
 tions of the intellect in its quest of harmony. It is 
 as such creations that they are to be judged and their 
 human worth appraised. Of the applications of mathe- 
 matics to engineering and its service in natural science, 
 I have spoken at length, he will say, in course of previous 
 lectures. Other great themes of our subject remain for 
 consideration. To appraise the worth of mathematics 
 as a discipline in the art of rigorous thinking and as a 
 means of giving facility and wing to the subtler imagina- 
 tion; to estimate and explain its value as a norm for 
 criticism and for the guidance of speculation and pioneer- 
 ing in fields not yet brought under the dominion of 
 logic; to estimate its esthetic worth as showing forth 
 in psychic light the law and order of the psychic world; 
 to evaluate its ethical significance in rebuking by its 
 certitude and eternality the facile scepticism that doubts 
 all knowledge, and especially in serving as a retreat for 
 the spirit when as at times the world of sense seems 
 madly bent on heaping strange misfortunes up and "to 
 and fro the chances of the years dance like an idiot in
 
 THE HUMAN WORTH OF RIGOROUS THINKING 25 
 
 the wind"; to give a sense of its religious value in "the 
 contemplation of ideas under the form of eternity," 
 in disclosing a cosmos of perfect beauty and everlasting 
 order and in presenting there, for meditation, endless 
 sequences traversing the rational world and seeming to 
 point to a mystical region above and beyond: these and 
 similar themes, our speaker will say, remain to be dealt 
 with in subsequent lectures of the course.
 
 THE HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE OF 
 MATHEMATICS l 
 
 Homo sum; humani nil a me alienum puto. 
 
 TERENCE 
 
 THE subject of this address is not of my choosing. It 
 came to me by assignment. I may, therefore, be allowed 
 to say that it is in my judgment ideally suited to the 
 occasion. This meeting is held here upon this beautiful 
 coast because of the presence of an international exposi- 
 tion, and we are thus invited to a befitting largeness and 
 liberality of spirit. An international exposition prop- 
 erly may and necessarily will admit many things of a 
 character too technical to be intelligible to any one but 
 the expert and the specialist. Such things, however, 
 are only incidental contributory, indeed, yet inci- 
 dental to pursuit of the principal aim, which is, I 
 believe, or ought to -be, the representation of human 
 things as human an exhibition and interpretation 
 of industries, institutions, sciences and arts, not pri- 
 marily in their accidental or particular character as 
 illustrating individuals or classes or specific localities 
 or times, but primarily in their essential and universal 
 character as representative of man. A world-exposition 
 will, therefore, as far as practicable, avoid placing in 
 the forefront matters so abstruse as to be fit for the 
 
 1 An address delivered August 3, 1915, Berkeley, Calif., at a joint meet- 
 ing of the American Mathematical Society, the American Astronomical 
 Society, and Section A of the American Association for the Advancement 
 of Science. Printed in Science, November 12, 1915.
 
 HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE OF MATHEMATICS 27 
 
 contemplation and understanding of none but special- 
 ists; it will, as a whole, and in all its principal parts, 
 address itself to the general intelligence; for it aims at 
 being, for the multitudes of men and women who avail 
 themselves of its exhibitions and lessons, an exposition 
 of humanity: an exposition, no doubt, of the activities 
 and aspirations and prowess of individual men and 
 women, but of men and women, not in their capacity, 
 as individuals, but as representatives of humankind. In- 
 dividual achievements are not the object, they are the 
 means, of the exposition. The object is humanity. 
 
 What is the human significance what is the sig- 
 nificance for humanity of "the mother of the sci- 
 ences"? And how may the matter be best set forth, 
 not for the special advantage of professional mathe- 
 maticians, for I shall take the liberty of having these 
 but little in mind, but for the advantage and under- 
 standing of educated men and women in general? I am 
 unable to imagine a more difficult undertaking, so tech- 
 nical, especially in its language, and so immense is the 
 subject. It is clear that the task is far beyond the 
 resources of an hour's discourse, and so it is necessary 
 to restrict and select. This being the case, what is it 
 best to choose? The material is superabundant. What 
 part of it or aspect of it is most available for the end in 
 view? "In abundant matter to speak a little with 
 elegance," says Pindar, "is a thing for the wise to listen 
 to." It is not, however, a question of elegance. It is 
 a question of emphasis, of clarity, of effectiveness. What 
 shall be our major theme? 
 
 Shall it be the history of the subject? Shall it be 
 the modern developments of mathematics, its present 
 status and its future outlook? Shall it be the utilities 
 of the science, its so-called applications, its service in
 
 28 HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE OF MATHEMATICS 
 
 practical affairs, in engineering and in what it is cus- 
 tomary to call the sciences of nature? Shall it be the 
 logical foundations of mathematics, its basic principles, 
 its inner nature, its characteristic processes and struc- 
 ture, the differences and similitudes that come to light 
 in comparing it with other forms of scientific and philo- 
 sophic activity? Shall it be the bearings of the science 
 as distinguished from its applications the bearings of 
 it as a spiritual enterprise upon the higher concerns of 
 man as man? It might be any one of these things. 
 They are all of them great and inspiring themes. 
 
 It is easy to understand that a historian would choose 
 the first. The history of mathematics is indeed im- 
 pressive, but is it not too long and too technical? And 
 is it not already accessible in a large published litera- 
 ture of its own? I grant, the historian would say, that 
 its history is long, for in respect of antiquity mathematics 
 is a rival of art, surpassing nearly all branches of sci- 
 ence and by none of them surpassed. I grant that, for 
 laymen, the history is technical, frightfully technical, 
 requiring interpretation in the interest of general in- 
 telligence. I grant, too, that the history owns a large 
 literature, but this, the historian would say, is not 
 designed for the general reader, however intelligent, the 
 numerous minor works no less than the major ones, 
 including that culminating monumental work of Moritz 
 Cantor, being, all of them, addressed to specialists and 
 intelligible to them alone. And yet it would be pos- 
 sible to tell in one hour, not indeed the history of mathe- 
 matics, but a true story of it that would be intelligible 
 to all and would show its human significance to be 
 profound, manifold, and even romantic. It would be 
 possible to show historically that this science, which 
 now carries its head so high in the tenuous atmosphere
 
 HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE OF MATHEMATICS 29 
 
 of pure abstractions, has always kept its feet upon the 
 solid earth; it would be possible to show that it owns 
 indeed a lowly origin, in the familiar needs of common 
 life, in the homely necessities of counting herds and 
 measuring lands; it would be possible to show that, 
 notwithstanding its birth in the concrete things of sense 
 and raw reality, it yet so appealed to sheer intellect - 
 and we must not forget that creative intellect is the 
 human faculty par excellence it so appealed to this 
 distinctive and disinterested faculty of man that, long 
 before the science rose to the level of a fine art in 
 the great days of Euclid and Archimedes, Plato in the 
 wisdom of his maturer years judged it essential to the 
 education of freemen because, said he, there is in it a 
 necessary something against which even God can not 
 contend and without which neither gods nor demi-gods 
 can wisely govern mankind; it would be possible, our 
 historian could say, to show historically to educated 
 laymen that, even prior to the inventions of analytical 
 geometry and the infinitesimal calculus, mathematics 
 had played an indispensable role in the "Two New 
 Sciences" of physics and mechanics in which Galileo 
 laid the foundations of our modern knowledge of nature; 
 it would be possible to show not only that the analytical 
 geometry of Descartes and Fermat and the calculus 
 of Leibnitz and Newton have been and are essential 
 to our still advancing conquest of the sea, but that it 
 is owing to the power of these instruments that the 
 genius of such as Newton, Laplace and Lagrange has 
 been enabled to create for us a new earth and a new 
 heavens compared with which the Mosaic cosmogony or 
 the sublimest creation of the Greek imagination is but 
 "as a cabinet of brilliants, or rather a little jewelled 
 cup found in the ocean or the wilderness"; it would
 
 30 HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE OF MATHEMATICS 
 
 be possible to show historically that, just because the 
 pursuit of mathematical truth has been for the most part 
 disinterested led, that is, by wonder, as Aristotle says, 
 and sustained by the love of beauty with the joy of 
 discovery it would be possible to show that, just 
 because of the disinterestedness of mathematical re- 
 search, this science has been so well prepared to meet 
 everywhere and always, as they have arisen, the mathe- 
 matical exigencies of natural science and engineering; 
 above all, it would be feasible to show historically that 
 to the same disinterestedness of motive operating through 
 the centuries we owe the upbuilding of a body of pure 
 doctrine so towering to-day and vast that no man, even 
 though he have the "Andean intellect" of a Poincare, 
 can embrace it all. This much, I believe, and perhaps 
 more, touching the human significance of mathematics, 
 a historian of the science might reasonably hope to 
 demonstrate in one hour. 
 
 More difficult, far more difficult, I think, would be 
 the task of a pure mathematician who aimed at an 
 equivalent result by expounding, or rather by delineat- 
 ing, for he could not in one hour so much as begin to 
 expound, the modern developments of the subject. 
 Could he contrive even to delineate them in a way to 
 reveal their relation to what is essentially humane? Do 
 but consider for a moment the nature of such an enter- 
 prise. Mathematics may be legitimately pursued for 
 its own sake or for the sake of its applications or with 
 a view to understanding its logical foundations and 
 internal structure or in the interest of magnanimity 
 or for the sake of its bearings upon the supreme con- 
 cerns of man as man or from two or more of these 
 motives combined. Our supposed delineator is actuated 
 by the first of them: his interest in mathematics is an
 
 HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE OF MATHEMATICS 3! 
 
 interest in mathematics for the sake of mathematics; 
 for him the science is simply a large and growing body 
 of logical consistencies or compatibilities; he derives 
 his inspiration from the muse of intellectual harmony; 
 he is a pure mathematician. He knows that pure mathe- 
 matics is a house of many chambers; he knows that 
 its foundations lie far beneath the level of common 
 thought; and that the superstructure, quickly tran- 
 scending the power of imagination to follow it, ascends 
 higher and higher, ever keeping open to the sky; he 
 knows that the manifold chambers each of them a 
 mansion in itself are all of them connected in won- 
 drous ways, together constituting a fit laboratory and 
 dwelling for the spirit of men of genius. He has assumed 
 the task of presenting a vision of it that shall be worthy 
 of a world-exposition. Can he keep the obligation? 
 He wishes to show that the life and work of pure 
 mathematicians are human life and work: he desires 
 to show that these toilers and dwellers in the chambers 
 of pure thought are representative men. He would 
 exhibit the many-chambered house to the thronging 
 multitudes of his fellow men and women; he would 
 lead them into it; he would conduct them from chamber 
 to chamber by the curiously winding corridors, passing 
 now downward, now upward, by delicate passage- 
 ways and subtle stairs; he would show them that the 
 wondrous castle is not a dead or static affair like a 
 structure of marble or steel, but a living architecture, a 
 living mansion of life, human as their own; he would 
 show them the mathetic spirit at work, how it is ever 
 weaving, tirelessly weaving, fabrics of beauty, finer than 
 gossamer yet stronger than cables of steel; he would 
 show them how it is ever enlarging its habitation, deep- 
 ening its foundations, expanding more and more and
 
 32 HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE OF MATHEMATICS 
 
 elevating the superstructure; and, what is even more 
 amazing, how it perpetually performs the curious miracle 
 of permanence combined with change, transforming, 
 that is, the older portions of the edifice without destroy- 
 ing it, for the structure is eternal: in a word, he would 
 show them a vision of the whole, and he would do it in 
 a way to make them perceive and feel that, in thus 
 beholding there a partial and progressive attainment of 
 the higher ideals of man, they were but gazing upon a 
 partial and progressive realization of their own appe- 
 titions and dreams. 
 
 That is what he would do. But how? Mengenlehre, 
 Zahlenlehre, algebras of many kinds, countless geometries 
 of countless infinite spaces, function theories, trans- 
 formations, invariants, groups and the rest how can 
 these with all their structural finesse, with their heights 
 and depths and limitless ramifications, with their laby- 
 rinthine and interlocking modern developments I will 
 not say how can they be presented in the measure and 
 scale of a great exposition but how is it possible in 
 one hour to give laymen even a glimpse of the endless 
 array? Nothing could be more extravagant or more 
 absurd than such an undertaking. Compared with it, 
 the American traveler's hope of being able to see Rome 
 in a single forenoon was a most reasonable expectation. 
 But it is worth while trying to realize how stupendous 
 the absurdity is. 
 
 It is evident that our would-be delineator must com- 
 promise. He can not expound, he can not exhibit, he 
 can not even delineate the doctrines whose human 
 worth he would thus disclose to his fellow men and 
 women. The fault is neither his nor theirs. It must 
 be imputed to the nature of things. But he need not, 
 therefore, despair and he need not surrender. The
 
 HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE OF MATHEMATICS 33 
 
 method he has proposed the method of exposition 
 that indeed he must abandon as hopeless, but not his 
 aim. He is addressing men and women who are no 
 doubt without his special knowledge and his special 
 discipline, as he in his turn is without theirs, but who 
 are yet essentially like himself. He would have them 
 as fellows and comrades persuaded of the dignity of his 
 Fach: he would have them feel that it is also theirs; 
 he would have them convinced that mathematics stands 
 for an immense body of human achievements, for a 
 diversified continent of pure doctrine, for a discovered 
 world of intellectual harmonies. He can not show it 
 to them as a painter displays a canvas or as an architect 
 presents a cathedral. He can not give them an imme- 
 diate vision of it, but he can give them intimations; 
 by appealing to their fantasie and, through analogy with 
 what they know, to their understanding, not only can 
 he convince them that his world exists, but he can give 
 them an intuitive apprehension of its living presence 
 and its meaning for humankind. This is possible be- 
 cause, like him, they, too, are idealists, dreamers and 
 poets such essentially are all men and women. His 
 auditors or his readers have all had some experience of 
 ideas and of truth, they have all had inklings of more 
 beyond, they have all been visited and quickened by a 
 sense of the limitless possibilities of further knowledge 
 in every direction, they have all dreamed of the perfect 
 and have felt its lure. They are thus aware that the 
 small implies the large; having seen hills, they can 
 believe in mountains; they know that Euripides, Shake- 
 speare, Dante, Goethe, are but fulfillments of prophecies 
 heard in peasant tales and songs; they know that the 
 symphonies of Beethoven or the dramas of Wagner are 
 harbingered in the melodies and the sighs of those who
 
 34 HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE OF MATHEMATICS 
 
 garner grain and in their hearts respond to the music of 
 the winds or the "solemn anthems of the sea"; they 
 sense the secret by which the astronomy of Newton and 
 Laplace is foretokened in the shepherd's watching of 
 the stars; and knowing thus this plain spiritual law 
 of progressiveness and implication, they are prepared 
 to grasp the truth that modern mathematics, though 
 they do not understand it, is, like the other great things, 
 but a sublime fulfillment, the realization of prophecies 
 involved in what they themselves, in common with 
 other educated folk, know of the rudiments of the sci- 
 ence. Indeed, they would marvel if upon reflection 
 it did not seem to be so. Our pure mathematician in 
 speaking to his fellow men and women of his science 
 will have no difficulty in persuading them that he is 
 speaking of a subject immense and eternal. As born 
 idealists they have intimations of their own the 
 evidence of intuition, if you please or a kind of insight 
 resembling that of the mystic that in the world of 
 mind there must be something deeper and higher, stabler 
 and more significant, than the pitiful ideas in life's 
 routine and the familiar vocations of men. They are 
 thus prepared to believe, before they are told, that 
 behind the veil there exists a universum of exact thought, 
 an everlasting cosmos of ordered ideas, a stable world 
 of concatenated truth. In their study of the elements, 
 in school or college, they may have caught a shimmer 
 of it or, in rare moments of illumination, even a gleam. 
 Of the existence, the reality, the actuality, of our pure 
 mathematician's world they will have no doubt, and 
 they will have no doubt of its grandeur. They may 
 even, in a vague way, magnify it overmuch, feeling that 
 it is, in some wise, more than human, significant only 
 for the rarely gifted spirit that dwells, like a star,
 
 HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE OF MATHEMATICS 35 
 
 apart. The pure mathematician's difficulty lies in 
 showing, in his way, that such is not the case. For he 
 does not wish to adduce utilities and applications. He 
 is well aware of these. He knows that if he "would 
 tell them they are more in number than the sands." 
 Neither does he despise them as of little moment. On 
 the contrary, he values them as precious. But he wishes 
 to do his subject and his auditors the honor of speaking 
 from a higher level: he desires to vindicate the worth 
 of mathematics on the ground of its sheer ideality, on 
 the ground of its intellectual harmony, on the ground 
 of its beauty, "free from the gorgeous trappings" of 
 sense, pure, austere, supreme. To do this, which ought, 
 it seems, to be easy, experience has shown to be exceed- 
 ingly difficult. For the multitude of men and women, 
 even the educated multitude, are wont to cry, 
 
 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, 
 It is too high, I can not attain unto it, 
 
 thus meaning to imply, What, then, or where is its 
 human significance? Their voice is heard in the chal- 
 lenge once put to me by the brilliant author of "East 
 London Visions." What, said he, can be the human 
 significance of "this majestic intellectual cosmos of 
 yours, towering up like a million-lustred iceberg into the 
 arctic night," seeing that, among mankind, none is 
 permitted to behold its more resplendent wonders save 
 the mathematician alone? What response will our pure 
 mathematician make to this challenge? Make, I mean, 
 if he be not a wholly naive devotee of his science and 
 so have failed to reflect upon the deeper grounds of its 
 justification. He may say, for one thing, what Pro- 
 fessor Klein said on a similar occasion: 
 
 Apart from the fact that pure mathematics can not be supplanted by 
 anything else as a means for developing the purely logical faculties of the
 
 36 HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE OF MATHEMATICS 
 
 mind, there must be considered here, as elsewhere, the necessity of the 
 presence of a few individuals in each country developed in far higher degree 
 than the rest, for the purpose of keeping up and gradually raising the general 
 standard. Even a slight raising of the general level can be accomplished 
 only when some few minds have progressed far ahead of the average. 
 
 That is doubtless a weighty consideration. But is 
 it all or the best that may be said? It is just and 
 important but it does not go far enough; it is not, I 
 fear, very convincing; it is wanting in pungence and 
 edge; it does not touch the central nerve of the chal- 
 lenge. Our pure mathematician must rally his sceptics 
 with sharper considerations. He may say to them: 
 You challenge the human significance of the higher 
 developments of pure mathematics because they are 
 inaccessible to all but a few, because their charm is 
 esoteric, because their deeper beauty is hid from nearly 
 all mankind. Does that consideration justify your 
 challenge? You are individuals, but you are also 
 members of a race. Have you as individuals no human 
 interest nor human pride in the highest achievements 
 of your race? Is nothing human, is nothing humane, 
 except mediocrity and the commonplace? Was Phidias 
 or Michel Angelo less human than the carver and 
 painter of a totem-pole? Was Euclid or Gauss or 
 Poincare less representative of man than the countless 
 millions for whom mathematics has meant only the 
 arithmetic of the market place or the rude geometry 
 of the carpenter? Does the quality of humanity in 
 human thoughts and deeds decrease as they ascend 
 towards the peaks of achievement, and increase in 
 proportion as they become vulgar, attaining an upper 
 limit in the beasts? Do you not know that precisely 
 the reverse is true? Do you not count aspiration hu- 
 mane? Do you not see that it is not the common 
 things that every one may reach, but excellences high-
 
 HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE OF MATHEMATICS 37 
 
 dwelling among the rocks do you not know that, in 
 respect of human worth, these things, which but few 
 can attain, are second only to the supreme ideals attain- 
 able by none? 
 
 How very different and how very much easier the 
 task of one who sought to vindicate the human sig- 
 nificance of mathematics on the ground of its applica- 
 tions! In respect of temperamental interest, of attitude 
 and outlook, the difference between the pure and the 
 applied mathematician is profound. It is if we may 
 liken spiritual things to things of sense much like 
 the difference between one who greets a new-born day 
 because of its glory and one who regards it as a time 
 for doing chores and values its light only as showing 
 the way. For the former, mathematics is justified by 
 its supreme beauty; for the latter, by its manifold use. 
 But are the two kinds of value essentially incompatible? 
 They are certainly not. The difference is essentially 
 a difference of authority a difference, that is, of 
 worth, of elevation, of excellence. The pure mathe- 
 matician and the applied mathematician sometimes may, 
 indeed they not infrequently do, dwell together har- 
 moniously in a single personality. If our spokesman be 
 such a one and I will not suppose the shame of having 
 the utilities of the science represented on such an occa- 
 sion by one incapable of regarding it as anything but 
 a tool, for that would be disgraceful if, then, our 
 spokesman be such a one as I have supposed, he might 
 properly begin as follows: In speaking to you of the 
 applications of mathematics I would not have you sup- 
 pose, ladies and gentlemen, that I am thus presenting 
 the highest claims of the science to your regard; for its 
 highest justification is the charm of its immanent 
 beauty; I do hot mean, he will say, the beauty of ap-
 
 38 HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE OF MATHEMATICS 
 
 pearances the fleeting beauties of sense, though 
 these, too, are precious even the outer garment, the 
 changeful robe, of reality is a lovely thing; I mean the 
 eternal beauty of the world of pure thought; I mean 
 intellectual beauty; in mathematics this nearly attains 
 perfection; and "intellectual beauty is self-sufficing "; 
 uses, on the other hand, are not; they wear an aspect 
 of apology; uses resemble excuses, they savor a little of 
 a plea in mitigation. Do you ask: Why, then, plead 
 them? Because, he will say, many good people have 
 a natural incapacity to appreciate anything else; be- 
 cause, also, many of the applications, especially the 
 higher ones, are themselves matters of exceeding beauty; 
 and especially because I wish to show, not only that 
 use and beauty are compatible forms of worth, but 
 that the more mathematics has been cultivated for the 
 sake of its inner charm, the fitter has it become for 
 external service. 
 
 Having thus at the outset put himself in proper light 
 and given his auditors a scholar's warning against what 
 would else, he fears, foster a disproportionment of 
 values, what will he go on to signalize among the utili- 
 ties of a science whose primary allegiance to logical 
 rectitude allies it to art, and which only incidentally 
 and secondarily shapes itself to the ends of instrumental 
 service? He knows that the applications of mathe- 
 matics, if one will but trace them out in their multi- 
 farious ramifications, are as many-sided as the industries 
 and as manifold as the sciences of men, penetrating 
 everywhere throughout the full round of life. What 
 will he select? He will not dwell long upon its homely 
 uses in the rude computations and mensurations of 
 counting-house and shop and factory and field, for this 
 indispensable yet humble manner of world-wide and
 
 HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE OF MATHEMATICS 39 
 
 perpetual service is known of all men and women. He 
 will quickly pass to higher considerations to naviga- 
 tion, to the designing of ships, to the surveying of 
 lands and seas, and the charting of the world, to the 
 construction of reservoirs and aqueducts, canals, tunnels 
 and railroads, to the modern miracles of the marine 
 cable, the telegraph, the telephone, to the multiform 
 achievements of every manner of modern engineering, 
 civil, mechanical, mining, electrical, by which, through 
 the advancing conquest of land and sea and air and 
 space and time, the conveniences and the prowess of 
 man have been multiplied a billionfold. It need not be 
 said that not all this has been done by mathematics 
 alone. Far from it. It is, of course, the joint achieve- 
 ment of many sciences and arts, but and just this 
 is the point the contributions of mathematics to the 
 great work, direct and indirect, have been indispensable. 
 And it will require no great skill in our speaker to show 
 to his audience, if it have a little imagination, that, as I 
 have said elsewhere, if all these mathematical contri- 
 butions were by some strange spiritual cataclysm to be 
 suddenly withdrawn, the life and body of industry and 
 commerce would suddenly collapse as by a paralytic 
 stroke, the now splendid outer tokens of material civiliza- 
 tion would quickly perish, and the face of our planet 
 would at once assume the aspect of a ruined and bank- 
 rupt world. For such is the amazing utility, such the 
 wealth of by-products, if you please, that come from 
 a science and art that owes its life, its continuity and 
 its power to man's love of intellectual harmony and 
 pleads its inner charm as its sole appropriate justifica- 
 tion. Indeed it appears contrary to popular belief 
 that in our world there is nothing else quite so practical 
 as the inspiration of a muse.
 
 40 HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE OF MATHEMATICS 
 
 But this is not all nor nearly all to which our applied 
 mathematician will wish to invite attention. It is only 
 the beginning of it. Even if he does not allude to the 
 quiet service continuously and everywhere rendered by 
 mathematics in its role as a norm or standard or ideal 
 in every field of thought whether exact or inexact, he 
 will yet desire to instance forms and modes of applica- 
 tion compared with which those we have mentioned, 
 splendid and impressive as they are, are meager and 
 mean. For those we have mentioned are but the more 
 obvious applications those, namely, that continually 
 announce themselves to our senses everywhere in the 
 affairs, both great and small, of the workaday world. 
 But the really great applications of mathematics those 
 which, rightly understood, best of all demonstrate the 
 human significance of the science are not thus obvious; 
 they do not, like the others, proclaim themselves in the 
 form of visible facilities and visible expedients every- 
 where in the offices, the shops, and the highways of 
 commerce and industry; they are, on the contrary, 
 almost as abstract and esoteric as mathematics itself, 
 for they are the uses and applications of this science 
 in other sciences, especially in astronomy, in mechanics 
 and in physics, but also and increasingly in the newer 
 sciences of chemistry, geology, mineralogy, botany, 
 zoology, economics, statistics and even psychology, not 
 to mention the great science and art of architecture. 
 In the matter of exhibiting the endless and intricate 
 applications of mathematics to the natural sciences, 
 applications ranging from the plainest facts of crystal- 
 lography to the faint bearings of the kinetic theory of 
 gases upon the constitution of the Milky Way, our 
 speaker's task is quite as hopeless as we found the pure 
 mathematician's to be; and he, too, will have to com-
 
 HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE OF MATHEMATICS 4! 
 
 promise; he will have to request his auditors to ac- 
 quaint themselves at their leisure with the available 
 literature of the subject and especially to read atten- 
 tively the great work of John Theodore Merz dealing 
 with the "History of European Thought in the Nine- 
 teenth Century," where they will find, in a form fit for 
 the general reader, how central has been the r61e of 
 mathematics in all the principal attempts of natural 
 science to find a cosmos in the seeming chaos of the 
 natural world. Another many-sided work that in this 
 connection he may wish to commend as being in large 
 part intelligible to men and women of general education 
 and catholic mind is Enriques's "Problems of Science." 
 
 I turn now for a moment to the prospects of one who 
 might choose to devote the hour to an exposition or 
 an indication of modern developments in what it is 
 customary to call the foundations of mathematics to 
 a characterization, that is, and estimate of that far- 
 reaching and still advancing critical movement which 
 has to do with the relations of the science, philosophi- 
 cally considered, to the sciences of logic and methodology. 
 What can he say on this great theme that will be in- 
 telligible and edifying to the multitudes of men and 
 women who, though mathematically inexpert, yet have 
 a genuine humane curiosity respecting even the pro- 
 founder and subtler life and achievements of science? 
 He can point out that mathematics, like all the other 
 sciences, like the arts too, for that matter, and like 
 philosophy, originates in the refining process of reflec- 
 tion upon the crude data of common sense ; he can point 
 out that this process has gradually yielded from out the 
 raw material and still continues to yield more and more 
 ideas of approximate perfection in the respects of pre- 
 cision and form; he can point out that such ideas, thus
 
 42 HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE OF MATHEMATICS 
 
 disentangled and trimmed of their native vagueness and 
 indetermination, disclose their mutual relationships and 
 so become amenable to the concatenative processes of 
 logic; and he can point out that these polished ideas 
 with their mutual relationships become the bases or 
 the content of various branches of mathematics, which 
 thus tower above common sense and appear to grow 
 out of it and to stand upon it like trees or forests 
 upon the earth. He will point out, however, that this 
 appearance, like most other obvious appearances, is de- 
 ceiving; he will, that is, point out that these upward- 
 growing sciences or branches of science are found, in 
 the light of further reflection, to be downward-growing 
 as well, pushing their roots deeper and deeper into a 
 dark soil far beneath the ground of evident common 
 sense; indeed, he will show that common sense is thus, 
 in its relation to mathematics, but as a sense-litten mist 
 enveloping only the mid-portion of the stately structure, 
 which, like a towering mountain, at once ascends into 
 the limpid ether far above the shining cloud and rests 
 upon a base of subterranean rock far below; he will 
 point out that, accordingly, mathematicians, in respect 
 of temperamental interest, fall into two classes the 
 class of those who cultivate the upward-growing of the 
 science, working thus in the upper regions of clearer 
 light, and the class of those who devote themselves to 
 exploring the deep-plunging roots of the science; and it 
 is, he will say, to the critical activity of the latter class 
 the logicians and philosophers of mathematics that 
 we owe the discovery of what we are wont to call the 
 foundations of mathematics the great discovery, that 
 is, of an immense mathematical stt&-structure, which 
 penetrates far beneath the stratum of common sense 
 and of which many of even the greatest mathematicians
 
 HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE OF MATHEMATICS 43 
 
 of former times were not aware. But whilst such founda- 
 tional research is in the main a modern phenomenon, 
 it is by no means exclusively such; and to protect his 
 auditors against a false perspective in this regard and 
 the peril of an overweening pride in the achievements of 
 their own time, our speaker may recommend to them 
 the perusal of Thomas L. Heath's superb edition of 
 Euclid's "Elements" where, especially in the first vol- 
 ume, they will be much edified to find, in the rich 
 abundance of critical citation and commentary which 
 the translator has there brought together, that the re- 
 fined and elaborate logico-mathematical researches of our 
 own time have been only a deepening and widening of 
 the keen mathematical criticism of a few centuries im- 
 mediately preceding and following the great date of 
 Euclid. Indeed but for that general declension of Greek 
 spirit which Professor Gilbert Murray in his "Four 
 Stages of Greek Religion" has happily characterized as 
 "the failure of nerve," what we know as the modern 
 critical movement in mathematics might well have come 
 to its present culmination, so far at least as pure geom- 
 etry is concerned, fifteen hundred or more years ago. 
 It is a pity that the deeper and stabler things of science 
 and the profounder spirit of man can not be here 
 disclosed in a manner commensurate with the great 
 exposition, surrounding us, of the manifold practical 
 arts and industries of the world. It is a pity there is 
 no means by which our speaker might, in a manner 
 befitting the subject and the occasion, exhibit intelligibly 
 to his fellow men and women the ways and results of 
 the last hundred years of research into the groundwork 
 of mathematical science and therewith the highly im- 
 portant modern developments in logic and the theory 
 of knowledge. How astonished the beholders would
 
 44 HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE OF MATHEMATICS 
 
 be, how delighted too, and proud to belong to a race 
 capable of such patience and toil, of such disinterested 
 devotion, of such intellectual finesse and depth of pene- 
 tration. I can think of no other spectacle quite so im- 
 pressive as the inner vision of all the manifold branches 
 of rigorous thought seen to constitute one immense 
 structure of autonomous doctrine reposing upon the 
 spiritual basis of a few select ideas and, superior to the 
 fading beauties of time and sense, shining there like a 
 celestial city, in "the white radiance of eternity." That 
 is the vision of mathematics that a student of its phi- 
 losophy would, were it possible, present to his fellow 
 men and women. 
 
 In view of the foregoing considerations it evidently is, 
 I think, in the nature of the case impossible to give an 
 adequate sense of the human worth of mathematics if 
 one choose to devote the hour to any one of the great 
 aspects of it with which we have been thus far con- 
 cerned. Neither the history of the subject nor its 
 present estate nor its applications nor its logical founda- 
 tions no one of these themes lends itself well to the 
 purpose of such exposition, and still less do two or more 
 of them combined. Even if such were not the case I 
 should yet feel bound to pursue another course; for I 
 have been long persuaded that, in respect of its human 
 significance, mathematics invites to a point of view 
 which, unless I am mistaken, has not been taken and 
 held in former attempts at appreciation. I have al- 
 ready alluded to bearings of mathematics as distin- 
 guished from applications. It is with its bearings that 
 I wish to deal. I mean its bearings upon the higher 
 concerns of man as man those interests, namely, 
 which have impelled him to seek, over and above the 
 needs of raiment and shelter and food, some inner
 
 HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE OF MATHEMATICS 45 
 
 adjustment of life to the poignant limitations of life in 
 our world and which have thus drawn him to manifold 
 forms of wisdom, not only to mathematics and natural 
 science, but also to literature and philosophy, to religion 
 and art, and theories of righteousness. What is the 
 rfile of mathematics in this perpetual endeavor of the 
 human spirit everywhere to win reconciliation of its 
 dreams and aspirations with the baffling conditions and 
 tragic facts of life and the world? What is its relation 
 to the universal quest of man for some supreme and 
 abiding good that shall assuage or annul the discords 
 and tyrannies of time and limitation, withholding less 
 and less, as time goes by, the freedom and the peace 
 of an ideal harmony infinite and eternal? 
 
 In endeavoring to suggest, in the time remaining for 
 this address, a partial answer to that great question, in 
 attempting, that is, to indicate the relations of mathe- 
 matics to the supreme ideals of mankind, it will be 
 necessary to seek a perspective point of view and to 
 deal with large matters in a large way. 
 
 Of the countless variety of appetitions and aspirations 
 that have given direction and aim to the energies of 
 men and that, together with the constraining conditions 
 of life in our world, have shaped the course and deter- 
 mined the issues of human history, it is doubtless not 
 yet possible to attempt confident and thoroughgoing 
 classification according to the principle of relative dig- 
 nity or that of relative strength. If, however, we ask 
 whether, in the great throng of passional determinants 
 of human thought and life, there is one supreme passion, 
 one that in varying degrees of consciousness controls 
 the rest, unifying the spiritual enterprises of our race 
 in directing and converging them all upon a single 
 sovereign aim, the answer, I believe, can not be doubt-
 
 46 HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE OF MATHEMATICS 
 
 ful: the activities and desires of mankind are indeed 
 subject to such imperial direction and control. And if 
 now we ask what the sovereign passion is, again the 
 answer can hardly admit of question or doubt. In order 
 to see even a priori what the answer must be, we have 
 only to imagine a race of beings endowed with our 
 human craving for stability, for freedom, and for per- 
 petuity of life and its fleeting goods, we have only to 
 fancy such a race flung, without equipment of knowledge 
 or strength, into the depths of a treacherous universe 
 of matter and force where they are tossed, buffeted and 
 torn by the tumultuous onward-rushing flood of the 
 cosmic stream, originating they know not whence and 
 flowing they know not why nor whither, we have, I say, 
 only to imagine this, sympathetically, which ought to 
 be easy for us as men, and then to ask ourselves what 
 would naturally be the controlling passion and dominant 
 enterprise of such a race unless, indeed, we suppose 
 it to become strangely enamored of distress or to be 
 driven by despair to self -extinction. We humans re- 
 quire no Gotama nor Heracleitus to tell us that man's 
 lot is cast in a world where naught abides. The uni- 
 versal impermanence -of things, the inevitableness of 
 decay, the mocking frustration of deepest yearnings 
 and fondest dreams, all this has been keenly realized 
 wherever men and women have had seeing eyes or been 
 even a little touched with the malady of meditation, 
 and everywhere in the literature of power is heard the 
 cry of the mournful truth. "The life of man," said 
 the Spirit of the Ocean, "passes by like a galloping 
 horse, changing at every turn, at every hour." 
 
 "Great treasure halls hath Zeus in heaven, 
 From whence to man strange dooms be given, 
 Past hope or fear."
 
 HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE OF MATHEMATICS 47 
 
 Such is the universal note. Whether we glance at the 
 question in a measure a priori, as above, or look into 
 the cravings of our own hearts, or survey the history 
 of human emotion and thought, we shall find, I think, 
 in each and all these ways, that human life owns the 
 supremacy of one desire: it is the passion for emancipa- 
 tion, for release from life's limitations and the tyranny 
 of change: it is our human passion for some ageless 
 form of reality, some everlasting vantage-ground or rock 
 to stand upon, some haven of refuge from the all- 
 devouring transformations of the weltering sea. And 
 so it is that our human aims, aspirations, and toils 
 thus find their highest unity their only intelligible 
 unity in the spirit's quest of a stable world, in its 
 endless search for some mode or form of reality that 
 is at once infinite, changeless, eternal. 
 
 Does some one say: This may be granted, but what 
 is the point of it all? It is obviously true enough, but 
 what, pray, can be its bearing upon the matter in hand? 
 What light does it throw upon the human significance 
 of mathematics? The question is timely and just. The 
 answer, which will grow in fullness and clarity as we 
 proceed, may be at once begun. 
 
 How long our human ancestors, in remote ages, may 
 have groped, as some of their descendants even now 
 grope, among the things of sense, in the hope of finding 
 there the desiderated good, we do not know past time 
 is long and the evolution of wisdom has been slow. We 
 do know that, long before the beginnings of recorded 
 history, superior men advanced representatives of 
 their kind must have learned that the deliverance 
 sought was not to be found among the objects of the 
 mobile world, and so the spirit's quest passed from 
 thence; passed from the realm of perception and sense
 
 48 HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE OF MATHEMATICS 
 
 to the realm of concept and reason: thought ceased, 
 that is, to be merely the unconscious means of pursuit 
 and became itself the quarry mind had discovered 
 mind; and there, in the realm of ideas, in the realm of 
 spirit proper, in the world of reason or thought, the 
 great search far outrunning historic time has been 
 endlessly carried on, with varying fortunes, indeed, but 
 without despair or breach of continuity, meanwhile 
 multiplying its resources and assuming gradually, as the 
 years and centuries have passed, the characters and 
 forms of what we know today as philosophy and science 
 and art. I have mentioned the passing of the quest from 
 the realm of sense to the realm of conception: a most 
 notable transition in the career of mind and especially 
 significant for the view I am aiming to sketch. For 
 thought, in thus becoming a conscious subject or object 
 of thought, then began its destined course in reason: 
 in ceasing to be merely an unconscious means of pursuit 
 and becoming itself the quarry, it definitely entered 
 upon the arduous way that leads to the goal of rigor. 
 And so it is evident that the way in question is not a 
 private way; it does not belong exclusively to mathe- 
 matics; it is public property; it is the highway of con- 
 ceptual research. For it is a mistake to imagine that 
 mathematics, in virtue of its reputed exactitude, is an 
 insulated science, dwelling apart in isolation from other 
 forms and modes of conceptual activity. It would be 
 such, were its rigor absolute; for between a perfection 
 and any approximation thereto, however close, there 
 always remains an infinitude of steps. But the rigor 
 of mathematics is not absolute absolute rigor is an 
 ideal, to be, like other ideals, aspired unto, forever 
 approached, but never quite attained, for such attain- 
 ment would mean that every possibility of error or
 
 HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE OF MATHEMATICS 49 
 
 inde termination, however slight, had been eliminated 
 from idea, from symbol, and from argumentation. We 
 know, however, that such elimination can never be 
 complete, unless indeed the human mind shall one day 
 lose its insatiable faculty for doubting. What, then, 
 is the distinction of mathematics on the score of exacti- 
 tude? Its distinction lies, not in the attainment of 
 rigor absolute, but partly in its exceptional devotion 
 thereto and especially in the advancement it has made 
 along the endless path that leads towards that perfec- 
 tion. But, as I have already said, it must not be 
 thought that mathematics is the sole traveler upon the 
 way. It is important to see clearly that it is far from 
 being thus a solitary enterprise. First, however, let 
 us adjust our imagery to a better correspondence with 
 the facts. I have spoken of the path. We know, how- 
 ever, that the paths are many, as many as the varieties 
 of conceptual subject-matter, all of them converging 
 towards the same high goal. We see them originate 
 here, there and yonder in the soil and haze of common 
 thought; we see how indistinct they are at first how 
 ill-defined; we observe how they improve in that regard 
 as the ideas involved grow clearer and clearer, more and 
 more amenable to the use and governance of logic. At 
 length, when thought, in its progress along any one of 
 the many courses, has reached a high degree of refine- 
 ment, precision and certitude, then and thereafter, but 
 not before, we call it mathematical thought; it has 
 undergone a long process of refining evolution and 
 acquired at length the name of mathematics; it is 
 not, however, the creature of its name; what is called 
 mathematics has been long upon the way, owning at 
 previous stages other designations common sense, 
 practical art perhaps, speculation, theology it may be,
 
 5<D HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE OF MATHEMATICS 
 
 philosophy, natural science, or it may be for many a 
 millennium no name at all. Is it, then, only a question 
 of names? In a sense, yes: the ideal of thought is 
 rigor; mathematics is the name that usage employs to 
 designate, not attainment of the ideal, for it can not 
 be attained, but its devoted pursuit and close approxi- 
 mation. But this is not the essence of the matter. 
 The essence is that all thought, thought in all its stages, 
 however rude, however refined, however named, owns 
 the unity of being human: spiritual activities are one. 
 Mathematics thus belongs to the great family of spiritual 
 enterprises of man. These enterprises, all the members 
 of the great family, however diverse in form, in modes 
 of life, in methods of toil, in their progress along the 
 way that leads towards logical rectitude, are alike chil- 
 dren of one great passion. In genesis, in spirit and 
 aspiration, in motive and aim, natural science, theology, 
 philosophy, jurisprudence, religion and art are one with 
 mathematics: they are all of them sprung from the 
 human spirit's craving for invariant reality in a world 
 of tragic change; they all of them aim at rescuing man 
 from "the blind hurry of the universe from vanity to 
 vanity": they seek cosmic stability a world of abiding 
 worth, where the broken promises of hope shall be 
 healed and infinite aspiration shall cease to be mocked. 
 
 Such has been the universal and dominant aim and 
 such are the cardinal forms that time has given its 
 prosecution. 
 
 And now we must ask: What have been the fruits 
 of the endless toil? What has the high emprize won? 
 And what especially, have been the contributions of 
 mathematics to the total gain? To recount the story 
 of the spirit's quest for ageless forms of reality would 
 be to tell afresh, from a new point of view, the his-
 
 HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE OF MATHEMATICS $1 
 
 tory of human thought, so many and so diverse are 
 the modes or aspects of being that men have found or 
 fancied to be eternal. Edifying indeed would be the 
 tale, but it is long, and the hour contracts. Even a 
 meager delineation is hardly possible here. Yet we 
 must not fail to glance at the endless array and to call, 
 at least in part, the roll of major things. But where 
 begin? Shall it be in theology? How memory responds 
 to the magic word. "The past rises before us like a 
 dream." As the long succession of the theological cen- 
 turies passes by, what a marvelous pageant do they 
 present of human ideals, contrivings and dreams, both 
 rational and superrational. Alpha and Omega, the be- 
 ginning and ending, which is, which was and which is 
 to come; I Am That I Am; Father of lights with which 
 is no variableness, neither shadow of turning; the 
 bonitas, unit as. infinitas, immutabilitas of Deity; the 
 undying principle of soul; the sublime hierarchy of 
 immortal angels, terrific and precious, discoursed of by 
 sages, commemorated by art, feared and loved by mil- 
 lions of men and women and children: these things may 
 suffice to remind us of the invariant forms of reality 
 found or invented by theology in her age-long toil and 
 passion to conquer the mutations of time by means of 
 things eternal. 
 
 But theology's record is only an immense chapter of 
 the vastly more inclusive annals of world-wide philo- 
 sophic speculation running through the ages. If we 
 turn to philosophy understood in the larger sense, if we 
 ask what answers she has made in the long course of 
 time to the question of what is eternal, so diverse and 
 manifold are the voices heard across the centuries, from 
 the East and from the West, that the combined response 
 must needs seem to an unaccustomed ear like an infinite
 
 52 HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE OF MATHEMATICS 
 
 babel of tongues: the Confucian Way of Heaven; the 
 mystic Tao, so much resembling fate, of Lao Tzu and 
 Chuang Tzu; Buddhism's inexorable spiritual law of 
 cause and effect and its everlasting extinction of indi- 
 viduality in Nirvana the final blowing out of con- 
 sciousness and character alike; Ahura Mazda, the holy 
 One, of Zarathustra; Fate, especially in the Greek 
 tragedies and Greek religion the chain of causes in 
 nature, "the compulsion in the way things grow," a fine 
 thread running through the whole of existence and 
 binding even the gods; the cosmic matter, or TO 
 aTTLpov of Anaximander; the cosmic order, the rhythm 
 of events, the logos or reason or nous, of Heracleitus; 
 the finite, space-filling sphere, or One, of the deep 
 Parmenides; the four material and two psychic, six 
 eternal, elements, of Empedocles; the infinitude of ever- 
 lasting mind-moved simple substances of Anaxagoras; 
 the infinite multitude and endless variety of invariant 
 "seeds of things" of Leucippus, Democritus, Epicurus 
 and Lucretius, together with their doctrines of absolute 
 void and the conservations of mass and motion and 
 infinite room or space; Plato's eternal world of pure 
 ideas; the great Cosmic Year of a thousand thinkers, 
 rolling in vast endlessly repeated cycles on the beginning- 
 less, endless course of time from eternity to eternity; 
 the changeless thought-forms of Zeno, Gorgias and Aris- 
 totle; Leibnitz's indestructible, pre-established harmony; 
 Spinoza's infinite unalterable substance; the Absolute 
 of the Hegelian school; and so on and on far beyond 
 the limits of practicable enumeration. This somewhat 
 random partial list of things will serve to recall and to 
 represent the enormous motley crowd of answers that 
 the ages of philosophic speculation have made to the 
 supreme inquiry of the human spirit: what is there
 
 HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE OF MATHEMATICS 53 
 
 that survives the mutations of time, abiding unchanged 
 despite the whirling flux of life and the world? 
 
 And now, in the interest of further representing salient 
 features in a large perspective view, let me next ask 
 what contribution to the solution of the great problem 
 has been made by jurisprudence. Jurisprudence is no 
 doubt at once a branch of philosophy and a branch of 
 science, but it has an interest, a direction and a char- 
 acter of its own. And for the sake of due emphasis it 
 will be well worth while to remind ourselves specifically 
 of the half-forgotten fact that, in its quest for justice 
 and order among men, jurisprudence long ago found an 
 answer to our oft-stated riddle of the world, an answer 
 which, though but a partial one, yet satisfied the greatest 
 thinkers for many centuries, and which, owing to the 
 inborn supernalizing proclivity of the human mind, still 
 exercises sway over the thought of the great majority of 
 mankind. I allude to the conception of jus natural? or 
 lex natunr. the doctrine that in the order of Nature 
 there somehow exists a perfect, invariant, universally 
 and eternally valid system or prototype of law over and 
 above the imperfect laws and changeful polities of men 
 a conception and doctrine long familiar in the juristic 
 thought of antiquity, dominating, for example, the An- 
 tigone of Sophocles, penetrating the Republic and the 
 Laws of Plato, proclaimed by Demosthenes in the Ora- 
 tion on the Crown, becoming, largely through the 
 Republic and the Laws of Cicero, the crowning con- 
 ception of the imperial jurisprudence of Rome, and still 
 holding sway, as I have said, except in the case of our 
 doubting Thomases of the law, who virtually deny 
 our world the existence of any perfection whatever 
 because they can not, so to speak, feel it with the 
 hand, as if they did not know that to suppose an
 
 54 HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE OF MATHEMATICS 
 
 ideal to be thus realized would be a flat contradiction 
 in terms. 
 
 If we turn for a moment to art and enquire what has 
 been her relation to the poignant riddle, shall we not 
 thus be going too far afield? The answer is certainly 
 no. In (Eternitatem pingo, said Zeuxis, the Greek painter. 
 "The purpose of art," says John La Farge, "is com- 
 memoration." In these two sayings, one of them ancient, 
 the other modern, we have, I think, the evident clue. 
 They do but tell us that art, like the other great enter- 
 prises of man, springs from our spirit's coveting of 
 worth that abides. Like theology, like philosophy, like 
 jurisprudence, like natural science, too, as I mean to 
 point out further, and like mathematics, art is born of 
 the universal passion for the dignity of things eternal. 
 Her quest, like theirs, has been a search for invariants, 
 for goods that are everlasting. And what has she found? 
 The answer is simple. "The idea of beauty in each 
 species of being," said Joshua Reynolds, "is perfect, 
 invariable, divine." We know that by a faculty of 
 imaginative, mystical, idealizing discernment there is 
 revealed to us, amid the fleeting beauties of Time, the 
 immobile presence of Eternal beauty, immutable arche- 
 type and source of the grace and loveliness beheld in the 
 shifting scenes of the flowing world of sense. Such, I 
 take it, is art's contribution to our human release from 
 the tyranny of change and the law of death. 
 
 And now what should be said of science? Not so 
 brief and far less simple would be the task of character- 
 izing or even enumerating the many things that in the 
 great drama of modern science have been assigned the 
 role of invariant forms of reality or eternal modes of 
 being. It would be necessary to mention first of all, as 
 most imposing of all, our modern form of the ancient
 
 HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE OF MATHEMATICS 55 
 
 doctrine of fate. I mean the reigning conception of our 
 universe as an infinite machine a powerful conception 
 that more and more fascinates scientific minds even 
 to the point of obsession and according to which it 
 should be possible, were knowledge sufficiently advanced, 
 to formulate, in a system of differential equations, the 
 whole of cosmic history from eternity to eternity in 
 minutest detail, not even excluding a skeptic's doubt 
 whether such formulation be theoretically possible nor 
 excluding the conviction, which some minds have, that 
 the doctrine, regarded as an ultimate creed, is an abomi- 
 nable libel against the character of a world where the 
 felt freedom of the human spirit is not an illusion. It 
 would be necessary to mention as next perhaps in 
 order of impressiveness another doctrine that is, curi- 
 ously enough, vividly reminiscent of old-time fate. I 
 allude this time to the doctrine of heredity, a tremendous 
 conception, in accordance with which as Professor W. 
 B. Smith has said in his recent powerful address on 
 "Push or Pull"? "the remotest past reaches out its 
 skeletal fingers and grapples both present and future in 
 its iron grip." And there is the conservation of energy 
 and that of mass both of them, again, doctrines pre- 
 figured in the thought of ancient Greece and numer- 
 ous other so-called natural laws, simple and complex, 
 familiar and unfamiliar, all posing as permanent forms 
 of reality as natural invariants under the infinite 
 system of cosmic transformations and thus together 
 constituting the enlarging contribution of natural science 
 towards the slow vindication of a world that has seemed 
 capricious, lawless and impermanent. 
 
 Such, then, is a conspectus, suggested rather than 
 portrayed, of the results which the great allies of mathe- 
 matics, operating through the ages, have achieved in
 
 56 HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE OF MATHEMATICS 
 
 their passionate endeavor to transcend the tragic vicissi- 
 tudes and limitations of life in an " ever-growing and 
 perishing" universe and to win at length the freedom, 
 the dignity and the peace of a stable world where order 
 and harmony reign and spiritual goods endure. If we 
 are to arrive at a really just or worthy sense of the 
 human significance of mathematics, it is in relation with 
 those great results of her sister enterprises that the 
 achievements of this science must be appraised. Im- 
 mense indeed and high is the task of criticism as thus 
 conceived. How diverse and manifold the doctrines to 
 be evaluated, what depths to be plumbed, what heights 
 to be scaled, how various the relationships and digni- 
 ties to be assigned their rightful place in the hierarchy 
 of values. In the presence of such a task what can we 
 think or say in the remaining moments of the hour? 
 If we have succeeded in setting the problem in its 
 proper light and in indicating the sole eminence from 
 which the matter may be rightly viewed, we ought per- 
 haps to be content with that as the issue of the hour, 
 for it is worth while to sketch a worthy program of 
 criticism even if time fails us to perform fully the task 
 thus set. And yet I can not refrain from inviting you to 
 imagine, before we close, a few at least of the things that 
 one who essayed the great critique would submit to his 
 auditors for meditation. And what do you imagine the 
 guiding lines and major themes of his discourse would be? 
 I fancy he would say: The question before us, ladies 
 and gentlemen, is not a question of weighing utilities nor 
 of counting applications nor of measuring material gains; 
 it is a question of human ideals together with the vari- 
 ous means of pursuing them and the differing degrees 
 of their approximation; we are occupied with a ques- 
 tion of appreciation, with the problem of values. I am,
 
 HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE OF MATHEMATICS 57 
 
 he would say, addressing you as representatives of man, 
 and in so doing, I am not regarding man as a mere prac- 
 tician, as a hewer of wood and drawer of water, as an 
 animal content to serve the instincts for shelter and 
 food and reproduction. I am contemplating him as a 
 spiritual being, as a thinker, poet, dreamer, as a lover 
 of knowledge and beauty and wisdom and the joy of 
 harmony and light, responding to the lure of an ideal 
 destiny, troubled by the mystery of a baffling world, 
 conscious subject of tragedy, yearning for stable reality, 
 for infinite freedom, for perpetuity and a thousand per- 
 fections of life. As representatives of such a being, you, 
 he would say, and I, even if we be not ourselves pro- 
 ducers of theology or philosophy or science or jurispru- 
 dence or art or mathematics, are nevertheless rightful 
 inheritors of all this manifold wisdom of man. The 
 question is: What is the inheritance worth? We are 
 the heirs and we are to be the judges of the great 
 responses that time has made to the spiritual needs of 
 humanity. What are the responses worth? What are 
 their values, joint and several, absolute and relative? 
 And what, especially, is the human worth of the re- 
 sponse of mathematics? It is, he would say, not only 
 our privilege, but, as educated individuals and especially 
 as representatives of our race, it is our duty, to ponder 
 the matter and reach, if we can, a right appraisement. 
 For the proper study of mankind is man, and it is 
 essential to remember that ''La vie de la science cst la 
 critique" I have, he would say, tried to make it clear 
 that mathematics is not an isolated science. I have 
 tried to show that it is not an antagonist, nor a rival, 
 but is the comrade and ally of the other great forms 
 of spiritual activity, all aiming at the same high end. 
 I have reminded you of the principal answers made by
 
 58 HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE OF MATHEMATICS 
 
 these to the spiritual needs of man, and I do not, he 
 would say, desire to underrate or belittle them. They 
 are a precious inheritance. Many of them have not, 
 indeed, stood the test of time; others will doubtless 
 endure for aye; all of them, for a longer or shorter 
 period, have softened the ways of life to millions of 
 men and women. Neither do I desire, he would say, 
 to exaggerate the contributions of mathematics to the 
 spiritual weal of humanity. What I desire is a fair 
 comparative estimate of its claims. "Truth is the be- 
 ginning of every good thing, both to gods and men." 
 I am asking you to compare, consider and judge for 
 yourselves. The task is arduous and long. 
 
 There are, our critic would say, certain paramount 
 considerations that every one in such an enterprise must 
 weigh, and a few of them may, in the moments that 
 remain, be passed in brief review. Consider, for ex- 
 ample, our human craving for a world of stable reality. 
 Where is it to be found? We know the answers of the- 
 ology, of philosophy, of natural science and the rest. 
 We know, too, the answer of literature and general 
 thought: 
 
 The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, 
 The solemn temples, the great globe itself, 
 Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, 
 And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, 
 Leave not a rack behind. 
 
 And now what, he would ask, is the answer of mathe- 
 matics? The answer, he would have to say, is this: 
 Transcending the flux of the sensuous universe, there exists 
 a stable world of pure thought, a divinely ordered world of 
 ideas, accessible to man, free from the mad dance of time, 
 infinite and eternal. 
 
 Consider our human craving for freedom. Of free- 
 dom there are many kinds. Is it the freedom of limitless
 
 HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE OF MATHEMATICS 59 
 
 room, where our passion for outward expression, for 
 externalization of thought, may attain its aim? It is 
 to mathematics, our critic would say, that man is in- 
 debted for that priceless boon; for it is the cunning of 
 this science that has at length contrived to release our 
 long imprisoned thought from the old confines of our 
 three-fold world of sense and opened to its wing the 
 interminable skies of hyperspace. But if it be a more 
 fundamental freedom that is meant, if it be freedom of 
 thought proper freedom, that is, for the creative 
 activity of intellect then again it is to mathematics 
 that our faculties must look for the definition and a right 
 estimate of their prerogatives and power. For, regard- 
 ing this matter, we may indeed acquire elsewhere a 
 suspicion or an inkling of the truth, but mathematics, 
 and nothing else, is qualified to give us knowledge of the 
 fact that our intellectual freedom is absolute save for a 
 single limitation the law of non-contradiction, the 
 law of logical compatibility, the law of intellectual har- 
 mony sole restriction imposed by "the nature of 
 things" or by logic or by the muses upon the creative 
 activity of the human spirit. 
 
 Consider next, the critic might say, our human craving 
 for a living sense of rapport and comradeship with a 
 divine Being infinite and eternal. Except through the 
 modern mathematical doctrine of infinity, there is, he 
 would have to say, no rational way by which we may 
 even approximate an understanding of the supernal 
 attributes with which our faculty of idealization has 
 clothed Deity no way, except this, by which our 
 human reason may gaze understandingly upon the 
 downward-looking aspects of the overworld. But this 
 is not all. I need not, he would say, remind you of the 
 reverent saying attributed to Plato that "God is a
 
 60 HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE OF MATHEMATICS 
 
 geometrician." Who is so unfortunate as not to know 
 something of the religious awe, the solace and the peace 
 that come from cloistral contemplation of the purity and 
 everlastingness of mathematical truth? 
 
 Mighty is the charm of those abstractions to a mind beset with images 
 and haunted by himself. 
 
 "More frequently," says Wordsworth, speaking of 
 geometry, 
 
 More frequently from the same source I drew 
 
 A pleasure quiet and profound, a sense 
 
 Of permanent and universal sway, 
 
 And paramount belief; there, recognized 
 
 A type, for finite natures, of the one 
 
 Supreme Existence, the surpassing life 
 
 Which to the boundaries of space and time, 
 
 Of melancholy space and doleful time, 
 
 Superior and incapable of change, 
 
 Not touched by welterings of passion is, 
 
 And hath the name of God. Transcendent peace 
 
 And silence did wait upon those thoughts 
 
 That were a frequent comfort to my youth. 
 
 And so our spokesman, did time allow, might con- 
 tinue, inviting his auditors to consider the relations of 
 mathematics to yet other great ideals of humanity 
 our human craving for rectitude of thought, for ideal 
 justice, for dominion over the energies and ways of the 
 material universe, for imperishable beauty, for the dig- 
 nity and peace of intellectual harmony. We know that 
 in all such cases the issue of the great critique would 
 be the same, and it is needless to pursue the matter 
 further. The light is clear enough. Mathematics is, in 
 many ways, the most precious response that the human 
 spirit has made to the call of the infinite and eternal. 
 It is man's best revelation of the "Deep Base of the 
 World."
 
 THE HUMANIZATION OF THE TEACHING 
 OF MATHEMATICS 1 
 
 WHEN the distinguished chairman of your mathe- 
 matical conference did me the honor to request me to 
 speak to you, he was generous enough, whether wisely 
 or unwisely, to leave the choice of a subject to my dis- 
 cretion, merely stipulating that, whatever the title might 
 be, the address itself should bear upon the professional 
 function of those men and women who are engaged 
 in teaching mathematics in secondary schools. Inex- 
 pertness, it has been said, is the curse of the world; 
 and one may, not unnaturally, feel some hesitance in 
 undertaking a task that might seem to resemble the 
 rftle of a physician when, as sometimes happens, he is 
 called upon to treat a patient whose health and medical 
 competence surpass his own. I trust I am not wanting 
 in that natural feeling. In the present instance two 
 considerations have enabled me to overcome it. One 
 of them is that, having had some experience in teaching 
 mathematics in secondary schools, I might, it seemed 
 to me, regard that experience, though it was gained 
 more than a score of years ago, as giving something 
 like a title to be heard in your counsels. The other 
 consideration is that, in regard to the teaching of mathe- 
 matics, whether in secondary schools or in colleges, I 
 
 1 Address given at the meeting of the Michigan School Masters' Club, 
 at Ann Arbor, March 28, 1912. Printed in Science, April 26, 1912; in 
 The Educational Renew, September, 1912; and in the Michigan School 
 Masters' Magazine.
 
 62 HUMANIZATION OF TEACHING MATHEMATICS 
 
 have acquired a certain conviction, a pretty firm con- 
 viction, which, were it properly presented, you would 
 doubtless be generous enough and perhaps ingenious 
 enough to regard as having some sort of likeness to a 
 message. 
 
 My conviction is, that hope of improvement in mathe- 
 matics teaching, whether in secondary schools or in 
 colleges, lies mainly in the possibility of humanizing it. 
 It is worth while to remember that our pupils are hu- 
 man beings. What it means to be a human being we 
 all of us presumably know pretty well; indeed we know 
 it so well that we are unable to tell it to one another 
 adequately; and, just because we do so well know what 
 it means to be a human being, we are prone to forget 
 it as we forget, except when the wind is blowing, that 
 we are constantly immersed in the earth's atmosphere. 
 To humanize the teaching of mathematics means so to 
 present the subject, so to interpret its ideas and doc- 
 trines, that they shall appeal, not merely to the com- 
 putatory faculty or to the logical faculty but to all the 
 great powers and interests of the human mind. That 
 mathematical ideas and doctrines, whether they be more 
 elementary or more advanced, admit of such a manifold, 
 liberal and stimulating interpretation, and that there- 
 fore the teaching of mathematics, whether in secondary 
 schools or in colleges, may become, in the largest and 
 best sense, human, I have no doubt. That mathe- 
 matical ideas and doctrines do but seldom receive such 
 interpretation and that accordingly the teaching of 
 mathematics is but seldom, in the largest and best sense, 
 human, I believe to be equally certain. That the indi- 
 cated humanization of mathematical teaching, the bring- 
 ing of the matter and the spirit of mathematics to bear, 
 not merely upon certain fragmentary faculties of the
 
 HUMANIZATION OP TEACHING MATHEMATICS 63 
 
 mind, but upon the whole mind, that this is a great 
 desideration is, I assume, beyond dispute. 
 
 How can such humanization be brought about? The 
 answer, I believe, is not far to seek. I do not mean that 
 the answer is easy to discover or easy to communicate. 
 I mean that the game is near at hand and that it is 
 not difficult to locate it, though it may not be easy to 
 capture it. The difficulty inheres, I believe, in our con- 
 ception of mathematics itself; not so much in our con- 
 ception of what mathematics, in a definitional sense, is, 
 for that sense of what mathematics is has become pretty 
 clear in our day, but in our sense or want of sense of 
 what mathematics, whatever it may be, humanly sig- 
 nifies. In order to humanize mathematical teaching it is 
 necessary, and I believe it is sufficient, to come under 
 the control of a right conception of the human sig- 
 nificance of mathematics. It is sufficient, I mean to say, 
 and it is necessary, greatly to enlarge, to enrich and to 
 vitalize our sense of what mathematics, regarded as 
 human enterprise, signifies. 
 
 What does mathematics, regarded as an enterprise of 
 the human spirit, signify? What is a just and worthy 
 sense of the human significance of mathematics? 
 
 To the extent in which any of us really succeeds in 
 answering that question worthily, his teaching will have 
 the human quality, in so far as his teaching is, in point 
 of external circumstance, free to be what it would. I 
 believe it is important to put the question, and it is 
 with the putting of it rather than with the proposing of 
 an answer to it that I am here at the outset mainly 
 concerned. For any one who is really to acquire pos- 
 session of an answer that is worthy must win the answer 
 for himself. I need not say to you that such an acqui- 
 sition as a worthy answer to this kind of question does
 
 64 HUMANIZATION OF TEACHING MATHEMATICS 
 
 not belong to the category of things that may be lent 
 or borrowed, sold or bought, donated or acquired by 
 gift. No doubt the answers we may severally win will 
 differ as our temperaments differ. Yet the matter is 
 not solely a matter of temperament. It is much more 
 a matter first of knowledge and then of the evaluation 
 of the knowledge and of its subject. To the winning 
 of a worthy sense of the human significance of mathe- 
 matics two things are indispensable, knowledge and re- 
 flection: knowledge of mathematics and reflection upon 
 it. To the winning of such a sense it is essential to 
 have the kind of knowledge that none but serious 
 students of mathematics can gain. Equally essential 
 is another thing and this thing students of mathematics 
 in our day do not, or do but seldom, gain. I mean the 
 kind of insight and the liberality of view that are to be 
 acquired only by prolonged contemplation of the nature 
 of mathematics and by prolonged reflection upon its 
 relations of contrast and similitude to the other great 
 forms of spiritual activity. 
 
 The question, though it is a question about mathe- 
 matics, is not a mathematical question; it is a philo- 
 sophical question. And just because it is a philosophical 
 question, mathematicians, despite the fact that one 
 of the indispensable qualifications for considering it is 
 possessed by them alone, have in general ignored it. 
 They have, in general, ignored it, and their ignoring of 
 it may help to explain the curious paradox that whilst 
 the world, whose mathematical knowledge varies from 
 little to less, has always as if instinctively held mathe- 
 matical science in high esteem, it has at the same time 
 usually regarded mathematicians as eccentric and ab- 
 normal, as constituting a class apart, as being something 
 more or something less than human. It may explain,
 
 HUMANIZATION OF TEACHING MATHEMATICS 65 
 
 too, I venture to believe it does partly explain, both 
 why it is that in the universities the number of students 
 attracted to advanced lectures in mathematics compared 
 with the numbers drawn to advanced courses in some 
 other great subjects not inherently more attractive, is 
 so small; and why it is that, among the multitudes who 
 pursue mathematics in the secondary schools, only a few 
 find in the subject anything like delight. For I do not 
 accept the traditional and still current explanation, that 
 the phenomenon is due to a well-nigh universal lack 
 of mathematical faculty. I maintain, on the contrary, 
 that a vast majority of mankind possess mathematical 
 faculty in a very considerable degree. That the average 
 pupil's interest in mathematics is but slight, is a matter 
 of common knowledge. His lack of interest is, in my 
 opinion, due, not to a lack of the appropriate faculty 
 in him, but to the circumstance that he is a human 
 being, whilst mathematics, though it teems with human 
 interest, is not presented to him in its human guise. 
 
 If you ask the world represented, let us say, by 
 the man in the street or in the market place or the 
 field to tell you its estimate of the human significance 
 of mathematics, the answer of the world will be, that 
 mathematics has given mankind a metrical and com- 
 putatory art essential to the effective conduct of daily 
 life, that mathematics admits of countless applications 
 in engineering and the natural sciences, and finally that 
 mathematics is a most excellent instrumentality for 
 giving mental discipline. Such will be the answer of the 
 world. The answer is intelligible, it is important, and 
 it is good so far as it goes; but it is far from going far 
 enough and it is not intelligent. That it is far from 
 going far enough will become evident as we proceed. 
 That the answer is not intelligent is evident at once,
 
 66 HUMANIZATION OF TEACHING MATHEMATICS 
 
 for the first part of it seems to imply that the rudi- 
 mentary mathematics of the carpenter and the counting- 
 house is scientific, which it is not; the second part of 
 the answer is but an echo by the many of the voice 
 of the few; and, as to the final part, the world's con- 
 ception of intellectual discipline is neither profound nor 
 well informed but is itself in sorry need of discipline. 
 
 If, turning from the world to a normal mathematician, 
 you ask him to explain to you the human significance 
 of mathematics, he will repeat to you the answer of the 
 world, of course with far more appreciation than the 
 world has of what the answer means, and he will sup- 
 plement the world's response by an important addition. 
 He will add, that is, that mathematics is the exact 
 science, the science of exact thought or of rigorous 
 thinking. By this he will not mean what the world 
 would mean if the world employed, as sometimes it does 
 employ, the same form of words. He will mean some- 
 thing very different. Especially if he be, as I suppose 
 him to be, a normal mathematician of the modern 
 critical type, he will mean that mathematics is, in the 
 oft-cited language of Benjamin Peirce, "the science 
 that draws necessary conclusions;" he will mean that, 
 in the felicitous words of William Benjamin Smith, 
 "mathematics is the universal art apodictic;" he will 
 mean that mathematics is, in the nicely technical phrase 
 of Fieri, "a hypothetico-deductive system." If you ask 
 him whether mathematics is the science of rigorous 
 thinking about all the things that engage the thought of 
 mankind or only about a few of them, such as numbers, 
 figures, certain operations, and the like, the answer he 
 will give you depends. If he be a normal mathematician 
 of the elder school, he will say that mathematics is the 
 science of rigorous thinking about only a relatively few
 
 HUMANIZATION OF TEACHING MATHEMATICS 67 
 
 things and that these are such as you have exemplified. 
 And if now, with a little Socratic persistence, you press 
 him to indicate the human significance of a science of 
 rigorous thinking about only a few of the countless 
 things that engage human thought, his answer will give 
 you but little beyond a repetition of the above-mentioned 
 answer of the world. But if he be a normal mathe- 
 matician of the modern critical type, he will say that 
 mathematics is the science of rigorous thinking about 
 all the things that engage human thought, about all of 
 them, he will mean, in the sense that thinking, as it 
 approaches perfection, tends to assume certain definite 
 forms, that these forms are the same whatever the 
 subject matter of the thinking may be, and that mathe- 
 matics is the science of these forms as forms. If you 
 respond, as you well may respond, that, in accordance 
 with this ontological conception of mathematics, this 
 science, instead of thinking about all, thinks about 
 none, of the concrete things of interest to human 
 thought, and that accordingly Mr. Bertrand Russell 
 was right in saying that "mathematics is the science 
 in which one never knows what one is talking about nor 
 whether what one says is true" -if you respond that, 
 from the point of view above assumed, that delicious 
 mot of Mr. Russell's must be solemnly held as true, and 
 then if, in accordance with your original purpose, you 
 once more press for an estimation of the human sig- 
 nificance of such a science, I fear that the reply, if your 
 interlocutor is a mathematician of the normal type, will 
 contain little that is new beyond the assertion that the 
 science in question is very interesting, where, by in- 
 teresting, he means, of course, interesting to mathe- 
 maticians. It is true that Professor Klein has said: 
 "Apart from the fact that pure mathematics can not be
 
 68 HUMANIZATION OF TEACHING MATHEMATICS 
 
 supplanted by anything else as a means for developing 
 the purely logical faculties of the mind, there must be 
 considered here as elsewhere the necessity of the pres- 
 ence of a few individuals in each country developed in 
 a far higher degree than the rest, for the purpose of 
 keeping up and gradually raising the general standard. 
 Even a slight raising of the general level can be ac- 
 complished only when some few minds have progressed 
 far ahead of the average." Here indeed we have, in 
 these words of Professor Klein, a hint, if only a hint, of 
 something better. But Professor Klein is not a mathe- 
 matician of the normal type, he is hypernormal. If, in 
 order to indicate the human significance of mathematics 
 regarded as the science of the forms of thought as forms, 
 your normal mathematician were to say that these forms 
 constitute, of themselves, an infinite and everlasting 
 world whose beauty, though it is austere and cold, is 
 pure, and in which is the secret and citadel of whatever 
 order and harmony our concrete universe contains, it 
 would yet be your right and your duty to ask, as the 
 brilliant author of "East London Visions" once asked 
 me, namely, what is the human significance of "this 
 majestic intellectual cosmos of yours, towering up like 
 a million-lustered iceberg into the arctic night," seeing 
 that, among mankind, none is permitted to behold its 
 more resplendent wonders save the mathematician him- 
 self? But the normal mathematician will not say what 
 I have just now supposed him to say ; he will not say it, 
 because he is, by hypothesis, a normal mathematician, 
 and because, being a normal mathematician, he is exclu- 
 sively engaged in exploring the iceberg. A farmer was 
 once asked why he raised so many hogs. "In order," 
 he said, "to buy more land." Asked why he desired 
 more land, his answer was, "in order to raise more
 
 HUMANIZATION OF TEACHING MATHEMATICS 69 
 
 corn." Being asked to say why he would raise more 
 corn, he replied that he wished to raise more hogs. If 
 you ask the normal mathematician why he explores the 
 iceberg so much, his answer will be, in effect at least, 
 "in order to explore it more." In this exquisite cir- 
 cularity of motive, the farmer and the normal mathe- 
 matician are well within their rights. They are within 
 their rights just as a musician would be within his 
 rights if he chanced to be so exclusively interested in 
 the work of composition as never to be concerned 
 with having his creations rendered before the public 
 and never to attempt a philosophic estimate of the 
 human worth of music. The distinction involved is 
 not the distinction between human and inhuman, 
 between social and anti-social; it is the distinction 
 between what is human or inhuman, social or anti- 
 social, and what is neither the one nor the other. 
 No one, I believe, may contest the normal mathema- 
 tician's right as a mathematical student or investigator 
 to be quite indifferent as to the social value or the 
 human worth of his activity. Such activity is to 
 be prized just as we prize any other natural agency 
 or force that, however undesignedly, yet contributes, 
 sooner or later, directly or indirectly, to the weal of 
 mankind. The fact is that, among motives in research, 
 scientific curiosity, which is neither moral nor immoral, 
 is far more common and far more potent than charity 
 or philanthropy or benevolence. But when the mathe- 
 matician passes from the rdle of student or investigator 
 to the role of teacher, that right of indifference ceases, 
 for he has passed to an office whose functions are social 
 and whose obligations are human. It is not his privi- 
 lege to chill and depress with the encasing fogs of the 
 iceberg. It is his privilege and his duty, in so far as
 
 7O HUMANIZATION OF TEACHING MATHEMATICS 
 
 he may, to disclose its " million-lustered " splendors in 
 all their power to quicken and illuminate, to charm and 
 edify, the whole mind. 
 
 The conception of mathematics as the science of the 
 forms of thought as forms, the conception of it as the 
 refinement, prolongation and elaboration of pure logic, 
 is, as you are doubtless aware, one of the great out- 
 comes, perhaps I should say it is the culminating philo- 
 sophical outcome, of a century's effort to ascertain what 
 mathematics, in its intimate structure, is. This concep- 
 tion of what mathematics is comes to its fullest expres- 
 sion and best defense, as you doubtless know, in such 
 works as Schroeder's "Algebra der Logik," White- 
 head's " Universal Algebra," Russell's "Principles of 
 Mathematics," Peano's "Formulario Matematico," and 
 especially in Whitehead and Russell's monumental 
 "Principia Mathematical' I cite this literature because 
 it tells us what, in a definitional sense, the science in 
 which the normal mathematician is exclusively engaged, 
 is. If we wish to be told what that science humanly 
 signifies, we must look elsewhere; we must look to a 
 mathematician like Plato, for example, or to a phi- 
 losopher like Poincare, but especially must we look to 
 our own faculty for discerning those fine connective 
 things community of aim, interformal analogies, struc- 
 tural similitudes that bind all the great forms of 
 human activity and aspiration natural science, the- 
 ology, philosophy, jurisprudence, religion, art and mathe- 
 matics into one grand enterprise of the human spirit. 
 
 In the autumn of 1906 there was published in Poet 
 Lore a short poem which, though it says nothing ex- 
 plicitly of mathematics, yet admits of an interpretation 
 throwing much light upon the human significance of the 
 science and indicating well, I think, the normal mathe-
 
 HUlfANIZATION OF TEACHING MATHEMATICS 71 
 
 matician's place in the world of spiritual interests. Jlhe 
 author of the poem is my excellent friend and teacher, 
 Professor William Benjamin Smith, mathematician, phi- 
 losopher, poet and theologian. I have not asked his 
 permission to interpret the poem as I shall invite you 
 to interpret it. What its original motive was I am not 
 informed it may have been the exceeding beauty of 
 the ideas expressed in it or the harmonious mingling 
 of their light with the melody of their song. The title 
 of the poem is "The Merman and the Seraph." As 
 you listen to the reading of it, I shall ask you to regard 
 the Merman as representing the normal mathematician 
 and the Seraph as representing, let us say, the life of 
 the emotions in their higher reaches and their finer 
 susceptibilities. 
 
 Deep the sunless seas amid, 
 Far from Man, from Angel hid, 
 Where the soundless tides are rolled 
 Over Ocean's treasure-hold, 
 With dragon eye and heart of stone, 
 The ancient Merman mused alone. 
 
 And aye his arrowed Thought he wings 
 
 Straight at the inmost core of things 
 
 As mirrored in his Magic glass 
 
 The lightning-footed Ages pass, 
 
 And knows nor joy nor Earth's distress, 
 
 But broods on Everlastingness. 
 
 "Thoughts that love not, thoughts that hate not, 
 
 Thoughts that Age and Change await not, 
 
 All unfeeling, 
 
 All revealing, 
 
 Scorning height's and depth's concealing, 
 These be mine and these alone I " 
 Saith the Merman's heart of stone. 
 
 Flashed a radiance far and nigh 
 As from the vertex of the sky, 
 Lo! a Maiden beauty-bright
 
 72 HUMANIZATION OF TEACHING MATHEMATICS 
 
 And mantled with mysterious might 
 Of every power, below, above, 
 That weaves resistless spell of Love. 
 
 Through the weltering waters cold 
 Shot the sheen of silken gold; 
 Quick the frozen Heart below 
 Kindled in the amber glow; 
 Trembling Heavenward Nekkan yearned 
 Rose to where the Glory burned. 
 "Deeper, bluer than the skies are, 
 Dreaming meres of morn thine eyes are 
 
 All that brightens 
 
 Smile or heightens 
 
 Charm is thine, all life enlightens, 
 Thou art all the soul's desire." 
 Sang the Merman's Heart of Fire. 
 "Woe thee, Nekkan! Ne'er was given 
 Thee to walk the ways of Heaven; 
 
 Vain the vision, 
 
 Fate's derision, 
 
 Thee that raps to realms elysian, 
 Fathomless profounds are thine" 
 Quired the answering voice divine. 
 
 Came an echo from the West, 
 Pierced the deep celestial breast; 
 Summoned, far the Seraph fled, 
 Trailing splendors overhead; 
 Broad beneath her flying feet 
 Laughed the silvered ocean-street. 
 
 On the Merman's mortal sight 
 
 Instant fell the pall of Night; 
 
 Sunk to the sea's profoundest floor 
 
 He dreams the vanished Vision o'er, 
 
 Hears anew the starry chime, 
 
 Ponders aye Eternal Time. 
 
 "Thoughts that hope not, thoughts that fear not, 
 
 Thoughts that Man and Demon veer not 
 
 Times unending 
 
 Comprehending, 
 
 Space and worlds of worlds transcending, 
 These are mine but these alone!" 
 Sighs the Merman's heart of stone.
 
 HT7KANIZATION OF TEACHING MATHEMATICS 73 
 
 I have said that the poem, if it receive the interpre- 
 tation that I have invited you to give it, throws much 
 light on the human significance of mathematics and 
 indicates well the place of the normal mathematician 
 in the world of spiritual interests. No doubt the 
 place of the merman and the place of the angel 
 are not the same: no doubt the world of whatsoever 
 in thought is passionless, infinite and everlasting, and 
 the world of whatsoever in feeling is high and beau- 
 teous and good are distinct worlds, and they are 
 sundered wide in the poem. But, though in the 
 poem they are held widely apart, in the poet they are 
 united. For the song is not the merman's song nor 
 are its words the words of the seraph. It is the voice 
 of the poet a voice of man. The merman's world 
 and the world of the seraph are not the same, they are 
 very distinct; in conception they are sundered; they 
 may be sundered in life, but in life it need not be so. 
 The merman indeed is confined to the one world and 
 the seraph to the other, but man, a man unless he be 
 a merman, may inhabit them both. For the angel's 
 denial, the derision of fate, is not spoken of man, it is 
 spoken of the merman; and the merman's sigh is not 
 his own, it is a human sigh so lonely seems the mer- 
 man in the depths of his abode. 
 
 No, the world of interests of the human spirit is not 
 the merman's world alone nor the seraph's alone. It is 
 not so simple. It is rather a cluster of worlds, of worlds 
 that differ among themselves as differ the lights by 
 which they are characterized. As differ the lights. 
 The human spirit is susceptible of a variety of lights 
 and it lives at once in a corresponding variety of worlds. 
 There is perception's light, commonly identified with 
 solar radiance or with the radiance of sound, for music,
 
 74 HUMANIZATION OF TEACHING MATHEMATICS 
 
 too, is, to the spirit, a kind of illumination: percep- 
 tional light, in which we behold the colors, forms and 
 harmonies of external nature: a beautiful revelation 
 a world in which any one might be willing to spend the 
 remainder of his days if he were but permitted to live 
 so long. And there is imagination's light, disclosing a 
 new world filled with wondrous things, things that may 
 or may not resemble the things revealed in perception's 
 light but are never identical with them: light that is 
 not superficial nor constrained to paths that are straight 
 but reveals the interiors of what it illuminates and 
 phases that look away. Again, there is the light of 
 thought, of reason, of logic, the light of analysis, far 
 dimmer than perception's light, dimmer, too, than that 
 of imagination, but far more penetrating and far more 
 ubiquitous than either of them, disclosing things that 
 curiously match the things that they disclose and count- 
 less things besides, namely, the world of ideas and the 
 relations that bind them: a cosmic world, in the center 
 whereof is the home of the merman. There remains to 
 be named a fourth kind of light. I mean the light of 
 emotion, the radiance and glory of things that, save by 
 gleams and intimations, are not revealed in perception 
 or in imagination or in thought: the light of the seraph's 
 world, the world of the good, the true and the beautiful, 
 of the spirit of art, of aspiration and of religion. 
 
 Such, in brief, is the cluster of worlds wherein dwell 
 the spiritual interests of the human beings to whom 
 it is our mission to teach mathematics. My thesis is 
 that it is our privilege to show, in the way of our teach- 
 ing it, that its human significance is not confined to 
 one of the worlds but, like a subtle and ubiquitous 
 ether, penetrates them all. Objectively viewed, con- 
 ceptually taken, these worlds, unlike the spheres of the
 
 HUMANIZAT1ON OP TEACHING MATHEMATICS 75 
 
 geometrician, do not intersect a thing in one of 
 them is not in another; but the things in one of them 
 and the things in another may own a fine resemblance 
 serving for mutual recall and illustration, effecting 
 transfer of attention transformation as the mathe- 
 maticians call it from world to world; for whilst these 
 worlds of interest, objectively viewed, have naught in 
 common, yet subjectively they are united, united as 
 differing mansions of the house of the human spirit. 
 A relation, for example, between three independent 
 variables exists only in the grey light of thought, only 
 in the world of the merman; the habitation of the 
 geometric locus of the relation is the world of imagina- 
 tion; if a model of the locus be made or a drawing of 
 it, this will be a thing in the world of perception; 
 finally, the wondrous correlation of the three things, or 
 the spiritual qualities of them the sensuous beauty 
 of the model or the drawing, the unfailing validity of 
 the given relation holding as it does throughout "the 
 cycle of the eternal year," the immobile presence of the 
 locus or image poised there in eternal calm like a figure 
 of justice these may serve, in contemplating them, to 
 evoke the radiance of the seraph's world: and thus the 
 circuit and interplay, ranging through the world of 
 imagination and the world of thought from what is 
 sensuous to what is supernal, is complete. It would not 
 have seemed to Plato, as it may seem to us, a far cry 
 from the prayer of a poet to the theorem of Pythagoras, 
 for example, or to that of Archimedes respecting a sphere 
 and its circumscribing cylinder. Yet I venture to say, 
 that calm reflection upon the existence and nature of 
 such a theorem cloistral contemplation, I mean, of the 
 fact that it is really true, of its serene beauty, of 
 its silent omnipresence throughout the infinite universe
 
 76 HUMANIZATION OF TEACHING MATHEMATICS 
 
 of space, of the absolute exactitude and invariance of 
 its truth from everlasting to everlasting such reflec- 
 tion will not fail to yield a sense of reverence and awe 
 akin to the feeling that, for example, pervades this 
 choral prayer by Sophocles: 
 
 "Oh! that my lot may lead me in the path of holy 
 innocence of word and deed, the path which august 
 laws ordain, laws that in the highest empyrean had 
 their birth, of which Heaven is the father alone, nor 
 did the race of mortal men beget them, nor shall oblivion 
 put them to sleep. The god is mighty in them and he 
 groweth not old." 
 
 But why should we think it strange that interests, 
 though they seem to cluster about opposite poles, are 
 yet united by a common mood? Of the great world of 
 human interests, mathematics is indeed but a part; 
 but is a central part, and, in a profound and precious 
 sense, it is "the eternal type of the wondrous whole." 
 For poetry and painting, sculpture and music art 
 in all its forms philosophy, theology, religion and 
 science, too, however passional their life and however 
 tinged or deeply stained by local or temporal circum- 
 stance, yet have this in common: they all of them aim 
 at values which transcend the accidents and limitations 
 of every time and place; and so it is that the passion- 
 lessness of the merman's thought, the infiniteness of 
 the kind of being he contemplates and the everlasting- 
 ness of his achievements enter as essential qualities 
 into the ideals that make the glory of the seraph's 
 world. I do not forget, in saying this, that, of all 
 theory, mathematical theory is the most abstract. 
 I do not forget that mathematics therefore lends 
 especial sharpness to the contrast in the Mephistophe- 
 lian warning:
 
 HUMAN1ZAT10N OF TEACHING MATHEMATICS ^^ 
 
 Grey, my dear friend, is all theory, 
 Green the golden tree of life. 
 
 Yet I know that one who loves not the grey of a 
 naked woodland has much to learn of the esthetic re- 
 sources of our northern clime. A mathematical doctrine, 
 taken in its purity, is indeed grey. Yet such a doctrine, 
 a world-filling theory woven of grey relationships finer 
 than gossamer but stronger than cables of steel, leaves 
 upon an intersecting plane a tracery surpassing in fine- 
 ness and beauty the exquisite artistry of frost-work upon 
 a windowpane. Architecture, it has been said, is frozen 
 music. Be it so. Geometry is frozen architecture. 
 
 No, the belief that mathematics, because it is abstract, 
 because it is static and cold and grey, is detached from 
 life, is a mistaken belief. Mathematics, even in its 
 purest and most abstract estate, is not detached from 
 life. It is just the ideal handling of the problems of 
 life, as sculpture may idealize a human figure or as 
 poetry or painting may idealize a figure or a scene. 
 Mathematics is precisely the ideal handling of the prob- 
 lems of life, and the central ideas of the science, the 
 great concepts about which its stately doctrines have 
 been built up, are precisely the chief ideas with which 
 life must always deal and which, as it tumbles and 
 rolls about them through time and space, give it its 
 interests and problems, and its order and rationality. 
 That such is the case a few indications will suffice to 
 show. The mathematical concepts of constant and 
 variable are represented familiarly in life by the notions 
 of fixedness and change. The concept of equation or 
 that of an equational system, imposing restriction upon 
 variability, is matched in life by the concept of natural 
 and spiritual law, giving order to what were else chaotic
 
 78 HUMANIZATION OF TEACHING MATHEMATICS 
 
 change and providing partial freedom in lieu of none 
 at all. What is known in mathematics under the name 
 of limit is everywhere present in life in the guise of 
 some ideal, some excellence high-dwelling among the 
 rocks, an "ever flying perfect" as Emerson calls it, 
 unto which we may approximate nearer and nearer, 
 but which we can never quite attain, save in aspiration. 
 The supreme concept of functionality finds its correlate 
 in life in the all-pervasive sense of interdependence 
 and mutual determination among the elements of the 
 world. What is known in mathematics as transforma- 
 tion that is, lawful transfer of attention, serving to 
 match in orderly fashion the things of one system with 
 those of another is conceived in life as a process of 
 transmutation by which, in the flux of the world, the 
 content of the present has come out of the past and in its 
 turn, in ceasing to be, gives birth to its successor, as 
 the boy is father to the man and as things, in general, 
 become what they are not. The mathematical concept 
 of invariance and that of infinitude, especially the im- 
 posing doctrines that explain their meanings and bear 
 their names what are they but mathematicizations 
 of that which has ever been the chief of life's hopes 
 and dreams, of that which has ever been the object of 
 its deepest passion and of its dominant enterprise, I 
 mean the finding of worth that abides, the finding of 
 permanence in the midst of change, and the discovery 
 of the presence, in what has seemed to be a finite world, 
 of being that is infinite? It is needless further to mul- 
 tiply examples of a correlation that is so abounding and 
 complete as indeed to suggest a doubt which is the 
 juster, to view mathematics as the abstract idealiza- 
 tion of life, or to regard life as the concrete realization 
 of mathematics.
 
 HUMANIZATION OP TEACHING MATHEMATICS 79 
 
 Finally, I wish to emphasize the fact that the great 
 concepts out of which the so-called higher mathematical 
 branches have grown the concepts of variable and 
 constant, of function, class and relation, of transforma- 
 tion, invariance, and group, of finite and infinite, of 
 discreteness, limit, and continuity I wish, in closing, 
 to emphasize the fact that these great ideas of the 
 higher mathematics, besides penetrating life, as we have 
 seen, in all its complexity and all its dimensions, are 
 omnipresent, from the very beginning, in the elements 
 of mathematics as well. The notion of group, for ex- 
 ample, finds easy and beautiful illustration, not only 
 among the simpler geometric notions amd configura- 
 tions, but even in the ensemble of the very integers 
 with which we count. The like is true of the distinc- 
 tion of finite and infinite, and of the ideas of transforma- 
 tion, of invariant, and nearly all the rest. Why should 
 the presentation of them have to await the uncertain 
 advent of graduate years of study? For life already 
 abounds, and the great ideas that give it its interests, 
 order and rationality, that is to say, the focal concepts 
 of the higher mathematics, are everywhere present in 
 the elements of the science as glistening bassets of 
 gold. It is our privilege, in teaching the elements, to 
 avail ourselves of the higher conceptions that are present 
 in them; it is our privilege to have and to give a lively 
 sense of their presence, their human significance, their 
 beauty and their light. I do not advocate the formal 
 presentation, in secondary schools, of the higher con- 
 ceptions, in the way of printed texts, for the printed 
 text is apt to be arid and the letter killeth. What I 
 wish to recommend is the presentation of them, as 
 opportunity may serve, in Greek fashion, by means of 
 dialectic, face to face, voice answering to voice, ani-
 
 80 HUMANIZATION OF TEACHING MATHEMATICS 
 
 mated with the varying moods and motions and accents 
 of life laughter, if you will, and the lightning of wit 
 to cheer and speed the slower currents of sober thought. 
 Of dialectic excellence, Plato at his best, as in the 
 "Phaedo" or the "Republic," gives us the ideal model 
 and eternal type. But Plato's ways are frequently 
 circuitous, wearisome and long. They are ill suited to 
 the manners of a direct and undeliberate age; and we 
 must find, each for himself, a shorter course. Somebody 
 imbued with the spirit of the matter, possessed of ample 
 knowledge and having, besides, the requisite skill and 
 verve ought to write a book showing, in so far as the 
 printed page can be made to show, how naturally and 
 swiftly and with what a delightful sense of emancipation 
 and power thought may pass by dialectic paths from the 
 traditional elements of mathematics both to its larger 
 concepts and to a vision of their bearings on the higher 
 interests of life. I need not say that such a handling 
 of ideas implies much more than a verbal knowledge of 
 their definitions. It implies familiarity with the doc- 
 trines that unfold the meanings of the ideas defined. It 
 is evident that, in respect of this matter, the scripture 
 must read: Knowing the doctrine is essential to living 
 the life.
 
 THE WALLS OF THE WORLD: OR CONCERN- 
 ING THE FIGURE AND THE DIMENSIONS 
 OF THE UNIVERSE OF SPACE 1 
 
 THERE is something a little incongruous in attempt- 
 ing to consider the subject of this address in a theater 
 or lecture hall whose roof and walls shut out from view 
 the wide expanses of the world and the azure deeps. 
 For how can we, amid the familiar finite scenes of a 
 closed and blinded room, command a fitting mood for 
 contemplating the infinite scenes without and beyond? 
 A subject that has sheer vastness for its central or 
 major theme demands for its appropriate contemplation 
 the still expanse of some vast and open solitude, such 
 as the peak of a lone and lofty mountain would afford, 
 where the gaze meets no wall save the far horizon and 
 no roof but the starry sky. Perhaps you will be good 
 enough for the time to transport yourselves, in imagina- 
 tion, into the stillness of such a solitude, so that in the 
 musing spirit of the place the questions to be propounded 
 for consideration here may arise naturally and give us 
 a due sense of their significance and impressiveness. 
 What are the dimensions and what is the figure of our 
 universe of space? How big is it and what is its shape? 
 What is the figure of it and what is its size? 
 
 1 An address delivered under the auspices of the local chapters of the 
 Society of Sigma Xi at the state universities of Minnesota, Nebraska and 
 Iowa, April 24, 28 and 30, 1913, respectively, and at a joint meeting of the 
 chapters of Sigma Xi and Phi Beta Kappa of Columbia University, May 8, 
 1913. Printed in Science, June 13, 1913.
 
 82 THE WALLS OF THE WORLD 
 
 I do not mind owning that these questions have 
 haunted me a good deal from the days of my youth. It 
 happened in those days, though I was not aware of it 
 nor became aware of it till after many years, that there 
 were then coming into mathematics, just entering the 
 fringe, so to speak, or the vestibule of the science, certain 
 striking ideas which, as I venture to "hope we may see, 
 were destined, if not indeed to enable us to answer the 
 questions with certainty, at all events to clarify them, 
 to enrich their meaning and to make it possible to 
 discuss them profitably. It has not been my fortune 
 to meet many persons who had seriously propounded 
 the questions to themselves or who seemed to be imme- 
 diately interested in them when propounded by others 
 not many, even among astronomers, whose minds, 
 it may be assumed, are especially "accustomed to con- 
 templation of the vast." And so I have been forced 
 to the somewhat embarrassing conclusion that my own 
 long interest in the questions has been due to the fact 
 of my being of a specially practical turn of mind. Quite 
 seriously I venture to say that we are here engaged in 
 a practical enterprise. . For even if the questions were 
 in the nature of the case unanswerable, which we do 
 not admit, who does not know how great the boons 
 that have come to men through pursuit of the unat- 
 tainable? And who does not know that, as Mr. Chester- 
 ton has said, if you wish really to know a man, the 
 most practical question to ask is, not about his occupa- 
 tion or his club membership or his party or church 
 affiliations, but what are his views of the all-embracing 
 world? What does he think of the universe. Do but 
 fancy for a moment that in somewise men should come 
 to know the exact shape or figure and especially the 
 exact size or dimensions of the all-immersing space of
 
 THE WALLS OF THE WORLD 83 
 
 our universe. It requires but little imagination, not 
 much reflection, no extensive knowledge of cosmogonic 
 history and speculation, no very profound insight into 
 the ways of truth to men, it needs, I say, but little 
 philosophic sense to see that such knowledge would in 
 a thousand ways, direct and indirect, react powerfully 
 upon our whole intelligence, upon all our attitudes, 
 sentiments and views, transforming our theology, our 
 ethics, our art, our religion, our philosophy, our liter- 
 ature, our science, and therewith affecting profoundly 
 the whole sense and manner, the tone, color and mean- 
 ing, of all our institutions and the affairs of daily life. 
 Nothing is quite so practical, in the sense of being 
 effectual and influential, as the views men hold, con- 
 sciously or unconsciously, regarding the great locus 
 of their lives and their cosmic home. 
 
 In order to discuss the questions before us intelligibly 
 and profitably it is not necessary by way of clearing 
 the ground to enter far into metaphysical speculation 
 or into psychological analysis with a view to ascer- 
 taining what it is that we mean or ought to mean by 
 space. We are not obliged to dispute, much less decide, 
 whether space is subjective or objective or both or 
 indeed something that, as Plato in the "Timaeus" 
 acutely contends, is neither the one nor the other. We 
 may or may not agree with the contention of Kant that 
 space is, not an object, but the form, of outer sense; 
 we may or may not agree with the radically different 
 contention of PoincarS that (geometric as distinguished 
 from sensible) space is nothing but what is known in 
 mathematics as a group, of which the concept "is im- 
 posed on us, not as form of our sense, but as form of 
 our understanding." It is, I say, not necessary for us, 
 in tke interest of soundness and intelligibility, to try
 
 84 THE WALLS OF THE WORLD 
 
 to compose such differences or to attempt a settlement 
 of these profound and important questions. As to the 
 distinction between sensible space and geometric space, 
 it would indeed be indispensable to draw it sharply 
 and to keep it always in mind, if we were undertaking 
 to ascertain what the subject (or the object) of geom- 
 etry is, or, what is tantamount, if we were seeking to 
 get clearly aware of what it is that geometry is about. 
 But in discussing the subject before us it is unnecessary 
 to be always guarding that distinction; for, whilst it 
 is the space of geometry, and not sensible space, that 
 we shall be talking about, yet it would be a hindrance 
 rather than a help if we did not allow, as we habitually 
 do allow, the two varieties of space the imagery of 
 the one, the conceptual characters of the other to 
 mingle freely in our thinking. There will be finesse 
 enough for the keenest arrows of our thought without 
 our going out of the way to find it. A procedure less 
 sophisticated will suffice. It will be sufficient to regard 
 space as being what, to the layman and to the student 
 of natural science, it has always seemed to be: a vast 
 region or room round about us, an immense exteriority, 
 locus of all suspended and floating objects of outer sense, 
 the whence, where and whither of motion, theater, in a 
 word, of the ageless drama of the physical universe. 
 In naturally so construing the term we do not commit 
 ourselves to the philosophy, so-called, of common sense; 
 we thus merely save our discourse from the encumbrance 
 of needless refinements; for it is obvious that, if space 
 be not indeed what we have said it seems to be, the 
 seeming is yet a fact, and our questions would remain 
 without essential change: what, then, we should ask, are 
 the dimensions and what is the figure of that seeming? 
 Though all the things contained within that triply
 
 THE WALLS OF THE WORLD 85 
 
 extended spread or expanse which we call space are 
 subject to the law of ceaseless change, the expanse 
 itself, the container of all, appears to suffer no vari- 
 ation whatever, but to be, unlike time, a genuine 
 constant, the same yesterday, today and forever, sole 
 absolute invariant under the infinite host of trans- 
 formations that constitute the cosmic flux. Whether 
 it be so in fact, of course we do not know. We only 
 know that no good reason has ever been advanced for 
 holding the contrary as an hypothesis. 
 
 And yet there is a sense, which we ought I think to 
 notice, an interesting sense, in which space seems to be, 
 not a constant, but, like time, a variable. There is a 
 sense, deeper and juster perhaps than at first we suspect, 
 in which the space of our universe has in the course of 
 time alternately shrunken and grown. During the last 
 century, for example, it has, so it seems, greatly grown, 
 in response, it may be, to an increasing need of the 
 human mind. By grown I do not mean grown in the 
 usual sense, I do not mean the biological sense, I do not 
 mean the sense that was present to the mind of that 
 great man Leonardo da Vinci, when he wrote in effect 
 as follows: if you wish to know that the earth has been 
 growing, you have only to observe "how, among the 
 high mountains, the walls of ancient and ruined cities 
 are being covered over and concealed by the earth's 
 increase"; and, if you would learn how fast the earth 
 is growing, you have only to set a vase, filled with pure 
 earth, upon a roof; to note how green herbs will imme- 
 diately begin to shoot up; to note that these, when 
 mature, will cast their seeds; to allow the process to 
 continue through repetition; then, after the lapse of a 
 decade, to measure the soil's increase; and, finally, 
 to multiply, in order to have thus determined "how
 
 86 THE WALLS OF THE WORLD 
 
 much the earth has grown in the course of a thousand 
 years." In this matter, Leonardo was doubtless wrong. 
 At all events current scientific views are against him. 
 The earth, we know, has grown, but the growth has 
 been by accretion, by addition from without, and not, 
 in biologic sense, by expansion from within (unless, 
 indeed, we adopt the beautiful hypothesis of the poet 
 and physicist, Theodor Fechner, for which so hard- 
 headed a scientific man as Bernhardt Riemann had so 
 much respect, the hypothesis, namely, that the plants, 
 the earth and the stars have souls). The myriad- 
 minded Florentine was, we of today think, in error, 
 his error being one of those brilliant mistakes that but 
 few men have been qualified to make. But in saying 
 that space has grown we do not mean that it has grown 
 in the biologic sense of Leonardo nor yet in the sense 
 of addition from without. We mean that it has grown 
 as a thing in mind may grow, as a thing in thought 
 may grow; we mean that it has grown in men's con- 
 ception of it. That space has, in this sense, been en- 
 larged prodigiously in the course of recent time is evident 
 to all. It has been often said that " the first grand dis- 
 covery of modern times is the immense extension of the 
 universe in space." It would be juster to say that the 
 first grand achievement of modern science has been 
 the immense extension of space itself, the prodigious 
 enlargement of it, in the imagination and especially in 
 the thought of men. If we will but take the trouble 
 to recall vividly the Mosaic cosmogony, in terms of 
 which most of us have but recently ceased to frame our 
 sublimest conceptions of the vast: if we remind our- 
 selves of Plato's "concentric crystal spheres, the ada- 
 mantine axis turning in the lap of necessity, the bands 
 that held the heaven together like a girth that clasps
 
 THE WALLS OF THE WORLD 87 
 
 a ship, the shaft which led from earth to sky, and which 
 was paced by the soul in a thousand years"; if we 
 compare these conceptions with our own; if we think 
 of "the fields from which our stars fling us their light," 
 fields that are really near and yet are so far that the 
 swiftest of messengers, capable of circling the earth 
 eight times in a second, requires for its journey hither 
 thousands of years; if we do but make some such com- 
 parisons, we shall begin to realize dimly that, compared 
 with modern space the space of modern thought 
 elder space the space of elder thought is indeed 
 "but as a cabinet of brilliants, or rather a little jewelled 
 cup found in the ocean or the wilderness." 
 
 Suppose that in fact space were thus, like time, not a 
 constant, but a variable; suppose it were a mental thing 
 growing with the growth of mind; an increasing function 
 of increasing thought; suppose it were a thing whose 
 enlargement is essential as a psychic condition or con- 
 comitant or effect of the progress of science; would not 
 our questions regarding its figure and its dimensions 
 then lose their meaning? The answer is, no; as rational 
 beings we should still be bound to ask: what are the 
 dimensions and what is the figure of space to date? 
 That is not all. If these questions were answered, we 
 could propound the further questions: whether the 
 space so characterized the space of the present is 
 adequate to the present needs of science, and whether 
 it is not destined to yet further expansion in response 
 to the future needs of thought. 
 
 Men do not feel, however, that such spatial enlarge- 
 ments as I have indicated are genuine enlargements of 
 space. In spite of whatever metaphysics or psychology 
 may seem obliged to say to the contrary, men feel that 
 what is nrw in such an enlargement is merely an in-
 
 88 THE WALLS OF THE WORLD 
 
 crease of enlightenment regarding something old; they 
 feel that what is new is, not an added vastness, but a 
 discovery of a vastness that always was and always will 
 be. Let us trust this feeling and, regarding space as 
 constant from everlasting to everlasting, let us take the 
 questions in their natural intent and form: what are 
 the dimensions and what is the figure of our universe 
 of space? 
 
 If you propound these questions to a normal student 
 of natural science, say to a normal astronomer, his re- 
 sponse will be what? If you appear to him to be 
 quite sincere and if, besides, he be in an amiable mood, 
 his response will, not improbably, be a significant shrug 
 of the shoulders, designed to intimate that his time is 
 too precious to be squandered in considering questions 
 that, if not meaningless, are at all events unanswerable. 
 I maintain, on the contrary, that this same student of 
 natural science, and indeed, all other normally educated 
 men and women, have, as a part of their intellectual 
 stock in trade, perfectly definite answers to both of the 
 questions. I do not mean that they are aware of pos- 
 sessing such wealth nor shall I undertake to say in 
 advance whether their answers be correct. What I 
 am asserting and what, with your assistance, I shall 
 endeavor to demonstrate, is that perfectly precise, 
 very intelligent and perfectly intelligible answers to 
 both of the questions are logically involved in what 
 every normally educated mind regards as the securest 
 of its intellectual possessions. In order to show that 
 such answers are to be found embedded in the content 
 of the normally educated mind and in order to lay them 
 bare, it will be necessary to have recourse to the process 
 of explication. Explication, however, is nothing strange 
 to an academic audience. It is true, indeed, that we
 
 THE WALLS OF THE WORLD 89 
 
 no longer derive the verb, to educate, from educere, but 
 it is yet a fact, as every one knows, that a large part 
 of education is eduction the leading forth into light 
 what is hidden in the familiar content of our minds. 
 
 What are those answers? I shall present them in the 
 familiar and brilliant words of one who in the span of a 
 short life achieved a seven-fold immortality: immortality 
 as a physicist, as a philosopher, as a mathematician, as 
 a theologian, as a writer of prose, as an inventor and as 
 a fanatic. From this brief but "immortal" characteriza- 
 tion I have no doubt that you detect the author at 
 once and at once recall the words: Space is an infinite 
 sphere whose center is everywhere and whose surface is 
 nowhere. 
 
 You will observe that, without change of meaning, 
 I have substituted "space" for "universe" and "sur- 
 face" for "circumference." This brilliant mot of Blaise 
 Pascal, as every one knows, has long been valued 
 throughout the world as a splendid literary gem. I 
 am not aware that it has been at any time regarded 
 seriously as a scientific thesis. It may, however, be 
 so regarded. I propose to show, with your co-opera- 
 tion, that this exquisite saying of Pascal expresses with 
 mathematical precision the firm, albeit unconscious, con- 
 viction of the normally educated mind respecting the 
 size and the shape of the space of our universe. Be 
 good enough to note carefully at the outset the car- 
 dinal phrases: infinite sphere, center everywhere, surface 
 nowhere. 
 
 If you are told that there is an object completely 
 enclosed and that the object is equally distant from all 
 parts of the enclosing boundary or wall, you instantly 
 and rightly think of a sphere having that object as 
 center. Let me ask you to think of some point, any
 
 90 THE WALLS OF THE WORLD 
 
 convenient point, P, together with all the straight lines 
 or rays called a sheaf of lines or rays that, begin- 
 ning at P, run out from it as far as ever the nature of 
 space allows. We ask: do all the rays of the sheaf 
 run out equally far? It seems perfectly evident that they 
 do, and with this we might be content. It will be worth 
 while, however, to examine the matter a little more 
 attentively. Denote by L any chosen line or ray of the 
 sheaf. Choose any convenient unit of length, say a 
 mile. We now ask: how many of our units, how many 
 miles can we, starting from P, lay off along L? Lay 
 off, I mean, not in fact, but in thought. In other 
 words : how many steps, each a mile long, can we, 
 in traversing L, take in thought? Hereafter let the 
 phrase "in thought" be understood. Can the question 
 be answered? It can. . Can it be answered definitely? 
 Absolutely so. How? As follows. Before proceeding, 
 however, let me beg of you not to hesitate or shy if cer- 
 tain familiar ideas seem to get submitted to the logical 
 process the mind-expanding process of generalization. 
 There is to be no resort to any kind of legerdemain. 
 Let us be willing to transcend imagination, and, with- 
 out faltering, to follow thought, for thought, free as the 
 spirit of creation, owns no bar save that of inconsistence 
 or self-contradiction. Consider the sequence of cardinal 
 numbers, 
 
 (S) i, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, .... 
 
 The sequence is neither so dry nor so harmless as it 
 seems. It has a beginning; but it has no end, for, by 
 the law of its formation, after each term there is a next. 
 The difference between a sequence that stops somewhere 
 and one that has no end is awful. No one, unless spir- 
 itually unborn or dead, can contemplate that gulf 
 without emotions that take hold of the infinite and
 
 THE WALLS OF THE WORLD 91 
 
 everlasting. Let us compare the sequence with the ray 
 L of our sheaf. Choose in (5) any number n, however 
 large. Can we go from P along L that number n 
 of miles? We are certain that we can. Suppose the 
 trip made, a mile post set up and on it painted the 
 number n to tell how far the post is from P. As n is 
 any number in (5), we may as well suppose, indeed we 
 have already implicitly supposed, mile posts, duly dis- 
 tributed and marked, to have been set up along L to 
 match each and every number in the sequence. Have 
 we thus set up all the mile posts that L allows? We 
 are certain that we have, for, if we go out from P along 
 L any possible but definite number of miles, we are 
 perfectly certain that that number is a number in the 
 sequence, and that accordingly the journey did but take 
 us to a post set up before. What is the upshot? It 
 is that L admits of precisely as many mile posts as 
 there are cardinal numbers, neither more nor less. How 
 long is L? The answer is: L is exactly as many miles 
 long as there are integers or terms in the sequence (5). 
 Can we say of any other line or ray L' of the sheaf 
 what we have said of L? We are certain that we can. 
 Indeed we have said it, for L was any line of the sheaf. 
 May we, then, say that any two lines, L and L', of the 
 sheaf are equal? We may and we must. For, just as 
 we have established a one-to-one correspondence between 
 the mile posts of L and the terms of (5), so we may 
 establish a one-to-one correspondence between the mile 
 posts of L and those of L' t and what we mean by the 
 equality of two classes of things is precisely the possi- 
 bility of thus setting up a one-to-one correlation be- 
 tween them. Accordingly, all the lines or rays of our 
 sheaf are equal. We can not fail to note that thus 
 there is forming in our minds the conception of a sphere,
 
 Q2 THE WALLS OF THE WORLD 
 
 centered at P, larger, however, than any sphere of slate 
 or wood or marble a sphere, if it be a sphere, whose 
 radii are the rays of our sheaf. Is not the thing, how- 
 ever, too vast to be a sphere? Obviously yes, if the 
 lines or rays of the sheaf have a length that is indefinite, 
 unassignable; obviously no, if their length be assignable 
 and definite. We have seen the length of a ray contains 
 exactly as many miles as there are integers or terms 
 in (S). The question, then, is: has the totality of these 
 terms a definite assignable number? The answer is, 
 yes. To show it, look sharply at the following fact, 
 a bit difficult to see only because it is so obvious, being 
 writ, so to speak, on the very surface of the eye. I 
 wish, in a word, to make clear what is meant by the 
 cardinal number of any given class of things. The 
 fingers of my right hand constitute a class of objects; 
 the fingers of my left hand, another class. We can set 
 up a one-to-one correspondence between the classes, 
 pairing the objects in the one with those in the other. 
 Any two classes admitting of such a correlation are 
 said to be equivalent. Now given any class K, there is 
 another class C composed of all the classes each of 
 which is equivalent to K. C is called the cardinal num- 
 ber of K, and the name of C, if it has received a name, 
 tells how many objects are in K. Thus, if K is the class 
 of the fingers of my right hand, the word five is the name 
 of the class of classes each equivalent to K. Now to 
 the application. The terms of (S) constitute a class K 
 (of terms). Has it a definite number? Yes. What is 
 it? It is the class of all classes each equivalent to K. 
 Has this number class received a name of its own? Yes, 
 and it has, like many other numbers, received a symbol, 
 namely, X, read Aleph null. It is, then, this cardinal 
 number Aleph, not familiar, indeed, but perfectly definite
 
 THE WALLS OF THE WORLD 93 
 
 as denoting a definite class, it is this that tells us how 
 many terms are in (5) and therewith tells us the length 
 of the rays of our sheaf. Herewith the concept that 
 was forming is now completely formed: space is a sphere 
 centered at P. 
 
 But is the sphere, as Pascal asserts, an infinite sphere? 
 We may easily see that it is. Again consider the se- 
 quence (S) and with it the similar sequence (50, 
 
 (S) i, 2, 3, 4, s, 6, 7, . , 
 (50 a, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, .. 
 
 Observe that all the terms in (S') are in (5) and that 
 (S) contains terms that are not in (S f ). (S') is, then, 
 a proper part of (5). Next observe that we can pair 
 each term in (5) with the term below it in (S 7 ). That 
 is to say: the whole, (5), is equivalent to one of its 
 parts, (5'). A class that thus has a part to which it 
 is equivalent is said to be infinite, and the number of 
 things in such a class is called an infinite number. Aleph 
 is, then, an infinite number, and so we see that the rays 
 of our sheaf, the radii of our sphere, are infinite in 
 length: space is an infinite sphere centered at P. 
 
 Finally, what of the phrases, center everywhere, surface 
 nowhere? Can we give them a meaning consistent with 
 common usage and common sense? We can, as follows. 
 Let O be any chosen point somewhere in your neigh- 
 borhood. By saying that the center P is everywhere 
 we mean that P may be taken to be any point within 
 a sphere centered at O and having a finite radius, a 
 radius, that is, whose length in miles is expressed by any 
 integer in (S). And by saying that the surface of our 
 infinite sphere is nowhere we mean that no point of the 
 surface can be reached by traveling out from P any 
 finite number, however large, of miles, by traveling, that
 
 94 THE WALLS OF THE WORLD 
 
 is, a number of miles expressed by any number, however 
 large, in (5). 
 
 Here we have touched our primary goal: we have 
 demonstrated that men and women whose education, 
 in respect of space, has been of normal type, believe 
 profoundly, albeit unawares, that the space of our uni- 
 verse is an infinite sphere of which the center is every- 
 where and the surface nowhere. Such is the beautiful 
 conception, the great conception mathematically pre- 
 cise yet mystical withal and awful in its limitless reaches 
 which is ever ready to form itself, in the normally 
 educated mind and there to stand a deep-rooted con- 
 scious conviction regarding the shape and the size 
 of the all-embracing world. 
 
 Is the conception valid? Does the conviction corre- 
 spond to fact? Is it true? It is not enough that it be 
 intelligible, which it is; it is not enough that it be noble 
 and sublime, which also it is. No doubt whatever is 
 noble and sublime is, in some sense, true. For we 
 mortals have to do with more than reason. Yet science, 
 science in the modern technical sense of the term, having 
 elected for its field the domain of the rational, allows 
 no superrational tests of truth to be sufficient or final. 
 We must, therefore, ask: are the dimensions and the 
 figure of our space, in fact, what, as we have seen, 
 Pascal asserts and the normally educated mind believes 
 them to be? Long before the days of Pascal, back 
 yonder in the last century before the beginning of the 
 Christian era, one of the acutest and boldest thinkers 
 of all time, immortal expounder of Epicurean thought, 
 answered the question, with the utmost confidence, in 
 the affirmative. I refer to Lucretius and his "De Rerum 
 Natura." In my view that poem is the greatest and 
 finest union of literary excellence and scientific spirit to
 
 THE WALLS OF THE WORLD 95 
 
 be found in the annals of human thinking. I main- 
 tain that opinion of the work despite the fact that the 
 majority of its conclusions have been invalidated by 
 time, have perished by supersession; for we must not 
 forget that, in respect of knowledge, "the present is 
 no more exempt from the sneer of the future than the 
 past has been." I maintain that opinion of the work 
 despite the fact that the enterprise of Lucretius was 
 marvelously extravagant; for we must not forget that 
 the relative modesty of modern men of science is not 
 inborn, but is only an imperfectly acquired lesson. 
 Well, it is in that great work that Lucretius endeavors 
 to prove that our universe of space is infinite in the 
 sense that we have explained. His argument, which 
 runs to many words, may be briefly paraphrased as 
 follows. Conceive that, starting from any point of 
 space, you go out in any direction as far as you please, 
 and that then you hurl your javelin. Either it will 
 go on, in which case there is space ahead for it to move 
 in, or it will not go on, in which case there must be 
 space ahead to contain whatever prevents its going. 
 In either case, then, however far you may have gone, 
 there is yet space beyond. And so, he concludes, space 
 is infinite, and he triumphantly adds: 
 
 Therefore the nature of room and the space of the unfathomable void 
 are such as bright thunderbolts can not race through in their course though 
 gliding on through endless tract of time, no nor lessen one jot the journey 
 that remains to go by all their travel so huge a room is spread out on 
 all sides for things without any bounds in all directions round. 
 
 Such is the argument, the great argument, of the 
 Roman poet. Great I call it, for it is great enough to 
 have fooled all philosophers and men of science for two 
 thousand years'. Indeed only a decade ago I heard 
 the argument confidently employed by an American
 
 96 THE WALLS OF THE WORLD 
 
 thinker of more than national reputation. But is the 
 argument really fallacious? It is. The conclusion may 
 indeed be quite correct space may indeed be infinite, 
 as Lucretius asserts but it does not follow from his 
 argument. To show the fallacy is no difficult feat. 
 Consider a sphere of finite radius. We may suppose 
 it to be very small or intermediate or very large no 
 matter what its size so long as its radius is finite. By 
 sphere, in this part of the discussion, I shall mean sphere- 
 surface. Be good enough to note and bear that in mind. 
 Observe that this sphere this surface is a kind of 
 room. It is a kind of space, region or room where 
 certain things, as points, circle arcs and countless other 
 configurations can be and move. These things, con- 
 fined to this surface, which is their world, their universe 
 of space, if you please, enjoy a certain amount, an 
 immense amount, of freedom: the points of this world 
 can move in it hither, thither and yonder; they can 
 move very far, millions and millions of miles, even in 
 the same direction, if only the sphere be taken large 
 enough. I see no reason why we should not, for the 
 sake of vividness, fancy that spherical world inhabited 
 by two-dimensional intelligences conformed to their 
 locus and home just as we are conformed to our own 
 space of three dimensions. I see no reason why we 
 should not fancy those creatures, in the course of their 
 history, to have had their own Democritus and Epicurus, 
 to have had their own Roman republic or empire and 
 in it to have produced the brilliant analogues of our own 
 Virgil, Cicero and Lucretius. Do but note attentively 
 for this is the point that their Lucretius could 
 have said about their space precisely what our own 
 said about ours. Their Lucretius could have said to 
 his fellow-inhabitants of the sphere: "starting at any
 
 THE WALLS OF THE WORLD 97 
 
 point, go as far as ever you please in any straight line" 
 such line would of course (as we know) be a great 
 circle of the sphere "and then hurl your javelin" 
 the javelin would, as we know, be only an arc of a great 
 circle "either it will go on, in which case, etc.; or 
 it will not, etc."; thus giving an argument identical 
 with that of our own Lucretius. But what could it 
 avail? We know what would happen to the javelin 
 when hurled as supposed in the surface: it would go 
 on for a while, there being nothing to prevent it. But 
 whether it went on or not, it could not be logically 
 inferred that the surface, the space in question, is infinite, 
 for we know that the surface is finite, just so many, a 
 finite number of, square miles. The fallacy, at length, 
 is bare. It consists the fact has been recently often 
 pointed out in the age-long failure to distinguish 
 adequately between unbegrenzt and unendlich between 
 boundless and infinite as applied to space. What our 
 fancied Lucretius proved is, if anything, that the sphere 
 is boundless, but not that it is infinite. What our real 
 Lucretius proved is, if anything, that the space of our 
 universe is boundless, but not that it is infinite. That 
 a region or room may be boundless without being in- 
 finite is clearly shown by the sphere (surface). How 
 evident, once it is drawn, the distinction is. And yet 
 it was never drawn, in thinking about the dimensions 
 of space, until in 1854 it was drawn by Riemann in 
 his epoch-marking and epoch-making Habilitalionschrift 
 on the foundations of geometry. 
 
 What, then, is the fact? Is space finite, as Riemann 
 held it may be? Or is it infinite, as Lucretius and Pascal 
 deliberately asserted, and as the normally educated 
 mind, ho we vet unconsciously, yet firmly believes? No 
 one "knows. The question is one of the few great out-
 
 98 THE WALLS OF THE WORLD 
 
 standing scientific questions that intelligent laymen may, 
 with a little expert assistance, contrive to grasp. Shall 
 we ever find the answer? Time is long, and neither 
 science nor philosophy feels constrained to haul down 
 the flag and confess an ignorabimus. Neither is it 
 necessary or wise for science and philosophy to camp 
 indefinitely before a problem that they are evidently 
 not yet equipped to solve. They may proceed to related 
 problems, always reserving the right to return with 
 better instruments and added light. 
 
 In the present instance, let us suppose, for the mo- 
 ment, that Lucretius, Pascal and the normally educated 
 mind are right: let us suppose that space is infinite, as 
 they assert and believe. In that case the bounds of the 
 universe are indeed remote, and yet we may ask: are 
 there not ways to pass in thought the walls of even so 
 vast a world? There are such ways. But where and 
 how? For are we not supposing that the walls to be 
 passed are distant by an amount that is infinite? And 
 how may a boundary that is infinitely removed be 
 reached and overpassed? The answer is that there are 
 many infinites of many orders; that infinites are sur- 
 passed by other infinites; that infinites, like the stars, 
 differ in glory. This is not rhetoric, it is naked fact. 
 One of the grand achievements of mathematics in the 
 nineteenth century is to have defined infinitude (as 
 above defined) and to have discovered that infinites 
 rise above infinites, in a genuine hierarchy without a 
 summit. In order to show how we can in thought pass 
 the Lucretian and Pascal walls of our universe, I must 
 ask you to assume as a lemma a mathematical proposi- 
 tion which has indeed been rigorously established and is 
 familiar, but the proof of which we can not tarry here 
 to reproduce. Consider all the real numbers from zero
 
 THE WALLS OF THE WORLD 99 
 
 to one inclusive, or, what is tantamount, consider all 
 the points in a unit segment of a continuous straight 
 line. The familiar proposition that I am asking you 
 to assume is that it is not possible to set up a one-to- 
 one correspondence between the points of that segment 
 and the positive integers (in the sequence above given), 
 but that, if you take away from the segment an infini- 
 tude (Aleph) of points matching all the positive integers, 
 there will remain in the segment more points, infinitely 
 more, than you have taken away. That means that 
 the infinitude of points in the segment infinitely surpasses 
 the infinitude of positive integers; surpasses, that is, the 
 infinitude of mile posts on the radius of our infinite 
 (Pascal) sphere. Now conceive a straight line containing 
 as many miles as there are points in the segment. You 
 see at once that in that conception you have overleaped 
 the infinitely distant walls of the Lucretian universe. 
 Overleaped, did I say? Nay, you have passed beyond 
 those borders by a distance infinitely greater than the 
 length of any line contained within them. And thus 
 it appears that, not our imagination, indeed, but our 
 reason may gaze into spatial abysses beside which the 
 infinite space of Lucretius and Pascal is but a meager 
 thing, infinitesimally small. There remain yet other 
 ways by which we are able to escape the infinite con- 
 fines of this latter space. One of these ways is pro- 
 vided in the conception of hyperspaces enclosing our 
 own as this encloses a plane. But that is another story, 
 and the hour is spent. 
 
 The course we have here pursued has not, indeed, 
 enabled us to answer with final assurance the two ques- 
 tions with which we set out. I hope we have seen along 
 the way something of the possibilities involved. I hope 
 we have gained some insight into the meaning of the
 
 100 THE WALLS OF THE WORLD 
 
 questions and have seen that it is possible to discuss 
 them profitably. And especially I hope that we have 
 seen afresh, what we have always to be learning again, 
 that it is not in the world of sense, however precious 
 it is and ineffably wonderful and beautiful, nor yet in 
 the still finer and ampler world of imagination, but 
 it is in the world of conception and thought that the 
 human intellect attains its appropriate freedom a free- 
 dom without any limitation save the necessity of being 
 consistent. Consistency, however, is only a prosaic name 
 for a limitation which, in another and higher realm, 
 harmony imposes even upon the muses.
 
 MATHEMATICAL EMANCIPATIONS: 
 DIMENSIONALITY AND HYPERSPACE 1 
 
 AMONG the splendid generalizations effected by modern 
 mathematics, there is none more brilliant or more in- 
 spiring or more fruitful, and none more nearly commen- 
 surate with the limitless immensity of being itself, than 
 that which produced the great concept variously desig- 
 nated by such equivalent terms as hyperspace, multidi- 
 mensional space, n- space, n-fold or w -dimensional space, 
 and space of n dimensions. 
 
 In science as in life the greatest truths are the sim- 
 plest. Intelligibility is alike the first and the last de- 
 mand of the understanding. Naturally, therefore, those 
 scientific generalizations that have been accounted really 
 great, such as the Newtonian law of gravitation, or the 
 principle of the conservation of energy, or the all- 
 conquering concept of cosmic evolution, are, all of them, 
 distinguished by their simplicity and apprehensibility. 
 To that rule the notion of hyperspace presents no excep- 
 tion. For its fair understanding, for a live sensibility 
 to its manifold significance and quickening power, a 
 long and severe mathematical apprenticeship, however 
 helpful it would be, is not demanded in preparation, 
 but only the serious attention of a mature intelligence 
 reasonably inured by discipline to the exactions of ab- 
 stract thought and the austerities of the higher imag- 
 
 1 Printed in Tke Monist, January, 1906. For a deeper view of this subject 
 the reader may be referred to the ijlh essay of this volume.
 
 102 MATHEMATICAL EMANCIPATIONS 
 
 ination. And it is to the reader having this general 
 equipment, rather than to the professional mathe- 
 matician as such, that the present communication is 
 addressed. 
 
 To a clear understanding of what the mathematician 
 means by hyperspace, it is in the first place necessary 
 to conceive in its full generality the closely related notion 
 of dimensionality and to be able to state precisely what 
 is meant by saying that a given manifold has such and 
 such a dimensionality, or such and such a number of 
 dimensions, in a specified entity or element. 
 
 Discrimination, as the proverb rightly teaches, is the 
 beginning of mind. The first psychic product of that 
 initial psychic act is numerical: to discriminate is to 
 produce two, the simplest possible example of multi- 
 plicity. The discovery, or better the invention, better 
 still the production, best of all the creation, of multi- 
 plicity with its correlate of number, is, therefore, the 
 most primitive achievement or manifestation of mind. 
 Such creation is the immediate issue of intellection, 
 nay, it is intellection, identical with its deed, and, with- 
 out the possibility of the latter, the former itself were 
 quite impossible. Accordingly it is not matter for sur- 
 prise but is on the contrary a perfectly natural or even 
 inevitable phenomenon that explanations of ultimate 
 ideas and ultimate explanations in general should more 
 and more avail themselves of analytic as distinguished 
 from intuitional means and should tend more and more 
 to assume arithmetic form. Depend upon it, the uni- 
 verse will never really be understood unless it may 
 be sometime resolved into an ordered multiplicity and 
 made to own itself an everlasting drama of the calculus. 
 
 Let us, then, trust the arithmetic instinct as funda- 
 mental and, for instruments of thought that shall not
 
 MATHEMATICAL EMANCIPATIONS 103 
 
 fail, repair at once to the domain of number. Every 
 one who may reasonably aspire to a competent knowl- 
 edge of the subject in hand is more or less familiar with 
 the system of real numbers, composed of the positive 
 and negative integers and fractions, such irrational 
 numbers as V? and TT and countless hosts of similar 
 numbers similarly definable. He may know that, for 
 reasons which need not be given here, the system of 
 real numbers is commonly described as the analytical 
 continuum of second order. He knows, too, at any rate 
 it is a fact which he will assume and readily appreciate, 
 that the distance between any two points of a right line 
 is exactly expressible by a number of the continuum; 
 that, conversely, given any number, two points may be 
 found whose distance apart is expressed by the numerical 
 value of that number; that, therefore, it is possible to 
 establish a unique and reciprocal, or one-to-one, corre- 
 spondence between the real numbers and the points 
 of a straight line, namely, by assuming some point of 
 the line as a fixed point of reference or origin of dis- 
 tances, by agreeing that a distance shall be positive or 
 negative according as it proceeds from the origin in 
 this sense or in the other and by agreeing that a point 
 and the number which by its magnitude reckoned in 
 terms of a chosen finite unit however great or small 
 serves to express the distance of the point from the 
 origin and by its sign indicates on which side of the 
 origin the point is situated, shall be a pair of corre- 
 spondents. Accordingly, if the point P glides along 
 the line, the corresponding number v will vary in such 
 a way that to each position of the geometric there 
 corresponds one value of the arithmetic element, and 
 conversely. P represents v; and v, P. No two P's 
 represent a same p; and no two c's, a same P. By
 
 104 MATHEMATICAL EMANCIPATIONS 
 
 virtue of the correlation thus established with the analyt- 
 ical continuum, we may describe the line as a simple or 
 one-fold geometric continuum, namely, of points. The 
 like may in general be said, and for the same reason, 
 of any curve whatever, but we select the straight line 
 as being the simplest, for in matters fundamental we 
 should prefer clearness to riches of illustration, in the 
 faith that, if first we seek the former, the latter shall 
 in due course be added unto it. The straight line, 
 when it is regarded as the domain of geometric opera- 
 tion, as the region or room containing the configurations 
 or sets of elements with which we deal, is and is called 
 a space; and this space, viewed as the manifold or 
 assemblage of its points, is said to be 0w-dimensional 
 for the reason that, as we have seen, in order to deter- 
 mine the position of a point in it, in order, i.e., to pick 
 out or distinguish a point from all the other points of 
 the manifold, it is necessary and sufficient to know one 
 fact about the point, as, e.g., its distance from an as- 
 sumed point of reference. In other words, the line 
 is called a one-dimensional space of points because in 
 that space the point has one and but one degree of 
 freedom or, what is tantamount, because the position 
 of the point depends upon the value of a single v, 
 known as its coordinate. 
 
 Herewith is immediately suggested the generic con- 
 cept of dimensionality: if an assemblage of elements of 
 any given kind whatsoever, geometric or analytic or neither, 
 as points, lines, circles, triangles, numbers, notions, senti- 
 ments, hues, tones, be such that, in order to distinguish 
 every element of the assemblage from all the others, it is 
 necessary and sufficient to know exactly n independent facts 
 about the element, then the assemblage is said to be n- 
 dimensional in the elements of the given kind. It appears,
 
 MATHEMATICAL EMANCIPATIONS 105 
 
 therefore, that the notion of dimensionality is by no 
 means exclusively associated with that of space but on 
 the contrary may often be attached to the far more 
 generic concept of assemblage, aggregate or manifold. 
 For example, duration, the total aggregate of time-points, 
 or instants, is a simple or one-fold assemblage. On the 
 other hand, the assemblage of colors is three-dimensional 
 as is also that of musical notes, for in the former case, 
 as shown by Clerk Maxwell, Thomas Young and others, 
 every color is composable as a definite mixture of three 
 primary ones and so depends upon three independent 
 variables or coordinates expressing the amounts of the 
 fundamental components. And in the latter case a 
 similar scheme obtains, one note being distinguishable 
 from all others when and only when the three general 
 marks, pitch, length, and loudness, are each of them 
 specified. In passing it seems worth while to point out 
 the possibility of appropriating the name soul to signify 
 the manifold of all possible psychic experiences, in which 
 event the term would signify an assemblage of probably 
 infinite dimensionality, and the assemblage would be 
 continuous, too, if Oswald ! be right in his contention 
 that every manifold of experience possesses the character 
 of continuity. That contention, however, if the much 
 abused term continuity be allowed to have its single 
 precise definitely seizable scientific meaning, is far less 
 easy to make good than that eminent chemist and 
 courageous philosopher seems to think. 
 
 Returning to the concept of space, an n-fold assem- 
 blage will be an n-dimensional space if the elements of 
 the assemblage are geometric entities of any given kind. 
 We have seen that the straight line is a 0ni-dimensional 
 space of points. But in studying the right line conceived 
 > Cf. his Natw-PkUotopkU.
 
 106 MATHEMATICAL EMANCIPATIONS 
 
 as a space, we are not compelled to employ the point 
 as element. Instead we may choose to assume as ele- 
 ment the point pair or triplet or quatrain, and so on. The 
 line would then be for our thought primarily a space, 
 not of points, but of point pairs or triplets and so on, 
 and it would accordingly be strictly a space of two 
 dimensions or of three, and so on; for, obviously, to 
 distinguish say a point pair from all other such pairs 
 we should have to know two independent facts about 
 the pair. The pair would have two degrees of freedom 
 in the line, its determination would depend upon two 
 independent variables as v\ and DZ- These variables 
 might be the two independent ratios of the coefficients 
 and absolute term in a quadratic equation in one un- 
 known, as x, for to know the ratios is to know the equa- 
 tion and therewith its two roots, the two values of x. 
 These being laid off on the line give the point pair. 
 Conversely, a point pair gives two values of x, hence 
 definite quadratic equation and so values of v\ and %. 
 On its arithmetic side the shield presents a precisely 
 parallel doctrine. The simple analytical continuum 
 composed of the real numbers immediately loses its 
 simplicity and assumes the character of a 2- or 3- ... 
 or w-fold analytical continuum if, instead of thinking of 
 its individual numbers, we view it as an aggregate of 
 number pairs or triplets or, in general, as the totality 
 of ordered systems of n numbers each. 
 
 In the light of the preceding paragraph it is seen that 
 the dimensionality of a given space is not unique but 
 depends upon the choice of geometric entity for primary 
 or generating element. A space being given, its dimen- 
 sionality is not therewith determined but depends upon 
 the will of the investigator, who by a proper choice 
 of generating elements may endow the space with any
 
 MATHEMATICAL EMANCIPATIONS 107 
 
 dimensionality he pleases. That fact is of cardinal 
 significance alike for science and for philosophy. I 
 reserve for a little while its further consideration in order 
 to present at once a kind of complementary fact of equal 
 interest and of scarcely less importance. It is that two 
 spaces which in every other respect are essentially un- 
 like, thoroughly disparate, may, by suitable choice of 
 generating elements, be made to assume equal dimen- 
 sionalities. Consider, for example, the totality of lines 
 contained in a same plane and containing a point in 
 common. Such a totality, called a pencil, of lines is a 
 simple geometric continuum, namely, of lines. It is, 
 then, and may be called, a 0n-dimensional space of 
 lines just as the line or range of points is a one-dimen- 
 sional space of points. The two spaces are equally 
 rich in their respective elements. And if, following 
 Desargues and his successors, we adjoin to the points 
 of the range a so-called "ideal" point or point at infinity, 
 thus rendering the range like the pencil, closed, it be- 
 comes obvious that two intelligences, adapted and 
 confined respectively to the two simple spaces in ques- 
 tion, would enjoy equal freedom; their analytical experi- 
 ences would be identical, and their geometries, though 
 absolutely disparate in kind, would be equally rich in 
 content. Just as the range-dweller would discover that 
 the dimensionality of his space is two in point pairs, 
 three in triplets, and so on, so the pencil-inhabitant would 
 find his space to be of dimensionality two in line pairs, 
 three in triplets, and so on without end. It was indi- 
 cated above that any line, straight or curved, is a one- 
 dimensional space of points. In that connection it 
 remains to say that, speaking generally, any curve, 
 literally and strictly conceived as the assemblage of its 
 (tangent) lines and so including the point or pencil
 
 108 MATHEMATICAL EMANCIPATIONS 
 
 as a special case, is also a 0w0-dimensional space of lines. 
 It is, moreover, obvious that the foregoing considera- 
 tions respecting the range of points and the pencil of 
 lines are, mutatis mutandis, equally valid for any one 
 of an infinite variety of other analogous spaces, as, e. g., 
 the axal pencil, a one-fold space of planes, consisting 
 of the totality of planes having a line in common. 
 
 If perchance some reader should feel an ungrateful 
 sense of impropriety in our use of the term space to 
 signify such common geometric aggregates as we have 
 been considering, I gladly own that his state of mind 
 is a perfectly natural one. But it is, besides and on 
 that account, a source of real encouragement. Dictional 
 sensibility is a hopeful sign, being conclusive evidence 
 of life, and, while there is life, there remains the pos- 
 sibility and therewith the hope of readjustment. In 
 the present case, venture to assure the reader, on 
 grounds both of personal experience and of the experi- 
 ence of others, that whatever sense he may have of 
 injury received will speedily disappear in the further 
 course of his meditations. Only, let him not be im- 
 patient. Larger meanings must have time to grow; 
 the smaller ones, those that are most natural and most 
 provincial, being also the most persistent. In the 
 process of clarification, expansion and readjustment, 
 his fine old word, space, early come into his life and 
 gradually stained through and through with the re- 
 fracted partial lights and multi-colored prejudices of 
 his youth, is not to be robbed of its proper charms nor 
 to be shorn of its proper significance. More than it will 
 lose of mystery, it shall gain of meaning. Of this last 
 it has hitherto had for him but little that was of sci- 
 entific value, but little that was not vague and elusive 
 and ultimately unseizable. That was because the word
 
 MATHEMATICAL EMANCIPATIONS IOQ 
 
 stood for something absolutely sui generis, i. e., for a 
 genus neither including species nor being itself included 
 in a class. But now, on the other hand, both of these 
 negatives are henceforth to be denied, and the hitherto 
 baffling term, perfect symbol of the unthinkable, always 
 promising and never presenting definable content, 
 immediately assumes the characteristic twofold aspect 
 of a genuine concept, being at once included as member 
 of a higher class, the more generic class of manifolds, 
 and including within itself an endless variety of indi- 
 viduals, an infinitude of species of space. 
 
 Of these species, the next in order of simplicity, to 
 those above considered, is the plane. To distinguish a 
 point of a plane from all its other points, it is necessary 
 and sufficient to know two independent facts about its 
 position, as, e. g., its distances from two assumed lines 
 of reference, most conveniently taken at right angles. 
 Viewed as the ensemble of its points, the plane is, there- 
 fore, a space of two dimensions. In that space, the 
 point enjoys a freedom exactly twice that of a point 
 in a range or of a line in a pencil, and exactly equal to 
 that of a pair of points or of lines in the last-mentioned 
 spaces. On the other hand, if the point pair be taken 
 as element of the plane, the latter becomes a space of 
 four dimensions. 
 
 What if the line be taken as generating element of the 
 plane? It is obvious that the plane is equally rich in 
 pencils and in ranges. It contains as many lines as 
 points, neither more nor less. Two points determine a 
 line; two lines, a point; if the lines be parallel, their 
 common point is a Desarguesian, a point at infinity. 
 We should therefore expect to find that in a plane the 
 position of a line depends upon two and but two inde- 
 pendent variables. And the expectation is realized, as
 
 110 MATHEMATICAL EMANCIPATIONS 
 
 it is easy to see. For if the variables be taken to repre- 
 sent (say) distances measured from chosen points along 
 two lines of reference, it is immediately evident that a 
 given pair of values of the variables determines a line 
 uniquely and that, conversely, a given line uniquely 
 determines such a pair. The plane is, therefore, a too- 
 dimensional space of lines as well as of points. In line 
 pairs, as in point pairs, its dimensionality is four. We 
 may suppose the space in question to be inhabited by 
 two sorts of individuals, one of them capable of thinking 
 in terms of points but not of lines, the other in terms of 
 lines but not of points. Each would find his space 
 bi-dimensional. They would enjoy precisely the same 
 analytical experience. Between their geometries there 
 would subsist a fact-to-fact correspondence but not the 
 slightest resemblance. For example, the circle would 
 be for the former individual a certain assemblage of 
 points but devoid of tangent lines, and, for the latter, 
 a corresponding assemblage of (tangent) lines but devoid 
 of contact points. 
 
 Passing from the plane to a curved surface, to a 
 sphere, for example, a little reflection suffices to show 
 that the latter may be conceived in a thousand and one 
 ways, but most simply as the ensemble of its points or 
 of its (tangent) planes or of its (tangent) lines. These 
 various concepts are logically equivalent and in them- 
 selves are equally intelligible. And if to us they do 
 not seem to be also equally good, that is doubtless be- 
 cause we are but little traveled in the great domain of 
 Reason and therefore naturally prefer our familiar 
 customs and provincial points of view to others that are 
 strange. At all events, it is certain that on purely 
 rational grounds, none of the concepts in question is to 
 be preferred, while, from preference based on other
 
 MATHEMATICAL EMANCIPATIONS III 
 
 grounds, it is the office alike of science and of philosophy 
 to provide the means of emancipation. Let us, then, 
 detach ourselves from the vulgar point of view and for 
 a moment contemplate the three concepts as coordi- 
 nate indeed but independent concepts of surface. And 
 for the sake of simplicity, we may think of a sphere. 1 
 Suppose it placed upon a plane and imagine its highest 
 point, which we may call the pole, joined by straight 
 lines to all the points of the plane. Each line pierces 
 the sphere in a second point. It is plain that thus a 
 one-to-one correspondence is set up between the points 
 of the sphere and those of the plane, except that the 
 pole corresponds at once to all the Desarguesian points 
 of the plane an exception, however, which is here of 
 no importance. The plane and the sphere are, then, 
 equally rich in points. Accordingly, the sphere con- 
 ceived as a plenum or locus or space of points is a space 
 of two dimensions. In that space the point has two 
 degrees of freedom. Its position depends upon two 
 independent variables, as latitude and longitude. But 
 we may conceive the surface quite otherwise: at each 
 of its points there is a (tangent) plane, and now, dis- 
 regarding points, we may think only of the assemblage 
 of those planes. These together constitute a sphere, 
 not, however, as a locus of points, but as an envelope 
 (as it is called) of planes. And what shall we say of 
 the surface as thus conceived? The answer obviously 
 is that it is a taw-dimensional space of planes, admitting 
 of a geometry quite as rich and as definite as is the 
 theory of any other space of equal dimensionality. In 
 each of the planes there is a pencil of lines of which each 
 is tangent to the sphere. Thus we are led to a third 
 
 1 The term is here employed as in the higher geometry to denote, not a 
 solid, byt a surface.
 
 112 MATHEMATICAL EMANCIPATIONS 
 
 conception of our surface. We have merely to dis- 
 regard both points and planes and confine our atten- 
 tion to the assemblage of lines. The vision which thus 
 arises is that of a /Aree-dimensional space of lines. 
 In pencils, its dimensionality is two. In this space the 
 pencil has two and the line three degrees of freedom. 
 
 But let us return to the plane. We have seen that at 
 the geometrician's bidding it plays the r61e of a two- 
 fold space either in points or in lines. It is natural to 
 ask whether it may be conceived as a space of three 
 dimensions, like the sphere in its third conception. The 
 answer is affirmative: it may be so conceived, and that 
 in an infinity of ways. Of these the simplest is to as- 
 sume the circle as primary or generating element. Of 
 circles the plane contains a threefold infinity, an infinity 
 of infinities of infinities. It is a circle continuum of 
 third order. To distinguish any one of its circles from 
 all the rest, three independent data, two for position and 
 one for size, are necessary and sufficient. In the plane 
 the circle has three degrees of freedom, its determination 
 depends upon three independent variables. The plane 
 is, accordingly, a tri : dimensional space of circles. In 
 parabolas its dimensionality is four; in conies, five; and 
 so on without limit. 
 
 Before turning to space, ordinarily so-called, it seems 
 worth while to indicate another geometric continuum 
 which, although it presents no likeness whatever to 
 the plane, nevertheless matches it perfectly in every con- 
 ceptual aspect. The reference is to the sheaf, or bundle, 
 of lines, i. e., the totality of lines having a point in 
 common. The point is to be disregarded and the lines 
 viewed as non-decomposable entities, like points in a line 
 or plane regarded as an assemblage of points. Thus 
 conceived, the sheaf is literally a space, namely, of lines.
 
 MATHEMATICAL EMANCIPATIONS 113 
 
 It is, in the vulgar sense of the term, just as big, occu- 
 pies precisely as much room, nay indeed the same room, 
 as the space in which we live. The sheaf as a space is 
 taw-dimensional in lines, like the plane in points; two- 
 dimensional in pencils, like the plane in lines; four- 
 dimensional in line or pencil pairs, like the plane in 
 point or line pairs; /Aree-dimensional in ordinary cones, 
 like the plane in circles; and so on and on. 
 
 In the light of the foregoing considerations, any hith- 
 erto uninitiated reader will probably suspect that ordi- 
 nary space is not, as it is commonly supposed and said 
 to be, an inherently and uniquely /Arce-dimensional 
 affair. His suspicion is completely justified by fact. 
 The simple traditional affirmation of tri-dimensionality 
 is devoid of definite meaning. It is unconsciously elliptic, 
 requiring for its completion and precision the specifica- 
 tion of an appropriate geometric entity for generating 
 element. Merely to say that space is tri-dimensional 
 because a solid, e. g., a plank, has length, breadth and 
 thickness, is too crude for scientific purposes. More- 
 over, it betrays, quite unwittingly indeed as we shall 
 see, an exceedingly meager point of view. Not only 
 does it assume the point as element but it does so tacitly 
 because unconsciously, as if the point were not merely 
 an but the element of ordinary space. An element the 
 point may obviously be taken to be, and in that ele- 
 ment ordinary space is indeed tri-dimensional, for the 
 position of a point at once determines and is determined 
 by three independent data, as its distances from three 
 assumed mutually perpendicular planes of reference. 
 It must be admitted, too, that the point does, in a sense, 
 recommend itself as the element par excellence, at least 
 for practical purposes. For example, we prefer to do our 
 drawing with the point of a pencil to doing it with a
 
 114 MATHEMATICAL EMANCIPATIONS 
 
 straight edge. But that is a matter of physical as dis- 
 tinguished from rational convenience. Preference for 
 the point has, then, a cause: in the order of evolution, 
 practical man precedes man rational and determines 
 for the latter his initial choices. Causes, however, are 
 extra-logical things, and the preference in question, 
 though it has indeed a cause, has no reason. Accord- 
 ingly, when in these modern times, the geometrician 
 became clearly conscious that he was in fact and had 
 been from time immemorial employing the point as 
 element and that it was this use that lent to space 
 its traditional triplicity of dimensions, he did not fail 
 to perceive almost immediately the logically equal 
 possibility of adopting at will for primary element any 
 one of an infinite variety of other geometric entities and 
 so the possibility of rationally endowing ordinary space 
 with any prescribed dimensionality whatever. 
 
 Thus, for example, the plane is no less available 
 for generating element than is the point. The plane 
 is logically and intuitionally just as simple, for, if from 
 force of habit, we are tempted to analyze the plane 
 into an assemblage of points, the point is in its turn 
 equally conceivable as or analyzable into an assemblage 
 of planes, the sheaf of planes containing the point. 
 We may, then, regard our space as primarily a plenum 
 of planes. To determine a plane requires three and 
 but three independent data, as, say, the distances to 
 it measured along three chosen lines from chosen points 
 upon them. It follows that ordinary space is three- 
 dimensional in planes as well as in points. But now 
 if (with Pliicker) we think of the line as element, we 
 shall find that our space has four dimensions. That fact 
 may be seen in various ways, most easily perhaps as 
 follows. A line is determined by any two of its points.
 
 MATHEMATICAL EMANCIPATIONS 11$ 
 
 Every line pierces every plane. By joining the points 
 of one plane to all the points of another, all the lines 
 of space are obtained. To determine a line it is, then, 
 enough to determine two of its points, one in the one 
 plane and one in the other. For each of these deter- 
 minations, two data, as before explained, are necessary 
 and sufficient. The position of the line is thus seen to 
 depend upon four independent variables, and the four- 
 dimensionality of our space in lines is obvious. Again, 
 we may (with Lie) view our space as an assemblage of 
 its spheres. To distinguish a sphere from all other 
 spheres, we need to know four and but four independent 
 facts about it, as, say, three that shall determine its 
 center and one its size. Hence our space is four- 
 dimensional also in spheres. In circles its dimensionality 
 is six; in surfaces of second order (those that are pierced 
 by a straight line in two points), nine; and so on ad 
 infinitum. 
 
 Doubtless the reader is prepared to say that, if the 
 foregoing account of hyperspace be correct, the notion 
 is after all a very simple one. Let him be assured, the 
 account is correct and his judgment is just: the notion 
 is simple. That property, as said in the beginning, is 
 indeed one of its merits. As presented the concept is 
 entirely free from mystery. To seize upon it, it is un- 
 necessary to pass the bounds of the visible universe or 
 to transcend the limits of intuition. Its realization is 
 found even in the line, in the pencil, in the plane, in the 
 sheaf, here, there and yonder, everywhere, in fact. The 
 account, however, though quite correct, is not yet com- 
 plete. The term hyperspace has yet another meaning 
 and yet in strictness not another, as we shall see. It 
 will be noticed that among the foregoing examples of 
 hyperepace, none is presented of dimensionality exceed-
 
 Il6 MATHEMATICAL EMANCIPATIONS 
 
 ing three in points. It is precisely this variety of hyper- 
 space that the term is commonly employed to signify, 
 particularly in popular enquiry and philosophical specu- 
 lation. And it is this variety, too, that just because it 
 baffles the ordinary visual imagination, proves to be, for 
 the non-mathematician at any rate, at once so tanta- 
 lizing, so mysterious and so fascinating. 
 
 It remains, then, to ask, what is meant by a hyper- 
 space of points? How is the notion formed and what 
 is its motivity and use? The path of enquiry is a fa- 
 miliar one and is free from logical difficulty. Granted 
 that a one-to-one correspondence can be established 
 between the real numbers and the points of a right line, 
 so that the geometric serve to represent the arithmetic 
 elements; granted that all (ordered) pairs of numbers are 
 similarly representable by the points of a plane, and all 
 (ordered) triplets by the points of ordinary space; the 
 suggestion then naturally presents itself that, whether 
 there really is or not, there ought to be a space whose 
 points would serve to represent, as in the preceding 
 cases, all ordered systems of values of n independent 
 variables; and especially to an analyst with a strong 
 geometric predilection, to one who is a born Vorstellender 
 for whom analytic abstractions naturally tend to take 
 on figure and assume the exterior forms of sense, that 
 suggestion comes with a force which he alone perhaps 
 can fully appreciate. And what does he do? Not find- 
 ing the desiderated hyperspace present to his vision or 
 intuition or visual imagination, he posits it, or if 
 you prefer, he creates it, in thought. The concept of 
 hyperspace of points is thus seen to be off-spring of 
 Arithmetic and Geometry. It is legitimate fruit of the 
 indissoluble union of the fundamental sciences. 
 
 Does such hyperspace exist? It does exist genuinely.
 
 MATHEMATICAL EMANCIPATIONS 117 
 
 If not for intuition, it exists for conception; if not for 
 imagination, it exists for thought; if not for sense, it 
 exists for reason; if not for matter, it exists for mind. 
 These if's are ifs in fact. The question of imaginability 
 is really a question. We shall return to it presently. 
 
 The concept of hyperspace of points is generable in 
 various other ways. Of all ways the following is per- 
 haps the best because of its appeal at every stage to 
 intuition. Let there be two points and grant that these 
 determine a line, point-space of one dimension. Next 
 posit a point outside of this line and suppose it joined 
 by lines to all the points of the given line. The points 
 of the joining lines together constitute a plane, point- 
 space of two dimensions. Next posit a point outside of 
 this plane and suppose it joined by lines to all the 
 points of the plane. The points of all the joining lines 
 together constitute an ordinary space, point-space of 
 three dimensions. The clue being now familiar to our 
 hand, let us boldly pursue the opened course. Let us 
 overleap the limits of common imagination, transcend 
 ordinary intuition as being at best but a non-essential 
 auxiliary, and in thought posit an extra point that, for 
 thought at all events, shall be outside the space last 
 generated. Suppose that point joined by lines to all 
 the points of the given space. The points of the join- 
 ing lines together constitute a point-space of four 
 dimensions. The process here applied is perfectly clear 
 and obviously admits of endless repetition. 
 
 Moreover, the process is equally available for gener- 
 ating hyperspaces of other elements than points. For 
 example, let there be two intersecting lines and grant 
 that these determine a pencil, line-space of one dimen- 
 sion. Next posit a line (through the vertex) outside of 
 the given pencil and suppose it joined by pencils to all
 
 Il8 MATHEMATICAL EMANCIPATIONS 
 
 the lines of the given pencil. The lines of the joining 
 pencils together constitute a sheaf, line-space of two 
 dimensions. Next posit a line (through the vertex) 
 outside of the sheaf and suppose it joined by pencils 
 to all the lines of the sheaf. The lines of the joining 
 pencils constitute a hypersheaf, line-space of three dimen- 
 sions. The next step plainly leads to a line-space of 
 four dimensions; and so on ad infinitum. 
 
 And now as to the question of imaginability. Is it 
 possible to intuit configurations in a hyperspace of 
 points? Let it be understood at the outset that that 
 is not in any sense a mathematical question, and mathe- 
 matics as such is quite indifferent to whatever answer it 
 may finally receive. Neither is the question primarily 
 a question of philosophy. It is first of all a psychological 
 question. Mathematicians, however, and philosophers 
 are also men and they may claim an equal interest per- 
 haps with others in the profounder questions concern- 
 ing the potentialities of our common humanity. The 
 question, as stated, undoubtedly admits of affirmative 
 answer. For the lower spaces, with which the imagina- 
 tion is familiar, exist- in the higher, as the line in the 
 plane, and the plane in ordinary space. But that is not 
 what the question means. It means to ask whether 
 it is possible to imagine hyper-configurations of points, 
 i.e., point-configurations that are not wholly contained 
 in a point-space (like our own) of three dimensions. 
 It is impossible to answer with absolute confidence. 
 One reason is that the term imagination still awaits 
 precision of definition. Undoubtedly just as three- 
 dimensional figures may be represented in a plane, so 
 four-dimensional figures may be represented in space. 
 That, however, is hardly what is meant by imagining 
 them. On the other hand, a four-dimensional figure
 
 MATHEMATICAL EMANCIPATIONS 
 
 may be rotated and translated in such a way that all 
 of its parts come one after another into the threefold do- 
 main of the ordinary intuition. Again, the structure of a 
 fourfold figure, every minutest detail of its anatomy, can 
 be traced out by analogy with its three-dimensional ana- 
 logue. Now in such processes, repetition yields skill, 
 and so they come ultimately to require only amounts 
 of energy and of time that are quite inappreciable. Such 
 skill once attained, the parts of a familiar fourfold con- 
 figuration may be made to pass before the eye of in- 
 tuition in such swift and effortless succession that the 
 configuration seems present as a whole in a single instant. 
 If the process and result are not, properly speaking, 
 fourfold imagination and fourfold image, it remains for 
 the psychologist to indicate what is lacking. 
 
 Certainly there is naught of absurdity in supposing 
 that under suitable stimulation the human mind may 
 in course of time even speedily develop a spatial in- 
 tuition of four or more dimensions. At present, as the 
 psychologists inform us and as every teacher of geometry 
 discovers independently, the spatial imagination, in 
 case of very many persons, comes distinctly short of 
 being strictly even tri-dimensional. On the contrary, it 
 is flat. It is not every one, even among scholars, that 
 with eyes closed can readily form a visual image of the 
 whole of a simple solid like a sphere, enveloping it com- 
 pletely with bent beholding rays of psychic light. In 
 such defect of imagination, however, there is nothing 
 to astonish. In the first place, man as a race is only a 
 child. He has been on the globe but a little while, 
 long indeed compared with the fleeting evanescents that 
 constitute the most of common life, but very short, the 
 merest fraction of a second, in the infinite stretch of 
 time. In the second place, circumstances have not, in
 
 120 MATHEMATICAL EMANCIPATIONS 
 
 general, favored the development of his higher poten- 
 tialities. His chief occupation has been the destruction 
 and evasion of his enemies, contention for mere exist- 
 ence against hostile environment. Painful necessity, 
 then, has been the mother of his inventions. That, and 
 not the vitalizing joy of self-realization, has for the 
 most part determined the selection of the fashion of his 
 faculties. But it would be foolish to believe that these 
 have assumed their final form or attained the limits of 
 their potential development. The imperious rule of 
 necessity will relax. It will never pass quite away but 
 it will relax. It is relaxing. It has relaxed appreciably. 
 The intellect of man will be correspondingly quickened. 
 More and more will joy in its activity determine its 
 modes and forms. The multi-dimensional worlds that 
 man's reason has already created, his imagination may 
 yet be able to depict and illuminate. 
 
 It remains to ask, finally, what purpose the concept 
 of hyperspace subserves. Reply, partly explicit but 
 chiefly implicit, is not, I trust, entirely wanting in what 
 has been already said. Motivity, at all events, and 
 raison d'etre are not far to seek. On the one hand, the 
 great generalization has made it possible to enrich, 
 quicken and beautify analysis with the terse, sensuous, 
 artistic, stimulating language of geometry. On the 
 other hand, the hyperspaces are in themselves im- 
 measurably interesting and inexhaustibly rich fields of 
 research. Not only does the geometrician find light in 
 them for the illumination of many otherwise dark and 
 undiscovered properties of the ordinary spaces of in- 
 tuition, but he also discovers there wondrous struc- 
 tures quite unknown to ordinary space. These he 
 examines. He handles them with the delicate instru- 
 ments of his analysis. He beholds them with the eye
 
 MATHEMATICAL EMANCIPATIONS 121 
 
 of the understanding and delights in the presence of 
 their supersensuous beauty. 
 
 Creation of hyperspaces is one of the ways by which 
 the rational spirit secures release from limitation. In 
 them it lives ever joyously, sustained by an unfailing 
 sense of infinite freedom.
 
 THE UNIVERSE AND BEYOND: THE 
 EXISTENCE OF THE HYPERCOSMIC l 
 
 Ni la contradiction n'est marque de faussete, ni I'incontradiction n'est 
 marque de verite. PASCAL 
 
 THE inductive proof of the doctrine of evolution 
 seems destined to be ultimately judged as the great 
 contribution of Natural Science to modern thought. 
 Among the presuppositions of that doctrine, among the 
 axioms, as one may call them, of science, are found the 
 following: 
 
 (1) The assumption of the universal and eternal 
 reign of law: the assumption that the universe, the 
 theatre of evolution, the field of natural science, is and 
 eternally has been a genuine Cosmos, an incarnate 
 rational logos, an embodiment of reason, an organic 
 affair of order, a closed domain of invariant uniformities, 
 in which waywardness and chance have had nor part 
 nor lot: an infinitely intricate garment, ever changing, 
 yet always essentially the same, woven, warp and weft 
 alike, of mathetic relationships. 
 
 (2) The assumption, not merely that the universe is 
 cosmic through and through, but that it is the all con- 
 junctively the all, that is, in the sense of naught 
 excluded; the assumption, in other words, that it is not 
 merely a but the cosmos, the sole system of law and 
 order and harmony, the complete and perfect embodi- 
 ment of the whole of truth. 
 
 1 Appeared in The Hibbert Journal, January, 1905.
 
 THE UNIVERSE AND BEYOND 1 23 
 
 Such, I take it, are among the principles, the articles 
 of faith, more or less consciously held by the great 
 majority of the men of science and their adherents. 
 
 As for myself, I am unable to hold these tenets either 
 as self-evident truths, or as established facts, or as prop- 
 ositions the proof of which may be confidently awaited. 
 Truth, for example, especially when contemplated in its 
 relations to curiosity at once the psychic product and 
 psychic agency of evolution less seems a completed 
 thing coeval with the world than a thing derived and 
 still becoming. Again, while the assumption of the 
 cosmic character of our universe is of the greatest value 
 as a working hypothesis, I am unable to find in the 
 method of natural science or in that of mathematics 
 any ground, even the slightest, for expecting conclusive 
 proof of its validity. In striking contrast, on the other 
 hand, with this negative thesis, there is found in the 
 realm of pure thought, in the domain of mathematics, 
 very convincing evidence, not to say indubitable proof 
 of the proposition, that no single cosmos, whether our 
 universe be such or not, can enclose every rationally 
 constructive system of truth, but that any universe is 
 a component of an extra-universal, that above every 
 nature is a super-natural, beyond every cosmos a 
 hypercosmic. 
 
 These are among the theses presented in the following 
 pages, not in a controversial spirit, let me add, nor 
 accompanied by the minuter arguments upon which 
 they ultimately rest. 
 
 We all must allow that truth is. To deny it denies 
 the denial. Such scepticism is cut away by the sweep- 
 ing blade of its own unsparing doubt. But what it is 
 that is another matter. The assumption that truth is 
 an agreement or correspondence between concepts and
 
 124 THE UNIVERSE AND BEYOND 
 
 things, between thought and object, is of very great 
 value in practical affairs; it very well serves, too, the 
 immediate purposes of natural science, especially in its 
 cruder stage, before it has learned by critical reflection 
 on its own processes and foundations to suspect its 
 limitations, and while, like the proverbial "chesty" 
 youth who disdains the meagre wisdom of his father, it is 
 apt to proclaim, innocently enough if somewhat boast- 
 fully, a lofty contempt for all philosophy and meta- 
 physics. Although the assumption has the undoubted 
 merit of being thus useful in high degree, it is, when 
 regarded as a definitive formulation of what we mean 
 by truth, hardly to be accepted. For, not only does it 
 imply what may indeed be quite correct, but is far 
 from being demonstrated, and far from being uni- 
 versally allowed namely, that "thing" is one and 
 "concept" another, that "object" and "thought" are 
 twain, but even if we grant such ultimate implied 
 duality, it remains to ask what that "agreement" is, 
 or "correspondence," that mediates the hemispheres 
 and gives the whole its truth. The assumption is 
 slightly too na'ive and" unsophisticated, a little too redo- 
 lent of an untamed soil and primitive stage of cultiva- 
 tion. Much profounder is that insight of Hegel's, that 
 truth is the harmony which prevails among the objects 
 of thought. If, with that philosopher, we identify 
 object and thought, we have at once the pleasing utter- 
 ance that truth is the harmony of ideas. But here, 
 again, easy reflection quickly finds no lack of difficulties. 
 For what should we say an idea is? And is there really 
 nothing else, except, of course, their harmony? And 
 what is that? And is there no such thing as contra- 
 diction and discord? Is that, too, a kind of truth, a 
 kind of harmonious jangling, a melody of dissonance?
 
 THE UNIVERSE AND BEYOND 125 
 
 The fact seems to be that truth is so subtle, diverse, 
 and manifold, so complex of structure and rich in as- 
 pect, as to defy all attempt at final definition. Nay, 
 more, the difficulty lies yet deeper, and is in fact irre- 
 soluble. Being a necessary condition thereto, truth can 
 not be an object of definition. To suppose it defined 
 involves a contradiction, for the definition, being some- 
 thing new, is something besides the truth defined, but 
 it must itself be true, and, if it be, in that has failed 
 the enclosing definition is not itself enclosed, and 
 straightway asks a vaster line to take it in, and so ad 
 in fin it urn. To define truth would be to construct a 
 formula that should include the structure, to conceive 
 a water-compassed ocean, bounded in but shutting 
 nothing out, a self-immersing sea, without bottom or 
 surface or shore. 
 
 Happily, to be indefinable is not to be unknowable 
 and not to be unknown. And we are absolutely certain 
 that truth, whatever it may be, is somehow the com- 
 plement of curiosity, is the proper stuff, if I may so 
 express it, to answer questions with. Now a question, 
 once one comes to think of it, is a rather odd phenome- 
 non. Half the secret of philosophy, said Leibnitz, is 
 to treat the familiar as unfamiliar. So treated, curi- 
 osity itself is a most curious thing. How blind our 
 familiar assumptions make us! Among the animals, 
 man, at least, has long been wont to regard himself as 
 a being quite apart from and not as part of the cosmos 
 round about him. From this he has detached himself 
 in thought, he has estranged and objectified the world, 
 and lost the sense that he is of it. And this age-long 
 habit and point of view, which has fashioned his life 
 and controlled his thought, lending its characteristic 
 mark and colour to his whole philosophy and art and
 
 126 THE UNIVERSE AND BEYOND 
 
 learning, is still maintained, partly because of its con- 
 venience no doubt, and partly by force of inertia and 
 sheer conservatism, in the very teeth of the strongest 
 probabilities of biologic science. Probably no other single 
 hypothesis has less to recommend it, and yet no other 
 so completely dominates the human mind. Suppose 
 we deny the assumption, as we seem indeed com- 
 pelled to do, in the name of science, and readjoin our- 
 selves in thought, as we have ever been joined in fact, 
 to this universe in which we live and have our being; 
 the other half of the secret of philosophy will be re- 
 vealed, or illustrated at all events, in the strangeness 
 of aspect presented by things before familiar. Note the 
 radical character of the transformation to be effected. 
 The world shall no longer be beheld as an alien thing, 
 beheld by eyes that are not its own. Conception of the 
 whole and by the whole shall embrace us as part, 
 really, literally, consciously, as the latest term, it may 
 be, of an advancing sequence of developments, as occu- 
 pying the highest rank perhaps in the ever-ascending 
 hierarchy of being, but, at all events, as emerged and 
 still emerging natura naturata from some propensive 
 source within. I grant that the change in point of view 
 is hard to make old habits, like walls of rock, tend- 
 ing to confine the tides of consciousness within their 
 accustomed channels but it can be made and, by 
 assiduous effort, in the course of time, maintained. 
 Suppose it done. By that reunion, the whole regains, 
 while the part retains, the consciousness the latter pur- 
 loined. I cannot pause to note even the most striking 
 consequences of such a change in point of view. Time 
 would fail me to follow far the opening lines of specu- 
 lation that issue thence and invite pursuit. But I 
 cannot refrain from pointing out how exceedingly curi-
 
 THE UNIVERSE AND BEYOND 127 
 
 ous a thing curiosity itself becomes when beheld and 
 contemplated from the mentioned point of view. For 
 it is now the whole that meditates, the universe that 
 contemplates a once mindless universe according to 
 its present understanding of the term, not then know- 
 ing that it was, unwittingly unwitting throughout a 
 beginningless eternal past what it had been or was or 
 was to be; lawless, too, perhaps, could the stream of 
 events be reascended, though blindly and slowly be- 
 coming lawful through habit- taking tendence: a self- 
 transforming insensate mass composed of parts without 
 likeness or distinction, continually undergoing change 
 without a purpose, devoid of passion, and neither ig- 
 norant nor having knowledge. At length a wondrous 
 crisis came, an event momentous when or how is yet 
 unknown, perhaps through fortuitous concourse of part- 
 less, lawless, wayward elements. At all events, the un- 
 intending tissues formed a nerve, the universe awoke 
 alive with wonder, mind was born with curiosity and 
 began to look about and make report of part to part 
 and thence to whole, the age of interrogation was at 
 hand, and what had been an eternal infinity of mindless 
 being began to question, and know itself, and have a 
 sense of ignorance. In the whole universe of events, 
 none is more wonderful than the birth of wonder, none 
 more curious than the nascence of curiosity itself, 
 nothing to compare with the dawning of consciousness 
 in the ancient dark and the gradual extension of psychic 
 life and illumination throughout a cosmos that before 
 had only been. An eternity of blindly acting, trans- 
 forming, unconscious existence, assuming at length, 
 through the birth of sense and intellect, without loss 
 or break of continuity, the abiding form of fleeting 
 time/ Another eternity remains to follow, and one
 
 128 THE UNIVERSE AND BEYOND 
 
 cannot but wonder whether there shall issue forth in 
 future from the marvel-weaving loom another event, or 
 form or mode of being, that shall be to the modern 
 universe that both is and knows, as the birth of soul and 
 curiosity to the ancient universe that was but did not 
 know. A speculation by no means idle, but let it pass. 
 
 I wish to point out next, briefly, that curiosity is not 
 only a principle that leads to knowing, but a principle 
 and process of growing. By it the universe comes not 
 merely to understand itself, but actually to get bigger 
 thereby. For if there be an invariant amount of matter, 
 there is also mind increasing; if there be objects that 
 total a constant sum, there are also ideas that multiply. 
 A new query and a new answer are new elements in the 
 world, by which the latter is added unto and enriched. 
 Curiosity is the aspect of the universe seeking to realise 
 itself, and the fruit of such activity is new reality, stimu- 
 lating to new research. Imagine a body with an inner 
 core of outward-striving impulses producing buds at 
 every radial terminus. Such is knowledge a kind of 
 proliferating sphere, expanding along divergent lines by 
 the outward-seeking of an inner life of wonder. Where- 
 fore, it appears again that truth, the complement of 
 curiosity, itself grows with the latter's growth, and, 
 being never a finished thing, but one that both is and 
 is becoming, is not to be compassed by definition nor 
 fully solved in knowledge. 
 
 In respect to truth, then, the upshot is: we are certain 
 that it is; not, however, as a closed or completed 
 scheme of relationships, but as a kind of reality charac- 
 terised by the phenomena of growth and of becoming; 
 it does not admit of ultimate definition; we know, how- 
 ever, in a super-verbal sense, through myriad mani- 
 festations of it to a faculty in us of feeling for it, what
 
 THE UNIVERSE AND BEYOND I2Q 
 
 it is; we recognise it as the motive power, the elixir 
 vita, the sustaining spring of wonder; it discovers itself 
 as the wherewithal for the proper fulfilment of the 
 implicit predictions and intimations of curiosity; as the 
 thing presaged in a spiritual craving, confidently, per- 
 sistently proclaiming its needs by an infinitude of 
 questionings. 
 
 And now as to the remainder of my subject, the tale 
 is quite too long to be told in full. But room must 
 be found for a partial account, for important fragments 
 at all events. 
 
 What, then, shall we say mathematics is? A question 
 much discussed by philosophers and mathematicians in 
 the course of more than two thousand years, and espe- 
 cially with deepened interest and insight in our own 
 time. Many an answer has been given to it, but none 
 has approved itself as final. Naturally enough, con- 
 ception of the science has had to grow with the science 
 itself. For it must not be imagined that mathematics, 
 because it is so old, is dead. Old it is indeed, classic 
 already in Euclid's day, being surpassed in point of 
 antiquity by only one of the arts and by none of the 
 sciences; but it is also living and new, flourishing 
 to-day as never before, advancing in a thousand direc- 
 tions by leaps and bounds. It is not merely as a giant 
 tree throwing out and aloft myriad branching arms in 
 the upper regions of clearer light, and plunging deep 
 and deeper roots in the darker soil beneath. It is rather 
 an immense forest of such oaks, which, however, liter- 
 ally grow into each other, so that, by the junction and 
 intercresence of root with root and limb with limb, the 
 manifold wood becomes a single living organic whole. 
 A vast complex of interlacing theories that the science 
 now is actually, but it is far more wondrous still poten-
 
 130 THE UNIVERSE AND BEYOND 
 
 tially, its component theories continuing more and more 
 to grow and multiply beyond all imagination, and 
 beyond the power of any single genius, however gifted. 
 What is this thing so marvellously vital? What does 
 it undertake? What is its motive? How is it related 
 to other modes and interests of the human spirit? 
 
 One of the oldest and at the same time the most 
 familiar of the definitions conceived mathematics to be 
 the science of magnitude, where magnitude, including 
 multitude as a special kind, was whatever was capable 
 of increase and decrease and measurement. This last 
 capability of measurement was the essential thing. 
 That was a most natural definition of the science, for 
 magnitude is a singularly fundamental notion, not only 
 inviting but demanding consideration at every stage 
 and turn of life. The necessity of finding out how many 
 and how much was the mother of counting and measure- 
 ment, and mathematics, first from necessity and then 
 from joy, so busied itself with these things that they 
 came to seem its whole employment. But now the 
 notion of measurement as the repeated application of 
 a constant unit has been so refined and generalised, on 
 the one hand through the creation of imaginary and 
 irrational numbers, and on the other by use of a scale, 
 as in non-Euclidian geometry, where the unit suffers a 
 lawful change from step to step of its application, that 
 to retain the old words and call mathematics the science 
 of measurement seems quite inept as no longer telling 
 what the spirit of mathesis is really bent upon. More- 
 over, the most striking measurements, as of the volume 
 of a planet, the swiftness of thought, the valency of 
 atoms, the velocity of light, the distance of star from 
 star, are not achieved by direct repeated application 
 of a unit. They are all accomplished by indirection.
 
 THE UNIVERSE AND BEYOND 13! 
 
 And it was perception of this fact which led to the 
 famous definition by the philosopher and mathematician, 
 Auguste Comte, that mathematics is the science of 
 indirect measurement. Doubtless we have here a finer 
 insight and a larger view, but the thought is yet too 
 narrow, nor is it deep enough. For it is obvious that 
 there is much mathematical activity which is not at all 
 concerned with measurement, either direct or indirect. 
 In projective geometry, for example, it was observed 
 that metric considerations were by no means chief. As 
 a simplest illustration, the fact that two points deter- 
 mine a line, or the fact that a plane cuts a sphere in a 
 circle, is not a metric fact, being concerned with neither 
 size nor magnitude. Here it was position rather than 
 size that seemed to some to be the central idea, and 
 so it was proposed to call mathematics the science of 
 magnitude, or measurement, and position. 
 
 Even as thus expanded, the definition yet excludes 
 many a mathematical realm of vast, nay, infinite extent. 
 Consider, for example, that immense class of things 
 familiarly known as operations. These are limitless, 
 alike in number and in kind. Now it so happens that 
 there are systems of operations such that any two opera- 
 tions of a given system which follow one another pro- 
 duce the same effect as some other single operation of 
 the system. For an illustration, think of all possible 
 straight motions in space. The operation of going 
 from A to B followed by the operation of going from 
 B to C is equivalent to the single operation of going 
 from A to C. Thus, the system of such straight opera- 
 tions is a closed system. Combination of any two of 
 them yields another operation, not without, but within 
 the system. Now the theory of such closed systems 
 called groups of operations is a mathematical theory,
 
 132 THE UNIVERSE AND BEYOND 
 
 already of colossal proportions, and still growing with 
 astonishing rapidity. But, and this is the point, an 
 abstract operation, though a very real thing, is neither 
 a position nor a magnitude. 
 
 This way of trying to come at an adequate conception 
 of mathematics, viz., by naming its different domains, 
 or varieties of content, is not likely to prove successful. 
 For it demands an exhaustive enumeration not only of 
 the fields now occupied by the science, but also of the 
 realms destined to be conquered by it in the future, and 
 such an achievement would require a prevision that none 
 perhaps could claim. 
 
 Fortunately there are other paths of approach that 
 seem more promising. Everyone has observed that 
 mathematics, whatever it may be, possesses a certain 
 mark, namely, a degree of certainty not found else- 
 where. So it is, proverbially, the exact science par 
 excellence. Exact, you say, but in what sense? To this 
 an excellent answer is contained in a definition given 
 by an American mathematician, Professor Benjamin 
 Peirce: Mathematics is the science which draws necessary 
 conclusions, a formulation something more than finely 
 paraphrased by one l of my own teachers thus : Mathe- 
 matics is the universal art apodictic. These statements, 
 though neither of them may be entirely satisfactory, are 
 both of them telling approximations. Observe that they 
 place the emphasis on the quality of being correct. Noth- 
 ing is said about the conclusions being true. That is 
 another matter, to which I will return presently. But 
 why are the conclusions of mathematics correct? Is it 
 that the mathematician has an essentially different 
 reasoning faculty from other folks? By no means. 
 What, then, is the secret? Reflect that conclusion im- 
 
 1 Professor W. B. Smith.
 
 THE UNIVERSE AND BEYOND 133 
 
 plies premises, and premises imply terms, and terms 
 stand for ideas or concepts, and that these, namely, 
 concepts, are the ultimate material with which the 
 spiritual architect, which we call the Reason, designs 
 and builds. Here, then, we may expect to find light. 
 The apodictic quality of mathematical thought, the 
 certainty and correctness of its conclusions, are due, 
 not to a special mode of ratiocination, but to the char- 
 acter of the concepts with which it deals. What is that 
 distinctive characteristic? I answer: precision, sharp- 
 ness, completeness, of definition. But how comes your 
 mathematician by such completeness? There is no mys- 
 terious trick involved; some ideas admit of such pre- 
 cision, others do not; and the mathematician is one who 
 deals with those that do. Law, says Blackstone, is a 
 rule of action prescribed by the supreme power of a 
 state commanding what is right and prohibiting what 
 is wrong. But what are a state and supreme power and 
 right and wrong? If all such terms admitted of com- 
 plete determination, then the science of law would be 
 a branch of pure, and its practice a branch of applied, 
 mathematics. But does not the lawyer sometimes arrive 
 at correct conclusions? Undoubtedly he does some- 
 times, and, what may seem yet more astonishing, so 
 does your historian and even your sociologist, and that 
 without the help of accident. When this happens, how- 
 ever, when these students arrive, I do not say at truth, 
 for that may be by lucky accident or happy chance or a 
 kind of intuition, but when they arrive at conclusions 
 that are correct, then that is because they have been 
 for the moment in all literalness acting the part of 
 mathematician. I do not say that for the aggrandise- 
 ment of mathematics. Rather is it for credit to all 
 thinkers that none can show you any considerable gar-
 
 134 THE UNIVERSE AND BEYOND 
 
 ment of thought in which you may not find here and 
 there, rarely enough sometimes, a golden fibre woven in 
 some, it may be, exceptional moment, of precise con- 
 ception and rigorous reasoning. To think right that 
 is no characteristic striving of a class of men. It is a 
 common aspiration. Only, the stuff of thought is mostly 
 intractable, formless, like some milky way waiting to 
 be analysed into distinct star-forms of definite ideas. 
 All thought aspires towards the character and condition 
 of mathematics. 
 
 The reality of this aspiration and the distinction it 
 implies admit of many illustrations, of which here a 
 single one must suffice. There is no more common or 
 more important notion than that of function, the term 
 being applied to either of two variable things such that 
 to any value or state of either there correspond one or 
 more values or states of the other. Of such function 
 pairs, examples abound on every hand, as the radius 
 and the area of a circle, the space traversed and the 
 rate of going, progress of knowledge and enthusiasm of 
 study, elasticity of medium and velocity of sound or 
 other undulation, -the amount of hydrogen chloride 
 formed and the time occupied, the prosperity of a 
 given community and the intelligence of its patriotism. 
 Indeed, it may very well be that there is nothing which 
 is not in some sense a function of every other. Be that 
 as it may, one thing is very certain, namely, a very 
 great part and probably all of our thinking is concerned 
 with functional relationships, deals, that is, with pairs 
 of systems of corresponding values or states or changes. 
 Behold, for example, how the parallelistic psychology 
 searches for correlations between psychical and physical 
 phenomena. Witness, too, the sociologist trying to de- 
 termine the correspondence between the peacefulness
 
 THE UNIVERSE AND BEYOND 135 
 
 and the homogeneity of a population, or, again, be- 
 tween manifestations of piety or the spread of populism 
 and the condition of the crops. It is then here, in the 
 wondrous domain of correspondence, the answering of 
 value to value, of change to change, of condition to 
 condition, of state to state, that the knowing activity 
 finds its field. 
 
 What is it precisely that we seek in a correlation? 
 The answer is: when one or more facts are given, to pass, 
 with absolute certainty, to the correlative fact or facts. To 
 do this obviously requires formulae or equations which 
 precisely define the manner of correlation, or the law 
 of interdependence. Where do such formulae come from? 
 I answer that, strictly speaking, they are never found, 
 they are always assumed. Now, nothing is easier than 
 to write down a perfectly definite formula that does not 
 tell, for example, how cheerfulness depends on climate, 
 or how pressure affects the volume of a gas. Nay, a 
 given formula may be perfectly intelligible in itself, it 
 may state, that is, a perfectly intelligible law of cor- 
 respondence, which, nevertheless, may have no validity 
 at all in the physical universe and none elsewhere than 
 in the formula itself. What, then, guides in the choice 
 of formulae? That depends upon your kind of curiosity, 
 and curiosity is not a matter of choice. 
 
 Just here we are in a position where we have only to 
 look steadily a little in order to see the sharp distinc- 
 tion between mathematics and natural science. These 
 are discriminated according to the kind of curiosity 
 whence they spring. The mathematician is curious about 
 definite abstract correspondences, about perfectly-defined 
 functional relationships in themselves. These are more 
 numerous than the sands of the seashore, they are as 
 multitudinous as the points of space. It is this as-
 
 136 THE UNIVERSE AND BEYOND 
 
 semblage of pure, precisely-defined relationships which 
 constitute the mathematician's universe, an indefinitely 
 infinite universe, worlds of worlds of wonders, incon- 
 ceivably richer than the outer world of sense. This 
 latter is indeed immense and marvellous, with its rolling 
 seas and stellar fields and undulating ether, but, com- 
 pared with the hyperspaces explored by the genius of the 
 geometrician, the whole vast extent of the sensuous uni- 
 verse is a merest point of light in a blazing sky. 
 
 Now this mere speck of a physical universe, in which 
 the chemist and the physicist, the biologist and the so- 
 ciologist, and the rest of nature devotees, find their 
 great fields, may be, as it seems to be, an organic thing, 
 connected into an ordered whole by a tissue of definable 
 functional relationships, and it may not. The nature 
 devotee assumes that it is and tries to find the relation- 
 ships. The mathematician does not make that assump- 
 tion and does not seek for relationships in the outer 
 world. Is the assumption correct? As man, the mathe- 
 matician does not know, although he greatly cares. As 
 mathematician, man neither knows nor cares. The 
 mathematician does know, however, that, if the assump- 
 tion be correct, every definite relationship that is valid 
 in nature, every type of order and mode of correlation 
 obtaining there, is, in itself, a thing for his thought, an 
 essential element in his domain of study. He knows, too, 
 that, if the assumption be not correct, his domain re- 
 mains the same absolutely. The two realms, of mathe- 
 matics, of nature science, are fundamentally distinct 
 and disparate forever. To think the thinkable that is 
 the mathematician's aim. To assume that nature is 
 thinkable, an incarnate rational logos, and to seek the 
 thought supposed incarnate there these are at once 
 the principle and the hope of the nature student. Sci-
 
 THE UNIVERSE AND BEYOND 137 
 
 ence, said Riemann, 1 is the attempt to comprehend nature 
 by means of concepts. Suppose the nature student is 
 right, suppose the physical universe really is an enfleshed 
 logos of reason, does that imply that all the thinkable 
 is thus incorporated? It does not. A single ordered 
 universe, one that through and through is self -com- 
 patible, cannot be the whole of reason materialised and 
 objectified. There is many a rational logos, and the 
 mathematician has high delight in the contemplation 
 of inconsistent systems of consistent relationships. There 
 are, for example, a Euclidean geometry and more than 
 one species of non-Euclidean. As theories of a given 
 space, these are not compatible. If our universe be, 
 as Plato thought, and nature science takes for granted, 
 a space-conditioned, geometrised affair, one of these 
 geometries may be, none of them may be, not all of 
 them can be, valid in it. But in the vaster world of 
 thought, all of them are valid, there they co-exist, and 
 interlace among themselves and others, as differing com- 
 ponent strains of a higher, strictly supernatural, hyper- 
 cosmic, harmony. 
 
 It is, then, in the inner world of pure thought, where 
 all entia dwell, where is every type of order and manner 
 of correlation and variety of relationship, it is in this 
 infinite ensemble of eternal verities whence, if there be 
 one cosmos or many of them, each derives its character 
 and mode of being, it is there that the spirit of 
 mathesis has its home and its life. 
 
 Is it a restricted home, a narrow life, static and cold 
 and grey with logic, without artistic interest, devoid of 
 emotion and mood and sentiment? That world, it is true, 
 is not a world of solar light, not clad in the colours that 
 
 1 C/. Riemann: "Fragmcnte Philosophischcn Inhalts," in GtsammeUt 
 Werke. These fragments, which are published in English by the Open 
 Court Pub. Co., Chicago, are exceedingly suggestive.
 
 138 THE UNIVERSE AND BEYOND 
 
 liven and glorify the things of sense, but it is an illu- 
 minated world, and over it all and everywhere through- 
 out are hues and tints transcending sense, painted there 
 by radiant pencils of psychic light, the light in which it 
 lies. It is a silent world, and, nevertheless, in respect 
 to the highest principle of art the interpenetration of 
 content and form, the perfect fusion of mode and mean- 
 ing it even surpasses music. In a sense, it is a static 
 world, but so, too, are the worlds of the sculptor and 
 the architect. The figures, however, which reason con- 
 structs and the mathematical vision beholds, transcend 
 the temple and the statue, alike in simplicity and in 
 intricacy, in delicacy and in grace, in symmetry and in 
 poise. Not only are this home and this life thus rich 
 in aesthetic interests, really controlled and sustained by 
 motives of a sublimed and supersensuous art, but the 
 religious aspiration, too, finds there, especially in the 
 beautiful doctrine of invariants, the most perfect sym- 
 bols of what it seeks the changeless in the midst of 
 change, abiding things in a world of flux, configurations 
 that remain the same despite the swirl and stress of 
 countless hosts of curious transformations. The domain 
 of mathematics is the sole domain of certainty. There 
 and there alone prevail the standards by which every 
 hypothesis respecting the external universe and all ob- 
 servation and all experiment must be finally judged. It 
 is the realm to which all speculation and all thought must 
 repair for chastening and sanatation the court of 
 last resort, I say it reverently, for all intellection what- 
 soever, whether of demon or man or deity. It is there 
 that mind as mind attains its highest estate, and the 
 condition of knowledge there is the ultimate object, the 
 tantalising goal of the aspiration, the Anders-Streben, 
 of all other knowledge of every kind.
 
 THE AXIOM OF INFINITY: A NEW 
 PRESUPPOSITION OF THOUGHT. 1 
 
 IT so happened that when the first number of The 
 Hibbcrt Journal appeared, containing an article by Pro- 
 fessor Royce on the Concept of the Infinite, I had been 
 myself for some time meditating on the logical bearings 
 and philosophical import of that concept, and was 
 actually then engaged in marking out the course which 
 it seemed to me a first discussion of the matter might 
 best follow. The order and scope of his treatment were 
 so like those I had myself decided upon that I should 
 naturally have felt a pardonable pride in the coinci- 
 dence, had not this feeling been at the same time quite 
 lost in a stronger one, namely, that of the evident 
 superiority of his manner to any which I could have 
 hoped to attain. Indeed, so patient is his exposition 
 of elements, so rich is it in suggestiveness, so intimately 
 and instructively, according to his wont, has he con- 
 nected the most abstruse and recondite of doctrines 
 with the most obvious and seemingly trivial of things, 
 and so luminous and stimulating is it all, that one must 
 admire the ingenuity it betrays, and cannot but wonder 
 whether after all there really are in science or philosophy 
 any notions too remote and obscure to be rendered 
 intelligible even to common sense, if only a sufficiently 
 cunning pen be engaged in the service. 
 
 1 Appeared in The Hibbert Journal, April, 1904.
 
 140 THE AXIOM OF INFINITY 
 
 While his paper is thus replete with inspiring intima- 
 tions of the "glorious depths" and near-lying interests 
 of the doctrine treated, and is, in point of clearness 
 and vivid portrayal of its central thought, a model be- 
 yond the art of most, it is not, I believe, equally happy 
 when judged on the severer ground of its critico-logical 
 estimates. Even on this ground, I do not hesitate, after 
 close examination, to adjudge it the merit of general 
 soundness. That, however, it is thoroughly sound, com- 
 pletely mailed against every possible assault of criti- 
 cism, is a proposition I am by no means prepared to 
 maintain. Quite the contrary, in fact. Nor can the 
 defects be counted as trivial. One of them especially, 
 which it has in common with other both earlier and 
 later discussions of the subject, notably that by Dede- 
 kind himself and, more recently, that by Mr. Bertrand 
 Russell in his imposing treatise on The Principles of 
 Mathematics, is of the most radical nature, concerning 
 as it does no less a question than, I do not say merely 
 that of the validity, but that of the possibility, of 
 existence-proofs of the infinite. 
 
 And here I may as well state at once, lest there should 
 be some misapprehension in respect to purpose, that 
 the present writing is not primarily designed to be a 
 review of Professor Royce's or of other recent discus- 
 sions of the infinite. Reviewed to some extent they 
 will be, but only incidentally, and mainly because they 
 have declared themselves, erroneously as I think, upon 
 that most fundamental of questions, namely, whether it 
 is possible, by aid of the modern concept, to demonstrate 
 the existence, of the infinite. Argument would seem 
 superfluous to show the immeasurable import of this 
 problem, whether it be viewed solely in its immediate 
 logical bearings, or also mediately, through the latter,
 
 THE AXIOM OF INFINITY 14! 
 
 in its bearings upon philosophy, upon theology, and, 
 only more remotely, upon religion itself. It is chief 
 among the aims of this essay, to open that problem 
 anew, to appeal from the prevailing doctrine concerning 
 it, in the hope of securing, if possible, a readjudication 
 of the matter which shall be final. 
 
 This subject of the infinite, how it baffles approach! 
 How immediate and how remote it seems, how it abides 
 and yet eludes the grasp, how familiar it appears, 
 mingling with the elemental simplicities of the heart, 
 continuously weaving itself into the intimate texture 
 of common life, and yet how austere and immense and 
 majestic, outreaching the sublimest flights of the im- 
 agination, transcending the stellar depths, immeasurable 
 by the beginningless, endless chain of the ages! Com- 
 prehend the infinite! No wonder we hear that none 
 but the infinite itself is adequate to that. Du gleichst 
 dem Gtist, den du begreifsl. Be it so. Perhaps, then, 
 we are infinite. If not, 
 
 "'Wie' fass' ich dich, unendliche Natur?" 
 
 Or is it finally a mere illusion? And is there after all no 
 infinite reality to be seized upon? Again, if not, what 
 signifies the finite? Is that to be for ever without 
 definition, except as reciprocal of that which fails to 
 be? Is the All really enclosed in some vast ellipsoid, 
 without a beyond, incircumscriptible, devoid alike of 
 tangent plane and outer point? Are we eternally con- 
 demned to seek therein for the meaning and end of 
 processes that refuse to terminate? And is, then, this 
 region, too, but a locus of deceptions, "of false alluring 
 jugglery"? Is analysis but the victim of hallucination 
 when it thinks to detect the existence of realms that 
 underlie and overarch and compass about the domain of
 
 142 THE AXIOM OF INFINITY 
 
 the countable and measurable? And does the spirit, 
 in its deeper musings, in its pensive moods, only seem to 
 feel the tremulous touch of transfinite waves, of vitalising 
 undulations from beyond the farthest shore of the sea 
 of sense? 
 
 One fact at once is clear, namely, that, whatever ulti- 
 mate justification the hypothesis may find, thought has 
 never escaped the necessity of supposing the universe 
 of things to be intrinsically somehow cleft asunder into 
 the two Grand Divisions, or figured, if you will, under 
 the two fundamental complementary all-inclusive Forms, 
 which, from motives more or less distinctly felt and also 
 just, as we shall see, though not quite justified, have 
 been, from time immemorial, designated as the Finite 
 and the Infinite. And these great terms or their verbal 
 equivalents for concepts in any strict sense they have 
 not been though always vague and shifting, for ever 
 promising but never quite delivering the key to their 
 identities into the hand of Definition, have, neverthe- 
 less, in every principal scene, together played the gravest 
 role in the still unfolding drama of speculation. Or, to 
 change the figure, they" have been as Foci, one of them 
 seemingly near, the other apparently remote, neither 
 of them quite itself determinate, but the two con- 
 jointly serving always to determine the ever-varying 
 eccentricity of the orbit of thought; and doubtless the 
 vaster lines that serve to bind the differing epochs of 
 speculation into a single continuous system can best be 
 traced by reference to these august terms as co-ordinate 
 poles of interest. 
 
 As a simple historical fact, then, philosophy has indeed, 
 with but negligible exception, throughout assumed the 
 existence of both the finite and the infinite. That is one 
 thing. Another fact of distinct and equal weight, no
 
 THE AXIOM OF INFINITY 143 
 
 matter whether or how we may account for it, is that 
 man, in accord with the deeper meaning of the Pro- 
 tagorean maxim, has always felt himself to have within, 
 or to be somehow, the potential measure of all that is. 
 Is it insignificant that this faith for that is what it 
 seems to be as if an indestructible character of the 
 race, as if an invariant defining property of the germ 
 plasm itself whence man springs and derives his con- 
 tinuity, should have survived every vicissitude of human 
 fortune? that it should have been indeed, if not the 
 substance, at least the promise, of things hoped for, the 
 evidence, too, of things not seen, marking and sustain- 
 ing metaphysical research from the earliest times? And, 
 what is more, the spirit of such research, curiosity I 
 mean, fit companion and counterpart of that abiding 
 faith, unlike "experience and observation," has known 
 no bounds, but, on the contrary, finding within itself 
 no fatal principle of limitation, it has ever disdained the 
 scale of finite things as competent to take its measure, 
 and boldly asserted claim to the entire realm of being. 
 
 These questions, however, have been something more 
 than fascinating. Perhaps their rise, but not their mani- 
 fold development, much less their profound significance 
 for life and thought, is to be adequately explained on 
 the hypothesis of insatiate curiosity alone. It must be 
 granted that their presence, especially in the arena of 
 dialectic, has been often due simply to their intrinsic 
 magical charm for "summit-intellects." And doubtless 
 the play-instinct, deep-dwelling in the constitution of 
 the mind, has often made them serve the higher faculties 
 merely as intricate puzzles, to beguile the time withal. 
 But, in general, the questions have worn a sterner 
 aspect. Philosophy has been not merely allured, it has 
 been constrained, to their consideration; constrained not
 
 144 THE AXIOM OF INFINITY 
 
 only because of their inherence in problems of the con- 
 science, especially in that most radical problem of find- 
 ing the simplest system of postulates that shall be at 
 once both necessary and sufficient to explain the moral 
 feeling; but constrained still more powerfully by the 
 insistent demands that issue from the religious con- 
 sciousness. But this is yet not all. For man cannot 
 live by these august interests alone. And it is pro- 
 foundly significant, both as witnessing to the final inter- 
 blending, the fundamental unity, of all the concerns of 
 the human spirit, and as revealing the ultimate depth 
 and dignity of all its interests, that questions about the 
 infinite quite similar to those that claim so illustrious 
 parentage in Ethics and Philosophy, admit elsewhere of 
 humbler derivation, and readily own to the lowliest of 
 origins. Man, indeed, merely to live, has had to meas- 
 ure and to count, and this homely necessity, fruitful 
 mother of mystery and doubt, independently set the 
 problems of the indefinitely small and the indefinitely 
 great; and so it was that needs quite as immediate and 
 austere as those of Morals and Religion I mean the 
 exigencies of Science, arid especially of Mathematics 
 demanded on their own ground, in the very beginnings 
 of exact knowledge, that the understanding transcend 
 every possible sequence of observations, pass the utter- 
 most limit of "experience," which, refine and enlarge 
 it as you may, remains but finite, and literally lay hold 
 on infinity itself. 
 
 To this ancient irrevocable demand, thus urged upon 
 the reason from every cardinal point of human interest, 
 genius has responded as to a challenge from the gods, 
 and I submit that the response, the endeavour of the 
 reason actually to subjugate extra-finite being and com- 
 pel surrender of its secrets by the organon of thought,
 
 THE AXIOM OP INFINITY 145 
 
 constitutes the most sublime and strenuous and inspiring 
 enterprise of the human intellect in every age. 
 
 What of it? Long centuries of gigantic striving, age 
 on age of philosophic toil, immeasurable devotion of 
 time and energy and genius to a single end, the intel- 
 lectual conquest of transfmite being what has it all 
 availed? What triumphs have been won? I speak, 
 narrowly, of the conquest, and demand to know, not 
 whether it has been accomplished for that were a 
 foolish query but whether, strictly speaking, it has 
 been begun. Let not the import of the question be mis- 
 taken. No answer is sought in terms of such moral or 
 "spiritual" gains as may be incident even to efforts that 
 miss their aim. Everyone knows that seeking has com- 
 pensations of its own, which indeed are ofttimes better 
 than any which finding itself can give. And it seems 
 sometimes as if the higher life were chiefly sustained by 
 unsought gains incident to the unselfish pursuit of the 
 unattainable. The circle has not been squared, nor the 
 quintic equation solved, 1 nor perpetual motion invented; 
 neither indeed can be; yet it would show but meagre 
 understanding of the ways of truth to men, did one 
 suppose all the labour devoted to such problems to have 
 been without reward. So, conceivably, it might be 
 with this problem of the infinite. It may be granted 
 that, even supposing no solution to be attainable, the 
 ceaseless search for one, the unwearied high endeavor 
 of the reason through the ages, presents a spectacle 
 ennobling to behold, and of which mankind, it may be, 
 could ill afford to be deprived. It may be granted that 
 incidentally many insights have been won which, though 
 not solutions, have nevertheless permanently enriched 
 the literature of the world and are destined to improve 
 1 That is, by means of radicals.
 
 146 THE AXIOM OF INFINITY 
 
 its life. It may be granted that in every time some 
 doctrine of infinity, some philosophy of it, has been at 
 least effective, has helped, that is, for better or worse, 
 to fashion the forms of human institutions and to de- 
 termine the course of history. Concerning none of 
 these things is there here any question. As to what the 
 question precisely is, there need not be the slightest mis- 
 apprehension. The fact is that for thousands of years 
 philosophy has recognised the presence of a certain 
 definite Problem, namely, that of extending the dominion 
 of logic, the reign of exact thought, out beyond the utmost 
 reach of finite things into and over, the realm of infinite 
 being, and this problem, by far the greatest and most 
 impressive of her strictly intellectual concernments, 
 philosophy has, for thousands of years, arduously striven 
 to solve. And now I ask not, has it been worth while? 
 for that is conceded, but has she advanced the solu- 
 tion in any measure, and, if so, in what respect, and to 
 what extent? 
 
 We are here upon the grounds of the rational logos. 
 The whole force and charge of the question is directed 
 to matter of concept and inference. Fortunately, the 
 answer is to be as unmistakable as the question. It 
 must be recognised, of course, that the "problem," as 
 stated, is exceedingly, almost frightfully, generic, com- 
 prising a host of interdependent problems. One of these, 
 however, is pre-eminent: without its solution none other 
 can be solved; with its solution, any other may be 
 eventually. That problem is the problem of concep- 
 tion, of definition in the unmitigated rigour of its 
 severest meaning; it is the problem of discovering a 
 certain principle, of finding, without the slightest possi- 
 bility of doubt or indetermination, the intrinsic line 
 of cleavage that parts the universe of being into its
 
 THE AXIOM OF INFINITY 147 
 
 two grandest divisions, and so of telling finally and 
 once for all precisely what, for thought, the infinite is 
 and what, for thought, the finite is. 
 
 And now, thanks to the subtle genius of the modern 
 Teutonic mind, this ancient problem, having baffled the 
 thought of all the centuries, has been at last com- 
 pletely solved, and therein our original question finds 
 its answer: The conquest has been begun. Bernhard 
 Riemann, profound mathematician and important 
 fact, of which, strangely enough, too many philosophers 
 seem invincibly unaware profound metaphysician too, 
 having pointed out, in his famous Habilitationschrift* 
 the epoch-making distinction between mere boundless- 
 ness and infinitude of manifolds similar to that of space, 
 the greater glory was reserved for three contemporary 
 compatriots of his Bernhard Bolzano,* Richard Dede- 
 kind,* and Georg Cantor, 4 the first an acute and learned 
 philosopher and theologian, with deep mathematical 
 insight, the other two brilliant mathematicians, with a 
 strong bent for metaphysics to win independently 
 and about the same time the long-coveted insight into 
 the intrinsic nature of infinity. And thus it is a dis- 
 tinction of our own time that within the memory of 
 living men the defining mark of the infinite first failed 
 to elude the grasp, and that that august term, after 
 the most marvellous career of any in the history of 
 speculation, has been finally made to assume the prosaic 
 form of an exact and completely determined concept, 
 and so at length to become available for the purposes of 
 rigorously logical discourse. 
 
 1 "Ueber die Hypothesen, wclche die Geometric zu Grande liegen," 
 Gts. Werhe. Also in English by W. R. Clifford. 
 * "Paradoxicn ties Unendlichen." 
 i ""Was sind und was sollen die Zahlen." 
 4 Memoirs in Ada Mathematics, vol. ii., and elsewhere.
 
 148 THE AXIOM OF INFINITY 
 
 Pray, then, what is this concept? Of various equiva- 
 lent forms of statement, I choose the following: An 
 assemblage (ensemble, collection, group, manifold) of ele- 
 ments (things, no matter what] is infinite or finite accord- 
 ing as it has or has not a PART to which the whole is just 
 EQUIVALENT in the sense that between the elements com- 
 posing that part and those composing the whole there subsists 
 a unique and reciprocal (one-to-one) correspondence. 
 
 If we may trust to intuition in questions about reality, 
 assemblages, 1 infinite as defined, actually abound on 
 every hand. I need not pause to indicate examples. 
 Those pointed out in Professor Royce's mentioned paper 
 may suffice; they will, at all events, furnish the reader 
 with the "clew, which, once familiar to his hand, will 
 lengthen as he goes, and never break." The concept 
 itself I regard as a great achievement, one of the very 
 greatest in the history of thought. Not only does it 
 mark the successful eventuation of a long and toilsome 
 search; it furnishes criticism with a new standard of 
 judgment, it at once creates, and gives the means of 
 meeting, the necessity for a re-examination and a juster 
 evaluation of historic doctrines of infinity; and it is 
 greater still, I believe, as a destined instrument of ex- 
 ploration in that realm which it has opened to the under- 
 standing and whose boundary it defines. 
 
 Is that judgment not extravagant? For the concept 
 seems so simple, is so apparently independent of difficult 
 presuppositions, that one cannot but wonder why it was 
 not formed long ago. Had the concept in question been 
 early formed, the history and present status of philoso- 
 
 1 The very simplest possible example of such a manifold is that of the 
 count-numbers. The whole collection can be paired in one-to-one fashion 
 with, for example, half the collection, thus: i, 2; 2, 4; 3, 6; . . . ; the 
 totality of even and odd being just equivalent to the even.
 
 THE AXIOM OP INFINITY 149 
 
 phy and theology, and of science too, had doubtless 
 been different. But it was not then conceived. Now 
 that we have it, is it too unbewildering to be impress- 
 ive? Shall we esteem it lightly just because we can 
 comprehend it, because it does not mystify? Simple 
 it is indeed, almost as simple as the Newtonian law of 
 gravitation, nearly as easy to understand as the geo- 
 metric interpretation of imaginary quantities, hardly 
 more difficult to grasp than the notion of the conserva- 
 tion of energy, the Mendelian principle of inheritance, 
 or than a score of other central concepts of science. 
 But shallow indeed and foolish is that criticism which 
 values ideas according to their complexity, and con- 
 founds the simple with the trivial. 
 
 As an immense city or a vast complex of mountain 
 masses, seen too near, is obscured as a whole by the 
 prominence of its parts, so the larger truth about any 
 great subject is disclosed only as one beholds it at a 
 certain remove which permits the assembling of principal 
 features in a single view, and a proportionate mingling 
 of reflected light from its grander aspects. Accordingly 
 it has seemed desirable, in the foregoing preliminary 
 survey, to hold somewhat aloof, to conduct the move- 
 ment, in the main, along the path of perspective centres, 
 in order to allow the vision at every point the amplest 
 range. It is now proposed to draw a little closer to the 
 subject and to examine some of its phases more minutely. 
 In respect to the modern concept of infinity, we desire 
 to know more fully what it really signifies, we wish to 
 be informed how it orients itself among cardinal prin- 
 ciples and established modes of thought. But recently 
 born to consciousness, it has already been advanced to 
 conspicuous and commanding station among funda- 
 mental notions, and we are concerned to know what, if
 
 150 THE AXIOM OF INFINITY 
 
 any, transformations of existing doctrine, what read- 
 justments of attitude towards the universe without us 
 or within, what changes in our thought on ultimate 
 problems of knowledge and reality, it seems to demand 
 and may be destined to effect. In a word, and speak- 
 ing broadly, we wish to know not merely in a narrow 
 sense what the new idea is, but, in the larger meaning 
 of the term, what it "can." 
 
 I shall first speak briefly of the so-called "positive" 
 character of the definition, an alleged essential quality 
 of it, a seeming property which criticism is wont to 
 signalise as a radical or intrinsic virtue of the concept 
 itself. Quite independently of the mathematicians 
 Dedekind and Cantor, who, we have seen, were the 
 independent originators of the new formulation, the 
 then old philosopher, Bolzano, bringing to the subject 
 another order of training and of motive, arrived at 
 notions of the finite and infinite, which on critical 
 examination are found to be essentially the same as 
 theirs, though greatly differing in point alike of view 
 and of form. Bolzano's procedure is virtually as fol- 
 lows: Suppose given a class C of elements, or things, 
 of any kind whatsoever, as the sands of the seashore, 
 or the stars of the firmament, or the points of space, 
 or the instants in a stretch of time, or the numbers 
 with which we count, or the total manifold of truths 
 known to an omniscient God. Out of any such class C, 
 suppose a series formed by taking for first term one of 
 the elements of C, for second term two of them, and 
 so on. Any term so obtainable is itself obviously a 
 class or group of things, and is defined to be finite. The 
 indicated process of series formation, if sufficiently pro- 
 longed, will either exhaust C or it will not. If it will, 
 C is itself demonstrably finite; if it will not, C is, on
 
 THE AXIOM OF INFINITY 151 
 
 that account, defined to be infinite. Now, say Professor 
 Royce and others, a definition like the latter, being 
 dependent on such a notion as that of inexhaustibility 
 or endlessness or boundlessness, is negative; a certain 
 innate craving of the understanding remains unsatisfied, 
 we are told, because the definition presents the notion, 
 not in a positive way by telling us what the infinite 
 actually is, but merely in a negative fashion by telling 
 us what it is not. Undoubtedly the claim is plausible, 
 but is it more? Bolzano affirmed and exemplified a 
 certain proposition, in itself of the utmost importance, 
 and throwing half the needed light upon the question 
 in hand. That proposition is: Any class or assemblage 
 (of elements), if infinite according to kis own definition 
 of the term, enjoys the property of being equivalent, in the 
 sense above explained, to some proper part of itself. Though 
 he did not himself demonstrate the proposition, it 
 readily admits of demonstration, and, since his time, 
 has in fact been repeatedly and rigorously proved. 
 Not only that, but the converse proposition, giving the 
 other half of the needed light, has been established too: 
 Every assemblage that HAS a part "equivalent" to the 
 whole, is infinite in the Bolzano sense of the term. 
 
 It so appears, in the conjoint light of those two 
 theorems, that the property seized upon and pointed 
 out by the ingenious theologian is in all strictness a 
 characteristic, though derivative, mark of the infinite 
 as he conceived and defined it. It is sufficiently obvious, 
 therefore, that this derivative property might logically 
 be regarded as primitive, made to serve, that is, as a 
 ground of definition. Precisely this fact it is which was 
 independently perceived by Dedekind and Cantor, with 
 the result that, as they have presented the matter, a 
 collection, or manifold, is infinite if it has a certain
 
 152 THE' AXIOM OF INFINITY 
 
 property, and finite if it has it not. And now, the critics 
 tell us, it is the infinite which is positive and the finite 
 which is negative. 
 
 The distinction appears to me to be entirely devoid 
 of essential merit. It seems rather to be only another 
 interesting example of that verbal legerdemain for which 
 a certain familiar sort of philosophising has long been 
 famous. For what indeed is positive and what negative? 
 Are we to understand that these terms have absolute 
 as distinguished from relative meaning? The distinc- 
 tion, I take it, is without external validity, is entirely 
 subjective, a matter quite at will, being dependent 
 solely on an arbitrary ordering of our thought. That 
 which is first put in thought is positive: the opposite, 
 being subsequently put, is negative; but the sens of the 
 time-vector joining the two may be reversed at the 
 thinker's will. It is sometimes contended that that 
 which generally happens in the world, and so constitutes 
 the rule, is intrinsically positive. As a matter of fact 
 a moving body "in general" continuously changes its 
 distance from every object. Such change of distance 
 from every other object would accordingly be a positive 
 something. Then it would follow that the classic defi- 
 nition of a sphere-surface as the locus of a moving 
 point which does not change its distance from a certain 
 specified point, is really negative. Obviously it avails 
 nothing essential to disguise the negativity by some 
 such seemingly positive phrase as "constant" distance. 
 The trick is an easy one. If, again, it be allowed that, 
 a process being once started, its continuation is positive, 
 its termination negative, then it would result that in- 
 exhaustibility is positive and exhaustibility negative, 
 whence we should have to own that it is Bolzano's 
 definition which is positive and that by Dedekind and
 
 THE AXIOM OP INFINITY 153 
 
 Cantor negative. It hardly admits of doubt that the 
 matter is purely one of an arbitrarily chosen point of 
 view. The distinction is here of no importance. What 
 is important is that, no matter which of the definitions 
 be adopted as such, the other then states a derivable prop- 
 erty of the thing defined. In either case the concept of 
 the infinite remains the same, it is merely its garb that is 
 changed. I am very far from intending, however, to assert 
 herewith that, because the definitions are logically equiva- 
 lent, they must needs be or indeed are so practically, that 
 is, as instruments of investigation. That is another 
 matter, which, I regret to say, our somewhat pretentious 
 critiques of scientific method furnish no better means of 
 settling than the wasteful way of trial. Everyone will 
 recall from his school-days Euclid's definition of a plane 
 as being a surface such that a line joining any two 
 points of the surface lies wholly in the surface. Logi- 
 cally that is equivalent to saying: A plane is such an 
 assemblage of points that, any three independent points 
 of the assemblage being given, one and only one third 
 point of the assemblage can be found which is equi- 
 distant from the given three. But, despite their logical 
 equivalence, who would contend that, for elementary 
 purposes, the latter notion is "practically" as good as 
 the Greek? And so in respect to the infinite, I am free 
 to admit, or rather I affirm, that, on the score of 
 usability, the Dedekind-Cantor definition is greatly 
 superior to its Bolzanoan equivalent. Professor Roycc 
 has indeed ingeniously shown how readily it lends itself 
 to philosophic and even to theologic uses. 
 
 I turn now to the current assertion by Professor 
 Royce and Mr. Russell, that the modern concept of the 
 infinite, of which I have given above in italics an exact 
 statement, to which the reader is referred, in fact denies
 
 154 THE AXIOM OF INFINITY 
 
 a certain ancient axiom of common sense, namely, the 
 axiom of whole and part. I am not about to submit 
 a brief in behalf of the traditional conception of axioms 
 as self-evident truths. That conception, as is well 
 known, has been once for all abandoned by philosophy 
 and science alike, while to mathematicians in particular 
 no phenomenon is more familiar than that of the co- 
 existence of self-coherent bodies of doctrine constructed 
 on distinct and self-consistent but incompatible systems 
 of postulates. The co-ordination of such incompatible 
 theories is quite legitimate and presents no cause for 
 regret or alarm. The forced recession of the axioms 
 from the high ground of absolute authority, so far from 
 indicating chaos of intellection or ultimate dissolution 
 of knowledge, signifies a corresponding deepening of 
 foundation; it means an ascension of mind, the procla- 
 mation of its creative power, the assertion of its own 
 supremacy. And henceforth the denial of specific 
 axioms, or the deliberate substitution of one set for 
 another, is to be rightly regarded as an inalienable 
 prerogative of a liberated spirit. The question before 
 us, then, is one merely x>f fact, namely, whether a certain 
 axiom is indeed denied or contradicted by the modern 
 concept of the infinite. 
 
 It is in the first place to be observed that the statement 
 itself of that concept avoids the expression, " equality 
 of whole and part," but instead of it deliberately employs 
 the term "equivalence." The word actually used by 
 Dedekind himself is dhnlichkeit (similarity). But, says 
 Professor Royce, "equivalence" is just what the axiom 
 really means by equality. It is precisely this statement 
 which I venture to draw in question. If we know that 
 each soldier of a company marching along the street 
 has one and but one gun on his shoulder, then, we are
 
 THE AXIOM OF INFINITY 155 
 
 told, even if we do not know how many soldiers or guns 
 there are, we do know that there are "as many" soldiers 
 as guns. What the definition in question, taken severely, 
 itself affirms in this case, is that the assemblage of guns 
 is "equivalent or similar" to that of the soldiers. Let 
 us now suppose that in place of soldiers we write, for 
 example, "all positive integers," and in place of guns, 
 "all even positive integers" -the integers are plainly 
 susceptible of unique and reciprocal association with 
 the even integers, then the definition again asserts, as 
 before, "equivalence" of these assemblages. Note that 
 thus far nothing has been said about number as an 
 expression of how many. If there be a number that tells 
 how many things there are in one assemblage, that same 
 number doubtless tells how many there are in any 
 "equivalent" assemblage, and just because the number, 
 if there be one, is the same for both, the two are said 
 to be equal by axiom. In this view, equality of groups 
 means more than mere "equivalence"; it means, besides, 
 sameness of their numbers, and so applies only in case 
 there be numbers. But common sense, whose axiom is 
 here in court, has neither found, nor affirmed the ex- 
 istence of, a number telling, for example, how many 
 integers there are. On the other hand, in case of 
 assemblages for which common sense has known a 
 number, the axiom of whole and part is admittedly 
 valid without exception. It thus appears that the 
 axiom supposed, regarded, however unconsciously but 
 nevertheless in intention, as applicable only in case 
 there be a number telling how many, is, in all strictness, 
 not denied by the concept in question. Numbers 
 designed to tell how many elements there are in an 
 assemblage having a part "equivalent" to the whole 
 are of recent invention, and it may be remarked in
 
 156 THE AXIOM OF INFINITY 
 
 passing that this invention bears immediate favourable 
 witness to the fruitfulness of the new idea. Such trans- 
 finite numbers once created, then undoubtedly, and 
 not before, the question naturally presents itself whether 
 "equivalence" shall be translated "equality," or, what 
 is tantamount, whether the latter term shall be gen- 
 eralised into the former; "generalised," I say, for, 
 though it is true that, as soon as the transfinite numbers 
 are created, there is, in case of an infinite collection 
 and some of its parts, a conjunction of "equivalence" 
 and "sameness of number," yet equality does not of 
 itself deductively attach, for the transfinite numbers 
 are in genetic principle, 1 i.e., radically, different from the 
 number notion which the concept of equality has hith- 
 erto connoted. The question as to the mentioned trans- 
 lation or generalisation is, therefore, a question, and it 
 is to be decided, not under spur or stress of logic, but 
 solely from motives of economy acting on grounds of 
 pure expedience. If the decision be, as seems likely 
 because of its expedience and economy favourable to 
 such translation or generalisation, then indeed the old 
 axiom, as above construed, still remains uncontradicted, 
 is yet valid within the domain of its asserted validity. 
 It is merely that a new number-domain has been ad- 
 joined which the old verity never contemplated, and 
 in which, therefore, though it does not apply, it never 
 essentially pretended to; but on account of which ad- 
 junction, nevertheless, for the sake of good neighbour- 
 ship, it is constrained, not indeed to retract its ancient 
 claims, but merely to assert them more cautiously and 
 diplomatically, in preciser terms. Even then, in case 
 of quarrel, it is the generaliser who should explain, and 
 not a defender of the generalised. 
 
 1 Cf. Couturat, L'Infini mathtmatiqiw. Appendix.
 
 THE AXIOM OF INFINITY 157 
 
 And now to my final thesis I venture to invite the 
 reader's special attention, and beg to be held with utmost 
 strictness accountable for my words. The question is, 
 whether it is possible, by means of the new concept, to 
 demonstrate the existence of the infinite; whether, in 
 other words, it can be proved that there are infinite 
 systems. That such demonstration is possible is affirmed 
 by Bolzano, by Dedekind, by Professor Royce, by Mr. 
 Russell, and in fact by a large and swelling chorus of 
 authoritative utterance, scarcely relieved by a dis- 
 senting voice. After no little pondering of the matter, 
 I have been forced, and that, too, I must own, against 
 my hope and will, to the opposite conviction. Candour, 
 then, compels me to assert, as I have elsewhere 1 briefly 
 done, not only that the arguments which have been 
 actually adduced are all of them vitiated by circularity, 
 but that, in the very nature of conception and inference, 
 by virtue of the most certain standards of logic itself, 
 every potential argument, every possible attempt to 
 prove the proposition, is foredoomed to failure, destined 
 before its birth to take the fatal figure of the wheel. 
 
 The alleged demonstrations are essentially the same, 
 being all of them but variants under a single type. It 
 is needless, therefore, in support of my first contention, 
 to present separate examination of them all. Analysis 
 of one or two specimens will suffice. I will begin with 
 one from Bolzano's offering, both because it marks the 
 beginning of the new era of thought about the subject 
 and because subsequent writers have nearly all of them 
 either cited or quoted it, and that, as far as I am aware, 
 always with approval. Bolzano' undertakes to demon- 
 
 1 "The Axiom of Infinity and Mathematical Induction," BuUftin of tkt 
 Amrruqn Mathematical Society, vol. ix., May, 1003. 
 * "Paradoxien," sect. 14.
 
 158 THE AXIOM OF INFINITY 
 
 strate, among similar statements, the proposition that 
 die Menge der Satze und Wahrheiten an sich is infinite 
 (unendlicti), this latter term being understood, of course, 
 in accordance with his own definition above given. 
 The attempt, as anyone may find who is willing to 
 examine it minutely, informally postulates as follows: 
 the proposition, There are such truths (as those con- 
 templated in the proposition), is such a truth, T; T is 
 true, is another such truth, T; so on; and, the indicated 
 process is inexhaustible. Now, these assumptions, which 
 are essential to the argument, and which any careful 
 reader cannot fail to find implicit in it, are, possibly, all of 
 them, correct, but the last is so evident a petitio principii 
 as to make one look again and again lest his own thought 
 should have played him a trick. 
 
 In case of Dedekind's demonstration, which has been 
 heralded far and wide, the fallacy is less glaring. The 
 argument is far subtler, more complicate, and the ver- 
 steckter Zirkel lies deeper in the folds. But it is un- 
 doubtedly there, and its presence may be disclosed by 
 careful explication. Let the symbol t stand for thought, 
 any thought, and denote by t' the thought that t is a 
 thought. For convenience, t' may be called the image 
 of t. On examination, Dedekind's proof is found to 
 postulate as certainties: (i) If there be a t, there is a /', 
 image of /; (2) if there be two distinct t's, the corre- 
 sponding t"s are distinct; (3) there is a /; (4) there is a 
 t which is not a t'; (5) every t is other than its t' . These 
 being granted, it is easy to see, by supposing each t to be 
 paired with its /', as object with image, that the assem- 
 blage 6 of all the t's and the assemblage 6' of all t"s are 
 "equivalent." But by (4) there is a t not in 6', which 
 latter is, therefore, a part of 6. Hence 6 is infinite, by 
 definition of the term.
 
 THE AXIOM OF INFINITY 159 
 
 Let this matter be scrutinised a little. Assuming 
 only the mentioned postulates and, of course, the pos- 
 sibility of reflection, it is obvious that by pairing the t 
 of (4) with its image /', then the latter with its image, 
 and so on, a sequence 5 of /'s is started which, because 
 of (i) and (5), is incapable of termination. This S, 
 too, by Dedekind's proof, is an infinite assemblage. 
 Accordingly, postulate (i), without which, be it ob- 
 served, the proof is impossible, postulates, in advance 
 of the argument, certainty which, if the argument's 
 conclusion be true, transcends the finite before the infer- 
 ence that an infinite exists either is or can be drawn. 
 The reader may recall how the Russian mathematician 
 Lobatschewsky said, "In the absence of proof of the 
 Euclidian postulate of parallels, I will assume that it is 
 not true"; and how thereupon there arose a new science 
 of space. Suppose that, in like manner, we say here, 
 "In the absence 6f proof that an act once found to be 
 mentally performable is endlessly so performable, we 
 will assume that such is not the case," then, whatever 
 else might result and of that we shall presently speak 
 one thing is at once absolutely certain: Dedekind's 
 "argument" would be quite impossible. The fact is 
 that a more beautiful circle than his is hardly to be 
 found in the pages of fallacious speculation, or admits 
 of construction by the subtlest instruments of self- 
 deceiving dialectic, though it must be frankly allowed 
 that Mr. Russell's ! more recent movement about the 
 same centre is equally round and exquisite. 
 
 And this disclosure of the fatal circle in the attempted 
 demonstration serves at once to introduce and exemplify 
 the truth of my second contention, which is that all 
 logical discourse, of necessity, ex w termini, presupposes 
 
 1 Principles of Mathematics, chap, xliii.
 
 l6o THE AXIOM OF INFINITY 
 
 certainty that transcends the finite, where by logical 
 discourse I mean such as consists of completely deter- 
 mined concepts welded into a concatenated system by 
 the ancient hammer of deductive logic. The fact of this 
 presupposition, of course, cannot be proved, but, and 
 that is good enough, it can be exhibited and beheld. To 
 attempt to "prove" it would be to stultify oneself by 
 assuming the possibility of a deductive argument A 
 to prove that the conclusion of A cannot be drawn 
 unless it is assumed in advance. The fact, then, if it 
 be a fact, and of that there need not be the slightest 
 doubt, is to be added to that small group of fundamental 
 simplicities which can at best be seen, if the eye be fit. 
 
 Consider, for example, this simplest of syllogistic 
 forms: Every element e of the class c is an element e 
 of the class c' ; every e of c' is an element e of the class 
 c"; .'. every e of c is an e of c". I appeal now to the 
 reader's own subjective experience to witness to the fol- 
 lowing facts: (i) Our apodictic feeling is the sole justi- 
 fication of the inference as such; (2) that felt justifica- 
 tion is absolute, neither seeking nor admitting of appeal; 
 (3) that sole and absolute justification, namely, the 
 apodictic feeling, is in no slightest degree contingent 
 upon the answer to any question whether the multitude 
 of elements e or e or e is or is not, may or may not be 
 found to be, "equivalent" to some part of itself. The 
 feeling of validity here undoubtedly transcends the finite, 
 undoubtedly holds naught in reserve against any possi- 
 bility of the inference failing as an act should the system 
 of elements turn out to be infinite. 
 
 At some risk of excessive clearness and accentuation, 
 for the matter is immeasurably important, I venture 
 to ask the reader to witness how the transcendence or 
 transfiniteness of certainty shows itself in yet another
 
 THE AXIOM OF INFINITY l6l 
 
 way, not merely in formal deductive inference, but also 
 in conception. When any concept, as that of Parabola, 
 for example, is formed or defined, it is found that the 
 concept contains implicitly a host of properties not 
 given explicitly in the definition. Properly speaking, the 
 thing defined is a certain organic assemblage of proper- 
 ties, of which the totality is implied in a properly se- 
 lected few of them. Now the act which it is decisive 
 here to note is that by conception we mean, among 
 other things, that whenever the definition may present 
 itself, even though it may be endlessly, a certain in- 
 variant assemblage of properties implicitly accompanies 
 the presentation. Without such transfinite certainty 
 of such invariant uncontingent implication, conception 
 would be devoid of its meaning. 
 
 The upshot, then, is this: that conception and logical 
 inference alike presuppose absolute certainty that an 
 act which the mind finds itself capable of performing is 
 intrinsically performable endlessly, or, what is the same 
 thing, that the assemblage of possible repetitions of a 
 once mentally performable act is equivalent to some 
 proper part of the assemblage. This certainty I name 
 the Axiom of Infinity, and this axiom being, as seen, 
 a necessary presupposition of both conception and 
 deductive inference, every attempt to "demonstrate" 
 the existence of the infinite is a predestined begging of 
 the issue. 
 
 What follows? Do we, then, know by axiom that the 
 infinite is? That depends upon your metaphysic. If 
 you are a radical a-priorist, yes; if not, no. If the latter, 
 and I am now speaking as an a-priorist, then you are 
 agnostic in the deepest sense, being capable, in utmost 
 rigour, of the terms, of neither conceiving nor inferring. 
 But if we do not know the axiom to be true, and so
 
 162 THE AXIOM OF INFINITY 
 
 cannot deductively prove the existence of the infinite, 
 what, then, is the probability of such existence? The 
 highest yet attained. Why? Because the inductive test 
 of the axiom, regarded now as a hypothesis, is trying to 
 conceive and trying to infer, and this experiment, which 
 has been world-wide for aeons, has seemed to succeed 
 in countless cases, and to fail in none not explainable on 
 grounds consistent with the retention of the hypothesis. 
 Finally, to make briefest application to a single con- 
 crete case. Do the stars constitute an infinite mul- 
 titude? No one knows. If the number be finite, that 
 fact may some time be ascertained by actual enumera- 
 tion, and, if and only if there be infinite ensembles of 
 possible repetitions of mental processes, it may also be 
 known by proof. But if the multitude of stars be in- 
 finite, that can never be known except by proof; this 
 last is possible only if the axiom of infinity be true, and 
 even if this be true, the actual proof may never be 
 achieved.
 
 THE PERMANENT BASIS OF A LIBERAL 
 EDUCATION l 
 
 Is it possible to find a principle or a set of principles 
 qualified to serve as a permanent basis for a theory of 
 liberal education? If so, what is the principle or set 
 of principles? These are old questions. We are living 
 in a time when they must be considered anew. 
 
 If our world were a static affair, if our environment, 
 physical, spiritual and institutional, were stable, then 
 we should none of us have difficulty in agreeing that a 
 liberal education would be one that gave the student 
 adjustment and orientation in the world through dis- 
 ciplining his faculties in their relation to its cardinal 
 static facts. Such a world could be counted upon. 
 No one doubts that in such a world it would be possible 
 to find a permanent basis for a theory of liberal edu- 
 cation a principle or a set of principles that would 
 be adequate and sound, not merely to-day, but to-day, 
 yesterday and to-morrow. 
 
 But we are reminded by certain rather numerous 
 educational philosophers that our world is not a static 
 affair. We are told that it is a scene of perpetual 
 change, of endless and universal transformation phys- 
 ical flux, institutional flux, social flux, spiritual flux: all 
 is flux. These philosophers tell us of the rapid and 
 continued advancement and multiplication of knowledge. 
 They, do not cease to remind us that knowledge goes 
 
 1 Printed in The Columbia Umaersity Quarterly, June, 1916.
 
 1 64 PERMANENT BASIS OP LIBERAL EDUCATION 
 
 on building itself out, not only in all the old directions, 
 but also in an endlessly increasing variety of new direc- 
 tions. They remind us that the ever-augmenting volume 
 of knowledge is continually breaking up into new divi- 
 sions or kinds, and that each of these quickly asserts, 
 and sooner or later demonstrates, its parity with any 
 other division in respect of utility and dignity and dis- 
 ciplinary value. They remind us that a striking con- 
 comitant phenomenon, which is partly the effect of the 
 multiplication and differentiation of knowledge, partly 
 a cause of it and partly owing to other agencies and 
 influences, is the fact that new occupations constantly 
 spring into being on every hand and that the needs, 
 the desires and the habits of men, and therewith the 
 drifts and forms of social and institutional life, suffer 
 perpetual mutation. Nothing, they tell us, is perma- 
 nent except change itself. All things, material, mental, 
 moral, social, institutional, are tossed in an infinite and 
 endless welter of transformations evolution, involu- 
 tion, revolution, all going on at once and forever. 
 
 It is evident, we are assured, that in such a world 
 the search for abiding principles is vain, whether we 
 seek a permanent basis for a liberal education or a per- 
 manent basis for anything else. The doctrine is that in 
 our world permanent bases do not exist. Permanence, 
 stability, invariance, immutability, there is none. It 
 exists only in rationalistic dreams. It exists only in 
 the insubstantial musings of the tender-minded. It 
 exists only in the cravings of such as have not the prag- 
 matistic courage or constitution to deal with reality 
 as it is in the welter and the raw. We are told that 
 there is in matters educational no such thing as eternal 
 wisdom. Wisdom is at best a transitory thing, depend- 
 ing on time and place, and constantly changing with
 
 PERMANENT BASIS OP LIBERAL EDUCATION 1 6$ 
 
 them. A prescription that is wise to-day will be foolish 
 to-morrow. What was a liberal education is not such 
 now. What is a liberal education to-day will not be 
 liberal in the future. Greek has gone, theology is gone, 
 religion is gone, Latin is almost gone, mathematics, 
 we are told, is going, and so on and on. Each branch 
 of knowledge will have its day, and then will cease to 
 be essential. Liberal curricula, it is contended, must 
 change with the times. 
 
 This doctrine, logically conceived and carried out, 
 means that as the years and generations follow endlessly, 
 time and change will beget an endless succession of 
 so-called liberal curricula. It means that, if, in this un- 
 ending sequence, we observe a finite number of success- 
 ive curricula, these will indeed be found to resemble each 
 other, overlapping, interpenetrating, and thus seeming 
 to be held together in a kind of unity by a more or 
 less vague and elusive bond; but that this must be 
 appearance only. For if the observed succession be 
 prolonged, as it is bound to be, the seeming principle 
 of unity must become dimmer and dimmer; the terms 
 or curricula of the endless succession of them can have, 
 in fact, nothing in common, no lien, no unity whatever, 
 save that pale variety which serves merely to constitute 
 the succession of curricula an infinite series of terms. 
 It is not unlikely that the educational philosophers in 
 question may not be aware that this is what their 
 doctrine means. Nevertheless, that is what it does 
 mean. 
 
 Is the doctrine sound? To me it seems not to be so. 
 The question is a question of fact. The denial of per- 
 manent principle and the assertion of its concomitant 
 theory of education seek to justify themselves by point- 
 ing to the fluctuance of the world. I do not deny the
 
 1 66 PERMANENT BASIS OF LIBERAL EDUCATION 
 
 fluctuance of the world. One must be blind to do that. 
 Here, there and yonder, in the world of matter, in the 
 world of mind, in thought, in religion, in morals, in 
 conventions, in institutions, everywhere are evident 
 the drif tings and shif tings of events: everywhere 
 course the hasting streams of change. I admit the 
 storm and stress, the tumult and hurly-burly of it all. 
 I do not deny that impermanence is a permanent and 
 mighty fact in our world. What I do deny is that 
 impermanence is universal. Its sweep is not clean. 
 Far from it. If it is, man has indeed been a colossal 
 fool, for the quest of Constance, the search for invari- 
 ance, for things that abide, for forms of reality that 
 are eternal, has been in all times and places the dom- 
 inant concern of man, uniting his philosophy, his religion, 
 his science, his art and his jurisprudence into one mani- 
 fold enterprise of mankind. Not permanence alone, 
 nor impermanence alone, but the two together, one 
 of them drawing and the other driving, it is these two 
 working together that have shaped the course of human 
 history and moulded the form of its content. I admit 
 that impermanence is more evident and obtrusive 
 than permanence, but I contend that a philosophy which 
 finds in the world nothing but change is a shallow phi- 
 losophy and false. The instinct that perpetually drives 
 man to seek the fixed, the stable, the everlasting, has 
 its root deep in nature. It is a cosmic thing. Must we 
 say that this instinct, this most imperious of human 
 cravings, has no function except that of qualifying man 
 to be eternally mocked? It cannot be admitted. The 
 sweep of mutation is indeed deep and wide, but it is 
 not universal. It would be possible, in a contest before 
 a committee of competent judges, to show that tem- 
 poralities are, in respect of number, more than matched
 
 PERMANENT BASIS OF LIBERAL EDUCATION 167 
 
 by eternalities, and that, in respect of relative impor- 
 tance, changes are as dancing wavelets on an infinite 
 and everlasting sea. 
 
 In our environment there exist certain great invariant 
 massive facts that now are and always will be necessary 
 and sufficient to constitute the basis of a curriculum or 
 a theory of liberal education. These facts are obvious 
 and on that account they require to be pointed out, 
 just because, in the matter of escaping attention, what 
 is very obvious is a rival of what is obscure. 
 
 What are these facts? One of them is the fact that 
 every human being has behind him an immense human 
 past, the past of mankind. Of course, I do not mean 
 that what we call the human past is itself a fixed or 
 permanent thing. It is not. It is a variable, constantly 
 changing by virtue of perpetual additions to it as the 
 years and centuries empty the volume of their events 
 into that limitless sea. What is permanent is the fact 
 it was so yesterday and it will be so to-morrow 
 that behind each one of us there is a human past so 
 immense as to be practically infinite. That fact, I say, 
 is permanent. It can be counted on. It is as nearly 
 eternal as the race of man. Out of that past we have 
 come. Into it we are constantly passing. Meanwhile, 
 it is of the utmost importance to our lives. It contains 
 the roots of all we are, and of all we have of wisdom, 
 of science, of philosophy, of art, of jurisprudence, of 
 customs and institutions. It contains the record or 
 ruins of all the experiments that man has made during 
 a quarter or a half million years in the art of living in 
 this world. This great stable fact of an immense human 
 past behind every human being that now is or is to be, 
 obviously makes it necessary for any theory of liberal 
 education to provide for discipline in human history
 
 1 68 PERMANENT BASIS OF LIBERAL EDUCATION 
 
 and in the literature of antiquity. How much? A 
 reasonable amount enough, that is, to orient the stu- 
 dent in relation to the past, to give him a fair sense of 
 the continuity of the life of mankind, a decent appre- 
 ciation of ancient works of genius, and sense and knowl- 
 edge enough to guide his energies and to control his 
 enthusiasms in the light of human experience. As the 
 centuries go by, ancient literature and human history 
 will increase more and more. What is a reasonable 
 prescription will, therefore, become less and less in its 
 relation to the increasing whole, but it will never vanish. 
 It will never cease to be indispensable. 
 
 In this connection, the following question is certain 
 to be asked. From the point of view of this inquiry, 
 which aims at indicating an enduring basis for a theory 
 of liberal education, does it follow that Greek or Latin 
 or any other language that may be destined to become 
 "classic" and "dead" at some remote future time, 
 does it follow that these or any of them must enter 
 as essential into the curriculum of a liberal education? 
 It does not. It would indeed be a grave misfortune if 
 there should ever come a time when there were no longer 
 a goodly number of scholars devoted to the great lan- 
 guages of antiquity. Some of the thought, of the sci- 
 ence, of the wisdom, of the beauty originally expressed 
 in these tongues, is, we have said, essential; but it is 
 precisely the chief function of those who master the 
 ancient languages to make their precious content avail- 
 able, through translations and critical commentaries, 
 for the great body of their fellow men to whom the lan- 
 guages themselves must remain unknown. It is not 
 denied that the scholars in question will know and 
 appreciate such content as no others can, but neither 
 will these scholars continue forever to deny the possi-
 
 PERMANENT BASIS OP LIBERAL EDUCATION 169 
 
 bility of rendering most of the content reasonably well 
 in the living languages of their fellow men. The con- 
 trary cannot be much longer maintained. Indeed the 
 layman already knows that Euclid, Plato, Aristotle, 
 Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Demosthenes, Virgil, 
 Cicero, Lucretius, and many others, have already 
 learned, or are rapidly learning, to speak, beautifully 
 and powerfully, all the culture languages of the modern 
 world. 
 
 Another of the massive facts that transcends the flux 
 of the world, and that, therefore, must contribute basic- 
 ally to any permanent theory of liberal education, 
 is the fact that every human being is encompassed by 
 a physical or material universe. Again I do not mean, 
 of course I do not mean, that the universe remains 
 always the same. What is permanent is the fact that 
 human beings always have been, now are, and always 
 will be, surrounded on every hand by an infinite objec- 
 tive world of matter and force. In that world we are 
 literally immersed. Our bodies are parts of it; they 
 are composed of its elements and will be resolved into 
 them again. If our minds, too, be not part of it, they 
 must at all events, on pain of our physical incompe- 
 tence or extinction, gain and maintain continuous and 
 intelligent relations with it. The great fact in question, 
 like the fact of the human past, can be counted on. 
 It survives all vicissitudes. The immersing universe 
 may be a chaos or a cosmos, or partly chaotic and partly 
 cosmic, preserving its character in that regard or tending 
 along an asymptotic path to chaos complete or to 
 cosmic perfection. But if it is chaotic, we humans 
 sufficiently match it in that regard to be able to treat 
 it more and more successfully as if it were an infinite 
 locus of order and law. And we know that to do this
 
 1 70 PERMANENT BASIS OF LIBERAL EDUCATION 
 
 is immensely advantageous. In a strict sense, it is 
 absolutely indispensable. Merely to live, it is necessary 
 to treat nature as having some order. 
 
 These considerations show that any theory which 
 aims to orient and discipline the faculties of men and 
 women in their relation to the great permanent facts 
 of the world must make basal provision for discipline 
 in what we call natural, or physical, science. Again, 
 how much? Again the answer is, a reasonable amount. 
 But how much, pray, is that? Enough to give the 
 student a fair acquaintance with the heroes of natural 
 science, a fair understanding of what scientific men mean 
 by natural order or law, a decent insight into scientific 
 method, the role of hypothesis, and the processes of 
 experimentation and verification. But there are so 
 many branches of natural science and their number is 
 increasing. A liberal curriculum cannot require them 
 all. Which shall be chosen? It does not matter much. 
 These branches differ a good deal in content and in a 
 less degree in method, but they have enough in common 
 to make a claim of superiority for any one of them 
 mainly a partisan claim. The spirit of science, its 
 methods, some of its chief results, these are the essen- 
 tials. To give these, physics is competent, so is chem- 
 istry, so is botany, so is zoology, and so on. The choice 
 is a temporal detail, but the principle requiring the 
 choice is everlasting. A hundred or a thousand years 
 hence, there will be other details to choose from sci- 
 entific branches not yet named, nor even dreamed of. 
 But and this is the point a theory of liberal edu- 
 cation will not cease to demand some discipline in 
 natural science so long as human beings are immersed 
 in an infinite world of matter and force. 
 
 Nor will such a theory fail to take account funda-
 
 PERMANENT BASIS OF LIBERAL EDUCATION 171 
 
 mentally of a third great fact that persists despite the 
 flux of things and the law of death. I refer to the 
 fact that every human being's fortune depends vitally 
 upon what may be called the world of ideas. It is 
 evident that of the total environment of man, the 
 human Gedankenwelt is a stupendous and mighty com- 
 ponent. Like the other great components already 
 named, or namable, the world of ideas is, in respect of 
 its existence, a permanent datum amid the weltering 
 sea of change. Not only may it be counted on, but 
 it must be reckoned with. Some thinking everyone must 
 do. The formation and combination of ideas is not 
 merely indispensable to welfare, it is more fundamental 
 than that: it is essential to human life. The world of 
 ideas contains countless possibilities that are not actual- 
 ized or realized or validated or incarnated, as we say, 
 in the order of the material world, nor in any existing 
 social or institutional order. It is plain that discipline 
 in the ways and forms of abstract thinking, of dealing 
 with ideas as ideas, is essential to a liberal education, 
 not merely because the world of ideas is itself a thing 
 of supreme and eternal worth, but because those who 
 are incapable of constructing ideal orders may not hope 
 to have the imagination requisite for ascertaining or 
 for appreciating the frame and order actualized in ex- 
 ternal nature. From all of this it is clear that any 
 enduring theory of liberal education must provide for 
 the discipline of logic and mathematics, for it is in 
 these and these alone that rigorous or cogent thinking 
 finds its standard and its realization. It is true that 
 most of the thinking that the exigencies of life compel 
 us to do is not cogent thinking. We are obliged con- 
 stantly to deal with ideas that are too nebulous to 
 admit of rigorously logical handling. But to argue
 
 172 PERMANENT BASIS OF LIBERAL EDUCATION 
 
 that consequently discipline in rigorous thinking is not 
 essential, is stupid. It is to ignore the value of stand- 
 ards and ideals. It is, in other words, to be spiritually 
 blind. I am making no partisan plea for my own sub- 
 ject. Mathematics happens to be the name that time 
 has given to rigorous or cogent thinking, and so it 
 happens that mathematics is the name of the one art 
 or science that is qualified to give men and women a 
 perfect standard of thinking and to bring them into the 
 thrilling presence of indestructible bodies of thought. 
 Call the science by any other name anathematics 
 or logostetics. The thing itself and its functions would 
 be the same. 
 
 Another cardinal fact among the permanent consid- 
 erations that a theory of liberal education must rest 
 upon is the fact that human beings are social beings. 
 It is only in dreams and romances that a human being 
 lives apart in isolation. Men, said Aristotle, are made 
 for co-operation. Every man and every woman is a 
 born member of a thousand teams. Not one is pure 
 individual. Each one is many. None can extricate 
 himself from the generic web of man. This fact sur- 
 vives the flux. It is as nearly everlasting as the human 
 race. It is a rock to build upon. And so it was true 
 yesterday, is true to-day, and will be true to-morrow, 
 that an education whose function it is to discipline the 
 faculties of man in their relation to the great abiding 
 facts of life and the world, must provide for discipline 
 in the fundamentals of political science. Moreover, 
 as it is essential to the health and to the effectiveness 
 of the individual, and also essential to the welfare of 
 society that men and women be able to express them- 
 selves acceptably and effectively, a liberal education 
 will provide for discipline in the greatest of all the arts
 
 PERMANENT BASIS OF LIBERAL EDUCATION 173 
 
 - the art of rhetoric. No term has been more abused, 
 especially by amorphous men of science. Yet the late 
 Henri Poincar6 was made a member of the French 
 Academy, not because he was a great mathematician, 
 astronomer, physicist and philosopher, but because of 
 his masterful control of the resources of the French 
 language as an instrument of human expression. 
 
 I have spoken of the invariant fact of the human past. 
 Its complement is the fact of the human future. That, 
 too, is a great abiding fact. It is, in practice, to be 
 treated as eternal, for, if the race of man be doomed 
 to extinction, then, in that far off event, human edu- 
 cation itself will cease. Does it follow that a theory of 
 liberal education must provide for instruction in proph- 
 ecy? It does follow. But is it not foolish to speak 
 of instruction in prophecy? For is not prophecy a 
 thing of the past? Is it not a dead or a dying office 
 of priests? It is not foolish, it is not a thing of the 
 past, it is not a dead or dying office of priests. Proph- 
 ecy is a thing of the present, destined to increase with 
 the advancement of knowledge. Every department of 
 study is a department of prophecy. It is the function 
 of science to foretell. Prophecy is not the opposite of 
 history, it is history's main function. As W. K. Clif- 
 ford long ago pointed out, every proposition in physics 
 or astronomy or chemistry or zoology or mathematics, 
 or other branch of science, is a rule of conduct facing 
 the future a rule saying that, if such-and-such be 
 true, then such-and-such must be true; if such-and-such 
 a situation be present, then such-and-such things will 
 happen; if we do thus-and-thus, then certain statable 
 consequences may be expected. Foretelling, indeed, 
 is not the exclusive office of knowledge, for musing, 
 meditation, pensiveness, pure contemplation, have their
 
 174 PERMANENT BASIS OF LIBERAL EDUCATION 
 
 legitimate place; but man is mainly and primarily an 
 active animal; and in relation to action, the business 
 of knowledge is prophecy, forecasting what to do and 
 what to expect. 
 
 Finally it remains to mention another fundamental 
 matter that must contribute in a paramount measure 
 to any just theory of a liberal education. It is not a 
 matter strictly co-ordinate with the other matters 
 mentioned, but it touches them all, penetrates them 
 all and transfigures them all. I refer to the discipline 
 of beauty. Beauty is the most vitalizing thing in the 
 world. It is beauty that makes life worth living and 
 makes it possible. If, by some fiendish cataclysm, 
 all the beauty of art and all the beauty of nature were 
 to be suddenly blotted out, the human race would 
 quickly perish through depression caused by the ubiq- 
 uitous presence of ugliness. Does it follow that a 
 liberal curriculum must provide for the instruction of 
 every student in all the arts? No. Like the natural 
 sciences, the arts are enough alike to make any one of 
 them a representative of them all. Besides, all sub- 
 jects of study are penetrated with beauty, and any 
 one of them may be so administered as to enlarge 
 and refine the sense of what is beautiful in life and 
 the world. 
 
 Such I take to be major considerations among the 
 great permanent massive facts that together suffice 
 and are essential to constitute an enduring basis for a 
 theory of liberal education. Ought discipline to be 
 prescribed in all the indicated fields? The answer 
 would seem to be that a liberally educated man or 
 woman is one who has been instructed in them all. It 
 follows that there be seekers who are by nature not 
 qualified to find. But in the case of these, as in the
 
 PERMANENT BASIS OF LIBERAL EDUCATION 175 
 
 case of their more gifted fellows, it must be remem- 
 bered that not the least service a program of liberal 
 study should render, is that of disclosing to men and 
 women and to their fellows their respective powers 
 and limitations.
 
 GRADUATE MATHEMATICAL INSTRUCTION FOR 
 GRADUATE STUDENTS NOT INTENDING TO 
 BECOME MATHEMATICIANS 1 
 
 IN his "Annual Report" under date of November 
 last, the President of Columbia University speaks in 
 vigorous terms of what he believes to be the increasing 
 failure of present-day advanced instruction to fulfil one 
 of the chief purposes for which institutions of higher 
 learning are established and maintained. 
 
 In the course of an interesting section devoted to 
 college and university teaching, President Butler says: 
 
 A matter that is closely related to poor teaching is found in the grow- 
 ing tendency of colleges and universities to vocationalize all their instruc- 
 tion. A given department will plan all its courses of instruction solely 
 from the point of view of the student who is going to specialize in that 
 field. It is increasingly difficult for those who have the very proper desire 
 to gain some real knowledge of a given topic without intending to become 
 specialists in it. A university department is not well organized and is not 
 doing its duty until it establishes and maintains at least one strong sub- 
 stantial university course designed primarily for students of maturity and 
 power, which course will be an end in itself and will present to those who 
 take it a general view of the subject-matter of a designated field of knowl- 
 edge, its methods, its literature and its results. It should be possible for 
 an advanced student specializing in some other field to gain a general 
 knowledge of physical problems and processes without becoming a physicist; 
 or a general knowledge of chemical problems and processes without becoming 
 a chemist; or a general knowledge of zoological problems and processes 
 without becoming a zoologist; or a general knowledge of mathematical 
 problems and processes without becoming a mathematician. 
 
 1 An address delivered before Section A of the American Association 
 for the Advancement of Science, December 30, 1914. Printed in Science, 
 March 26, 1915.
 
 GRADUATE MATHEMATICAL INSTRUCTION 177 
 
 This is a large matter, involving all the cardinal 
 divisions of knowledge. I have neither time nor com- 
 petence to deal with it fully or explicitly in all its bear- 
 ings. As indicated by the title of this address it is my 
 intention to confine myself, not indeed exclusively but 
 in the main, to consideration of the question in its 
 relation to advanced instruction in mathematics. The 
 obvious advantages of this restriction will not, I believe, 
 be counterbalanced by equal disadvantages. For, much 
 as the principal subjects of university instruction differ 
 among themselves, it is yet true that as instruments 
 of education they have a common character and for 
 their efficacy as such depend fundamentally upon the 
 same educational principles. A discussion, therefore, 
 of an important and representative part of the general 
 question will naturally derive no little of whatever 
 interest and value it may have from its implicit bearing 
 upon the whole. It is not indeed my intention to 
 depend solely upon such implicit bearings nor upon the 
 representative character of mathematics to intimate my 
 opinion respecting the question in its relation to other 
 subjects. On the contrary, I am going to assume that 
 specialists in other fields will allow me, as a lay neigh- 
 bor fairly inclined to minding his own affairs, the priv- 
 ilege of some quite explicit preliminary remarks upon 
 the larger question. 
 
 I suspect that my interest in the matter is in a meas- 
 ure temperamental; and my conviction in the premises, 
 though it is not, I believe, an unreasoned one, may be 
 somewhat colored by inborn predilection. At all events 
 I own that a good many years of devotion to one field 
 of knowledge has not destroyed in me a certain fondness 
 for avocational studies, for books that deal with large 
 subjects in large ways, and for men who, uniting the
 
 178 GRADUATE MATHEMATICAL INSTRUCTION 
 
 generalist with the specialist in a single gigantic per- 
 sonality, can show you perspectives, contours and reliefs, 
 a great subject or a great doctrine in its principal 
 aspects, in its continental bearings, without first com- 
 pelling you to survey it pebble by pebble and inch by 
 inch. I can not remember the time when it did not 
 seem to me to be the very first obligation of universities 
 to cherish instruction of the kind that is given and 
 received in the avocational as distinguished from the 
 vocational spirit the kind of instruction that has for 
 its aim, not action but understanding, not utilities but 
 ideas, not efficiency but enlightenment, not prosperity 
 but magnanimity. For without intelligence and mag- 
 nanimity without light and soul no form of being 
 can be noble and every species of conduct is but a kind 
 of blundering in the night. I could hardly say more 
 explicitly that I agree heartily and entirely with the 
 main contention of President Butler's pronouncement. 
 Indeed I should go a step further than he has gone. He 
 has said that a university department is not well organ- 
 ized and is not doing its duty until it establishes and 
 maintains the kind of instruction I have tried to char- 
 acterize. To that statement I venture to add explicitly 
 what is of course implicit in it that a university is 
 not well organized and is not doing its duty until it 
 makes provision whereby the various departments are 
 enabled to foster the kind of instruction we are talking 
 about. That in all major subjects of university instruc- 
 tion there ought to be given courses designed for stu- 
 dents of "maturity and power" who, whilst specializing 
 in one subject or one field, desire to generalize in others, 
 appears to me to be from every point of view so rea- 
 sonable and just a proposition that it would not occur 
 to me to regard it as questionable or debatable were it
 
 GRADUATE MATHEMATICAL INSTRUCTION 179 
 
 not for the fact that it actually is questioned and debated 
 by teachers of eminence and authority. 
 
 What is there in the contention about which men may 
 differ? Dr. Butler has said that there is a "growing 
 tendency of college and university departments to vo- 
 cationalize all their instruction." Is the statement 
 erroneous? It may, I think, be questioned whether the 
 tendency is growing. I hope it is not. Of course 
 specialization is not a new thing in the world. It 
 is far older than history. Let it be granted that it 
 is here to stay, for it is indispensable to the advance- 
 ment of knowledge and to the conduct of human affairs. 
 Every one knows that. There is, however, some 
 evidence that specialization is becoming, indeed that it 
 has become, wiser, less exclusive, more temperate. 
 The symptoms of what not long ago promised to become 
 a kind of specialism mania appear to be somewhat less 
 pronounced. Recognition of the fact that specializa- 
 tion is in constant peril of becoming so minute and 
 narrow as to defeat its own ends is now a commonplace 
 among specialists themselves, many of whom have 
 learned the lesson through sad experience, others from 
 observation. Specialists are discoverers. One of our 
 recent discoveries is the discovery of a very old truth: 
 we have discovered that no work can be really great 
 which does not contain some element or touch of the 
 universal, and that is not exactly a new insight. Leo- 
 nardo da Vinci says: 
 
 We may frankly admit that certain people deceive themselves who 
 apply the title "a good master" to a painter who can only do the head or 
 the figure well. Surely it is no great achievement if by studying one thing 
 only during his whole lifetime he attain to some degree of excellence therein ! 
 
 The conviction seems to be gaining ground that in 
 the republic of learning the ideal citizen is neither
 
 l8o GRADUATE MATHEMATICAL INSTRUCTION 
 
 the ignorant specialist, however profound he may be, 
 nor the shallow generalist, however wide the range of 
 his interest and enlightenment. It is not important, 
 however, in this connection to ascertain whether the 
 vocationalizing tendency is at present increasing or de- 
 creasing or stationary. What is important is to recog- 
 nize the fact that the tendency, be it waxing or waning, 
 actually exists, and that it operates in such strength 
 as practically to exclude all provision for the student 
 who, if I may so express it, would qualify himself to 
 gaze into the heavens intelligently without having to 
 pursue courses designed for none but such as would 
 emulate a Newton or a Laplace. If any one doubts that 
 such is the actual state of the case, the remedy is very 
 simple: let him choose at random a dozen or a score of 
 the principal universities and examine their bulletins 
 of instruction in the major fields of knowledge. 
 
 Another element an extremely important element 
 of President Butler's contention is present in the form 
 of a double assumption : it is assumed that in any uni- 
 versity community there are serious and capable students 
 whose primary aim is indeed the winning of mastery 
 in a chosen field of knowledge but who at the same time 
 desire to gain some understanding of other fields 
 some intelligence of their enterprises, their genius, their 
 methods and their achievements; it is further assumed 
 that this non-vocational or avocational propensity is 
 legitimate and laudable. Are the assumptions correct? 
 The latter one involves a question of values and will 
 be dealt with presently. In respect of the former 
 we have to do with what mathematicians call an exist- 
 ence theorem: Do the students described exist? They 
 do. Can the fact be demonstrated deductively 
 proved? It can not. How, then, may we know it to be
 
 GRADUATE MATHEMATICAL INSTRUCTION l8l 
 
 true? The answer is: partly by observation, partly 
 by experience, partly by inference and partly by being 
 candid with ourselves. Who is there among us that is 
 unwilling to admit that he himself now is or at least 
 once was a student of the kind? Where is the univer- 
 sity professor to whom such students have not revealed 
 themselves as such in conversation? Who is it that has 
 not learned of their existence through the testimony of 
 others? No doubt some of us not only have known 
 students of the kind, but have tried in a measure to 
 serve them. We may as well be frank. I have myself 
 for some years offered in my subject a course designed 
 in large part for students having no vocational interest 
 in mathematics. I may be permitted to say, for what 
 the testimony may be worth, that the response has been 
 good. The attendance has been composed about equally 
 of students who were not looking forward to a career 
 in mathematics and of students who were. And this 
 leads me to say, in passing, that, if the latter students 
 were asked to explain what value such instruction could 
 have for them, they would probably answer that it 
 served to give them some knowledge about a great sub- 
 ject which they could hardly hope to acquire from 
 courses designed solely to give knowledge of the subject. 
 Every one knows that it often is of great advantage to 
 treat a subject as an object. One of the chief values 
 of //-dimensional geometry is that it enables us to con- 
 template ordinary space from the outside, as even those 
 who have but little imagination can contemplate a 
 plane because it does not immerse them. Returning 
 from this digression, permit me to ask: if, without 
 trying to discover the type of student in question, we 
 yet become aware, quite casually, that the type actually 
 exists, is it not legitimate to infer that it is much more
 
 1 82 GRADUATE MATHEMATICAL INSTRUCTION 
 
 numerously represented than is commonly supposed? 
 And if such students occasionally make their presence 
 known even when we do not offer them the kind of 
 instruction to render their wants articulate, is it not 
 reasonable to infer that the provision of such instruction 
 would have the effect of revealing them in much greater 
 numbers? 
 
 Indeed it does not seem unreasonable to suppose 
 that a "strong substantial course" of the kind in ques- 
 tion, in whatever great subject it were given, would be 
 attended not only by considerable numbers of regular 
 students but in a measure also by officers of instruction 
 in other subjects and even perhaps by other qualified 
 residents of an academic community. Only the other 
 day one of my mathematical colleagues said to me 
 that he would rejoice in an opportunity to attend such 
 a course in physics. The dean of a great school of law 
 not long ago expressed the wish that some one might 
 write a book on mathematics in such a way as would 
 enable students like himself to learn something of the 
 innerness of this science, something of its spirit, its 
 range, its ways, achievements and aspiration. I have 
 known an eminent professor of economics to join a 
 beginner's class in analytical geometry. Very recently 
 one of the major prophets of philosophy declared it to 
 be his intention to suspend for a season his own special 
 activity in order to devote himself to acquiring some 
 knowledge of modern mathematics. Similar instances 
 abound and might be cited by any one not only at 
 great length, but in connection with every cardinal 
 division of knowledge. Their significance is plain. 
 They are but additional tokens of the fact that the 
 race of catholic-minded men has not been extinguished 
 by the reigning specialism of the time, but that among
 
 GRADUATE MATHEMATICAL INSTRUCTION 183 
 
 students and scholars there are still to be found those 
 whose curiosity and intellectual interests surpass all 
 professional limits and crave instruction more generic 
 in kind, more liberal, if you please, and ampler in its 
 scope, than our vocationalized programs afford. 
 
 As to the question of values, I maintain that the desire 
 of such men is entirely legitimate, that it is wholesome 
 and praiseworthy, that it deserves to be stimulated, 
 and that universities ought to meet it, if they can. 
 Indeed, all this seems to me so obvious that I find it a 
 little difficult to treat it seriously as a question. If the 
 matter must be debated, let it be debated on worthy 
 ground. To say, as proponents sometimes say, that, 
 inasmuch as all knowledge turns out sooner or later to 
 be useful, students preparing for a given vocation by 
 specializing in a given field may profitably seek some 
 general acquaintance with other fields because such 
 general knowledge will indirectly increase their voca- 
 tional equipment, is to offer a consideration which, 
 though in itself it is just enough, yet degrades the dis- 
 cussion from its appropriate level, which is that of an 
 ideal humanity, down to the level of mere efficiency and 
 practicianism. No doubt one engaged in minutely 
 studying the topography of a given locality because he 
 intends to reside in it might be plausibly advised to 
 study also the general geography of the globe on the 
 ground that his special topographical knowledge would 
 be thus enhanced, and that, moreover, he might some 
 time desire to travel. But if we ventured to counsel 
 him so, he might reply: What you say is true. But 
 why do you ply me with such low considerations? Why 
 do you regard me as something crawling on its belly? 
 Don't you know that I ought to acquire a general knowl- 
 edge, of geography, not primarily because it may be
 
 184 GRADUATE MATHEMATICAL INSTRUCTION 
 
 useful to me as a resident here or as a possible traveler, 
 but because such knowledge is essential to me in my 
 character as a man? The rebuke, if we were fortunately 
 capable of feeling it, would be well deserved. A man 
 building a bridge is greater than the engineer; a man 
 planting seed is greater than the farmer; a man teach- 
 ing calculus is greater than the mathematician; a man 
 presiding at a faculty meeting is greater than the dean 
 or the president. We may as well remember that man 
 is superior to any of his occupations. His supreme 
 vocation is not law nor medicine nor theology nor com- 
 merce nor war nor journalism nor chemistry nor physics 
 nor mathematics nor literature nor any specific science 
 or art or activity; it is intelligence, and it is this supreme 
 vocation of man as man that gives to universities 
 their supreme obligation. It is unworthy of a university 
 to conceive of man as if he were created to be the servant 
 of utilities, trades, professions and careers: these things 
 are for him: not ends but means. It is said that intel- 
 ligence is good because it prospers us in our trades, 
 industries and professions; it ought to be said that these 
 things are good because and in so far as they prosper 
 intelligence. Even if we do not conceive the office of 
 intelligence to be that of contributing to being in its 
 highest form, which consists in understanding, even if 
 we conceive its function less nobly as that of enabling 
 us to adjust ourselves to our environment, the same con- 
 clusion holds. For what is our environment? Is it 
 wholly or mainly a matter of sensible circumstance 
 sea and land and sky, heat and cold, day and night, 
 seasons, food, raiment, and the like? Far from it. It 
 is rather a matter of spiritual circumstances ideas, 
 sentiments, doctrines, sciences, institutions, and arts. 
 It is in respect of this ever-changing and ever-devel-
 
 GRADUATE MATHEMATICAL INSTRUCTION 185 
 
 oping world of spiritual things, it is in respect of this 
 invisible and intangible environment of life, that uni- 
 versities, whilst aiming to give mastery in this part or 
 that, are at the same time under equal obligation to 
 give to such as can receive it some general orientation 
 in the whole. 
 
 And now as to the question of feasibility. Can the 
 thing be done? So far as mathematics is concerned I 
 am confident that it can, and I have a strong lay sus- 
 picion that it can be done in all other subjects. 
 
 It is my main purpose to show, with some regard to 
 concreteness and detail, that the thing is feasible in 
 mathematics. Before doing so, however, I desire to 
 view the matter a little further in its general aspect 
 and in particular to deal with some of the considera- 
 tions that tend to deter many scientific specialists from 
 entering upon the enterprise. 
 
 One of the considerations, and one, too, that is often 
 but little understood, and so leads to wrong impu- 
 tations of motive, though it is in a sense distinctly 
 creditable to those who are influenced by it, is the con- 
 sideration that relates to intricacy and technicality of 
 subject-matter and doctrine. Every specialist knows 
 that the principal developments in his branch of science 
 are too intricate, too technical and too remote from the 
 threshold of the matter to be accessible to laymen, 
 whatever their abilities and attainments in foreign 
 fields. Not only does he know that there is thus but 
 relatively little of his science which laymen can under- 
 stand but he knows also that the portions which they 
 can not understand are in general precisely those of 
 greatest interest and beauty. And knowing this, he 
 feels, sometimes very strongly, that were he to endeavor 
 by means of a lecture course to give laymen a general
 
 1 86 GRADUATE MATHEMATICAL INSTRUCTION 
 
 acquaintance with his subject, he could not fail to incur 
 the guilt of giving them, not merely an inadequate 
 impression, but an essentially false impression, of the 
 nature, significance and dignity of a great field of knowl- 
 edge. His hesitance, therefore, is not due, as it is some- 
 times thought to be, to indifference or to selfishness. 
 Rather is it due to a sense of loyalty to truth, to a 
 sense of veracity, to an unwillingness to mislead or de- 
 ceive. Of course strange things do sometimes happen, 
 and it is barely conceivable that once in a long time 
 nature may, in a sportive mood, produce a kind of 
 specialist whose subject affects him much as the pos- 
 session of an apple or a piece of candy affects the boy 
 who goes round the corner in order to have it all him- 
 self. But if the type exist, not many men could claim 
 the odd distinction of belonging to it. Specialists are 
 as generous and humane as other men. Their subjects 
 affect them as that same boy is affected when, if he 
 chance to come suddenly upon some strange kind of 
 flower or bird, he at once summons his sister or brother 
 or father or mother or other friend to share in his 
 surprise and joy. There is this difference, however 
 the specialist must, unfortunately, suffer his joy in 
 solitude unless and until he finds a comrade in kind. 
 I admit that the deterrent consideration in question is 
 thoroughly intelligible. I contend that the motive it 
 involves presents an attractive aspect. But I can not 
 think it of sufficient weight to be decisive. It involves, 
 I believe, an erroneous estimate of values, a fallacious 
 view of the ways of truth to men. A few years ago, 
 when making a railway journey through one of the most 
 imposing parts of the Rocky Mountains, I was tempted 
 like many another passenger to procure some photo- 
 graphs of the scenery in order to convey to far-away
 
 GRADUATE MATHEMATICAL INSTRUCTION 187 
 
 friends some notion of the wonders of it. So far, 
 however, did the actual scenery surpass the pictures of 
 it, excellent as these were, that I decided not to buy 
 them, feeling it were better to convey no impression 
 at all than to give one so inferior to my own. No 
 doubt the decision might be defended on the ground of 
 its motive. Did it not originate in a certain laudable 
 sense of obligation to truth? Nevertheless, as I am now 
 convinced, the decision was silly. For in accordance 
 with the same principle it is plain that I ought to have 
 wished to have my own impressions erased, seeing that 
 they must have been quite inferior to those of a widely 
 experienced mountaineer as those which the pictures 
 could have given were inferior to mine. Who is so 
 foolish as to argue that no one should learn anything 
 about, say London, unless he means to master all its 
 plans, its architecture and its history in their every 
 phase, feature and detail? Who would contend that 
 because we are permitted to know only so little of 
 what is happening in the European war, we ought to 
 remain in total ignorance of it? Who would say that 
 no one may with propriety seek to learn something 
 about ancient Rome unless he is bent on becoming a 
 Gibbon or a Mommsen? It is undoubtedly true that 
 an endeavor to present a body of doctrine or a science 
 to such as can not receive it fully must result in giving 
 a false impression of the truth. But the notion that 
 such an endeavor is therefore wrong is a notion which, 
 if consistently and thoroughly carried out, would put 
 the human mind entirely out of commission. All im- 
 pressions, all views, all theories, all doctrines, all sciences 
 are false in the sense of being partial, imperfect, incom- 
 plete. "II n'y a plus des problemes resolus et d'autres 
 qui ne le sont pas, il y a seulement des probldmes
 
 1 88 GRADUATE MATHEMATICAL INSTRUCTION 
 
 plus ou mains resolus," said Henri Poincare. Every 
 one must see that, but for the helpfulness of views 
 which because incomplete are also in a measure false, 
 even the practical conduct of life, not to say the advance- 
 ment of science, would be impossible. There is no 
 other choice: either we must subsist upon fragments or 
 perish. 
 
 Again, many a specialist shrinks from trying to pre- 
 sent his subject to laymen because he looks upon such 
 activity as a species of what is called popularization of 
 science, and he believes that such popularization, even 
 in its best sense, closely resembles vulgarization in its 
 worst. He fancies that there is a sharp line bounding 
 off knowledge that is mere knowledge from knowledge 
 that is scientific. In his view science is for specialists 
 and for specialists only. He declines, on something 
 like moral and esthetic grounds, to engage in what he 
 calls playing to the gallery. It might, of course, be 
 said that there is more than one way of playing to the 
 gallery. It could be said that one way consists in 
 acting the role of one who imagines that his intellectual 
 interests are so austere and elevated and his thought 
 so profound that a just sense of the awful dignity of 
 his vocation imposes upon him, when in presence of 
 the vulgar multitude, the solemn law of silence. It 
 would be ungenerous, however, if not unfair, to insist 
 upon the justice of such a possible retort. Rather let 
 it be granted, for it is true, that much so-called popu- 
 larization of science is vicious, relieving the ignorant of 
 their modesty without relieving them of their ignorance, 
 equipping them with the vocabulary of knowledge 
 without its content and so fostering not only a vain and 
 empty conceit, but a certain facility of speech that is 
 seemly, impressive and valuable only when, as is too
 
 GRADUATE MATHEMATICAL INSTRUCTION 189 
 
 seldom the case, it is accompanied by solid attainments. 
 To say this, however, is not to lay an indictment against 
 that kind of scientific popularization which was so 
 happily illustrated by the very greatest men of antiquity, 
 which was not disdained even by Galileo in the begin- 
 nings of modern science nor by Leonardo da Vinci, and 
 which in our own time has engaged the interest and 
 skill of such men as Clifford and Helmholtz, Haeckel 
 and Huxley, Mach, Ostwald, Enriques and Henri Poin- 
 car6. It is not to arraign that variety of popularization 
 which any one may behold in the constant movement of 
 ideas, once reserved exclusively for graduate students, 
 down into undergraduate curricula and which has, for 
 example, made the doctrine of limits, analytical geom- 
 etry, projective geometry, and the notions of the deriva- 
 tive and the integral available for presentation to college 
 freshmen or even to high-school pupils. It is not to 
 condemn that kind of popularization which is so nat- 
 ural a process that it actually goes on in a thousand 
 ways all about us without our deliberate cooperation, 
 without our intention or our consent, and has enriched 
 the common sense and common knowledge of our time 
 with countless precious elements from among the sci- 
 entific and philosophic discoveries made by other 
 generations of men. 
 
 Finally it remains to mention the important type of 
 specialist in whom strongly predominates the predilection 
 for research as distinguished from exposition. He knows, 
 as every one knows, that through what is called practical 
 applications of science many a scientific discovery is 
 made to serve innumerable human beings who do not 
 understand it and innumerable others who never can. 
 He may or may not believe in a vocational instruction; 
 he may or may not regard intelligence as an ultimate
 
 GRADUATE MATHEMATICAL INSTRUCTION 
 
 good and an end in itself; he may or may not think 
 that the arts and agencies for the dissemination of 
 knowledge, as distinguished from the discovery and 
 practical applications of truth, are important; he may 
 or may not know that the art and the gifts of the great 
 expositor are as important and as rare as those of the 
 great investigator and less often owe their success to the 
 favor of accident or chance. He may not even have 
 seriously considered these things. He does know his 
 own predilection; and so strong is his inclination towards 
 research that for him to engage in exposition, especially 
 in popular exposition, in avocational instruction for 
 laymen, would be to sin against the authority of his 
 vocation. This man, if he have intellectual powers 
 fairly corresponding to the seeming authority and ur- 
 gence of his inner call, belongs to a class whose rights 
 are peculiarly sacred and whose freedom must be guarded 
 in the interest of all mankind. It is not contended 
 that every representative of a given subject is under 
 obligation to expound it for the avocational interest 
 and enlightenment of laymen. The contention is that 
 such exposition is so -important a service that any uni- 
 versity department should contain at least one man who 
 is at once willing and qualified to render it. 
 
 I come now to the keeping of my promise. It is to 
 be shown that the service is practicable in the subject 
 of mathematics and how it is so. Let us get clearly 
 in mind the kind of persons for whom the instruction 
 is to be primarily designed. They are to be students 
 of "maturity and power"; they do not intend to become 
 teachers, much less producers, of mathematics; they 
 are probably specializing in other fields; they do not 
 aim at becoming mathematicians; their interest in 
 mathematics is not vocational, it is avocational; it is
 
 GRADUATE MATHEMATICAL INSTRUCTION 191 
 
 the interest of those whose curiosity transcends the 
 limits of any specific profession or any specific form or 
 field of activity; each of them knows that, whatever 
 his own field may be, it is penetrated, overarched, com- 
 passed about by an infinitely vaster world of human 
 interests and human achievements; they feel its im- 
 mense presence, the poignant challenge of it all; as 
 specialists they will win mastery over a little part, but 
 they have heard the call to intelligence and are seeking 
 orientation in the whole; this they know is a thing of 
 mind; they are aware that the essential environment 
 of a scholar's life is a spiritual environment the in- 
 visible and intangible world of ideas, doctrines, institu- 
 tions, sciences and arts; they know or they suspect 
 that one of the great components of that world is mathe- 
 matics; and so, not as candidates for a profession or a 
 degree, but in their higher capacity as men and women, 
 they desire to learn something of this science viewed as 
 a human enterprise, as a body of human achievements; 
 and they are willing to pay the price; they are not seek- 
 ing entertainment, they are prepared to work to 
 listen, to read and to think. 
 
 And now we must ask: What measure of mathe- 
 matical training is to be required of them as a prepara- 
 tion? In view of what has just been said it is evident 
 that such training is not to be the whole of their equip- 
 ment nor even the principal part of it, but it is an 
 indispensable part. And the question is: How much 
 mathematical knowledge and mathematical discipline 
 is to be demanded? I have no desire to minimize my 
 present task. I, therefore, propose that only so much 
 mathematical preparation shall be demanded as can 
 be gained in a year of collegiate study. Most of them 
 will, of course, have had more; but I propose as a hy-
 
 IQ2 GRADUATE MATHEMATICAL INSTRUCTION 
 
 pothesis that the amount named be regarded as an 
 adequate minimum. But it does not include the differ- 
 ential and integral calculus. And is it not preposterous 
 to talk of offering graduate instruction in mathematics 
 to students who have not had a first course in the 
 calculus? I am far from thinking so. A little reflec- 
 tion will suffice to show that in the case of such stu- 
 dents as I have described it is very far from preposterous. 
 In my opinion the absurdity would rather lie in demand- 
 ing the calculus of them. No one is so foolish as to 
 contend that a first course in the calculus is a sufficient 
 preparation for undertaking the pursuit of graduate 
 mathematical study. But to suppose it necessary is 
 just as foolish as to suppose it sufficient. There was 
 a time when it was necessary, and the belief that it is 
 necessary now owes its persistence and currency to the 
 inertia then acquired. Formerly it was necessary, 
 because formerly all advanced courses, at least all 
 initial courses of the kind, were either prolongations of 
 the calculus, like differential equations, for example, 
 or else courses in which the calculus played an essential 
 instrumental role as in rational mechanics, or the usual 
 introductions to function theory or to higher geometry 
 or algebra. But, as every mathematician knows, that 
 time has passed. It is true that courses for which a 
 preliminary training in the calculus is essential still 
 constitute and will continue to constitute the major 
 part of the graduate offer of any department of mathe- 
 matics. And quite apart from that consideration, it 
 seems wise, in the case of intending graduate students 
 who purpose to specialize in mathematics, to enforce 
 the usual calculus requirement as affording some slight 
 protection against immaturity and the lack of serious- 
 ness. But every mathematician knows that it is now
 
 GRADUATE MATHEMATICAL INSTRUCTION 193 
 
 practicable to provide a large and diversified body of 
 genuinely graduate mathematical instruction for which 
 the calculus is strictly not prerequisite. 
 
 Fortunately it is just the material that is thus avail- 
 able which is in itself best suited for the avocational 
 instruction we are contemplating. As the calculus is 
 not to be presupposed it goes without saying that this 
 subject must find a place in the scheme. For evidently 
 an advanced mathematical course devised and con- 
 ducted in the interest of general intelligence can not 
 be silent respecting "the most powerful weapon of 
 thought yet devised by the wit of man." Technique 
 is not sought and can not be given. The subject is 
 not to be presented as to undergraduates. For the most 
 part these gain facility with but little comprehension. It 
 is to be presented to mature and capable students who 
 seek, not facility, but understanding. Their desire is to 
 acquire a general conception of the nature of the cal- 
 culus and of its place in science and the history of 
 thought such a conception as will at least enable them 
 as educated men to mention the subject without a 
 feeling of sham or to hear it mentioned without a feeling 
 of shame. A few well-considered lectures should suffice. 
 At all events it would not require many to show the 
 historical background of the calculus, to explain the 
 nascence and nature of the scientific exigencies that 
 gave it birth, to make clear the concepts of derivative 
 and integral as the two central notions of its two great 
 branches, and to present a few simple applications of 
 these notions to intelligible problems of typical signifi- 
 cance. Even the idea of a differential equation could 
 be quickly reached, the nature of a solution explained, 
 and simple examples given of physical and geometric 
 interpretations. As to the range and power of the
 
 1 94 GRADUATE MATHEMATICAL INSTRUCTION 
 
 calculus, a sense and insight can be given, in some 
 measure of course by a reference to its literature, but 
 much more effectively by a few problems carefully 
 selected from various fields of science and skillfully 
 explained with a view to showing wherein the methods 
 of the calculus are demanded and how they serve. Is 
 not all this elementary and undergraduate? In point 
 of nomenclature, yes. It is not necessary, however, to 
 let words deceive us. We teach whole numbers to 
 young children, but even Weierstrass was not aware of 
 the logico-mathematical deeps that underlie cardinal 
 arithmetic. 
 
 The calculus, however, is hardly the topic with which 
 the course would naturally begin. A principal aim of 
 the course should be to show what mathematics, in its 
 inner nature, is to lay bare its distinctive character. 
 Its distinctive character, its structural nature, is that 
 of a " hypothetico-deductive " system. Probably, there- 
 fore, it would be well to begin with an exposition of the 
 nature and function of postulate systems and of the 
 great role such systems have always played in the sci- 
 ence, especially in the illustrious period of Greek mathe- 
 matics and even more consciously and elaborately in 
 our own time. It is plain that such an exposition can 
 be made to yield fundamental insight into many matters 
 of interest and importance not only in mathematics, 
 but in logic, in psychology, in philosophy, and in the 
 methodology of natural science and general thought. 
 The material is almost superabundant, so numerous 
 are the postulate systems that have been devised as 
 foundations for many different branches of geometry, 
 algebra, analysis, Mengenlehre and logic. A general 
 survey of these, were it desirable to pass them all in 
 review, would not be sufficient. It will be necessary
 
 GRADUATE MATHEMATICAL INSTRUCTION 195 
 
 to select a few systems of typical importance for minute 
 examination with reference to such capital points as 
 convenience, simplicity, adequacy, independence, com- 
 patibility and categoricalness. The necessity and pres- 
 ence of undefined terms in any and all systems will 
 afford a suitable opportunity to deal with the highly 
 important, much neglected and little understood subject 
 of definition, its nature, varieties and function, in light 
 of the recent literature, especially the suggestive han- 
 dling of the matter by Enriques in his "Problems of 
 Science." A given system once thus examined, the 
 easy deduction of a few theorems will suffice to show 
 the possibility and the process of erecting upon it a 
 perfectly determinate and often imposing superstructure. 
 And so will arise clearly the just conception of a mathe- 
 matical doctrine as a body of thought composed of a 
 few undefined together with many defined ideas and a 
 few primitive or postulated propositions with many 
 demonstrated ones, all concatenated and welded into a 
 form independent of will and temporal vicissitudes. 
 Revelation of the charm of the science will have been 
 begun. A new revelation will result when next the 
 possibility is shown of so interchanging undefined with 
 defined ideas and postulates with demonstrated proposi- 
 tions that, despite such interchange of basal with super- 
 structural elements, the doctrine as an autonomous 
 whole will remain absolutely unchanged. But this is 
 not all nor nearly all. It is only the beginning of what 
 may be made a veritable apocalypse. Of great interest 
 to any intellectual man or woman, of very great interest 
 to students of logic, psychology, or philosophy, should 
 be the light which it will be possible in this connection 
 to throw upon the economic role of logic and upon the 
 constitution of mind or the world of thought. I refer
 
 196 GRADUATE MATHEMATICAL INSTRUCTION 
 
 especially to the recently discovered fact that in inter- 
 preting a system of postulates we are not restricted to 
 a single possibility, but that, on the contrary, such a 
 system admits in general of a literally endless variety 
 of interpretations; which means, for such is the make- 
 up of our Gedankenwelt, that an infinitude of doctrines, 
 widely different in respect of their psychological char- 
 acter and interest, have nevertheless a common form, 
 being isomorphic, as we say, logically one, though 
 spiritually many, reposing on a single base. And how 
 foolish the instructor would be not to avail himself of 
 the opportunity of showing, too, in the same connec- 
 tion, how various mathematical doctrines that differ 
 not only psychologically, but logically also, are yet 
 such that, by virtue of a partial agreement in their 
 bases, they intersect one another, owning part of their 
 content jointly, whilst being, in respect of the rest, 
 mutually exclusive and incompatible. If, for example, 
 it be some Euclidean system that he has been expound- 
 ing, he will be able readily to show upon how seemingly 
 slight changes of base there arise now this or that 
 variety of non-Euclidean geometry, now a projective or 
 an inversion geometry or some species or form of higher 
 dimensionality. I need not say that analogous phe- 
 nomena will in like manner present themselves in other 
 mathematical fields. And it is of course obvious that 
 as various doctrines are thus made to pass along in 
 deliberate panorama it will be feasible to point out some 
 of their salient and distinctive features, to indicate 
 their historic settings, and to cite the more accessible 
 portions of their respective literatures. Naturally in 
 this connection and in the atmosphere of such a course 
 the question will arise as to why it is that, or wherein, 
 the hypothetico-deductive method fails of universal
 
 GRADUATE MATHEMATICAL INSTRUCTION 1 97 
 
 applicability. So there will be opportunity to teach the 
 great lesson that this method is not rudimentary 7 , but 
 is an ideal, the ideal of intellect and science; to teach 
 that mathematics is but the name of its occasional 
 realization; and that, though the ideal is, relatively 
 speaking, but seldom attained, yet its lure is universal, 
 manifesting itself in the most widely differing domains, 
 in the physical and mechanical assumptions of Newton, 
 in the ethical postulates of Spinoza, in our federal con- 
 stitution, even in the ten commandments, in every field 
 where men have sought a body of principles to serve 
 them as a basis of doctrine, conduct or achievement. 
 And if it shall thus appear that mathematics is very 
 high-placed as being, in respect of its method and its 
 form, the ideal and the lure of thought in general, the 
 fault must be imputed, not to the instructor, but to the 
 nature of things. 
 
 In all this study of the postulational method the 
 impression will be gained that the science of mathe- 
 matics consists of a large and increasing number of 
 more or less independent, somewhat closely related 
 and often interpenetrating branches, constituting, not a 
 jungle, but rather an immense, diversified, beautifully 
 ordered forest; and that impression is just. At the 
 same time another impression will be gained, namely, 
 that the various branches rest, each of them, upon a 
 foundation of its own. This impression will have to be 
 corrected. It will have to be shown that the branch- 
 foundations are not really fundamental in the science 
 but are literally and genuinely component parts of the 
 superstructure. It will have to be shown that mathe- 
 matics as a whole, as a single unitary body of doctrine, 
 rests .upon a basis of primitive ideas and primitive 
 propositions that lie far below the so-called branch-
 
 198 GRADUATE MATHEMATICAL INSTRUCTION 
 
 foundations and, in supporting the whole, support 
 these as parts. The course will, therefore, turn to the 
 task of acquainting its students with those strictly 
 fundamental researches which we associate with such 
 names as C. S. Peirce, Schroeder, Peano, Frege, Russell, 
 Whitehead and others, and which have resulted in 
 building underneath the traditional science a logico- 
 mathematical sub-structure that is, philosophically, 
 the most important of modern mathematical develop- 
 ments. 
 
 It must not be supposed, however, that the instruc- 
 tion must needs be, nor that it should preferably be, 
 confined to questions of postulate and foundation, 
 and I will devote the remainder of the time at my 
 disposal to indicating briefly how, as it seems to me, 
 a large or even a major part of the course may 
 concern itself with matters more traditional and more 
 concrete. 
 
 Any one can see that there is an abundance of avail- 
 able material. There is, for example, the history and 
 significance of the great concept of function, a concept 
 which mathematics has but slowly extracted and grad- 
 ually refined from out the common content and experi- 
 ence of all minds and which on that account can be 
 not only defined precisely and intelligibly to such lay- 
 men as are here concerned, but can also be clarified in 
 many of its forms by means of manifold examples drawn 
 from elementary mathematics, from the elements of 
 other sciences, and from the most familiar phenomena 
 of the work-a-day world. 
 
 Another available topic is the nature and role of the 
 sovereign notion of limit. This, too, as every mathe- 
 matician knows, admits of countless illustration and 
 application within the radius of mathematical knowl-
 
 GRADUATE MATHEMATICAL INSTRUCTION 1 99 
 
 edge here presupposed. In this connection the structure 
 and importance of what Sylvester called "the Grand 
 Continuum," which so many scientific and other folk 
 talk about unintelligently, will offer itself for explanation. 
 And if the class fortunately contain students of phil- 
 osophic mind, they will be edified and a little aston- 
 ished perhaps when they are led to see that the method 
 and the concept of limits are but mathematicized forms 
 of a process and notion familiar in all domains of 
 spiritual activity and known as idealization. Not 
 improbably some of the students will be sufficiently 
 enterprising to trace the mentioned similitude in 
 some of its manifestations in natural science, in psy- 
 chology, in philosophy, in jurisprudence, in literature 
 and in art. 
 
 I have not mentioned the modern doctrine variously 
 known as Mengenlehre, Mannigfaltigkeitslekre, the theory 
 of point-sets, assemblages, manifolds, or aggregates: 
 a live and growing doctrine in which expert and layman 
 are about equally interested and which, like a subtle and 
 illuminating ether, is more and more pervading mathe- 
 matics in all its branches. For the avocational in- 
 struction of lay students of "maturity and power" how 
 rich a body of material is here, with all its fascinating 
 distinctions of discrete and continuous, finite and in- 
 finite, denumerable and non-denumerable, orderless, 
 ordered, and well-ordered, and with its teeming host 
 of near-lying propositions, so interesting, so illuminating, 
 often so amazing. 
 
 Finally, but far from exhausting the list, it remains 
 to mention the great subjects of invariants and groups. 
 Both of them admit of definition perfectly intelligible to 
 disciplined laymen; both admit of endless elementary 
 illustration, of having their mutual relations simply
 
 200 GRADUATE MATHEMATICAL INSTRUCTION 
 
 exemplified, of being shown in historic perspective, 
 and of being strikingly connected, especially the notion 
 of invariance, with the dominant enterprise of man: 
 his ceaseless quest for the changeless amid the turmoil 
 and transformation of the cosmic flux.
 
 THE SOURCE AND FUNCTIONS OF A 
 UNIVERSITY 1 
 
 IN returning hither from near and far to join in cele- 
 brating the seventy-fifth anniversary of the founding of 
 their academic birthplace and home, the alumni, the 
 sons and daughters of this institution, have not come to 
 congratulate an eld-worn mother upon the continuance 
 of her years beyond the Psalmist's allotment of three 
 score and ten nor to comfort her in the sorrows of age. 
 Their assembling is due to other sentiments and owns 
 another mood. They have come as beneficiaries in 
 order to pay, for themselves and for the many absent 
 ones whom they have the honor to represent, a tribute 
 of gratitude, loyalty and love to a noble benefactress 
 who, notwithstanding her wisdom and fame, yet is 
 literally in the early morning of her life. For it is not 
 written, nor ordained in the scheme of things, that, in 
 respect of years, the life of a university shall be as a 
 tale that is told or a watch in the night. It is indeed a 
 living demonstration of the greatness of man, bearing 
 witness to his superiority even over death, that men and 
 women, though they themselves must die, yet may, 
 whilst they live, create ideals and institutions that 
 survive. A college or a university may indeed have 
 been as a benignant mother to a thousand academic 
 
 1 An address delivered June 3, 1014, at the celebration of the seventy- 
 fifth anniversary of the founding of the University of Missouri. Printed 
 in The Columbia University Quarterly, March,
 
 202 SOURCE AND FUNCTIONS OF A UNIVERSITY 
 
 generations and yet be younger than her youngest 
 child. Unlike man the individual, a university is, like 
 man the race, immortal. The age of three score and 
 fifteen in the life of an immortal institution is a mere 
 beginning. In emphasizing this consideration it is not 
 my intention to suggest or imply that the services ren- 
 dered by the University of Missouri have necessarily 
 been, because of her youth, meagre or ineffectual or 
 immature. On the contrary I maintain that her serv- 
 ices to the people of this state have been beyond com- 
 putation and that already her spiritual achievements 
 constitute the chief glory of a great commonwealth. 
 Is it the alumni only who owe her grateful allegiance? 
 Is the beneficence of an institution of learning exclu- 
 sively or even mainly confined to the relatively few who 
 dwell for a season in her immediate presence, who touch 
 the hem of her garment, come into personal contact 
 with her scholars and teachers and receive her degrees? 
 Far from it. Far from being the sole or the principal 
 beneficiaries of a university, the alumni are simply 
 among the more potent instrumentalities for extending 
 her ministrations to ever wider and wider circles. The 
 sun, we say, is far off yonder in the heavens. But 
 strictly speaking the sun really is wherever he shines. 
 Where is the University of Missouri? At Columbia, we 
 say, and the speech is convenient. But it is juster to 
 say that, owing to the pervasiveness of her light and 
 inspiration, the University of Missouri in a measure 
 now is, and in larger and larger measure will come to 
 be, in every home and school, in every factory and field, 
 in every mine and shop, in every council chamber, in 
 every office of charity, or medicine, or law, in all the 
 places near or remote where within the borders of this 
 beautiful state children play and men and women
 
 SOURCE AND FUNCTIONS OF A UNIVERSITY 203 
 
 think and love, suffer and hope, aspire and toil. Nay, 
 by the researches and publications of her scholars and 
 by the migrations of those she has inspired and dis- 
 ciplined, the University of Missouri to-day lives and 
 moves abroad, mingling her presence with that of kin- 
 dred agencies, not only in every state of the union but 
 in many other quarters of the civilized world. 
 
 It is not my purpose to review the history of her 
 aspirations and struggles nor to relate the thrilling 
 story of her triumphs. I conceive that the central 
 motive of our assembling here is not so much to praise 
 the University for what she has already accomplished as 
 to renew our devotion to her high emprize, to congratu- 
 late her upon her solid attainments, to rejoice in her 
 divine discontent and spirit of progressiveness, to deepen 
 and enlarge our conception of her mission and destiny, 
 and especially to remind ourselves of the principles, 
 the faith and, above all, the ideals to which she owes 
 her birth, her continuity, her responsibilities, and her 
 power. 
 
 What is a university? How shall we conceive that 
 marvelous thing which, though having a local habitation 
 and a name and seeming to dwell in houses made by 
 human hands, yet contrives to be omnipresent; per- 
 vading the abodes of men everywhere throughout a 
 state, a nation or a world, like a divine ether; subtly, 
 gently, unceasingly, increasingly ministering to their 
 hearts and minds healing counsels and the mysterious 
 grace of light and understanding? What is it? Is it 
 something, an agency or an influence, that can be 
 denned? We know that it is not. We know that the 
 really great things of the world, the things that live 
 and grow and shine, the things that give to life its 
 interests and its worth, one and all elude formulation.
 
 204 SOURCE AND FUNCTIONS OF A UNIVERSITY 
 
 Yet it is just these things, beauty and love, poetry and 
 thought, religion and truth and mind, it is precisely 
 these great indefinables of life that we may learn, 
 through experience and discipline, to know best of all. 
 And so it is with what we mean or ought to mean by 
 a university. What a university is no one can define, 
 but all may in a measure come to know. By pon- 
 dering its principles, by contemplating its ideals, by 
 examining its aims, activities and fruits, above all by 
 sharing in its spirit and aspiration, we may at length 
 win a conception of it that will fill our minds with light 
 and our hearts with devotion. 
 
 Where such a conception reigns a university will 
 flourish. But there is no conception more difficult for 
 a people to acquire. It is not a spontaneous growth, 
 springing up like a weed, but requires careful planting 
 and cultivation. Such is the husbandry to which a 
 university must perpetually devote itself as the essen- 
 tial precondition to the prosperous exercise and advance- 
 ment of all its other functions, and the husbandry is 
 not easy. Especially in our American communities 
 where universities must appeal for support to the in- 
 telligence of a democratic people, there is no service 
 more important or more difficult to render than that 
 which consists in teaching us to know what a university 
 really is and what it signifies alike for developing the 
 material resources of the world and for the spiritualizing 
 of man. And thus there devolves upon a university, 
 especially in the beginning of its career, the necessity 
 of performing a kind of miracle: without adequate 
 support, either material or moral, it must yet find 
 strength to teach us to give it both. The lesson is 
 one that takes long and long to teach because it is one 
 that takes long and long to learn.
 
 SOURCE AND FUNCTIONS OP A UNIVERSITY 2O$ 
 
 It is a great mistake to imagine that a university is 
 an essentially modern thing. In spirit, in idea and 
 essence, it is modern only in the sense in which forces 
 and ideals that are eternal are always modern, as they 
 are always ancient. We should not forget that even 
 the name University so suggestive of the infinite- 
 world which it is the aim of these institutions to sub- 
 jugate to the understanding and uses of man even 
 the name, in its modern scholastic sense, has had a 
 history of more than a thousand years. But we know 
 that the institution itself, the thing that bears the name, 
 owns an antiquity far more remote. A few years ago, 
 standing upon the Acropolis of Athens, gazing pensively 
 about upon the hallowed scene where culminated the 
 genius of the ancient world, a friend, pointing towards 
 the spot near by where for fifty years Plato taught in 
 the grove of Academe, said to me, yonder, yonder 
 is the holy ground where was made the first attempt 
 to organize higher education in the western world. The 
 remark, which was just enough, was indeed impressive. It 
 is easy, however, to misunderstand its significance and 
 to exaggerate its importance. So many of the most 
 precious elements of our civilization trace their lineage 
 back to the creative activity of ancient Greece that we 
 are naturally tempted to imagine we may find there 
 also the source and origin of those aims, activities and 
 ideals which constitute what we today call a univer- 
 sity. Such imagining, however, is vain. The originals, 
 the first organizations, we may possibly find there at a 
 definite time and place, but not the origin, not the 
 source, not the nascence of the birth-giving and life- 
 sustaining power. For this must account, not only for the 
 universities of our time, but for the great school of Plato 
 as well. What, then, and where is the secret spring?
 
 206 SOURCE AND FUNCTIONS OF A UNIVERSITY 
 
 Shall we seek it in a sense of need? Necessity is 
 indeed a keen spur to invention and is the mother of 
 many things. But necessity is not the mother of uni- 
 versities. The beasts flourish and propagate their kind 
 without the help of institutions of learning, and without 
 such help a similar existence is possible to men. Uni- 
 versities are not essential to life nor to animal pros- 
 perity. They are not creatures, they are creators, 
 of need. We do indeed nowadays hear much of the 
 services they render, and it is right that we should, for 
 they minister constantly and everywhere to countless 
 forms of need. But the needs they supply are in the 
 main needs that they have first produced, multiplied 
 desires and aspirations, new propensions of mind awak- 
 ened to new life, lifted by education to higher levels 
 and ampler possibilities of being. No, the origin, the 
 source we are seeking, the principle of explanation, is 
 no human contrivance nor institution nor sense of need. 
 It is that sovereign urgency, at once so strange and so 
 familiar, that drives us to seek it; it is the lure of 
 wisdom and understanding, of beauty and light; a 
 certain divine energy in the world, at once a cosmic 
 force and a human faculty, constituting man divine 
 in constituting him a seeker of truth and a lover of 
 harmony and illumination. 
 
 Has it an epoch and a name? It has both. In 
 accordance with the modern doctrine of evolution the 
 greatest events upon our planet occurred long before 
 the beginnings of recorded history. For according to 
 that doctrine there must have come a time, long, long 
 ago, when in what was a world of matter there began 
 to be mind, in what was a world of motion there began 
 to be emotion, and the blind dominion of force was 
 invaded by personality. Among all those marvels of
 
 SOURCE AND FUNCTIONS OP A UNIVERSITY 207 
 
 prehistoric history, the supreme event was that one but 
 for which this world had been a world devoid of mystery 
 and devoid of truth I mean the advent of Wonder. 
 With the advent of wonder came the sense of mystery, 
 the lure of truth, the sheen of ideality, the dream of the 
 perfect and, with these, the potence and promise of 
 research and creativeness with all their endless progeny 
 of knowledge and wisdom and science and art and 
 philosophy and religion. These things, children of the 
 spirit, offspring of wonder, these things are the interests 
 which it is the divine prerogative of universities to serve, 
 and the universities ultimately derive their own exist- 
 ence, their sustenance and their power from the same 
 mother that gives their charges birth. A genuine uni- 
 versity is thus the offspring and the appointed agent of 
 the spirit of inquiry; it is the offspring, expression and 
 servant of that imperious curiosity which in a measure 
 impels all men and women, but with an urgency like 
 destiny literally drives men and women of genius, to 
 seek to know and to teach to their fellows whatsoever 
 is worthy in all that has been discovered or thought, 
 spoken or done in the world, and at the same time 
 seeks to extend the empire of understanding endlessly 
 in all directions throughout the infinite domain of the 
 yet uncharted and unknown. That high commission 
 is at once a university's charter of freedom and the 
 definition of her functions and her obligations. These 
 are, on the one hand, to teach to teach with 
 no restrictions save those prescribed by decency and 
 candor and, on the other hand, to foster and 
 prosecute research research in any and all subjects 
 or fields to which the leading or the stress of 
 curiosity may draw or impel. In so far as the 
 great commonwealth of Missouri makes ample pro-
 
 208 SOURCE AND FUNCTIONS OF A UNIVERSITY 
 
 vision for the exercise of these functions and for the 
 discharge of these obligations, to that extent she 
 may be said to cooperate with the divine energy 
 of the world in the maintenance of a genuine uni- 
 versity.
 
 RESEARCH IN AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES 1 
 
 THE present writer has been asked to deal briefly 
 with the question of research in American universities. 
 The subject is an immense one, and the following dis- 
 cussion makes no pretense of being exhaustive. It 
 aims merely to present the problem again, to emphasize 
 again its importance, and to point out once more some 
 of its harder conditions and some of the principles and 
 distinctions involved in any serious attempt at its 
 solution. 
 
 The problem may not be easy to appreciate, but it 
 is at all events easy to state. It is the problem of 
 securing in our universities suitable provision for the 
 work of research or investigation and productivity. For 
 a generation the great majority of the ablest men in 
 our universities have regarded that problem as the 
 most urgent and important educational problem con- 
 fronting these institutions and the American people. 
 Meanwhile, something has been done towards a solu- 
 tion. But none of the universities has secured ade- 
 quate provision, and the majority of them but little or 
 none at all. In the abstract, the problem is simple and 
 the solution is easy: given a body of able and enthu- 
 siastic men, provide them with proper facilities, afford 
 them opportunity to devote their powers continuously 
 to the prosecution of research, and the thing is done. 
 But in the concrete it is exceedingly difficult, being 
 
 1 Printed in The Bookman, May, 1906.
 
 210 RESEARCH IN AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES 
 
 frightfully complicated with our whole institutional 
 history and life, in particular with our educational 
 traditions and tendencies, with the prevailing plan of 
 university organisation, and especially with the char- 
 acteristic temper, ideals and ambitions of the American 
 people. 
 
 Somebody besides our foreign friends and critics 
 ought to tell the truth about American education and 
 American universities. Our people have never ceased 
 to believe in education. Our belief has not always been 
 intelligent. We have been prone to ascribe to educa- 
 tion efficacies and potencies that do not belong to any 
 human agency or institution. But our faith in it, 
 though not always critical or enlightened, has been deep, 
 implicit and abiding; and we have diligently pursued 
 it, generally as a means no doubt, but sometimes as 
 an end, and occasionally as a thing in itself more pre- 
 cious than power and gold. In all this we have been, 
 quite unconsciously and contrary to all appearances, 
 very humble. We have been content to educate our- 
 selves with knowledge discovered by others and to 
 nourish ourselves with doctrines and truths produced 
 only by the spiritual activity of other lands. We may 
 have been vain but we have not been proud. Besides 
 a marvelous practical sense we have had, in degree 
 quite unsurpassed, two of the elements of genius, 
 intellectual energy and intellectual audacity; and by 
 means of these we have created a material civilisation 
 so obtrusive, so elaborate and so efficient as to amaze 
 the world. But now at length there begin to appear 
 the indicia of change, of change for the better. A new 
 day has dawned. The sun is not yet risen high, but 
 it is rising. We have begun to suspect that genuine 
 civilisation is essentially an a.ffair of the spirit, that it
 
 RESEARCH IN AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES 211 
 
 can not be borrowed nor imported nor improvised nor 
 appropriated from without, but that it is a growth from 
 within, an efflorescence of mind and soul, and that its 
 highest tokens are not soldiers but savants, not the 
 purchasers and admirers of art but artists, not mere 
 retailers of knowledge nor teachers of the familiar and 
 the known, but discoverers of the unknown, not mere 
 inventors but men of science. And so we have begun 
 to feel our way towards the establishment of true 
 universities, that is to say of institutional centres for 
 the activity of the human spirit, and of organs, the 
 most potent yet invented by human society, for giving 
 effect to the noblest instinct of man, "the civilisation- 
 producing instinct of truth for truth's sake." 
 
 Just here we encounter a great danger. For a gen- 
 eration our progress in the matter has been so swift 
 that both the universities themselves and the edu- 
 cated public opinion upon which in our democratic 
 society their support and advancement ultimately de- 
 pend, are in danger of greatly overestimating it, and 
 that would be a misfortune. Absolutely the progress 
 has indeed been great, but relatively and judged by the 
 very highest standards, it has not. It is not first nor 
 mainly a question of achievements, of things done. It 
 is a quesion of ideals, of standards and aspirations. A 
 clear concept of a great university unconsciously serving 
 the highest interests of man by absolute devotion to 
 Truth for its own sake and without extraneous motive, 
 end or aim, does not yet exist in the mind of the Amer- 
 ican public and is not yet incarnate in any of its institu- 
 tions. Our universities are young, strong and robust. 
 They are full of potence and promise. But they have 
 not yet impressed their own imperfect ideals upon the 
 people; they have not yet given forth the light ncces-
 
 212 RESEARCH IN AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES 
 
 sary for their own proper beholding and appreciation. 
 Their perfections and their imperfections alike, remain 
 obscure. The old colleges about which as about nuclei 
 some of our universities have been formed have done 
 much to leaven and temper the American mind and to 
 subdue it to the influences of beauty and truth. Cor- 
 responding services have not yet been rendered by our 
 universities as such. No one can doubt that they are 
 destined to assume in future the permanent leadership, 
 and to exercise a controlling formative influence, in all 
 that goes to deepen thought and to exalt and refine 
 standards, character, and taste. At present, however, 
 they are themselves in the formative and impressionable 
 stage, resembling improvisations in some respects; and 
 to understand them, to see clearly both what they are 
 and what they are not, it is necessary to regard them 
 as being at the present time less the producers than 
 the products of our civilisation. 
 
 So regarded, they are seen to embody and to reflect 
 alike the merits and the defects of their progenitor. 
 Like the latter they are unsurpassed in boldness, in 
 energy and in enthusiasm, and their genius has been 
 mainly directed to material and outer ends. Their 
 first and chief concern has been with the physical and 
 exterior, with buildings and grounds and instruments 
 and laboratories, and while their material equipment is 
 still far from adequate, it has already evoked astonished 
 and admiring commentary from visiting scholars of 
 European seats of learning. Like the civilisation whence 
 they have sprung, our universities are intensely modern 
 and up-to-date, and they are intensely democratic in 
 everything but management; they set great store by 
 organisation, exalt the function of administration, and 
 tend to be regarded, to regard themselves, and in fact
 
 RESEARCH IN AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES 213 
 
 to be, as vast and complicate machines or industrial 
 plants naturally demanding the control of centralised 
 authority. They have but little sentiment; they are 
 almost devoid of sacred and hallowing traditions, of 
 great and illustrious recollections; there is in and about 
 them nothing or but little of "the shadow and the hush 
 of a haunted past." They have no antiquity. In them 
 the utilitarian spirit, having learned the lingo of service, 
 contrives to receive an ample share of honour, and the 
 Genius of Industry that has transformed our land into 
 an abode of wealth and for generations assigned an 
 attainable upper limit to a people's aspiration, shapes 
 educational policy, holds and wields the balance of 
 power. The classic distinctions of good, better and best 
 in subjects and motives of study receive but slight re- 
 gard. The traditional hierarchy of educational values 
 and the ascending scale of spiritual worths have fallen 
 into disrepute. All things have been leveled up or 
 leveled down to a common level; so that the workshop 
 and the laboratory, schools of engineering, of agri- 
 culture and of the classics, the library, the model dairy 
 and departments of architecture and music, exist side 
 by side. In at least one institution, so it is reported, 
 the professor of poetry rubs shoulders with the pro- 
 fessor of poultry. No wonder that a distinguished 
 critic has said that some of our biggest universities 
 appear as hardly more than episodes in the wondrous 
 maelstrom of our industrial life. 
 
 Thus it appears that the American university, child 
 of a predominantly material and industrial civilisa- 
 tion half-blindly aspiring to higher things, strikingly 
 resembles its parent. Begotten in the hope that it 
 would be as a saviour and rescue us from our national 
 idols and respectable sins, it straightway became their
 
 214 RESEARCH IN AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES 
 
 most enlightened servant and lent them the sanction 
 and the support of its honoured name. It is by no 
 means contended that this fact is the whole truth. 
 Our universities are not entirely devoted to the service 
 of industry; they are not wholly committed to teaching 
 youth the known from utilitarian motives and for imme- 
 diate and practical ends; they are not exclusively 
 concerned with the applications of science; out of gen- 
 eral devotion to the Useful, something is saved for the 
 True; science is not always regarded as a commodity; 
 the judgment of the great Jacobi is sometimes recog- 
 nised as just: "The unique end ot science is the honour 
 of the human spirit." And it is a pleasure to be able 
 to proclaim the fact that in a few of our universities 
 something like a home has been provided for the spirit 
 of research and that by its activity there, American 
 genius has had a share in extending the empire of light, 
 in enlarging the domain of the known, in astronomy, in 
 physics, in mathematics, in the science of mind, in biol- 
 ogy, in criticism, in economics, in letters, in almost all 
 of the great fields where the instinct of truth for the 
 sake of truth contends against the dark. In this clear 
 evidence of our growing freedom and exaltation, let us 
 rejoice; but let us be candid also. Let us admit that 
 we have only begun the higher service of the soul; let 
 us confess in becoming humility that, in comparison 
 with our wealth, our numbers, our energies and our 
 talents, in comparison, too, with the intellectual achieve- 
 ments of some other peoples and other lands, the service 
 we have rendered to Science and Art and Truth is 
 meagre. 
 
 Why such emptiness, such poverty, such meagreness 
 in the fruits of the highest activity? The immediate 
 cause is easy to find. It is not incompetence nor lack
 
 RESEARCH IN AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES 
 
 of genius in our university faculties. These are not 
 inferior to the best in the world. It is not mainly due, 
 as is often said, to inadequacy of material compensa- 
 tion, though one of the greatest of living physicists, 
 Professor J. J. Thompson, has told us truly that Amer- 
 ican men of science receive less remuneration than their 
 colleagues in any other part of the world. The cause 
 in question is simple: lack of opportunity. The diffi- 
 culty is near at hand. It inheres in the composition 
 and organisation of our universities. Most of these are 
 built about and upon, and largely consist of, immense 
 undergraduate schools thronged by young men mainly 
 bent upon practical aims and neither qualified nor 
 intending to qualify for the work of investigation. The 
 interests of these schools are naturally the paramount 
 concern. The great and growing burdens of adminis- 
 tration tend to distribute themselves among the pro- 
 fessors. These have, besides, to give the most and the 
 best of their energies to elementary teaching, to teach- 
 ing, that is, which does not pertain to a university 
 proper but to gymnasia and Iyc6es a worthy, impor- 
 tant, necessary kind of work, but a kind that drains 
 off the energy in non-productive channels and tends to 
 form and harden the mind of those engaged in it about 
 a small group of simpler ideas. What is left, what can 
 be left, of spirit, of energy, of opportunity, for the 
 arduous work of research? One man attempting the 
 enterprise of three: administration, elementary teach- 
 ing, discovery and creative work. Who can suitably 
 characterise the absurdity? Who can compute the 
 wickedness of the waste in the impossible attempt to 
 effect daily the demanded transition from mood to mood? 
 A mind, by prolonged effort, at length immersed in 
 the depths of a profound and difficult investigation -
 
 2l6 RESEARCH IN AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES 
 
 how poignant the pain of interruption, the rending of 
 continuity, the rude disturbance of poise and concentra- 
 tion. How easy to fail of due respect for, because it 
 is so easy not to understand, the creative mood, obliv- 
 ious to the outer world, the brooding "maternity of 
 mind," more delicate than fabric of gossamer, of infinite 
 subtlety, of infinite sensitiveness, a woven psychic struc- 
 ture finer than ether threads; and how easy to forget 
 that a sudden alien call may disturb and jar and even 
 destroy the structure. 
 
 Little excuse, then, have we to wonder at the recent 
 words of Professor Bjerknes, of the chair of mechanics 
 and mathematical physics in the University of Stock- 
 holm, and non-resident lecturer in mathematical physics 
 in Columbia University, who, in his farewell address 
 to his American colleagues, assembled to do him honour, 
 spoke substantially as follows: 
 
 "I have been much impressed with the material equipment of your uni- 
 versities, with your splendid buildings, with the fine instruments you have 
 placed in them, and with the enthusiasm of the men I have found at work 
 there. But I hope you will pardon me, gentlemen, for saying, as I must say, 
 that, when I found you attempting serious investigation with the remnants 
 of energy left after your excessive teaching and administrative work, I 
 could not help thinking you did not appreciate the fact that the finest 
 instruments in those buildings are your brains. I heard one of you counsel 
 his colleagues to care for the astronomical instruments lest these become 
 strained and cease to give true results. Allow me to substitute brain for 
 telescope, and to exhort you to care for your brains. I have been aston- 
 ished to find that some of you, in addition to much executive work, teach 
 from ten to fifteen and even more hours per week. I myself teach two hours 
 per week, and I can assure you that, if I had been required to do so much 
 of it as you do, you never would have invited me to lecture here in a diffi- 
 cult branch of science. That, gentlemen, is the most important message I 
 can leave with you." 
 
 Such, then, is the situation. No need that we should 
 behold it in picture drawn by foreign hand. We need 
 no copy. The original lies before us in all its proper-
 
 RESEARCH IN AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES 217 
 
 tions. The challenge addresses itself at once to our pride 
 and to our practical sense. Of all peoples, we, it would 
 seem, should feel the challenge most keenly, for the 
 problem is a problem in freedom. It demands the 
 emancipation of American genius; it demands pro- 
 vision of free and ample opportunity for the highest 
 activity of our highest talent. 
 
 Hope of solution lies in division of labour. Our uni- 
 versities and the people they represent must reduce 
 their exactions. For three men's work, three must be 
 provided. There must be men to administer and men 
 to teach and men to investigate. Three varieties of 
 service, entirely compatible in kind, entirely incompat- 
 ible as co-ordinate vocations combined in one. Any 
 one of them may be as an avocation to another of the 
 three, but only so of choice and not by compulsion. 
 No invidious comparisons are implied. The distinctions 
 are not of greater and less; they are matters of economy 
 in the domain of mind. The great administrator is not 
 a clerk nor an amanuensis; he is a man of constructive 
 genius, a creator. The great teacher is not a pedagogue; 
 he is a source of inspiration and of aspiration, produc- 
 ing children of the spirit by "the urge and ardor" of 
 a deep and rich and enlightened personality; he was 
 in the mind of Goethe when he said of Winckelmann 
 that "from him you learned nothing, but you became 
 something." And the great investigator is not a mere 
 collector and recorder of facts; he is a discoverer, a dis- 
 closer, of the harmonies and the invariance hid beneath 
 the surface of seeming disorder and of ceaseless change. 
 The three great powers are compatible, and are usually 
 found united in a single gigantic personality, just as the 
 ordinary administrator and ordinary teacher and ordi- 
 nary investigator compose one unit of mediocrity.
 
 2l8 RESEARCH IN AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES 
 
 It is perfectly evident that the total service demanded 
 of the universities will not diminish. On the contrary, 
 it will continue as now to increase in response to grow- 
 ing need. The case, then, is clear: the number of 
 servants must be increased, the number of those who 
 are to do the work must be greatly multiplied. And 
 thus the problem becomes a financial one. But a uni- 
 versity is not a money-making institution. Its function 
 is to convert the physical into the spiritual, to transform 
 the things of matter into the things of mind. It has, 
 however, a physical body, without which it may not 
 dwell among men; and, for the support of it, it depends 
 and must depend, whether through legislative appro- 
 priation or the benefaction of individuals, ultimately 
 upon the people. These now possess the means in 
 ample measure, and the promptings of generosity are 
 in the hearts of many wealthy and sagacious men. 
 
 And so the problem revolves upon itself and once 
 more turns full upon us its theoretic aspect. Its solu- 
 tion awaits public appreciation of its significance and 
 its terms. It is above all else a question of enlighten- 
 ment. Just here, if I am not mistaken, is the measure- 
 less opportunity of the university president. Beyond 
 all others, he is spokesman and representative before 
 the people of their highest spiritual interests. Their 
 ideals and aspirations will scarcely surpass his own. 
 The problem must be conceived boldly in truth and 
 presented in its larger aspects. It must be seen and be 
 felt to be the supreme problem of our civilisation. As 
 a people we have yet to learn the lesson deeply that 
 research, the competent application in any field what- 
 ever of human interest of any effective method whatever 
 for the discovery of truth and enlarging the bounds of 
 knowledge, is the highest form of human activity. We
 
 RESEARCH IN AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES 219 
 
 have yet to learn that a nation, a state, a university 
 without investigators, is a community without men of 
 profoundest conviction. For this can not be gained by 
 conning books; it can not be inherited; it is not merely 
 a pious hope or a pleasing superstition. It is not an 
 obsession. 
 
 As Helmholz has said, a teacher "who desires to 
 give his hearers a perfect conviction of the truth of his 
 principles must, first of all, know from his own experi- 
 ence how conviction is acquired and how not. He 
 must have known how to acquire conviction where no 
 predecessor had been before him that is, he must 
 have worked at the confines of knowledge and have con- 
 quered new regions." We have yet to learn that the 
 value of a university professor can not be estimated by 
 counting the hours he stands before his classes. We 
 have yet to learn to prefer standards of quality to units 
 of quantity. We have yet to learn that the spirit of 
 pure research, the highest productive genius, has no 
 direct concern whatever with the useful; that, while 
 it does without intention create an atmosphere in which 
 utilities most greatly flourish, it is itself concerned solely 
 with the true; we have yet to learn that "the action 
 of faculty is imperious and always excludes the reflec- 
 tion why it acts." When these and kindred lessons 
 shall have been taken to heart, our emancipation, now 
 well begun, will advance towards completion; the Amer- 
 ican university will come to its own; and our present 
 civilisation will speedily pass to the rank of the highest 
 and best.
 
 PRINCIPIA MATHEMATICA 1 
 
 MATHEMATICIANS, many philosophers, logicians and 
 physicists, and a large number of other people are aware 
 of the fact that mathematical activity, like the activity 
 in numerous other fields of study and research, has been 
 in large part for a century distinctively and increasingly 
 critical. Every one has heard of a critical movement 
 in mathematics and of certain mathematicians distin- 
 guished for their insistence upon precision and logical 
 cogency. Under the influence of the critical spirit of 
 the time mathematicians, having inherited the tradi- 
 tional belief that the human mind can know some propo- 
 sitions to be true, convinced that mathematics may 
 not contain any false propositions, and nevertheless 
 finding that numerous so-called mathematical proposi- 
 tions were certainly not true, began to re-examine the 
 existing body of what was called mathematics with a 
 view to purging it of the false and of thus putting an 
 end to what, rightly viewed, was a kind of scientific 
 scandal. Their aim was truth, not the whole truth, 
 but nothing but truth. And the aim was consistent 
 with the traditional faith which they inherited. They 
 believed that there were such things as self-evident prop- 
 ositions, known as axioms. They believed that the 
 traditional logic, come down from Aristotle, was an 
 absolutely perfect machinery for ascertaining what was 
 involved in the axioms. At this stage, therefore, they 
 
 1 An account of Messrs. Whitehead and Russell's great work bearing 
 this title. Printed in Science, vol. XXV.
 
 PRINCIPIA MATHEMATICA 221 
 
 believed that, in order that a given branch of mathe- 
 matics should contain truth and nothing but truth, it 
 was sufficient to find the appropriate axioms and then, 
 by the engine of deductive logic, to explicate their mean- 
 ing or content. To be sure, one might have trouble 
 to "find" the axioms and in the matter of explication 
 one might be an imperfect engineer; but by trying hard 
 enough all difficulties could be surmounted for the 
 axioms existed and the engine was perfect. But mathe- 
 maticians were destined not to remain long in this 
 comfortable position. The critical demon is a restless 
 and relentless demon; and, having brought them thus 
 far, it soon drove them far beyond. It was discovered 
 that an axiom of a given set could be replaced by its 
 contradictory and that the consequences of the new set 
 stood all the experiential tests of truth just as well as 
 did the consequences of the old set, that is, perfectly. 
 Thus belief in the self-evidence of axioms received a 
 fatal blow. For why regard a proposition self-evident 
 when its contradictory would work just as well? But 
 if we do not know that our axioms are true, what about 
 their consequences? Logic gives us these, but as to 
 their being true or false, it is indifferent and silent. 
 
 Thus mathematics has acquired a certain modesty. 
 The critical mathematician has abandoned the search 
 for truth. He no longer flatters himself that his proposi- 
 tions are or can be known to him or to any other human 
 being to be true; and he contents himself with aiming 
 at the correct, or the consistent. The distinction is 
 not annulled nor even blurred by the reflection that 
 consistency contains immanently a kind of truth. He 
 is not absolutely certain, but he believes profoundly 
 that it is possible to find various sets of a few proposi- 
 tions each such that the propositions of each set are
 
 222 PRINCIPIA MATHEMATICA 
 
 compatible, that the propositions of such a set imply 
 other propositions, and that the latter can be deduced 
 from the former with certainty. That is to say, he 
 believes that there are systems of coherent or consist- 
 ent propositions, and he regards it his business to dis- 
 cover such systems. Any such system is a branch of 
 mathematics. Any branch contains two sets of ideas 
 (as subject matter, a third set of ideas are used but 
 are not part of the subject matter) and two sets of 
 propositions (as subject matter, a third set being used 
 without being part of the subject) : that is, any branch 
 contains a set of ideas that are adopted without defini- 
 tion and a set that are defined in terms of the others; 
 and a set of propositions adopted without proof and 
 called assumptions or principles or postulates or axioms 
 (but not as true or as self-evident) and a set deduced 
 from the former. A system of postulates for a given 
 branch of mathematics a variety of systems may be 
 found for a same branch is often called the founda- 
 tion of that branch. And that is what the layman 
 should think when, as occasionally happens, he meets 
 an allusion to the foundation of the theory of the real 
 variable, or to the foundation of Euclidean geometry 
 or of projective geometry or of Mengenlehre or of some 
 other branch of mathematics. The founding, in the sense 
 indicated, of various distinct branches of mathematics 
 is one of the great outcomes of a century of critical 
 activity in the science. It has engaged and still en- 
 gages the best efforts of men of genius and men of 
 talent. Such activity is commonly described as funda- 
 mental. It is very important, but fundamental in a 
 strict sense it is not. For one no sooner examines the 
 foundations that have been found for various mathemat- 
 ical branches and thereby as well as otherwise gains
 
 PR1NC1PIA MATHEMATICA 223 
 
 a deep conviction that these branches are constituents 
 of something different from any one of them and dif- 
 ferent from the mere sum or collection of all of them 
 than the question supervenes whether it may not be 
 possible to discover a foundation for mathematics itself 
 such that the above-indicated branch foundations would 
 be seen to be, not fundamental to the science itself, 
 but a genuine part of the superstructure. That ques- 
 tion and the attempt to answer it are fundamental 
 strictly. The question was forced upon mathematicians 
 not only by developments within the traditional field 
 of mathematics, but also independently from develop- 
 ments in a field long regarded as alien to mathematics, 
 namely, the field of symbolic logic. The emancipation 
 of logic from the yoke of Aristotle very much resembles 
 the emancipation of geometry from the bondage of 
 Euclid; and, by its subsequent growth and diversifica- 
 tion, logic, less abundantly perhaps but not less cer- 
 tainly than geometry, has illustrated the blessings of 
 freedom. When modern logic began to learn from such 
 a man as Leibnitz (who with the most magnificent 
 expectations devoted much of his life to researches in 
 the subject) the immense advantage of the systematic 
 use of symbols, it soon appeared that logic could state 
 many of its propositions in symbolic form, that it could 
 prove some of these, and that the demonstration could 
 be conducted and expressed in the language of symbols. 
 Evidently such a logic looked like mathematics and 
 acted like it. Why not call it mathematics? Evidently 
 it differed from mathematics in neither spirit nor form. 
 If it differed at all, it was in respect of content. But 
 where was the decree that the content of mathematics 
 should be restricted to this or that, as number or space? 
 No bne could find it. If traditional mathematics could
 
 224 PRINCIPIA MATHEMATICA 
 
 state and prove propositions about number and space, 
 about relations of numbers and of space configurations, 
 about classes of numbers and of geometric entities, 
 modern logic began to prove propositions about proposi- 
 tions, relations and classes, regardless of whether such 
 propositions, relations and classes have to do with 
 number and space or with no matter what other spe- 
 cific kind of subject. At the same time what was 
 admittedly mathematics was by virtue of its own inner 
 developments transcending its traditional limitations 
 to number and space. The situation was unmistakable: 
 traditional mathematics began to look like a genuine 
 part of logic and no longer like a separate something to 
 which another thing called logic applied. And so modern 
 logicians by their own researches were forced to ask a 
 question, which under a thin disguise is essentially the 
 same as that propounded by the bolder ones among the 
 critical mathematicians, namely, is it not possible to 
 discover for logic a foundation that will at the same 
 time serve as a foundation for mathematics as a whole 
 and thus render unnecessary (and strictly impossible) 
 separate foundations for separate mathematical branches? 
 It is to answer that great question that Messrs. 
 Whitehead and Russell have written "Principia Mathe- 
 matica" a work consisting of four large volumes, 
 the first and second being in hand, the third soon to 
 appear and the answer is affirmative. The thesis 
 is: it is possible to discover a small number of ideas 
 (to be called primitive ideas) such that all the other 
 ideas in logic (including mathematics) shall be defin- 
 able in terms of them, and a small number of propo- 
 sitions (to be called primitive propositions) such that 
 all other propositions in logic (including mathematics) 
 can be demonstrated by means of them. Of course,
 
 PR1NC1PIA MA THEMATIC A 335 
 
 not all ideas can be defined some must be assumed 
 as a working stock and those called primitive are 
 so called merely because they are taken without defini- 
 tion; similarly for propositions, not all can be proved, 
 and those called primitive are so called because they are 
 assumed. It is not contended by the authors (as it was 
 by Leibnitz) that there exist ideas and propositions that 
 are absolutely primitive in a metaphysical sense or in 
 the nature of things; nor do they contend that but one 
 sufficient set of primitives (in their sense of the term) 
 can be discovered. In view of the immeasurable wealth 
 of ideas and propositions that enter logic and mathe- 
 matics, the authors' thesis is very imposing; and their 
 work borrows some of its impressiveness from the mag- 
 nificence of the undertaking. It is important to observe 
 that the thesis is not a thesis of logic or of mathematics, 
 but is a thesis about logic and mathematics. It can 
 not be proved syllogistically; the only available method 
 is that by which one proves that one can jump through 
 a hoop, namely, by actually jumping through it. If 
 the thesis be true, the only way to establish it as such 
 is to produce the required primitives and then to show 
 their adequacy by actually erecting upon them as a 
 basis the superstructure of logic (and mathematics) to 
 such a point of development that any competent judge of 
 such architecture will say: "Enough! I am convinced. 
 You have proved your thesis by actually performing 
 the deed that the thesis asserts to be possible." 
 
 And such is the method the authors have employed. 
 The labor involved or shall we call it austere and 
 exalted play? was immense. They had predecessors, 
 including themselves. Among their earlier works Rus- 
 sell's . "Principles of Mathematics" and Whitehead's 
 "Universal Algebra" are known to many. The related
 
 226 PRINCIPIA MATHEMATICA 
 
 works of their predecessors and contemporaries, modern 
 critical mathematicians and modern logicians, Weier- 
 strass, Cantor, Boole, Peano, Schroder, Peirce and many 
 others, including their own former selves, had to be 
 digested, assimilated and transcended. All this was 
 done, in the course of more than a score of years; and 
 the work before us is a noble monument to the authors' 
 persistence, energy, acumen and idealism. A people 
 capable of such a work is neither crawling on its belly 
 nor completely saturated with commercialism nor wholly 
 philistine. There are preliminary explanations in ordi- 
 nary language and summaries and other explanations 
 are given in ordinary language here and there through- 
 out the book, but the work proper is all in symbolic 
 form. Theoretically the use of symbols is not necessary. 
 A sufficiently powerful god could have dispensed with 
 them, but unless he were a divine spendthrift, he 
 would not have done so, except perhaps for the reason 
 that whatever is feasible should be done at least once 
 in order to complete the possible history of the world. 
 But whilst the employment of symbols is theoretically 
 dispensable, it is, for- man, practically indispensable. 
 Many of the results in the work before us could not 
 have been found without the help of symbols, and even 
 if they could have been thus found, their expression in 
 ordinary speech, besides being often unintelligible, owing 
 to complexity and involution, would have required at 
 least fifteen large volumes instead of four. Fortunately 
 the symbology is both interesting and fairly easy to 
 master. The difficulty inheres in the subject itself. 
 
 The initial chapter, devoted to preliminary explana- 
 tions that any one capable of nice thinking may read 
 with pleasure and profit, is followed by a chapter of 
 30 pages dealing with "the theory of logical types."
 
 PRINCIPIA MATHEMAT1CA 227 
 
 Mr. Russell has dealt with the same matter in volume 
 30 of the American Journal of Mathematics (1908). 
 One may or may not judge the theory to be sound or 
 adequate or necessary and yet not fail to find in the 
 chapter setting it forth both an excellent example of 
 analytic and constructive thinking and a worthy model 
 of exposition. The theory, which, however, is recom- 
 mended by other considerations, originated in a desire 
 to exclude from logic automatically by means of its 
 principles what are called illegitimate totalities and 
 therewith a subtle variety of contradiction and vicious 
 circle fallacy that, owing their presence to the non- 
 exclusion of such totalities, have always infected logic 
 and justified skepticism as to the ultimate soundness 
 of all discourse, however seemingly rigorous. (Such 
 theoretic skepticism may persist anyhow, on other 
 grounds.) Perhaps the most obvious example of an 
 illegitimate totality is the so-called class of all classes. 
 Its illegitimacy may be shown as follows. If A is a 
 class (say that of men) and is a member of it, we 
 say, E is an A. Now let W be the class of all classes 
 such that no one of them is a member of itself. Then, 
 whatever class x may be, to say that x is a W is equiva- 
 lent to saying that x is not an x, and hence to say that W 
 is a FT is equivalent to saying that W is not a Wl Such 
 illegitimate totalities (and the fallacies they breed) are 
 in general exceedingly sly, insinuating themselves under 
 an endless variety of most specious disguises, and that, 
 not only in the theory of classes but also in connection 
 with every species of logical subject-matter, as proposi- 
 tions, relations and propositions! functions. As the 
 proposition a! function any expression containing a 
 real (as distinguished from an apparent) variable and 
 yielding either non-sense or else a proposition whenever
 
 228 PRINCIPIA MATHEMATICA 
 
 the variable is replaced by a constant term is the 
 basis of our authors' work, their theory of logical types 
 is fundamentally a theory of types of prepositional 
 functions. It can not be set forth here nor in fewer 
 pages than the authors have devoted to it. Suffice it to 
 say that the theory presents prepositional functions as 
 constituting a summitless hierarchy of types such that 
 the functions of a given type make up a legitimate 
 totality; and that, in the light of the theory, truth and 
 falsehood present themselves each in the form of a 
 systematic ambiguity, the quality of being true (or 
 false) admitting of distinctions in respect of order, level 
 above level, without a summit. When Epimenides, 
 the Cretan, says that all statements of Cretans are 
 false, and you reply that then his statement is false, 
 the significance of "false" here presents two orders or 
 levels; and logic must by its machinery automatically 
 prevent the possibility of confusing them. 
 
 Next follows a chapter of 20 pages, which all phi- 
 losophers, logicians and grammarians ought to study, 
 a chapter treating of Incomplete Symbols wherein by 
 ingenious analysis it is shown that the ubiquitous expres- 
 sions of the form "the so and so" (the "the" being 
 singular, as "the author of Waverley," "the sine of a," 
 "the Athenian who drank hemlock," etc.) do not of 
 themselves denote anything, though they have con- 
 textual significance essential to discourse, essential in 
 particular to the significance of identity, which, in the 
 world of discourse, takes the form of "a is the so and 
 so" and not the form of the triviality, a is a. 
 
 After the introduction of 88 pages, we reach the work 
 proper (so far as it is contained in the Volume I.), 
 namely, Part L: Mathematical Logic. Here enuncia- 
 tion of primitives is followed by series after series of
 
 PRINC1PIA MAI HI MA I 1* A 
 
 theorems and demonstrations, marching through 578 
 pages, all matter being clad in symbolic garb, except 
 that the continuity is interrupted here and there by 
 summaries and explanations in ordinary language. 
 Logic it is called and logic it is, the logic of propositions 
 and functions and classes and relations, by far the 
 greatest (not merely the biggest) logic that our planet 
 has produced, so much that is new in matter and in 
 manner; but it is also mathematics, a prolegomenon to 
 the science, yet itself mathematics in the most genuine 
 sense, differing from other parts of the science only in 
 the respects that it surpasses these in fundamentally, 
 generality and precision, and lacks traditionality. Few 
 will read it, but all will feel its effect, for behind it is 
 the urgence and push of a magnificent past: two thousand 
 five hundred years of record and yet longer tradition of 
 human endeavor to think aright. 
 
 Owing to the vast number, the great variety and the 
 mechanical delicacy of the symbols employed, errors 
 of type are not entirely avoidable and Volume II. opens 
 with a rather long list of "errata to Volume I." The 
 second volume is composed of three grand divisions: 
 Part III., which deals with cardinal arithmetic; Part IV., 
 which is devoted to what is called relation-arithmetic; 
 and Part V., which treats of series. The theory of types, 
 which is presented in Volume I., is very important in the 
 arithmetic of cardinals, especially in the matter of 
 existence-theorems, and for the convenience of the 
 reader Part III. is prefaced with explanations of how 
 this theory applies to the matter in hand. In the initial 
 section of this part we find the definition and logical 
 properties of cardinal numbers, the definition of car- 
 dinal number being the one that is due to Frege, namely, 
 the cardinal number of a class C is the class of all classes
 
 230 PRINCIPIA MATHEMAT1CA 
 
 similar to C, where by "similar" is meant that two 
 classes are similar when and only when the elements 
 of either can be associated in a one-to-one way with 
 the elements of the other. This section consists of 
 seven chapters dealing respectively with elementary 
 properties of cardinals; o and i and 2; cardinals of 
 assigned types; homogeneous cardinals; ascending 
 cardinals; descending cardinals; and cardinals of rela- 
 tional types. Then follows a section treating of addi- 
 tion, multiplication and exponentiation, where the 
 logical muse handles such themes as the arithmetical 
 sum of two classes and of two cardinals; double simi- 
 larity; the arithmetical sum of a class of classes; the 
 arithmetical product of two classes and of two cardinals; 
 next, of a class of classes; multiplicative classes and 
 arithmetical classes; exponentiation; greater and less. 
 Thus no less than 186 large symbolically compacted 
 pages deal with properties common to finite and infinite 
 classes and to the corresponding numbers. Nevertheless 
 finites and infinites do differ in many important re- 
 spects, and as many as 116 pages are required to present 
 such differences under such captions as arithmetical 
 substitution and uniform formal numbers; subtraction; 
 inductive cardinals; intervals; progressions; Aleph 
 null, Ko; reflexive classes and cardinals; the axiom of 
 infinity; and typically indefinite inductive cardinals. 
 
 As indicating the fundamental character of the "Prin- 
 cipia" it is noteworthy that the arithmetic of relations 
 is not begun earlier than page 301 of the second huge 
 volume. In this division the subject of thought is 
 relations including relations between relations. If RI 
 and R-t are two relations and if F\ and F 2 are their 
 respective fields (composed of the things between which 
 the relations subsist), it may happen that FI and F%
 
 PRINCIPIA MATHEMATICA 23! 
 
 can be so correlated that, if any two terms of FI have 
 the relation R\, their correlates in F 2 have the relation 
 Rt t and vice versa. If such is the case, RI and RI are 
 said to be like or to be ordinally similar. Likeness of 
 relations is analogous to similarity of classes, and, as 
 cardinal number of classes is defined by means of class 
 similarity, so relation-number of relations is denned by 
 means of relation likeness. And 209 pages are devoted 
 to the fundamentals of relation arithmetic, the chief 
 headings of the treatment being ordinal similarity and 
 relation-numbers; internal transformation of a rela- 
 tion; ordinal similarity; definition and elementary 
 properties of relation-numbers; the relation-numbers, 
 o f , 2, and i,; relation-numbers of assigned types; homo- 
 geneous relation-numbers; addition of relations and the 
 product of two relations; the sum of two relations; 
 addition of a term to a relation; the sum of the rela- 
 tions of a field; relations of mutually exclusive rela- 
 tions; double likeness; relations of relations of couples; 
 the product of two relations; the multiplication and 
 exponentiation of relations; and so on. 
 
 The last 259 pages of the volume deal with series. A 
 large initial section is concerned with such properties 
 as are common to all series whatsoever. From this 
 exceedingly high and tenuous atmosphere, the reader is 
 conducted to the level of sections, segments, stretches and 
 derivatives of series. The volume closes with 58 pages 
 devoted to convergence, and the limits of functions. 
 
 To judge the "Principia," as some are wont to do, 
 as an attempt to furnish methods for developing exist- 
 ing branches of mathematics, is manifestly unfair; for 
 it is no such attempt. It is an attempt to show that 
 the entire body of mathematical doctrine is deducible 
 from' a small number of assumed ideas and propositions.
 
 232 PRINCIPIA MATHEMATICA 
 
 As such it is a most important contribution to the theory 
 of the unity of mathematics and of the compendence 
 of knowledge in general. As a work of constructive 
 criticism it has never been surpassed. To every one and 
 especially to philosophers and men of natural science, 
 it is an amazing revelation of how the familiar terms 
 with which they deal plunge their roots far into the dark- 
 ness beneath the surface of common sense. It is a 
 noble monument to the critical spirit of science and to 
 the idealism of our time.
 
 CONCERNING MULTIPLE INTERPRETATIONS 
 OF POSTULATE SYSTEMS AND THE 
 "EXISTENCE" OF HYPERSPACE l 
 
 WHAT do we mean when we speak of n-dimensional 
 space and n-dimensional geometry, where n is greater 
 than 3? The question refers to talk about space and 
 geometry that are n-dimensional in points, for ordinary 
 space, as is well known, is 4-dimensional in lines, 4-di- 
 mensional in spheres, 5-dimensional in flat line-pencils, 6- 
 dimensional in circles, etc., and there is naturally no 
 mystery involved in speaking of these latter varieties 
 of multi-dimensional manifolds and their geometries, 
 no matter how high the dimensionality may be. No 
 mystery for the reason that in these geometries every- 
 thing Lies within the domain of intuition in the same 
 sense in which everything in ordinary (point) geometry 
 lies in that domain. In other words, these n-dimen- 
 sional geometries are nothing but theories or geometries 
 of ordinary space, that arise when we take for element, 
 not the point, but some other entity, as the line or the 
 sphere, . . . whose determination in ordinary space 
 requires more than 3 independent data. Of these 
 varieties of n-dimensional geometry, the inventor was 
 Julius PlUcker (d. 1868), but Pliicker declined to con- 
 cern himself with spaces and geometries of more than 
 four dimensions in points. 
 
 1 Printed in The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and ScUniiJic Method, 
 May 8, 1913.
 
 234 INTERPRETATIONS OF POSTULATE SYSTEMS 
 
 Since Pliicker's time, however, such hyper-theories 
 of points have invaded not only almost every branch 
 of pure mathematics, but also strangely enough 
 certain branches of physical science, as, for example, 
 the kinetic theory of gases. As to the manner of this 
 latter invasion a hint may be instructive. Given N gas 
 molecules enclosed, say, in a sphere. These molecules 
 are, it is supposed, flying about hither and thither, all 
 of them in motion. Each of them depends on six co- 
 ordinates, x, y, z, u, v, w, where x, y, z, are the usual 
 positional coordinates of the molecule regarded as a 
 point in ordinary space, and u, v, w are the components 
 of the molecule's velocity along the three coordinate 
 axes. Knowing the six things about a given molecule, 
 we know where it is and the direction and rate of its 
 going. The N molecules making up the gas depend on 
 6N coordinates. At any instant these have definite 
 values. These values together define the "state" of 
 the gas at that instant. Now these 6N values are said 
 to determine a point in space of 6N dimensions. Thus 
 is set up a one-one correspondence between such points 
 and the varying gas states. As the state of the gas 
 changes, the corresponding point generates a locus in 
 the space of 6N dimensions. In this way the behavior 
 or history of the gas gets geometrically represented by 
 loci in the hyperspace in question. 
 
 Is such geometric ^-dimensional phraseology merely 
 a geometric way of speaking about non-spatial things? 
 Even if there exists a space, S n , one may employ the 
 language appropriate to the geometry of the space 
 without having the slightest reference to it, and, indeed, 
 without knowing or even enquiring whether it exists. 
 This use of geometric speech in discourse about non- 
 spatial things is not only possible, but in fact very com-
 
 INTERPRETATIONS OF POSTULATE SYSTEMS 235 
 
 mon. An easily accessible example of it may be found 
 in Bdcher 1 where, in speaking of a set of values of n in- 
 dependent variables as a point in space of n dimensions 
 the reader is told that the author's use of geometric 
 language for the expression of algebraic facts is due to 
 certain advantages of that language compared with the 
 language of algebra or of analysis; he is told that the 
 geometric terms will be employed "in a wholly conven- 
 tional algebraic sense" and that "we do not propose 
 even to raise the question whether in any geometric 
 sense there is such a thing as space of more than three 
 dimensions." 
 
 It is held by many, including perhaps the majority 
 of mathematicians, that there are no hyperspaces of 
 points and that n-dimensional geometries are, rightly 
 speaking, not geometries at all, but that the facts 
 dealt with in such so-called geometries are nothing but 
 algebraic or analytic or numeric facts expressed in 
 geometric language. If this opinion be correct, then 
 the extensive and growing application of geometric 
 language to analytical theories of higher dimensionality 
 indicates a high superiority of geometric over analytic 
 speech, and it becomes a problem for psychology to 
 ascertain whether the mentioned superiority is ade- 
 quate to explain the phenomenon in question and, if 
 it be adequate, to show wherein the superiority resides. 
 
 No doubt geometric language has a kind of esthetic 
 value that is lacking in the speech of analysis, for the 
 former, being transfused with the rich reminiscences 
 of sensibility, constantly awakens a delightful sense, 
 as thinking proceeds, of the colors, forms, and motions 
 of the sensuous world. This is an emotional value. No 
 doubt, too, geometric language has, in its distinctive 
 
 1 "Introduction to Higher Algebra," page 9.
 
 236 INTERPRETATIONS OF POSTULATE SYSTEMS 
 
 conciseness, an economic superiority, as when, for ex- 
 ample, one speaks of the points of the 4-dimensional 
 sphere, x 2 + y z + 2 2 + w 2 = r 2 , instead of speaking of the 
 various systems of values of the variables x, y, z, w that 
 satisfy the equation x* + . . . = r 2 . Additional advan- 
 tages of geometric over analytic speech are brought to 
 light in the following remarks by Poincare in his ad- 
 dress, "L'Avenir des Mathematiques " (1908): 
 
 "Un grand avantage de la geometrie, c'est precisement 
 que les sens y peuvent venir au secours de 1'intelligence, 
 et aident a deviner la route a suivre, et bien des esprits 
 preferent ramener les problemes d'analyse a la forme 
 geometrique. Malheureusement nos sens ne peuvent 
 nous mener bien loin, et ils nous faussent compagnie 
 des que nous voulons nous envoler en dehors des trois 
 dimensions classiques. Est-ce a dire que, sortis de ce 
 domaine restreint ou ils semblent vouloir nous enfermer, 
 nous ne devons plus compter que sur Fanalyse pure et 
 que toute geometrie a plus de trois dimensions est vaine 
 et sans objet? Dans la generation qui nous a precedes, 
 les plus grands maitres auraient repondu 'oui'; nous 
 sommes anjourd'hui tellement familiarises avec cette 
 notion que nous pouvons en parler, meme dans un cours 
 d'universite, sans provoquer trop d'etonnement. 
 
 "Mais a quoi peut-elle servir? II est aise de le voir: 
 elle nous donne d'abord un langage tres commode, qui 
 exprime en termes tres concis ce que le langage analytique 
 ordinaire dirait en phrases prolixes. De plus, ce langage 
 nous fait nommer du meme nom ce qui se ressemble et 
 affirme des analogies qu'il ne nous permet plus d'oublier. 
 II nous permet done cenore de nous diriger dans cet 
 espace qui est trop grand pour nous et que nous ne 
 pouvons voir, en nous rappelant sans cesse 1'espace 
 visible qui n'en est qu'une image imparfaite sans doute,
 
 INTERPRETATIONS OF POSTULATE SYSTEMS 237 
 
 mais que en est encore une image. Ici encore, comme 
 dans tous les exemples prc6dents, c'est 1'analogie avec 
 ce qui est simple qui nous permet de comprendre ce qui 
 est complexe." 
 
 The question of determining the comparative advan- 
 tages and disadvantages of the languages of geometry 
 and analysis is a very difficult one. It is evidently in 
 the main a psychological problem. It appears that no 
 serious and systematic attempt has ever been made to 
 solve it. Here, it seems, is an inviting opportunity for 
 a properly qualified psychologist, it being understood 
 that proper qualification would include a familiar knowl- 
 edge of the languages in question. The interest and 
 manifold utility of such a study are obvious. In the 
 course of such an investigation it would probably be 
 found that the superiority of geometric over analytic 
 speech is alone sufficient to account for the extensive 
 and rapidly increasing literature of what is called n- 
 dimensional geometry and that, in order to account for 
 the rise of such literature, it is therefore not necessary 
 to suppose the existence of n-dimensional spaces, S m , 
 the facts dealt with in the literature being, it could be 
 supposed, nothing but analytic facts expressed in geo- 
 metric language. 
 
 If such a result were found, would it follow that 5, 
 does not exist and that consequently n-dimensional geom- 
 etry must be nothing but analysis in geometric garb? 
 The answer is, no; for we may and we often do assign 
 an adequate cause of a phenomenon or event without 
 assigning the actual cause; and so the possibility would 
 remain that n-dimensional geometry has an appropriate 
 object or subject, namely, a space 5., which, though 
 without sensuous existence, yet has every kind of exist- 
 ence that may warrantably be attributed to ordinary
 
 238 INTERPRETATIONS OF POSTULATE SYSTEMS 
 
 geometric space, S s . For this last, though it is imitated 
 by (or imitates) sensible space, as an ideal model or 
 pattern is imitated by (or imitates) an imperfect copy, 
 it is not identical with it. 83 is not tactile space, nor 
 visual space, nor that of muscular sensation, nor the 
 space of any other sense, nor of all the senses it is 
 a conceptual space; and whether there are or are not 
 spaces $4, 85, etc., which have every sort of existence 
 rightly attributable to ordinary geometric space, S 3 , and 
 which differ from the latter only in the accident of 
 dimensionality and in the further accident that 6*3 ap- 
 pears in the r61e of an ideal prototype for an actual 
 sensible space, whilst 4, Ss, etc., do not present such 
 an appearance, that is the question which remains 
 for consideration. 
 
 A friend called at my study, and, finding me at work, 
 asked, "What are you doing?" My reply was: "I am 
 trying to tell how a world which probably does not exist 
 would look if it did." I had been at work on a chapter 
 of what is called 4-dimensional geometry. The incident 
 occurred ten years ago. The reply to my friend no 
 longer represents my conviction. Subsequent reflection 
 has convinced me that a space, S n , of four or more 
 dimensions has every kind of existence that may be 
 rightly ascribed to the space, Ss, of ordinary geometry. 
 
 The following paragraphs present merely in out- 
 line, for space is lacking for a minute presentation the 
 considerations that have led me to the conclusion above 
 stated. 
 
 Let sensible space be denoted by s-S 3 . We know that 
 sS 3 is discontinuous (in the mathematical sense of the 
 term) and that it is irrational. By saying that it is 
 irrational I mean what common experience as well as 
 the results of experimental psychology prove: that
 
 INTERPRETATIONS OF POSTULATE SYSTEMS 239 
 
 three sensible extensions of a same type, let us for 
 definiteness say three sensible lengths, /i, It, /,, may be 
 such that 
 
 (i) /! = **,* = /,,/!*/,. 
 
 Because sS 3 is thus irrational, because it is radically 
 infected with such contradictions as (i), this space is 
 not, and can not be, the subject or object of geometry, 
 for geometry is rational; it does not admit three such 
 extensions as those in (i). Not only do such contra- 
 dictions as (i) render s$ 3 impossible as a subject or 
 object of geometry, but, when encountered, they pro- 
 duce intolerable intellectual pain nay, if they could 
 not in somewise be transcended or overcome, they would 
 produce intellectual death, for, unless the law of non- 
 contradiction be preserved, concatentative thinking, the 
 life of intellect, must cease. In case of intellect we may 
 say that its struggle for existence is a struggle against 
 contradictions. But mere existence is not the character- 
 istic aim or aspiration of intellect. Its aim, its aspira- 
 tion, its joy, is compatibility. Indeed, intellect seems 
 to be controlled by two forces, a vis a tergo and a vis 
 a fronte: it is driven by discord and drawn by concord. 
 Intellect is a perpetual suitor, the object of the suit 
 being harmony, the beautiful daughter of the muses. 
 Its perpetual enemy is the immortal demon of discord, 
 ever being overcome, but never vanquished. 
 
 The victory of intellect over the characteristic con- 
 tradictions inherent in sS\ is won through what we call 
 conception. That is to say that either we find or else we 
 create another kind of space which, in order to distin- 
 guish it nominally and symbolically from sS 3 , we may 
 call conceptual space, and denote by cS t . Unlike sSi, 
 cSt is mathematically continuous and it is rational. Like 
 sS 3 . cS 3 is extended, it has room, but the room and
 
 240 INTERPRETATIONS OF POSTULATE SYSTEMS 
 
 the extensions are not sensible, they are conceptual; and 
 these extensions are such that, if l l} h, k be three amounts 
 of a given type of extension, as length, say, and if /i 
 = lz and lz = Is, then li = 1 3 . The space cS s , whether we 
 regard it as found by the intellect or as created by it, 
 is the subject or object of geometry. The current 
 vulgar confusion of sS 3 and cS 3 is doubtless due to the 
 fact that the former imitates the latter, or the latter 
 the former, as a sensible thing imitates its ideal, or as 
 an ideal (of a sensible thing) may be said to imitate 
 that thing; for it is precisely such alternative or mutual 
 imitation that enables us in a measure to control the 
 sensible world through its conceptual counterpart; and 
 so the exigencies of practical affairs and the fact that 
 reciprocally imitating things each reminds us of the 
 other cooperate to cause the sensible and the ideal, the 
 perceptual and the conceptual, to mingle constantly 
 and to become confused in that part of our mental life 
 that belongs to the sensible and the conceptual worlds 
 of three dimensions. Nevertheless, it is a fact to be 
 borne in mind that cS 3 is a subject or object of geom- 
 etry and that sS 3 is not. 
 
 Now, in order to construct the geometry in question, 
 we start with a suitable system of postulates or axioms 
 expressing certain relations among what are called the 
 elements of cS 3 . These postulates, together with such 
 propositions as are deducible from them, constitute the 
 geometry of cS 3 . I shall call it pure geometry, for a 
 reason to be given later, and shall denote it by pG 3 . 
 For definiteness let us refer to the famous and familiar 
 postulates of Hilbert. Any other system would do as 
 well. In the Hilbert system, the elements are called 
 points, lines, and planes. It is customary and just to 
 point out that the terms point, line, and plane are not
 
 INTERPRETATIONS OF POSTULATE SYSTEMS 24! 
 
 defined, and in critical commentary it is customary to 
 add: 
 
 (A) That, consequently, these terras may be taken to 
 be the names of any things whatsoever with the single 
 restriction that the things must satisfy the relations 
 stated by the postulates; 
 
 (B) That, when some admissible or possible interpre- 
 tation / has been given to the element-names, the postu- 
 lates P together with their deducible consequences C 
 constitute a definite theory or doctrine D; 
 
 (C) That replacing 7 by a different interpretation /' 
 produces no change whatever in D; 
 
 (D) That this invariant D is Euclidean geometry 
 of three dimensions; and 
 
 () That, if we are to speak of D as a theory or geom- 
 etry of a space, this space is nothing but the ensemble 
 of any kind of things that may serve for an interpreta- 
 tion of P. 
 
 That the view expressed in that so-called "critical 
 commentary" does not agree with common sense or 
 with traditional usage is obvious. That it will not bear 
 critical reflection can, I believe, be made evident. Let 
 us examine it a little. In order to avoid the prejudicial 
 associations of the terms point, line, and plane, we may 
 replace them by the terms "roint," "rine," and "rane," 
 so that the first postulate, or axiom, as Hilbert calls it, 
 will read: Two distinct roints always completely deter- 
 mine a rine. Or, better still, we may replace them by 
 the symbols e\ t c*, e\, so that the reading will be: Two 
 distinct e\s always completely determine an 4; and sim- 
 ilarly for the remaining postulates. 
 
 We will suppose the phrasing of (A), (B), (C), (D), 
 (), slightly changed to agree with the indicated new 
 phrasing of the postulates.
 
 242 INTERPRETATIONS OF POSTULATE SYSTEMS 
 
 It seems very probable that there are no termless 
 relations, i. e., relations that do not relate. It seems 
 very probable that a relation to be a relation must be 
 something actually connecting or subsisting between 
 at least two things or terms. A postulate expressing 
 a relation having terms is at all events ostensibly a 
 statement about the terms, and so it would seem that, 
 if the relation be supposed to be termless, the statement 
 ceases to be a statement about something and, in so 
 ceasing, ceases to be a statement that is true or else 
 is false. In discourse, it is true, there is frequent seem- 
 ing evidence that relations are often thought of as 
 termless, as when, for example, we speak of "a relation 
 and its terms"; but then we speak also of a neckless 
 fiddle without intending to imply by such locution 
 that there can be a fiddle without a neck. As, however, 
 we do not wish the validity of the following criticism to 
 depend on the denial of the possibility of termless rela- 
 tions, the discussion will be conducted in turn under 
 each of the alternative hypotheses: (hi) There are term- 
 less relations; (hz) There are no termless relations. We 
 will begin with 
 
 HYPOTHESIS fa 
 
 To (A) we make no objection. 
 
 Let us now suppose given to P some definite inter- 
 pretation /. Let us grant that we now have a definite 
 doctrine D, consisting of P and C. Either the things 
 which in I the e's denote have or they have not con- 
 tent, character, or meaning, m, in excess of the fact 
 that they satisfy P. 
 
 (i) Suppose they have not an excessive meaning m. 
 Denote the interpretation by /i and the doctrine by 
 D\. This DI is a queer doctrine. We may ask; what
 
 INTERPRETATIONS OF POSTULATE SYSTEMS 243 
 
 does D\ relate or refer to? That is, what is it a doctrine 
 of or about? The question seems to admit of no intel- 
 ligent or intelligible answer. For if the doctrine is 
 about something, it is, it seems natural to say, a doc- 
 trine about the /i-things (denoted by the e's); but, 
 by (i), these /i- things can not be characterized or in- 
 dicated otherwise than by the fact of their satisfying 
 P; and so it appears that such attempted natural an- 
 swer is reducible and equivalent to saying (a) that the 
 doctrine D\ is about the things which it is about. In 
 order not to be thus defeated, one might try to give an 
 informing answer by saying that D\ is a doctrine, not 
 about the /i- things, i. c., not about terms of relations, 
 but about the relations themselves. Such an answer is 
 suspicious on account of its unnaturalness, and it is 
 unnatural because the propositions of D\ wear the ap- 
 pearance of talking explicitly, not about relations, but 
 about terms of relations. Moreover, the answer is not 
 an informing one unless the relations that the doctrine 
 D\ is alleged to be about can be characterized otherwise 
 than by the fact of their being satisfied by the /i-things, 
 for, if they can not be otherwise characterized, evidently 
 by (i) the answer reduces to a form essentially like 
 that of (a). May not one escape by saying that the 
 relations which D\ is alleged to be a doctrine about are 
 just the relations expressed by the propositions in D\? 
 Does this attempted characterization make the answer 
 in question an informing one? If D\ is a doctrine about 
 the relations expressed by its propositions, then D\ says 
 or teaches something about these relations, for every 
 doctrine, if it be about something, must teach or say 
 something about that which it is about. In the case 
 supposed, what does D\ teach about the relations? 
 Nothing except that they are satisfied by the /i-things.
 
 244 INTERPRETATIONS OF POSTULATE SYSTEMS 
 
 In other words, what D\ teaches about the relations 
 expressed by its propositions is, by (i), that these are 
 satisfied by things that satisfy them a not very 
 nutritious lesson. It is possible to make a yet further 
 attempt so to indicate the relations as to render the 
 answer, that the doctrine D\ is about relations, an in- 
 forming one. It is known that P may receive an inter- 
 pretation /' different from I\ in that the /'-things do 
 not satisfy (i), but have an excessive content, character, 
 or meaning m. May we not give the required indica- 
 tion of the relations that D\ is said to be a doctrine 
 about by saying that they are relations satisfied by the 
 /'-things, the presence of the m involved making the 
 indication genuine or effective? It seems so at first. 
 But if again we ask what D\ teaches about the relations 
 thus indicated, we are led into the same difficulty as 
 above. Moreover, when we ask what D\ is a doctrine 
 about we expect an answer in terms in somewise men- 
 tioned or intimated in the D\ discourse, whilst in the 
 case in hand the required indication has depended on 
 m, a thing expressly excluded from the D\ discourse 
 by (i). 
 
 So, I repeat, D\ is a queer doctrine. 
 
 It must be added that if there be an interpretation /i, 
 it is unique of its kind; for if I\ were an interpreta- 
 tion satisfying (i), the /I'-things would have no excess- 
 ive meaning m; hence they would be simply the /i- 
 things, and I\ and I\ would be merely two symbols 
 for a same interpretation. 
 
 Accordingly, if there were an interpretation /i, but no 
 other, i. e., no interpretation / in which the /-things 
 did not satisfy (i), then (C) would be pointless; by (D), 
 DI would be Euclidean geometry of three dimensions; 
 and, by (), Euclidean space, if we wished to speak of
 
 INTERPRETATIONS OF POSTULATE SYSTEMS 245 
 
 D\ as a geometry of a space, would be the ensemble of 
 the /i-things; but, if we wished to characterize the I\- 
 things, the elements of Euclidean space, we could only 
 say that they are the things satisfying certain relations, 
 and, if we wished to indicate what relations, we could 
 only say, the relations satisfied by those things: a very 
 handsome circle. 
 
 In the following it will be seen that we are in fact not 
 imprisoned within that circle. 
 
 (2) Suppose the /-things of the above-assumed inter- 
 pretation 7 do not satisfy (i), but have an excessive 
 meaning m. (It is known that such an 7 is possible, 
 an example being found by taking for an e\ any ordered 
 triad of real numbers (*, y, z); for an e\ the ensemble 
 of triads satisfying any two distinct equations, 
 
 Biy+Ciz+ D! = o, A&+ B*y+C*+ A -o, 
 
 in neither of which the coefficients are all of them zero; 
 and for an e\ the ensemble of triads satisfying any one 
 such equation; the presence of m being evident in count- 
 less facts such as the fact, for example, that an e\ is 
 composed of numbers studied by school-boys or useful 
 in trade without regard to their ordered triadic rela- 
 tionship.) Denote the assumed definite interpretation 
 / by /i to remind us that it satisfies (2), and denote 
 the corresponding doctrine by D\. It is immediately 
 evident that there is an interpretation I\ and hence a 
 doctrine D\, for to obtain /i it is sufficient to abstract 
 from the m of the /j-things and to take the abstracts 
 (which plainly satisfy (i)) for Ii-things. 
 
 Are Di and A but two different symbols for one and 
 the same doctrine, as asserted by (C)? Evidently not. 
 For, in respect of DI, we can give an informing answer 
 to the question, what is A a doctrine about? Owing
 
 246 INTERPRETATIONS OF POSTULATE SYSTEMS 
 
 to the presence of the m in the /2-things, the answer 
 will be an informing one whether it be the natural answer 
 that A is a doctrine about the / 2 -things, or one of the 
 less natural answers, that D 2 is about the relations having 
 the /2-things for terms, that D 2 is about the relations 
 expressed by its propositions; whilst, as we have seen, 
 owing to the absence of m in the /i-things no such 
 answers were, in respect of D\, informing answers. 
 
 Can not (C) be saved by refusing to admit that there 
 is an interpretation /i, and so refusing to admit that 
 there is a Z>i? If there is no I\ and hence no D\, then 
 (C) is pointless unless there is an /a' and so a ZY in 
 which the / 2 '-things have an m' different from the m 
 of the /2-things. But if there is an / 2 ' thus different 
 from / 2 , then obviously /Y and Dz are, contrary to (C), 
 different doctrines, for they are respectively doctrines 
 about the /2-things and the /z'-things, and these thing- 
 systems are different by virtue of the difference of m 
 and m'. Now, it is known that there are two such differ- 
 ing interpretations /2 and / 2 '. For we may suppose / 2 
 to be the possible interpretation indicated in the above 
 parenthesis. And for -/ 2 ' we may take for e\ any ordered 
 triad of real numbers, except a specified triad (a, b, c), 
 and including ( f o> t ) ; f or ^ the ensemble of triads, 
 except (a, b, c), that satisfy any pair of equations, 
 
 ) + 2Bi(x - a) + 2Ci(y - b) 
 + 2Di(* -c)- Ai(a*+ 2 + c 1 ) = o, 
 
 2 ) + *Bi(x - a) + iCt(y - b) 
 + 2D 2 (z -c)- Ai(a*+ b*+c*) = o; 
 
 and for e t the ensemble satisfying any one such equation. 
 Just as when we compared D\ and D 2 , so here the con- 
 clusion is, that (C) is not valid.
 
 INTERPRETATIONS OF POSTULATE SYSTEMS 247 
 
 As a matter of fact mathematicians know that there 
 are possible infinitely many different interpretations of 
 P. It follows from the foregoing that there are corre- 
 spondingly many different doctrines. For the sake of 
 completeness we may include D\ among these, although, 
 for the purpose of answering a hypothetical objec- 
 tion, we momentarily supposed D\ to be disputable or 
 inadmissible. 
 
 Which one of the D's is (or should be called) Euclidean 
 geometry of three dimensions? I say which "one"? 
 For, as no two are identical, it would be willful courting 
 of ambiguity to allow that two or more of them should 
 be so denominated. Which one, then? Evidently not 
 one of the numerical ones, such, for example, as the 
 two above specified. For who has ever really believed 
 that a point, for example, is a triad of numbers? We 
 know that the Greeks did arrive at geometry; we know 
 that they did not arrive at it through numbers; and 
 we know that, in their thought, points were not number 
 triads, nor were planes and lines, for them, certain 
 ensembles of such triads. The confusion, if anybody 
 ever was really thus confused, is due to the modern 
 discovery that number triads and certain ensembles of 
 them happen to satisfy the same relations as the Greeks 
 found to be satisfied by what they called points, lines, 
 and planes. There is really no excuse for the confusion, 
 for, if Smith is taller than Brown, and yonder oak is 
 taller than yonder beech, it obviously does not follow 
 that Smith is the oak and Brown the beech. 
 
 Evidently Euclidean geometry of three dimensions 
 is that particular D for which the /-things are points, 
 lines, and planes. Here it is certain to be asked: 
 What, then, are points, lines, and planes? And the 
 asker will mean to imply that, in order to maintain the
 
 248 INTERPRETATIONS OF POSTULATE SYSTEMS 
 
 proposition, it is necessary to define these terms. The 
 proper reply is that is it not necessary to define them. 
 All that can be reasonably required is that they be 
 indicated, pointed out, sufficiently described for purposes 
 of recognition, for what we desire is to be able to say 
 or to recognize what Euclidean geometry is about. To 
 the question one might, not foolishly, reply that the 
 terms in question denote things that you and I, if we 
 have been disciplined in geometry, converse under- 
 standingly about when we converse about geometry, 
 though neither of us is able to say with absolute pre- 
 cision what the terms mean. For who does not know 
 that it is possible to write an intelligent and intelligible 
 discourse about cats, for example, without being able 
 to tell (for who can tell?) precisely what a cat is? And 
 if it be asked what the discourse is about, who does 
 not know that it is an informing answer to say that 
 it is about cats? It is informing because the term cat 
 has an excessive meaning, a meaning beyond that of 
 satisfying the propositions (or relations) of the discourse. 
 Just here it is well worth while to point out an im- 
 portant lesson in the procedure of Euclid. Against 
 Euclid it is often held as a reproach that he attempted 
 to define the element-names, point, line, and plane, 
 since no definitions of them could render any logical 
 service, that is, in the strictly deductive part of the 
 discourse. But to render no logical service is not to 
 render no service. And the lesson is that the definitions 
 in question, which it were perhaps better to call de- 
 scriptions, do render an extralogical service. They 
 render such service not only in guiding the imagination 
 in the matter of invention, but also in serving to indi- 
 cate, with a goodly degree of success, the excessive 
 meaning m of the elements denoted by the terms in
 
 INTERPRETATIONS OP POSTULATE SYSTEMS 249 
 
 question and in thus serving to make known what it is 
 that the deductive part of the discourse is about. One 
 should not forget that no discourse, no doctrine, not 
 even so-called pure logic itself, is exclusively deductive, 
 for in any doctrine there is reference, implicit or ex- 
 plicit, to something extradeductive or extralogical, 
 reference, that is, to something which the doctrine is 
 about. 
 
 Are the three Euclidean "definitions," thus viewed 
 as descriptions, sufficient or adequate to the service 
 that they are here viewed as rendering? If by suffi- 
 cient or adequate be meant exhaustive, the answer is, 
 of course, no. For we may confidently say that no 
 possible description, that is, no description involving 
 only a finite number of words, can exhaust the meaning 
 of a system of terms except, possibly, in the special 
 case where these have no meaning beyond what they 
 must have in order merely to satisfy a finite number of 
 postulates. But exhaustive is not what is meant by 
 adequate. To employ a previous illustration, it is not 
 necessary to give or to attempt an exhaustive descrip- 
 tion of "cat" in order to tell adequately what it is 
 that a discourse ostensibly about cats is ostensibly about. 
 It is a question of intent. A description is nearly, if 
 not quite, adequate if it enables us to avoid thinking 
 that terms are intended to denote what they are not 
 intended to denote. And, whilst we may not admit 
 that the three Euclidean "descriptions" are the best that 
 can be invented for the purpose, yet we must allow 
 that they have long served the end in question pretty 
 effectively and that they are qualified to continue such 
 service. They have been and they are good enough, 
 for example, to save us from thinking that the things 
 which in geometry have been denoted by the terms,
 
 250 INTERPRETATIONS OF POSTULATE SYSTEMS 
 
 points, lines, and planes, are identical with number 
 triads, etc. The open secret of their thus saving us is 
 no doubt in their causing us to think of points, lines, 
 and planes in terms of, or in essential connection with, 
 what we know as extension, whilst numbers and number 
 ensembles are not things naturally so conceived. For 
 evidently the notions of "length" and "breadth" in- 
 volved in the Euclidean "descriptions" are not metric 
 in meaning; they do not signify definite or numeric 
 quantities or amounts of something (as when we say 
 the length of this or that thing is so and so much); 
 but plainly they are generic notions connoting extension. 
 It is safe to say that a mind devoid of the concept or 
 the sense of extension could not know what things the 
 "descriptions" aim at describing. It is true that 
 Euclid's "description" of a point as "that which has 
 no part" implies a denial of extension, but the denial 
 is one of extension, and, in its contextual atmosphere, 
 it is felt to be essential to an adequate indication of 
 what is meant by point. On the other hand, if one 
 were (and how unnatural it would be!) to describe an 
 ordered triad of numbers as "that which has no part," 
 it would be immediately necessary to explain away the 
 seeming falsity of the description by saying that the 
 triad is not the ordered multiplicity (of three numbers) 
 as a multiplicity, but is merely the uniphase of the 
 multiplicity, and that it is this uniphase which has no 
 part. If, next, we were to say that thus extension is 
 denied to the uniphase, the statement, though true, 
 would be felt to be inessential to an adequate indica- 
 tion of what is meant by a triad of numbers. Such 
 felt difference is alone sufficient to make any one pause 
 who is disposed to adopt the current creed that a point 
 is nothing but an ordered triad of numbers. It is not
 
 INTERPRETATIONS OF POSTULATE SYSTEMS 251 
 
 contended that a point is composed of extension; the 
 contention is that point and extension are so connected 
 that a mind devoid of the latter notion would be devoid 
 of the former, just as a mind devoid of the notion of 
 variable or variation would be devoid of the notion 
 of constant, though a constant is not a thing consisting 
 of variation; just as the notion of limit would not be 
 intelligible except for the notion of something that may 
 have a limit, though the limit is not composed of it; 
 and just as an instant, which is not composed of time, 
 would not be intelligible except for the notion of time. 
 In a discussion of such matters it is foolish and futile 
 to talk about "proofs." The question, as said, is one 
 of intent; it is a question of self -veracity, of getting 
 aware of and owning what it is that we mean by the 
 terms and symbols of our discourse. If, despite the 
 Euclidean "descriptions" and despite any and all others 
 that may supplement or supplace them, one fails to see 
 that extension is essentially involved in the meaning that 
 the terms points, lines, and planes, are intended to have, 
 the failure will be because "as the eyes of bats are 
 to the blaze of day, so is the reason in our soul to the 
 things which are by nature most evident of all." Noth- 
 ing is more evident than that there is something that 
 is called extension. We have but to open our eyes to 
 get aware that we are beholding an expanse, something 
 extended. We see things as extended: things as ex- 
 tended are revealed to the tactile sense; a region or 
 room involving extension is a datum of the muscular 
 sensations connected with our bodily movements; 
 and so on. So much is certain. But it is said and 
 rightly said that these are sensible things; that the 
 extension they are revealed as having is sensibU exten- 
 sion; that these sensibles are infected with contra-
 
 252 INTERPRETATIONS OF POSTULATE SYSTEMS 
 
 diction, above noted, revealed in common experience, 
 and confirmed by the psychophysical law of Weber and 
 Fechner; that geometry is free from contradiction; 
 that, therefore, geometry is not a doctrine about these 
 sensibles; that among these sensibles are not the things 
 which in geometry are denoted by the terms point, 
 line, and plane; and that, if these terms imply or con- 
 note extension, as asserted, this extension is not sensible 
 extension. Granted. The "connoted extension" is not 
 sensible, it is conceptual. How know, however, that 
 there is conceptual extension? The answer is, by 
 arriving at it. (We need not here debate whether such 
 "arriving" is best called creating or is best called find- 
 ing.) But how does the mind arrive at it? By doing 
 certain things to the sensibles, the raw material of mental 
 architecture. What things? An exhaustive answer is 
 unnecessary perhaps impossible. The things are of 
 two sorts: the mind gives to the sensibles; it takes 
 away from them. Consider for example a sensible 
 line. From it the conceptualizing intellect takes away 
 (abstracts from, disregards) certain things that the 
 sensible in question has or may have, as color, weight, 
 temperature, etc., including part of the extension, thus, 
 I mean, narrowing and thinning away all breadth and 
 thickness. What of the extension called length? Have 
 the narrowing and thinning taken it away? It was not 
 so intended, the opposite was intended. Yet no sensible 
 length (extension) remains. Does the narrowing and 
 thinning involve shortening? We are absolutely certain 
 that it does not. What, then, is it that has happened? 
 Evidently that, by the indicated taking away, the mind 
 has arrived at insensible length, one kind of insensible 
 extension, that is, at conceptual length, one kind of 
 conceptual extension. A stretch, we are sure, remains,
 
 INTERPRETATIONS OF POSTULATE SYSTEMS 253 
 
 but it is not a sensible stretch. The extension thus 
 arrived at is yet not the extension connoted by or in- 
 volved in the things that geometry is about, for in the 
 taking-away process of arriving at it there is nothing 
 to disinfect it of the contradictions inherent in the 
 sensible with which we started. It remains, then, to 
 follow the indicated process of taking away by a process 
 of giving, that is to say, it remains to endow the con- 
 ceptual extension (arrived at) with continuity so as to 
 render it free from the mentioned contradictions. This 
 done, the kind of extension meant in ordinary geom- 
 etry or ordinary geometric space is arrived at. Such 
 is, in kind, the conceptual extension that, it is here 
 held, is essential to what the geometric terms, point, 
 line, plane, are intended to mean. Without further 
 talk we may say that such extension is essential in the 
 conceptual space that, we may say, ordinary Euclidean 
 geometry is about in being about the elements of the 
 space. 
 
 If we denote this conceptual space by c5 to distin- 
 guish it from (non-geometrizable) sensible space J$i, 
 then the geometry of cSi, if constructed by means of 
 postulates P making no indispensable use of algebraic 
 analysis, may be called pure geometry, pG*. If, as in 
 the Cartesian method, we use ordered number triads, 
 etc., as we may use them, not to be points, etc., but to 
 represent points, etc., then we get analytical geometry, 
 aGi, of cSi. On the other hand, if, as we may, we inter- 
 pret the P by allowing the /-things to be number triads, 
 etc., as above indicated, the resulting doctrine is, not 
 geometry, but a pure algebra or analysis, pA\. If we 
 use points, etc., not to be, but to represent, number 
 triads, etc., and so employ geometric language in con- 
 structing pAi, we get by this kind of anti-Cartesian
 
 254 INTERPRETATIONS OF POSTULATE SYSTEMS 
 
 procedure, not a geometry, but geometrical analysis, 
 
 gAz. 
 
 HYPOTHESIS hi 
 
 It is unnecessary to say anything and is not worth 
 while to say much under this hypothesis. For if the 
 e's in P do not denote something, then as the relations 
 (if there be any) are termless, the doctrine D (if there 
 be one) is not about anything, unless about the relations, 
 but about these it says nothing, for, if it says aught 
 about them, what it says is that they are satisfied by 
 certain terms whose presence in the discourse is excluded 
 by hi. We may profitably say, however, that, in the 
 case supposed where the e's do not denote something 
 but are merely uninterpreted variables ready, so to 
 speak, to denote something in this case we may say 
 that, though there is no doctrine D, there is a doctrinal 
 function, A (ei, e 2 , e z ). Then we should add that the 
 doctrines that do arise from actualized possible interpre- 
 tations of the e's are so many values of A. This func- 
 tion A, if we give some warning mark as A 7 to its 
 symbol, may be further conveniently employed in talk- 
 ing about an ambiguous one of the doctrines in question, 
 i. e., about "any value," an ambiguous value, of the 
 function. As above argued, these values, these doctrines 
 are identical in form, they are isomorphic, all of them 
 having the form of A, but no two of them are the same 
 in respect of content, reference, or meaning. In this 
 conclusion, analysis, happily, agrees with traditional 
 usage, intuition, and common sense. 
 
 CONCLUDING CONSIDERATIONS 
 
 We are, I believe, now prepared to answer definitively 
 the long- vexed question: What, if any, sort of existence 
 have point spaces of four or more dimensions?
 
 INTERPRETATIONS OP POSTULATE SYSTEMS 255 
 
 As we have seen, the conceptual space cS of ordinary 
 geometry is an affair involving extension; it is a triply 
 extended conceptual spread or expanse: three independ- 
 ent linear extensions in it may be chosen; these suffice 
 to determine all the others. So much is as certain as 
 anything can be. It is equally certain that we can, for 
 we do without meeting contradiction, by means of postu- 
 lates or otherwise, conceive (not perceive or imagine) a 
 quadruply extended spread or expanse, one, that is, in 
 which it is possible to choose four independent linear 
 extensions, and then by reference to these to determine 
 all the rest There is not the slightest difference in kind 
 among the four independents and not the slightest differ- 
 ence between any three of these and the three of cSi. 
 The spread or expanse thus set up is a c5 4 ; like cSi, it 
 is purely conceptual; the extension it involves is, in kind, 
 identical with that of cS 3 ', it contains spreads of the 
 type of c.Sa as elements just exactly as a cS* contains 
 planes or spreads of type cS t as elements; it differs 
 not at all from cS 3 except in being one degree higher 
 in respect of dimensionality. In a word, cS* (and, of 
 course, cS&, and so on) has the same kind of existence as 
 cSz. It is true that cSi is "imitated" by our sensible 
 space sS), whilst there is no sSt thus imitating cS t . 
 But this writing is not intended for one who is capable 
 of thinking that the mentioned sensible imitation or 
 instability of cSi confers upon the latter a new or 
 peculiar kind of existence. 
 
 But one thing remains to be said, and it is impor- 
 tant. If one denies that cS a has the conceptually exten- 
 sional existence, above alleged, then, of course, the 
 denial extends also to cS*, and the two spaces are, in 
 respect of existence, still on a level. If the denier then 
 asserts, and such is the alternative, that cSt is only the
 
 256 INTERPRETATIONS OF POSTULATE SYSTEMS 
 
 ensemble of number triads, etc., as above explained, 
 then, if he be right, cS* is only, but equally, the ensemble 
 of ordered quatrains, etc., of numbers. Here, again, 
 cSz and cSi have precisely the same kind of existence. 
 The conclusion is that hyperspaces have every kind of 
 existence that may be warrantably attributed to the space 
 of ordinary geometry.
 
 MATHEMATICAL PRODUCTIVITY IN THE 
 UNITED STATES 1 
 
 BOTH on its own account and in its relation to the 
 general question of research, this subject is naturally 
 interesting to the specialists immediately concerned; 
 and it seems a happy augury that not long ago several 
 western college and university presidents, in convention, 
 considered the problem how to secure that officers of 
 instruction shall become, in addition, investigators and 
 producers. A complete solution will be found when, 
 and only when, the nature and importance of the prob- 
 lem shall be appreciated, not only by scientific special- 
 ists and university presidents, but by educators and the 
 educated public in general, and this condition will be 
 satisfied in proportion as the interdependence of all 
 grades and varieties of educational and scientific activity 
 shall come to be generally understood, and especially 
 in proportion as we learn to value the things of mind, 
 not merely for their utility, but for their spiritual worth, 
 and to seek, as a community, in addition to comfort 
 and happiness, the glory of the sublimer forms of knowl- 
 edge and intellectual achievement. 
 
 Except when the contrary may be indicated or clearly 
 implied, the discussion will confine itself to pure mathe- 
 matics as distinguished from applied mathematics, such 
 as mechanics and mathematical physics. 
 
 And first as to the significance of terms. According 
 to the usage that has long prevailed among foreign 
 
 1 Printed in the Educational Revitv, November, 190*.
 
 258 MATHEMATICAL PRODUCTIVITY 
 
 mathematicians, and which, during the last quarter of 
 a century, has come to prevail also in this country, the 
 term mathematical productivity is restricted to dis- 
 covery, successful research, extension in some sense of 
 the boundaries of mathematical knowledge; and such 
 productive activity includes and ranges thru the estab- 
 lishment of important new theorems, the critical ground- 
 ing of classical doctrines, the discovery or invention of 
 new methods of attack, and, in its highest form, the 
 opening and exploration of new domains. 
 
 Not only does the term productivity now signify here 
 what it signifies abroad, but the prevailing standards in 
 the United States agree with those of Europe. It is 
 not meant that the best work in this country is yet 
 equal to the very best of the European, nor that the 
 averages coincide, but that the Americans judge home 
 and foreign products by the same canons of value, and 
 that these are as rigorous as the French, German, or 
 British rules of criticism. 
 
 Time was when productivity meant, in the United 
 States, the writing and publishing of college text-books in 
 algebra, geometry, trigonometry, analytical geometry 
 and the calculus, not to mention arithmetic. That time 
 has gone by. At present the term neither signifies such 
 work nor, except in rare instances, includes it. With 
 reverence for the olden time when the college professor, 
 especially in comparison with the average of his suc- 
 cessors of the present time, was apt to be a man of 
 general attainments and diversified learning, it may be 
 said that, judged by modern standards of specialized 
 scholarship, the special attainments of American mathe- 
 maticians previous to a generation ago, except in the case 
 of a few illustrious men, were exceedingly meager 
 a fact which, as it could hardly have been suspected
 
 MA Till-! MAT If A I. PRODUCTIVITY 259 
 
 owing to their isolation by the mathematicians them- 
 selves, was even less known to their colleagues in other 
 branches of learning or to the educated public in general. 
 The writer of a college text-book in mathematics was 
 naturally regarded as a great mathematician, despite 
 the circumstance that, in general, the book contained 
 the sum of the author's knowledge of the subject 
 treated, much more than the average teacher's knowl- 
 edge, and quite as much as the most capable youth was 
 expected to master under the most favoring conditions. 
 In general, neither author nor teacher nor pupil had 
 knowledge of the fact that their most advanced instruc- 
 tion dealt only with the rudiments and often even with 
 these in an obsolete or obsolescent manner; in general, 
 there was no suspicion that, on the other side of the 
 Atlantic, mathematics was a vast and growing science, 
 much less that it was developing so rapidly and in so 
 manifold a manner that the greatest mathematical 
 genius found it necessary to specialize, even in his own 
 domain. As a natural consequence American mathe- 
 matical instruction depended almost exclusively on the 
 use of text-books. What was thus at first a necessity 
 became a tradition, and, accordingly, in striking con- 
 trast with French and German practice in schools of 
 corresponding grade, American college and undergraduate 
 university instruction in mathematics, with some excep- 
 tions, of which Harvard is the most notable, continues 
 still to make the text-book the basis of instruction, even 
 where it is not regarded as a sine qua turn of the classroom. 
 One result of this practice and tradition is that the text- 
 book, which early assumed in the public estimation what 
 now seems to be an exaggerated importance, continues 
 still to be often regarded as an indispensable instrument 
 for the systematic impartation of knowledge.
 
 260 MATHEMATICAL PRODUCTIVITY 
 
 The text-book method in undergraduate mathematical 
 instruction undoubtedly has some peculiar merits and 
 is recommended by considerations of weight. I am not 
 about to advocate its abandonment. That question, 
 moreover^ is in a sense alien to the subject here under 
 discussion. But I may say in passing that the notion, 
 so firmly lodged in many of our colleges and still more 
 firmly established in the mind of the general educated 
 public, that the text-book is indispensable, is an erro- 
 neous one. That, as already said, has been amply proved 
 both here and abroad, at Harvard, in some American 
 normal schools, and in the schools of Germany and 
 France, by the best, if not the only, method available 
 for settling such questions, namely, by trial. And I 
 could wish it were better known, particularly to teachers 
 in secondary schools, that some of the ablest mathe- 
 maticians and teachers of mathematics deprecate, not 
 the use of the text-book, for that use has been suffi- 
 ciently justified by the practice of most eminent and 
 effective teachers, but our traditional dependence upon 
 it, believing that this- dependence often hampers the 
 competent teacher's freedom and so prevents a full 
 manifestation of the proper life of the subject. For 
 the subject has indeed a deep and serene and even a 
 joyous life, and, contrary to popular feeling, it is capable 
 of being so interpreted and administered as to have, 
 not merely for the few, but for the many, for the 
 majority indeed of those who find their way to college, 
 not only the highest disciplinary value, which is gen- 
 erally conceded, but a wonderful quickening power and 
 inspiration as well. And it may very well be that the 
 very great, tho not generally suspected, human signifi- 
 cance and cultural value of mathematics, the fact that 
 not merely in its elements it is highly useful and appli-
 
 MATHEMATICAL PRODUCTIVITY 26 X 
 
 cable, but that throughout the entire immensity and 
 wondrous complex of its development it is informed 
 with beauty, being sustained indeed by artistic interest, 
 it may indeed be that all this will in some larger 
 measure come to be felt and understood when teaching 
 shall depend less on the text-book, at best a relatively 
 dead thing, tending to bear the spirit of instruction 
 down, and shall instead be more by living men, speak- 
 ing immediately to living men, out of masterful knowl- 
 edge of their science and with a clear perception of its 
 spiritual significance and worth. 
 
 To return from this digression, it is fully recognized 
 by all that, as undergraduate mathematical instruction 
 is now carried on in our country, the text-book writer 
 is a pretty valuable citizen, nor is there any disposition 
 to detract from the dignity of his activity. Indeed, 
 though some of the older books compare favorably in 
 important respects with the best of the new, it may be 
 said that, in general, to write a highly acceptable mathe- 
 matical book for college use requires to-day an order 
 of attainment far superior to that which was sufficient 
 even a score or two of years ago. The training and 
 scholarship which such work presupposes are, in re- 
 spect to amount and more especially in respect to qual- 
 ity, not only relatively great, but very considerable 
 absolutely. The author of the kind of book in question 
 -and happily there is no lack of competition in this 
 field of writing may be certain of intelligent, if not 
 always generous, appreciation; he may be able thereby 
 to lengthen his purse, his book stands some chance of 
 being briefly noticed in reputable journals, and he may 
 even gain local fame, but, however excellent the quality 
 of his workmanship, it will seldom secure him a place 
 in the ranks of the investigator or producer. The ser-
 
 262 MATHEMATICAL PRODUCTIVITY 
 
 vice of the text-book writer has not been degraded. It 
 receives a more discriminating appreciation than ever 
 before. It is merely that this kind of work has received 
 a more critical appraisement. Not a few mathematicians 
 decline to undertake the work of text-book writing, for 
 the reason that they do not wish to be classed as text- 
 book authors. If one who has published several original 
 papers yields to the temptation to write a book for 
 college use, the chances are his reputation will suffer 
 loss rather than gain. Possibly such ought not to be 
 the case, but nevertheless it is the case. 
 
 In regard to mathematical productivity proper, it is 
 probably true that during the last twenty-five years, 
 especially during the latter half of this period, there has 
 been greater improvement in research work and output 
 in this country than elsewhere in the world. Such 
 sweeping statements are of course hazardous, and I 
 make this one subject to correction. At all events, 
 the gain in question has been great and is full of prom- 
 ise. Just about twenty-five years ago the American 
 Journal oj Mathematics was founded at the Johns Hopkins 
 University, where it is still published as a quarterly. 
 Previous to that time two or three attempts had been 
 made to publish journals of mathematics in this country, 
 but they met with little success, and are now scarcely 
 remembered. The American Journal of Mathematics, in 
 the beginning, sought contributions from abroad, and 
 reference to the early volumes will show that these are 
 to a considerable extent occupied by foreign products. 
 A second journal, the Annals of Mathematics, was founded 
 in 1884, and published at the University of Virginia. 
 This journal, a quarterly, still flourishes, being now 
 published at Cambridge, Mass., under the auspices of 
 Harvard University. In 1888 was founded the New
 
 MATHEMATICAL PRODUCTIVITY 263 
 
 York Mathematical Club, which soon became the New 
 York Mathematical Society and began the publication 
 of a monthly Bulletin. In 1894 this society became the 
 American Mathematical Society which now has a 
 membership of nearly four hundred, including, with few 
 exceptions, every American mathematician of standing, 
 besides some members from Canada, England, and the 
 Continent. This society has a rapidly growing library, 
 and publishes two journals, the Bulletin, already men- 
 tioned, and the Transactions, a quarterly journal, re- 
 cently founded, and devoted to the publication of the 
 more important results of research. The four journals 
 named are, all of them, of good standing and exchange 
 with some of the best British and Continental journals. 
 Not by any means all the members of the society are 
 producing mathematicians, but a large precentage of 
 them are sufficiently interested to attend one or more 
 meetings of the society each year. These meetings are 
 bi-monthly meetings, held in New York, and a summer 
 meeting at a place chosen from year to year. To meet 
 growing demands, a Chicago section has been organized, 
 which holds regular meetings in that city, and a second 
 section on the Pacific Coast, whose business will be 
 conducted perhaps at San Francisco. These sections 
 report to the society proper, which has its offices in 
 New York City. 
 
 At these meetings there are presented annually several 
 scores of papers, a percentage of which deal with applied 
 mathematics. Of course not all of these papers are 
 important, but some of them possess very considerable, 
 a few of them distinctly great, value, and a large major- 
 ity of them fall properly within the category of original 
 investigation as defined. In addition to such more 
 regular contributions, a considerable number of mathe-
 
 264 MATHEMATICAL PRODUCTIVITY 
 
 matical papers are annually presented before other 
 American scientific organizations, as, for example, before 
 Section A of the American Association for the Advance- 
 ment of Science. The majority of all these articles are 
 found to be available for publication, and the result is 
 that, altho foreign contributions are no longer invited 
 as formerly, and few of them received, the four journals 
 above mentioned are, nevertheless, taxed beyond their 
 capacity; and, for want of room, papers are sometimes 
 rejected by the American journals which, if produced 
 abroad, would probably be published there, where the 
 facilities for publication are ampler. In fact, the number 
 of American memoirs published abroad exceeds perhaps 
 the number of foreign contributions published here. 
 
 It is greatly to be regretted that our facilities for 
 publication, tho recently so greatly enhanced, are still 
 distinctly inadequate. For mathematicians are also 
 men, and, as such, one of their most powerful incentives 
 to research is the prospect of the recognition that comes 
 from having the results of their labors properly placed 
 before the scientific world. 
 
 While the picture "thus drawn of American mathe- 
 matical activity is a pleasing one and is full of encour- 
 agement and hope, still we must not disguise from 
 ourselves the fact that, in view of the vast extent and 
 resources of our country and of the large number of 
 professional mathematicians connected with our numer- 
 ous colleges and universities, the amount and the average 
 quality of the American mathematical output are not 
 only distinctly inferior to that of the more scientific 
 countries of Europe, for which, not without some justice 
 and plausibility, we are wont to plead our youth in 
 defense and explanation, but this average and amount 
 are by no means a measure of our native ability nor in
 
 MATHEMATICAL PRODUCTIVITY 265 
 
 keeping with our achievements in some other scarcely 
 worthier, if less ethereal, domains. 
 
 The reasons for this state of case are not far to seek, 
 and come readily to light on a minuter study of the 
 necessary and sufficient conditions for the vigorous 
 prosecution of mathematical research. 
 
 We may recall the philosopher's insight that "there 
 is but one poet and that is Deity." The poet is indeed 
 born, we all agree; and it is equally, if not so obviously, 
 true that the great mathematician or financier or admin- 
 istrator is born. But the mathematician is not born 
 trained or born with knowledge of the state of the 
 science, and hence it goes without saying that to native 
 ability, which we presuppose throughout as absolutely 
 essential and which is not so rare as is often thought, 
 training must be superadded, years of austere training 
 under, or still better, in co-operation with, competent 
 masters in a suitable atmosphere. Formerly, it was in 
 general necessary to seek such training abroad; that 
 is no longer the case, now that our better universities 
 are manned with scholars of the best American and 
 European training. Indeed the mathematical doctorate 
 of a few of our own institutions now represents quite 
 as much as, if not more than, the average German 
 doctorate, though less, we must still confess, than the 
 French, which probably has the highest significance of 
 any in the world. Several of the most highly productive 
 mathematicians in the country have not received for- 
 eign training, while a still larger number of non-pro- 
 ducers studied abroad for years a fact showing that 
 such training is neither a necessary nor a sufficient 
 condition. It is not intended to depreciate the absolute 
 value of foreign training, but only its relative value 
 its value as compared with that of the best which our
 
 266 MATHEMATICAL PRODUCTIVITY 
 
 own country now affords. It is still desirable, when 
 not too inconvenient, to spend a year in the atmosphere 
 of foreign universities, and many avail themselves of 
 the opportunity, largely for the sake of the prestige 
 which, owing partly to a tradition, it still affords in 
 many American communities. It is, of course, a mere 
 truism to say that training, though necessary, is not suf- 
 ficient. Unless there be the gift of originality, training 
 can at best result in receptive and critical scholarship, 
 but not in productive power. 
 
 There are in our country a goodly number of men 
 having the requisite ability and training, who, never- 
 theless, produce but little or nothing at all a fact 
 to be accounted for by the absence in their case of other 
 essential conditions. 
 
 In some cases library facilities are lacking. Mathe- 
 matical science is a growth. The new rises out of the 
 old, whence the necessity that the investigator have at 
 hand the major part at least of the literature of his 
 subject from the earliest times. Even more exacting, 
 if possible, is the necessity of having ready access to 
 the leading journals of England, Germany, France, and 
 Italy, besides those of America. One takes special 
 pleasure in mentioning Italy, because she has been 
 recently making rapid advances and in two important 
 directions, the geometry of hyperspace and mathemat- 
 ical logic, the ontology of pure thought, she comes well- 
 nigh leading the van. Of journals there are at least 
 a dozen which are absolutely indispensable to the re- 
 search worker and as many more that are highly desir- 
 able. In addition, the producing mathematician will 
 not infrequently have occasion to refer to memoirs 
 which, because of their length or for other reasons, have 
 not appeared in the journals, and are to be found only
 
 MATHEMATICAL PRODUCTIVITY 267 
 
 in the proceedings of the leading general scientific and 
 philosophical societies of Europe. The lack of such 
 facilities, which in some cases a few hundred and in 
 others a few thousand dollars would suffice to make good, 
 is in itself sufficient to explain the non-productivity 
 of not a few American mathematicians. 
 
 Again, there are cases where able men have not the 
 necessary leisure to engage successfully in investiga- 
 tion. Our universities are for the most part so organ- 
 ized that the energies of scientific men are largely 
 expended in undergraduate teaching and in adminis- 
 trative work. We, as a people, have yet to learn that 
 the value of a professor to a community can be rightly 
 estimated, not by counting the number of hours he 
 actually stands before his classes, but rather, if we must 
 count at all, by reckoning the number of hours devoted 
 to the preparation of his lectures, and more particularly 
 by the fruit of quiet study and research. In Germany 
 the ordinary professor lectures from four to six hours a 
 week, to which if we add in some cases two hours 
 Seminar iibungcn, we have a total of six to eight hours 
 of presence in the lecture room. In France the pro- 
 fessor is expected to give one course of lectures. These 
 take place twice a week and last from one to one and a 
 half hours. To this duty should be added that of 
 holding a large number of examinations a rather 
 wearisome service from which the German escapes. 
 When we contrast this with the ten to fifteen and often 
 even twenty or more hours of actual teaching demanded 
 of the American professor, to say nothing of faculty 
 meetings, committee meetings, and the multitudinous 
 examinations, and when we do not fail to reflect that 
 ten hours are much more than twice five in their tax 
 upon energy, it is little wonder that in productivity our
 
 268 MATHEMATICAL PRODUCTIVITY 
 
 most brilliant men are often so greatly outclassed by 
 their foreign competitors. Moreover ', "our universities 
 are at present, for the first two years, gymnasia and 
 lycees, and our professors are accordingly obliged to 
 devote themselves largely to what is properly secondary 
 instruction" a kind of work which, however worthy, 
 important, and necessary, has the effect, not merely of 
 drawing off the energy in non-productive channels, but 
 also eventually of forming and hardening the mind 
 about a relatively small group of simpler ideas. 
 
 Again, scientific activity is not infrequently rendered 
 impossible by the amount of administrative work which 
 professors of notable administrative ability are called 
 upon to perform. Indeed "the problem presses for 
 solution, how to retain the many peculiar excellences 
 of our college and university life and at the same time 
 to create for certain men of talent and training a suit- 
 able environment for the highest scientific activity." 
 
 Once more, it is very desirable, indeed it is really 
 necessary, for men working in a branch of science to 
 attend the meetings of scientific bodies, in order to 
 meet their fellow-men, to take counsel of them, to cre- 
 ate and share in a wholesome esprit de corps, to catch 
 the inspiration and enthusiasm, and to gain the sus- 
 taining impulses which can come only from personal 
 contact and co-operation. But our country is so vast, 
 the distances so long, and traveling so expensive, that 
 many mathematicians, owing to smallness of income, 
 find themselves hopelessly condemned to a life of iso- 
 lation, of which the result is a loss first of interest and 
 then of power. It is in vain that one counsels such 
 men to wake up and be strong and active, for their 
 state of inactivity is less a defect of will than an effect 
 of circumstances.
 
 MATHEMATICAL PRODUCTIVITY 269 
 
 There is a second phase of this question of remunera- 
 tion which is, happily, beginning to attract attention 
 and to receive consideration in university circles. I 
 refer to the proposition that a wise economy will pro- 
 vide, for university service, remuneration, not such as 
 would attract men whose first ambition is to acquire 
 the ease that wealth is supposed to afford, but such as 
 will not, by its inadequacy to the reasonable demands 
 of modern social life, deter men of ability and predilec- 
 tion for scientific pursuits from entering upon them. 
 I know personally of six young men, not all of them 
 mathematicians, who have sufficiently demonstrated 
 that they possess such ability and predilection, five of 
 whom have recently relinquished the pursuit of science 
 and the fifth of whom told me only yesterday that 
 he seriously contemplates doing so, all of them, for 
 the reason that, as they allege, the university career 
 furnishes either not at all, or too tardily, a financial 
 competence and consequent relief from practical condem- 
 nation to celibacy. It matters little whether they be 
 mistaken to a degree or not, so long as the contrary 
 conviction determines choice. There is, indeed, more 
 than a bare suspicion that for reasons akin to those 
 actuating in the cases cited, the university career, 
 particularly in case of the more abstract sciences, such 
 as pure mathematics, whose doctrines have little or no 
 market value, fails to attract a due proportion of the 
 best intellects of the country. For it should be under- 
 stood that successful investigation in such sciences 
 demands men of intellectual resource, of power, of per- 
 sistence, in a word, men of strenuosity of life and char- 
 acter. Such men are indeed the intellectual peers of 
 the great financier, or soldier, or statesman, or admin- 
 istrator, and they are aware of it; so that if too many
 
 270 MATHEMATICAL PRODUCTIVITY 
 
 such men are not to be drawn away from scientific fields 
 by the prospect of achieving elsewhere not only fame 
 but fortune also, it stands to reason that the university 
 career must promise at least a competence and the 
 peace of mind it brings. That such is the case, and that 
 the future will condemn the present for a too tardy 
 recognition of the fact, is a matter which can hardly 
 admit of doubt. 
 
 That the conditions above indicated are those which 
 determine the matter of mathematical productivity is a 
 proposition which not only commends itself a priori 
 to the reason, but is justified also a posteriori by experi- 
 ence, for statistics show that those institutions, both 
 foreign and domestic, where such productivity has 
 flourished best are also those where the conditions named 
 are most fully satisfied, and that where one, at least, 
 of the conditions is not fulfilled, there investigation 
 proceeds but feebly or is wholly wanting. 
 
 It remains to mention another condition which in a 
 sense includes all others, and whose fulfillment will come 
 gradually as at once the cause and the effect of the 
 fulfillment of all others. I mean, of course, a public 
 sentiment which will demand, because it has learned 
 to appreciate, knowledge, not merely because of its 
 applications and utility, but for its beauty, as one appre- 
 ciates the moon and the stars without regard to their 
 aid in navigation a public sentiment that shall seek 
 every provision and regard as sacred every instrumental- 
 ity for the advancement and ministration of knowledge, 
 not only as a means to happiness, but as a glory, for 
 its own sake, as a self-justifying realization of the dis- 
 tinctive ambition of man, to understand the universe 
 in which he lives and the wondrous possibilities of the 
 Reason unto which it constantly makes appeal.
 
 MATHEMATICS > 
 
 IN the early part of the last century a philosophic 
 French mathematician, addressing himself to the ques- 
 tion of the perfectibility of scientific doctrines, expressed 
 the opinion that one may not imagine the last word has 
 been said of a given theory so long as it can not by 
 a brief explanation be made clear to the man of the 
 street. Doubtless that conception of doctrinal per- 
 fectibility, taken literally, can never be realized. For 
 doubtless, just as there exist now, so in the future 
 there will abound, even in greater and greater variety 
 and on a vaster and vaster scale, deep-laid and high- 
 towering scientific doctrines that, in respect to their 
 infinitude of detail and in their remoter parts and more 
 recondite structure, shall not be intelligible to any but 
 such as concentrate their life upon them. And so the 
 noble dream of Gergonne can never literally come true. 
 Nevertheless, as an ideal, as a goal of aspiration, it 
 is of the highest value, and, though in no case can it 
 be quite attained, it yet admits in many, as I believe, 
 of a surprisingly high degree of approximation. I do 
 
 1 An address delivered in 1907 at Columbia University, the University 
 of Virginia, Washington and Lee University, the University of North Caro- 
 lina, Tulane University, the University of Arkansas, the University of 
 Nebraska, the University of Missouri, the University of Chicago, North- 
 western University, the University of Illinois, Vanderbilt University, the 
 University of Minnesota, the University of Michigan, the University of 
 Cincinnati, the Ohio State University, Vassar College, the University of 
 Vermont, Purdue University, and the University Club of New York City. 
 Printed by the Columbia University Press, 1007.
 
 272 MATHEMATICS 
 
 not mind frankly owning that I do not share in the 
 feeling of those, if there be any such, who regard their 
 special subjects as so intricate, mysterious and high, 
 that in all their sublimer parts they are absolutely in- 
 accessible to the profane man of merely general culture 
 even when he is led by the hand of an expert and con- 
 descending guide. For scientific theories are, each and 
 all of them, and they will continue to be, built upon and 
 about notions which, however sublimated, are never- 
 theless derived from common sense. These etherealized 
 central concepts, together with their manifold bearings 
 on the higher interests of life and general thought, can 
 be measurably assimilated to the language of the com- 
 mon level from which they arose. And, in passing, I 
 should like to express the hope that here at Columbia 
 or other competent center there may one day be estab- 
 lished a magazine that shall have for its aim to mediate, 
 by the help, if it may be found, of such pens as those 
 of Huxley and Clifford, between the focal concepts and 
 the larger aspects of the technical doctrines of the 
 specialist, on the one hand, and the teeming curiosity, 
 the great listening, waiting, eager, hungering con- 
 sciousness of the educated thinking public on the other. 
 Such a service, however, is not to be lightly undertaken. 
 An hour, at all events, is hardly time enough in which 
 to conduct an excursion even of scientific folk through 
 the mazes of more than twenty hundred years of mathe- 
 matical thought or even to express intelligibly, if one 
 were competent, the significance of the whole in a 
 critical estimate. 
 
 Indeed, such is the character of mathematics in its 
 profounder depths and in its higher and remoter zones 
 that it is well nigh impossible to convey to one who has 
 not devoted years to its exploration a just impression
 
 MATHEMATICS 273 
 
 of the scope and magnitude of the existing body of the 
 science. An imagination formed by other disciplines 
 and accustomed to the interests of another field may 
 scarcely receive suddenly an apocalyptic vision of that 
 infinite interior world. But how amazing and how edi- 
 fying were such a revelation, if only it could be made. 
 To tell the story of mathematics from Pythagoras and 
 Plato to Hilbert and Lie and Poincare"; to recount and 
 appraise the achievements of such as Euclid and Archi- 
 medes, Apollonius and Diophantus; to display and 
 estimate the creations of Descartes and Leibnitz and 
 Newton; to dispose in genetic order, to analyze, to 
 synthesize and evaluate, the discoveries of the Ber- 
 noullis and Euler, of Desargues and Pascal and Monge 
 and Poncelet, of Steiner and Mobius and Pliicker and 
 Staudt, of Lobatschewsky and Bolyai, of W. R. Ham- 
 ilton and Grassmann, of Laplace, Lagrange and Gauss, 
 of Boole and Cayley and Hermite and Gordan, of Bol- 
 zano and Cauchy, of Riemann and Weierstrass, of 
 Georg Cantor and Boltzmann and Klein, of the Peirces 
 and Schroder and Peano, of Helmholtz and Maxwell 
 and Gibbs; to explore, and then to map for perspective 
 beholding and contemplation, the continent of doctrine 
 built up by these immortals, to say nothing of the count- 
 less refinements, extensions and elaborations meanwhile 
 wrought by the genius and industry of a thousand 
 other agents of the mathetic spirit; to do that would 
 indeed be to render an exceeding service to the higher 
 intelligence of the world, but a service that would re- 
 quire the conjoint labors of a council of scholars for 
 the space of many years. Even the three immense 
 volumes of Moritz Cantor's Gesckichte der Mathematik, 
 though they do not aspire to the higher forms of elab- 
 orate exposition and though they are far from exhaust-
 
 274 MATHEMATICS 
 
 ing the material of the period traversed by them, yet 
 conduct the narrative down only to I758. 1 That date, 
 however, but marks the time when mathematics, then 
 schooled for over a hundred eventful years in the un- 
 folding wonders of Analytic Geometry and the Calculus 
 and rejoicing in the possession of these the two most 
 powerful among the instruments of human thought, had 
 but fairly entered upon her modern career. And so 
 fruitful have been the intervening years, so swift the 
 march along the myriad tracks of modern analysis and 
 geometry, so abounding and bold and fertile withal 
 has been the creative genius of the time, that to record 
 even briefly the discoveries and the creations since the 
 closing date of Cantor's work would require an addition 
 to his great volumes of a score of volumes more. 
 
 Indeed the modern developments of mathematics 
 constitute not only one of the most impressive, but one 
 of the most characteristic, phenomena of our age. It 
 is a phenomenon, however, of which the boasted intelli- 
 gence of a "universalized" daily press seems strangely 
 unaware; and there is no other great human interest, 
 whether of science or of art, regarding which the mind 
 of the educated public is permitted to hold so many 
 fallacious opinions and inferior estimates. The golden 
 age of mathematics that was not the age of Euclid, 
 it is ours. Ours is the age in which no less than six 
 international congresses of mathematics have been held 
 in the course of nine years. 2 It is in our day that more 
 than a dozen mathematical societies contain a growing 
 membership of over two thousand men representing 
 the centers of scientific light throughout the great cul- 
 
 1 The work is now being carried forward by younger men. 
 
 2 International congresses of mathematicians are held at intervals of 
 four years. Since the date of this address two have been held, one at Rome 
 in 1908 and one in Cambridge, England, in 1912.
 
 MATHEMATICS 275 
 
 ture nations of the world. It is in our time that over 
 five hundred scientific journals are each devoted in 
 part, while more than two score others are devoted 
 exclusively, to the publication of mathematics. It is 
 in our time that the Jahrbuch iibcr die Fortschritte der 
 Mathematik, though admitting only condensed abstracts 
 with titles, and not reporting on all the journals, has, 
 nevertheless, grown to nearly forty huge volumes in as 
 many years. It is in our time that as many as two 
 thousand books and memoirs drop from the mathemat- 
 ical press of the world in a single year, the estimated 
 number mounting up to fifty thousand in the last 
 generation. Finally, to adduce yet another evidence of 
 similar kind, it requires no less than the seven ponder- 
 ous tomes of the forthcoming Encyklopadie der Mathe- 
 matischen Wissenschaften to contain, not expositions, 
 not demonstrations, but merely compact reports and 
 bibliographic notices sketching developments that have 
 taken place since the beginning of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury. The Elements of Euclid is as small a part of 
 mathematics as the Iliad is of literature; or as the 
 sculpture of Phidias is of the world's total art. Indeed 
 if Euclid or even Descartes were to return to the abode 
 of living men and repair to a university to resume pur- 
 suit of his favorite study, it is evident that, making 
 due allowance for his genius and his fame, and pre- 
 supposing familiarity with the modern scientific lan- 
 guages, he would yet be required to devote at least a 
 year to preparation before being qualified even to begin 
 a single strictly graduate course. 
 
 It is not, however, by such comparisons nor by sta- 
 tistical methods nor by any external sign whatever, 
 but only by continued dwelling within the subtle radi- 
 ance of the discipline itself, that one at length may
 
 276 MATHEMATICS 
 
 catch the spirit and learn to estimate the abounding 
 life of modern mathesis: oldest of the sciences, yet 
 flourishing to-day as never before, not merely as a giant 
 tree throwing out and aloft myriad branching arms in 
 the upper regions of clearer light and plunging deeper 
 and deeper root in the darker soil beneath, but rather 
 as an immense mighty forest of such oaks, which, how- 
 ever, literally grow into each other so that by the junc- 
 tion and intercrescence of limb with limb and root with 
 root and trunk with trunk the manifold wood becomes 
 a single living organic growing whole. 
 
 What is this thing so marvelously vital? What does 
 it undertake? What is its motive? What its signifi- 
 cance? How is it related to other modes and forms and 
 interests of the human spirit? 
 
 What is mathematics? I inquire, not about the word, 
 but about the thing. Many have been the answers of 
 former years, but none has approved itself as final. All 
 of them, by nature belonging to the "literature of 
 knowledge," have fallen under its law and "perished by 
 supersession." Naturally conception of the science 
 has had to grow with the growth of the science itself. 
 
 A traditional conception, still current everywhere 
 except in critical circles, has held mathematics to be the 
 science of quantity or magnitude, where magnitude 
 including multitude (with its correlate of number) as a 
 special kind, signified whatever was "capable of increase 
 and decrease and measurement." Measurability was 
 the essential thing. That definition of the science was 
 a very natural one, for magnitude did appear to be a 
 singularly fundamental notion, not only inviting but 
 demanding consideration at every stage and turn of 
 life. The necessity of finding out how many and how 
 much was the mother of counting and measurement,
 
 MATHEMATICS 277 
 
 and mathematics, first from necessity and then from 
 pure curiosity and joy, so occupied itself with these 
 things that they came to seem its whole employment. 
 
 Nevertheless, numerous great events of a hundred 
 years have been absolutely decisive against that view. 
 For one thing, the notion of continuum the " Grand 
 Continuum" as Sylvester called it that great central 
 supporting pillar of modern Analysis, has been con- 
 structed by Weierstrass, Dedekind, Georg Cantor and 
 others, without any reference whatever to quantity, so 
 that number and magnitude are not only independent, 
 they are essentially disparate. When we attempt to 
 correlate the two, the ordinary concept of measurement 
 as the repeated application of a constant finite unit, 
 undergoes such refinement and generalization through 
 the notion of Limit or its equivalent that counting no 
 longer avails and measurement retains scarcely a vestige 
 of its original meaning. And when we add the further 
 consideration that non-Euclidean geometry employs a 
 scale in which the unit of angle and distance, though it 
 is a constant unit, nevertheless appears from the Euclid- 
 ean point of view to suffer lawful change from step to 
 step of its application, it is seen that to retain the old 
 words and call mathematics the science of quantity or 
 magnitude, and measurement, is quite inept as no 
 longer telling either what the science has actually 
 become or what its spirit is bent upon. 
 
 Moreover, the most striking measurements, as of the 
 volume of a planet, the growth of cells, the valency of 
 atoms, rates of chemical change, the swiftness of thought, 
 the penetrative power of radium emanations, are none 
 of them done by direct repeated application of a unit or 
 by any direct method whatever. They are all of them 
 accomplished by one form or another of indirection. It
 
 278 MATHEMATICS 
 
 was perception of this fact that led the famous phi- 
 losopher and respectable mathematician, Auguste Comte, 
 to define mathematics as "the science of indirect meas- 
 urement." Here doubtless we are in presence of a 
 finer insight and a larger view, but the thought is not 
 yet either wide enough or deep enough. For it is 
 obvious that there is an immense deal of admittedly 
 mathematical activity that is not in the least concerned 
 with measurement whether direct or indirect. Con- 
 sider, for example, that splendid creation of the nine- 
 teenth century known as Projective Geometry: a 
 boundless domain of countless fields where reals and 
 imaginaries, finites and infinites, enter on equal terms, 
 where the spirit delights in the artistic balance and 
 symmetric interplay of a kind of conceptual and log- 
 ical counterpoint, an enchanted realm where thought 
 is double and flows throughout in parallel streams. 
 Here there is no essential concern with number or 
 quantity or magnitude, and metric considerations are 
 entirely absent or completely subordinate. The fact, 
 to take a simplest example, that two points determine 
 a line uniquely, or that the intersection of a sphere and 
 a plane is a circle, or that any configuration whatever 
 the reference is here to ordinary space presents two 
 reciprocal aspects according as it is viewed as an en- 
 semble of points or as a manifold of planes, is not a 
 metric fact at all: it is not a fact about size or quantity 
 or magnitude of any kind. In this domain it was 
 position rather than size that seemed to some the central 
 matter, and so it was proposed to call mathematics 
 the science of measurement and position. 
 
 Even as thus expanded, the conception yet excludes 
 many a mathematical realm of vast extent. Consider 
 that immense class of things known as Operations.
 
 MATHEMATICS 279 
 
 These are limitless alike in number and in kind. Now 
 it so happens that there are many systems of operations 
 such that any two operations of a given system, if 
 thought as following one another, together thus produce 
 the same effect as some other single operation of the 
 system. Such systems are infinitely numerous and 
 present themselves on every hand. For a simple illus- 
 tration, think of the totality of possible straight motions 
 in space. The operation of going from point A to 
 point B, followed by the operation of going from B 
 to point C, is equivalent to the single operation of going 
 straight from A to C. Thus the system of such opera- 
 tions is a closed system: combination, i. e., of any two 
 of the operations yields a third one, not without, but 
 within, the system. The great notion of Group, thus 
 simply exemplified, though it had barely emerged into 
 consciousness a hundred years ago, has meanwhile 
 become a concept of fundamental importance and pro- 
 digious fertility, not only affording the basis of an 
 imposing doctrine the Theory of Groups but there- 
 with serving also as a bond of union, a kind of connec- 
 tive tissue, or rather as an immense cerebro-spinal 
 system, uniting together a large number of widely dis- 
 similar doctrines as organs of a single body. But - 
 and this is the point to be noted here the abstract 
 operations of a group, though they are very real things, 
 are neither magnitudes nor positions. 
 
 This way of trying to come to an adequate conception 
 of mathematics, namely, by attempting to characterize 
 in succession its distinct domains, or its varieties of 
 content, or its modes of activity, in the hope of finding 
 a common definitive mark, is not likely to prove suc- 
 cessful. For it demands an exhaustive enumeration, 
 not only of the fields now occupied by the science, but
 
 280 MATHEMATICS 
 
 also of those destined to be conquered by it in the future, 
 and such an achievement would require a prevision that 
 none may claim. 
 
 Fortunately there are other paths of approach that 
 seem more promising. Everyone has observed that 
 mathematics, whatever it may be, possesses a certain 
 mark, namely, a degree of certainty not found elsewhere. 
 So it is, proverbially, the exact science par excellence. 
 Exact, no doubt, but in what sense? An excellent 
 answer is found in a definition given about one genera- 
 tion ago by a distinguished American mathematician, 
 Professor Benjamin Peirce: "Mathematics is the science 
 which draws necessary conclusions " a formulation of 
 like significance with the following fine mot by Professor 
 William Benjamin Smith: "Mathematics is the uni- 
 versal art apodictic." These statements, though neither 
 of them is adequate, are both of them telling approxima- 
 tions, at once foreshadowing and neatly summarizing 
 for popular use, the epoch-making thesis established by 
 the creators of modern logic, namely, that mathematics 
 is included in, and, in a profound sense, may be said 
 to be identical with, Symbolic Logic. Observe that the 
 emphasis falls on the quality of being "necessary," 
 i. e., correct logically, or valid formally. 
 
 But why are mathematical conclusions correct? Is 
 it that the mathematician has a reasoning faculty essen- 
 tially different in kind from that of other men? By 
 no means. What, then, is the secret? Reflect that con- 
 clusion implies premises, that premises involve terms, 
 that terms stand for ideas or concepts or notions, and 
 that these latter are the ultimate material with which 
 the spiritual architect, called the Reason, designs and 
 builds. Here, then, one may expect to find light. The 
 apodictic quality of mathematical thought, the correct-
 
 MATHEMATICS 281 
 
 ness of its conclusions as conclusions, are due, not to 
 any special mode of ratiocination, but to the character 
 of the concepts with which it deals. What is that dis- 
 tinctive characteristic? The answer is: precision and 
 completeness of determination. But how comes the 
 mathematician by such completeness? There is no 
 mysterious trick involved: some concepts admit of 
 such precision and completeness, others do not; the 
 mathematician is one who deals with those that do. 
 
 The matter, however, is not quite so simple as it 
 sounds, and I bespeak your attention to a word of 
 caution and of further explanation. The ancient maxim, 
 ex nihilo nikil fit, may well be doubted where it seems 
 most obviously valid, namely, in the realm of matter, 
 for it may be that matter has evolved from something 
 else; but the maxim cannot be ultimately denied where 
 its application is least obvious, namely, in the realm of 
 mind, for without principia in the strictest sense, doc- 
 trine is, in the strictest sense, impossible. And when 
 the mathematician speaks of complete determination of 
 concepts and of rigor of demonstration, he does not 
 mean that the undefined and the undemonstrated have 
 been or can be entirely eliminated from the foundations 
 of his science. He knows that such elimination is im- 
 possible; he knows, too, that it is unnecessary', for some 
 undefinable ideas are perfectly clear and some undemon- 
 strable propositions are perfectly precise and certain. 
 It is in terms of such concepts that a definable notion, 
 if it is to be mathematically available, must admit of 
 complete determination, and in terms of such proposi- 
 tions that mathematical discourse secures its rigor. It 
 is, then, of such indefinables among ideas and such in- 
 demonstrable* among propositions paradoxical as the 
 statement may appear that the foundations of mathe-
 
 282 MATHEMATICS 
 
 matics in its ideal conception are composed; and what- 
 ever doctrine is logically constructive on such a basis 
 is mathematics either actually or potentially. I am not 
 asserting that the substructure herewith characterized 
 has been brought to completion. It is on the concep- 
 tion of it that the accent is here designed to fall, for 
 it is the conception as such that at once affords to 
 fundamental investigation a goal and a guide and fur- 
 nishes the means of giving the science an adequate 
 definition. 
 
 On the other hand, actually to realize the conception 
 requires that the foundation to be established shall both 
 include every element that is essential and exclude every 
 one that is not. For a foundation that subsequently 
 demands or allows superfoetation of hypotheses is in- 
 complete; and one that contains the non-essential is 
 imperfect. Of the two problems thus presented, it is 
 the latter, the problem of exclusion, of reducing prin- 
 ciples to a minimum, of applying Occam's Razor to the 
 pruning away of non-essentials, it is that problem 
 that taxes most severely both the analytic and the con- 
 structive powers of criticism. And it is to the solution 
 of that problem that the same critical spirit of our time, 
 which in other fields is reconstructing theology, burning 
 out the dross from philosophy, and working relentless 
 transformations of thought on every hand, has directed 
 a chief movement of modern mathematics. 
 
 Apart from its technical importance, which can 
 scarcely be overestimated, the power, depth and com- 
 prehensiveness of the modern critical movement in 
 mathematics, make it one of the most significant sci- 
 entific phenomena of the last century. Double in 
 respect to origin, the movement itself has been com- 
 posite. One component began at the very center of
 
 MATHEMATICS 283 
 
 mathematical activity, while the other took its rise in 
 what was then erroneously regarded as an alien do- 
 main, the great domain of symbolic logic. 
 
 A word as to the former component. For more than 
 a hundred years after the inventions of Analytical 
 Geometry and the Calculus, mathematicians may be 
 said to have fairly rioted in applications of these instru- 
 ments to physical, mechanical and geometric problems, 
 without concerning themselves about the nicer questions 
 of fundamental principles, cogency, and precision. In 
 the latter part of the eighteenth century the efforts of 
 Euler, Lacroix and others to systematize results served 
 to reveal in a startling way the necessity of improving 
 foundations. Constructive work was not indeed arrested 
 by that disclosure. On the contrary new doctrines 
 continued to rise and old ones to expand and flourish. 
 But a new spirit had begun to manifest itself. The 
 science became increasingly critical as its towering edi- 
 fices more and more challenged attention to their foun- 
 dations. Manifest already in the work of Gauss and 
 Lagrange, the new tendence, under the powerful impulse 
 and leadership of Cauchy, rapidly develops into a 
 momentous movement. The Calculus, while its instru- 
 mental efficacy is meanwhile marvelously improved, is 
 itself advanced from the level of a tool to the rank and 
 dignity of a science. The doctrines of the real and of 
 the complex variable are grounded with infinite patience 
 and care, so that, owing chiefly to the critical construc- 
 tive genius of Weierstrass and his school, that stateliest 
 of all the pure creations of the human intellect the 
 Modern Theory of Functions with its manifold branches 
 - rests to-day on a basis not less certain and not less 
 enduring than the very integers with which we count. 
 The movement still sweeps on, not only extending to
 
 284 MATHEMATICS 
 
 all the cardinal divisions of Analysis but, through the 
 agencies of such as Lobatschewsky and Bolyai, Grass- 
 mann and Riemann, Cayley and Klein, Hilbert and Lie, 
 recasting the foundations of Geometry also. And there 
 can scarcely be a doubt that the great domains of 
 Mechanics and Mathematical Physics are by their 
 need destined to a like invasion. 
 
 In the light of all this criticism, mathematics came to 
 appear as a great ensemble of theories, compendent 
 no doubt, interpenetrating each other in a wondrous 
 way, yet all of them distinct, each built up by logical 
 processes on its own appropriate basis of pure hy- 
 potheses, or assumptions, or postulates. As all the 
 theories were thus seen to rest equally on hypothetical 
 foundations, all were seen to be equally legitimate; and 
 doctrines like those of Quaternions, non-Euclidean 
 geometry and Hyperspace, for a time suspected because 
 based on postulates not all of them traditional, speedily 
 overcame their heretical reputations and were admitted 
 to the circle of the lawful and orthodox. 
 
 It is one thing, however, to deal with the principal 
 divisions of mathematics severally, underpinning each 
 with a foundation of its own. That, broadly speaking, 
 has been the plan and the effect of the critical move- 
 ment as thus far sketched. But it is a very different 
 and a profounder thing to underlay all the divisions at 
 once with a single foundation, with a foundation that 
 shall serve as a support, not merely for all the divisions 
 but for something else, distinct from each and from the 
 sum of all, namely, for the whole, the science itself, 
 which they constitute. It is nothing less than that 
 achievement which, unconsciously at first, consciously 
 at last, has been the aim and goal of the other compo- 
 nent of the critical movement, that component which,
 
 MATHEMATICS 285 
 
 as already said, found its origin and its initial interest 
 in the field of symbolic logic. The advantage of em- 
 ploying symbols in the investigation and exposition 
 of the formal laws of thought is not a recent discovery. 
 As everyone knows, symbols were thus employed to a 
 small extent by the Stagirite himself. The advantage, 
 however, was not pursued; because for two thousand 
 years the eyes of logicians were blinded by the blazing 
 genius of the "master of those that know." With the 
 single exception of the reign of Euclid, the annals of 
 science afford no match for the tyranny that has been 
 exercised by the logic of Aristotle. Even the important 
 logical researches of Leibnitz and Lambert and their 
 daring use of symbolical methods were powerless to 
 break the spell. It was not till 1854 when George 
 Boole, having invented an algebra to trace and illumi- 
 nate the subtle ways of reason, published his symbolical 
 "Investigation of the Laws of Thought," that the revo- 
 lution in logic really began. For, although for a time 
 neglected by logicians and mathematicians alike, it 
 was Boole's work that inspired and inaugurated the 
 scientific movement now known and honored throughout 
 the world under the name of Symbolic Logic. 
 
 It is true, the revolution has advanced in silence. 
 The discoveries and creations of Boole's successors, of 
 C. S. Peirce, of Schroeder, of Peano and of their dis- 
 ciples and peers, have not been proclaimed by the daily 
 press. Commerce and politics, gossip and sport, acci- 
 dent and crime, the shallow and transitory affairs of 
 the exoteric world, these have filled the columns and 
 left no room to publish abroad the deep and abiding 
 things achieved in the silence of cloistral thought. The 
 demonstration by symbolical means of the fact that the 
 three laws of Identity, Excluded Middle and Non-
 
 286 MATHEMATICS 
 
 contradiction are absolutely independent, none of them 
 being derivable from the other two; the discovery that 
 the syllogism is not deducible from those laws but has 
 to be postulated as an independent principle; the dis- 
 covery of the astounding and significant fact that false 
 propositions imply all propositions and that true ones, 
 though not implying, are implied by, all; the discovery 
 that most reasoning is not syllogistic, but is asyllogistic, 
 in form, and that, therefore, contrary to the teaching 
 of tradition, the class-logic of Aristotle is not adequate 
 to all the concerns of rigorous thought; the discovery 
 that Relations, no less than Classes, demand a logic of 
 their own, and that a similar claim is valid in the case 
 of Propositions: no intelligence of these events nor of 
 the immense multitude of others which they but mea- 
 gerly serve to hint and to exemplify, has been cabled 
 round the world and spread broadcast by the flying 
 bulletins of news. Even the scientific public, for the 
 most part accustomed to viewing the mind as only the 
 instrument and not as a subject of study, has been 
 slow to recognize the achievements of modern research 
 in the minute anatomy of thought. Indeed it has 
 been not uncommon for students of natural science to 
 sneer at logic as a stale and profitless pursuit, as the 
 barren mistress of scholastic minds. These men have 
 not been aware of what certainly is a most profound, 
 if indeed it be not the most significant, scientific move- 
 ment of our time. In America, in England, in Germany, 
 in France, and especially in Italy supreme histolo- 
 gist of the human understanding the deeps of mind 
 and logical reality have been explored in our genera- 
 tion as never before in the history of the world. Owing 
 to the power of the symbolic method, not only the founda- 
 tions of the Aristotelian logic the Calculus of Classes
 
 MATHEMATICS 287 
 
 have been recast, but side by side with that everlasting 
 monument of Greek genius, there rise today other struc- 
 tures, fit companions of the ancient edifice, namely, the 
 Logic of Relations and the Logic of Propositions. 
 
 And what are the entities that have been found to 
 constitute the base of that triune organon? The answer 
 is surprising: a score or so of primitive, indemonstrable, 
 propositions together with less than a dozen undefinable 
 notions, called logical constants. But what is more 
 surprising for here we touch the goal and are enabled 
 to enunciate what has been justly called "one of the 
 greatest discoveries of our age" -is the fact that the 
 basis of logic is the basis of mathematics also. Thus 
 the two great components of the critical movement, 
 though distinct in origin and following separate paths, 
 are found to converge at last in the thesis: Symbolic 
 Logic is Mathematics, Mathematics is Symbolic Logic, 
 the twain are one. 
 
 Is it really so? Does the identity exist in fact? Is 
 it true that so simple a unifying foundation for what has 
 hitherto been supposed two distinct and even mutually 
 alien interests has been actually ascertained? The 
 basal masonry is indeed not yet completed but the work 
 has advanced so far that the thesis stated is beyond 
 dispute or reasonable doubt. Primitive propositions 
 appear to allow some freedom of choice, questions still 
 exist regarding relative fundamentally, and statements 
 of principles have not yet crystallized into settled and 
 final form; but regarding the nature of the data to be 
 assumed, the smallness of their number and their ade- 
 quacy, agreement is substantial. In England, Russell 
 and Whitehead f are successfully engaged now in forging 
 
 1 This work has been projected in four immense volumes bearing the 
 title, Prindpia Matkematua, of which three volumes have appeared.
 
 288 MATHEMATICS 
 
 "chains of deduction" binding the cardinal matters 
 of Analysis and Geometry to the premises of General 
 Logic, while in Italy the Formulaire de Mathematiques 
 of Peano and his school has been for some years grow- 
 ing into a veritable encyclopedia of mathematics wrought 
 by the means and clad in the garb of symbolic logic. 
 
 But is it not incredible that the concept of number 
 with all its distinctions of cardinal and ordinal, frac- 
 tional and whole, rational and irrational, algebraic and 
 transcendental, real and complex, finite and infinite, 
 and the concept of geometric space, in all its varieties 
 of form and dimensionality, is it not incredible that 
 mathematical ideas, surpassing in multitude the sands 
 of the sea, should be precisely definable, each and all 
 of them, in terms of a few logical constants, in terms, 
 i. e., of such indefinable notions as such that, implica- 
 tion, denoting, relation, class, prepositional function, and 
 two or three others? And is it not incredible that by 
 means of so few as a score of premises (composed of 
 ten principles of deduction and ten other indemonstrable 
 propositions of a general logical nature), the entire 
 body of mathematical doctrine can be strictly and for- 
 mally deduced? 
 
 It is wonderful, indeed, but not incredible. Not in- 
 credible in a world where the mustard seed becometh a 
 tree, not incredible in a world where all the tints and 
 hues of sea and land and sky are derived from three 
 primary colors, where the harmonies and the melodies 
 of music proceed from notes that are all of them but 
 so many specifications of four generic marks, and where 
 three concepts energy, mass, motion, or mass, time, 
 space apparently suffice for grasping together in 
 organic unity the mechanical phenomena of a universe. 
 
 But the thesis granted, does it not but serve to justify
 
 MATHEMATICS 289 
 
 the cardinal contentions of the depredators of mathe- 
 matics? Does it not follow from it that the science 
 is only a logical grind, suited only to narrow and strait- 
 ened intellects content to tramp in treadmill fashion 
 the weary rounds of deduction? Does it not follow that 
 Schopenhauer was right in regarding mathematics as 
 the lowest form of mental activity, and that he and our 
 own genial and enlightened countryman, Oliver Wendell 
 Holmes, were right in likening mathematical thought 
 to the operations of a calculating machine? Does it 
 not follow that Huxley's characterization of mathematics 
 as "that study which knows nothing of observation, 
 nothing of induction, nothing of experiment, nothing 
 of causation," is surprisingly confirmed by fact? Does 
 it not follow that Sir William Hamilton's famous and 
 terrific diatribe against the science finds ample warrant 
 in truth? Does it not follow, as the Scotch philosopher 
 maintains, that mathematics regarded as a discipline, 
 as a builder of mind, is inferior? That devotion to it 
 is fatal to the development of the sensibilities and the 
 imagination? That continued pursuit of the study 
 leaves the mind narrow and dry, meagre and lean, 
 disqualifying it both for practical affairs and for those 
 large and liberal studies where moral questions inter- 
 vene and judgment depends, not on nice calculation by 
 rule, but on a wide survey and a balancing of 
 probabilities? 
 
 The answer is, No. Those things not only do not 
 follow but they are not true. Every count in the in- 
 dictment, whether explicit or only implied, is false. 
 Not only that, but the opposite in each case is true. 
 On that point there can be no doubt; authority, reason 
 and fact, history and theory, are here in perfect accord. 
 Let me say once for all that I am conscious of no desire
 
 2QO MATHEMATICS 
 
 to exaggerate the virtues of mathematics. I am willing 
 to admit that mathematicians do constitute an important 
 part of the salt of the earth. But the science is no 
 catholicon for mental disease. There is in it no power 
 for transforming mediocrity into genius. It cannot 
 enrich where nature has impoverished. It makes no 
 pretense of creating faculty where none exists, of open- 
 ing springs in desert minds. "Du bist am Ende was 
 du bist." The great mathematician, like the great 
 poet or great naturalist or great administrator, is born. 
 My contention shall be that where the mathetic endow- 
 ment is found, there will usually be found associated 
 with it, as essential implications in it, other endowments 
 in generous measure, and that the appeal of the science 
 is to the whole mind, direct no doubt to the central 
 powers of thought, but indirectly through sympathy 
 of all, rousing, enlarging, developing, emancipating all, 
 so that the faculties of will, of intellect and feeling, 
 learn to respond, each in its appropriate order and 
 degree, like the parts of an orchestra to the "urge and 
 ardor" of its leader and lord. 
 
 As for Hamilton and Schopenhauer, those detractors 
 need not detain us long. Indeed but for their fame and 
 the great influence their opinions have exercised over 
 "the ignorant mass of educated men," they ought not 
 in this connection to be noticed at all. Of the subject 
 on which they presumed to pronounce authoritative 
 judgment of condemnation, they were both of them 
 ignorant, the former well nigh proudly so, the latter 
 unawares, but both of them, in view of their pretensions, 
 disgracefully ignorant. Lack of knowledge, however, is 
 but a venial sin, and English-speaking mathematicians 
 have been disposed to hope that Hamilton might be 
 saved in accordance with the good old catholic doc-
 
 MATHEMATICS 2QI 
 
 trine of invincible ignorance. But even that hope, as 
 we shall see, must be relinquished. In 1853 William 
 Whewell, then fellow and tutor of Trinity College, 
 Cambridge, published an appreciative pamphlet entitled 
 "Thoughts on the Study of Mathematics as a Part of 
 a Liberal Education." The author was a brilliant 
 scholar. "Science was his forte," but "omniscience his 
 foible," and his reputation for universal knowledge was 
 looming large. That reputation, however, Hamilton re- 
 garded as his own prerogative. None might dispute the 
 claim, much less share the glory of having it acknowl- 
 edged on his own behalf. Whewell must be crushed. 
 In the following year Sir William replies in the Edin- 
 burg Review, and such a show of learning! The reader 
 is apparently confronted with the assembled opinions 
 of the learned world, and what is more amazing - 
 they all agree. Literati of every kind, of all nations 
 and every tongue, orators, philosophers, educators, 
 scientific men, ancient and modern, known and unknown, 
 all are made to support Hamilton's claim, and even the 
 most celebrated mathematicians seem eager to declare 
 that the study of mathematics is unworthy of genius 
 and injures the mind. Whewell was overwhelmed, 
 reduced to silence. His promised rejoinder failed to 
 appear. The Scotchman's victory was complete, his 
 fame enhanced, and his alleged judgment regarding a 
 great human interest of which he was ignorant has 
 reigned over the minds of thousands of men who have 
 been either willing or constrained to depend on borrowed 
 estimates. But even all this may be condoned. Jeal- 
 ousy, vanity, parade of learning, may be pardoned even 
 in a philosopher. Hamilton's deadly sin was none of 
 these, it was sinning against the light. In October, 
 1877, A. T. Bledsoe, then editor of the Southern Renew
 
 2 Q2 MATHEMATICS 
 
 unfortunately too little known published an article 
 in that journal in which he proved beyond a reasonable 
 doubt I have been at the pains to verify the proof 
 that Hamilton by studied selections and omissions de- 
 liberately and maliciously misrepresented the great 
 authors from whom he quoted d'Alembert, Blaise 
 Pascal, Descartes and others distorting their express 
 and unmistakable meaning even to the extent of com- 
 plete inversion. This same verdict regarding Hamilton's 
 vandalism, in so far as it relates to the works of 
 Descartes, was independently reached by Professor 
 Pringsheim and in 1904 announced by him in his 
 Festrede before the Munich Academy of Sciences. As 
 for Schopenhauer, I regret to say that a similar charge 
 and finding stand against him also. For not only did 
 he endorse without examination and re-utter Hamilton's 
 tirade in the strongest terms, thus reinforcing it and 
 giving it currency on the continent, but, as Pringsheim 
 has shown, the German philosopher, by careful excision 
 from the writings of Lichtenberg, converts that 
 distinguished physicist's just strictures on the then flour- 
 ishing but wayward Combinatorial School of mathe- 
 matics into a severe condemnation of mathematicians 
 in general and of the science itself, which, nevertheless, 
 in the opening but omitted line of the very passage 
 from which Schopenhauer quotes, is characterized by 
 Lichtenberg as "eine gar herrliche Wissenschaft." Re- 
 garding the question of the intrinsic merit of the esti- 
 mate of mathematics which these two most famous and 
 influential enemies of the science have made so largely 
 current in the world that it fairly fills the atmosphere 
 and people take it in unconsciously as by a kind of cere- 
 bral suction, I shall speak in another connection. What 
 I desire to emphasize here is the fact that neither the
 
 MATHEMATICS 2 93 
 
 vast, splendid, superficial learning of the pompous 
 author of "The Philosophy of the Conditioned" nor 
 the pungence and pith, brilliance and intrepidity of 
 the author of "Die Welt als Wille" can avail to con- 
 stitute either of them an authority in a subject in which 
 neither was informed and in which both stand convicted 
 falsifiers of the judgments and opinions of other men. 
 
 As to Huxley and Holmes, the case is different. Both 
 of them were generous, genial and honest, and to their 
 opinions on any subject we gladly pay respect qualified 
 only as the former's judgment regarding mathematics 
 was qualified by Sylvester himself: 
 
 "VersULndige Leute kannst du irren schn 
 In Sachen n&mlich, die sic nicht verstehn." 
 
 In relation to Huxley's statement that mathematical 
 study knows nothing of observation, induction, exper- 
 iment, and causation, it ought to be borne in mind 
 that there are two kinds of observation: outer and 
 inner, objective and subjective, material and immaterial, 
 sensuous and sense- transcending; observation, that is, 
 of physical things by the bodily senses, and observation, 
 by the inner eye, by the subtle touch of the intellect, 
 of the entities that dwell in the domain of logic and 
 constitute the objects of pure thought. For, phrase it 
 as you will, there is a world that is peopled with ideas, 
 ensembles, propositions, relations, and implications, 
 in endless variety and multiplicity, in structure ranging 
 from the very simple to the endlessly intricate and 
 complicate. That world is not the product but the object, 
 not the creature but the quarry of thought, the entities 
 composing it propositions, for example, being no 
 more identical with thinking them than wine is identical 
 with the drinking of it. Mind or no mind, that world
 
 294 MATHEMATICS 
 
 exists as an extra-personal affair, Pragmatism to the 
 contrary notwithstanding. It appears to me to be a 
 radical error of pragmatism to blink the fact that the 
 most fundamental of spiritual things, namely, curiosity, 
 never poses as a maker of truth but is found always and 
 only in the attitude of seeking it. Indeed truth might 
 be denned to be the presupposition or the complement 
 of curiosity as that without which curiosity would 
 cease to be what it is. The constitution of that extra- 
 personal world, its intimate ontological make-up, is 
 logic in its essential character and substance as an inde- 
 pendent and extra-personal form of being, while the 
 study of that constitution is logic pragmatically, in its 
 character, i. e., as an enterprise of mind. Now and 
 this is the point I wish to stress just as the astron- 
 omer, the physicist, the geologist, or other student of 
 objective science looks abroad in the world of sense, 
 so, not metaphorically speaking but literally, the mind 
 of the mathematician goes forth into the universe of 
 logic in quest of the things that are there; exploring 
 the heights and depths for facts ideas, classes, rela- 
 tionships, implications, and the rest; observing the 
 minute and elusive with' the powerful microscope of his 
 Infinitesimal Analysis; observing the elusive and vast 
 with the limitless telescope of his Calculus of the In- 
 finite; making guesses regarding the order and internal 
 harmony of the data observed and collocated; testing 
 the hypotheses, not merely by the complete induction 
 peculiar to mathematics, but, like his colleagues of the 
 outer world, resorting also to experimental tests and 
 incomplete induction; frequently finding it necessary, 
 in view of unforeseen disclosures, to abandon a once 
 hopeful hypothesis or to transform it by retrenchment 
 or by enlargement : thus, in his own domain, matching,
 
 MATHEMATICS 295 
 
 point for point, the processes, methods and experience 
 familiar to the devotee of natural science. 
 
 Is it replied that it was not observation of the objects 
 of pure thought but the other kind, namely, sensuous 
 observation, that Huxley had in mind, then I rejoin 
 that, nevertheless, observation by the inner eye of the 
 things of thought is observation, not less genuine, not 
 less difficult, not less rich in its objects and disciplinary 
 value, than is sensuous observation of the things of 
 sense. But this is not all, nor nearly all. Indeed for 
 direct beholding, for immediate discerning, of the things 
 of mathematics there is none other light but one, namely, 
 psychic illumination, but mediately and indirectly they 
 are often revealed or at all events hinted by their sensu- 
 ous counterparts, by indications within the radiance of 
 day, and it is a great mistake to suppose that the 
 mathetic spirit elects as its agents those who, having 
 eyes, yet see not the things that disclose themselves in 
 solar light. To facilitate eyeless observation of his 
 sense- transcending world, the mathematician invokes 
 the aid of physical diagrams and physical symbols in 
 endless variety and combination; the logos is thus 
 drawn into a kind of diagrammatic and symbolical in- 
 carnation, gets itself externalized, made flesh, so to 
 speak; and it is by attentive physical observation of 
 this embodiment, by scrutinizing the physical frame and 
 make-up of his diagrams, equations and formulae, by 
 experimental substitutions in, and transformations of, 
 them, by noting what emerges as essential and what as 
 accidental, the things that vanish and those that do not, 
 the things that vary and the things that abide un- 
 changed, as the transformations proceed and trains 
 of algebraic evolution unfold themselves to view, it 
 is thus, by the laboratory method, by trial and by
 
 296 MATHEMATICS 
 
 watching, that often the mathematician gains his best 
 insight into the constitution of the invisible world thus 
 depicted by visible symbols. Indeed the importance to 
 the mathematician of such sensuous observation cannot 
 be overrated. It is not merely that the craving to see 
 has led to the construction of the manifold models, 
 ingenious and noble, of Schilling and others, illustrating 
 important parts of Higher Geometry, Analysis Situs, 
 Function Theory and other doctrines, but the annals 
 of the science are illustrious with achievements made 
 possible by facts first noted by the physical eye. To 
 take a simple example from ancient days, it was by 
 observation of the fact that the squares of certain 
 numbers are each the sum of two other squares, the 
 detection and collection of these numbers by the method 
 of trial, observation of the fact that apparently all and 
 only the numbers of such triplets are measures of the 
 sides of right triangles, it was thus, by observation 
 and experiment, by the method of incomplete induction, 
 common to the experimental sciences, that the Pyth- 
 agorean theorem, now familiar throughout the world, 
 was discovered. It was by Leibnitz's observation of 
 the definitely lawful .manner in which the coefficients of 
 a system of equations enter their solution that the 
 suggestion came of a notion on the basis of which 
 there has grown up in our time an imposing theory, 
 an algebra built up on algebra the colossal doctrine 
 of Determinants. It was the observation, the detection 
 by the eye of Lagrange and Boole and Eisenstein, of the 
 fact that linear transformation of certain algebraic 
 expressions leaves certain functions of their coefficients 
 absolutely undisturbed in form, unaltered in frame of 
 constitution, that gave rise to the concept, and there- 
 with to the morphological doctrine, of Invariants, a
 
 MATHEMATICS 2Q7 
 
 theory filling the heavens like a light-bearing ether, 
 penetrating all the branches of geometry and analysis, 
 revealing everywhere abiding configurations in the midst 
 of change, everywhere disclosing the eternal reign of the 
 law of Form. It was in order to render evident to 
 sensuous observation and to keep constantly before the 
 physical eye the pervasive symmetry of mathematical 
 thought that Hesse in the employment of homogeneous 
 coordinates set the example, since then generally fol- 
 lowed, of replacing a variety of different letters by 
 repetitions of a single one distinguished by indices or 
 subscripts, a practice yet further justified on grounds 
 both of physical and of intellectual economy. It was 
 by sensuous observation that Clerk Maxwell, in the 
 beginning of his wondrous career, detected a lack of 
 symmetry in the then recognized equations of electro- 
 dynamics and by that observed fact together with a 
 discriminating sense of the scientific significance of 
 esthetic intimations, that he was led to remove the 
 seeming blemish by the addition of a term, antedating 
 experimental justification of his daring deed by twenty 
 years: an example of prescience not surpassed by that 
 of Adams and Leverrier who, while engaged in the study 
 of planetary disturbance, each of them about the same 
 time and independently of the other, felt the then un- 
 known Neptune "trembling on the delicate thread of 
 their analysis" and correctly informed the astronomer 
 where to point his telescope in order to behold the 
 planet. One might go on to cite the theorem of Sturm 
 in Equation Theory, the "Diophantine theorems of 
 Fermat" in the Theory of Numbers, the Jacobian "doc- 
 trine of double periodicity" in Function Theory, Le- 
 gendre's law of reciprocity, Sylvester's reduction of 
 Eider's problem of the Virgins to the form of a question
 
 298 MATHEMATICS 
 
 in Simple Partitions, and so on and on, thus continuing 
 indefinitely the story of the great r61e of observation, 
 experiment and incomplete induction, in mathematical 
 discovery. Indeed it is no wonder that even Gauss, 
 "facile princeps matematicorum," even though he dwelt 
 aloft in the privacy of a genius above the needs and 
 ways of other minds, yet pronounced mathematics "a 
 science of the eye." 
 
 Indeed the time is at hand when at least the academic 
 mind should discharge its traditional fallacies regarding 
 the nature of mathematics and thus in a measure pro- 
 mote the emancipation of criticism from inherited 
 delusions respecting the kind of activity in which the 
 life of the science consists. Mathematics is no more 
 the art of reckoning and computation than architecture 
 is the art of making bricks or hewing wood, no 
 more than painting is the art of mixing colors on a 
 palette, no more than the science of geology is the art 
 of breaking rocks, or the science of anatomy the art of 
 butchering. 
 
 Did not Babbage or somebody invent an adding 
 machine? And does it not follow, say Holmes and 
 Schopenhauer, that mathematical thought is a merely 
 mechanical process? Strange how such trash is occa- 
 sionally found in the critical offering of thoughtful men 
 and thus acquires circulation as golden coin of wisdom. 
 It would not be sillier to argue that, because Stanley 
 Jevons constructed a machine for producing certain forms 
 of logical inference, therefore all thought, even that of 
 a philosopher like Schopenhauer or that of a poet like 
 Holmes, is merely a thing of pulleys and levers and 
 screws, or that the pianola serves to prove that a sym- 
 phony by Beethoven or a drama by Wagner is reducible 
 to a trick of mechanics.
 
 MATHEMATICS 299 
 
 But far more pernicious, because more deeply im- 
 bedded and persistent, is the fallacy that the mathe- 
 matician's mind is but a syllogistic mill and that his 
 life resolves itself into a weary repetition of A is B, B 
 is C, therefore A is C; and Q.E.D. That fallacy is the 
 Carthago delenda of regnant methodology. Reasoning, 
 indeed, in the sense of compounding propositions into 
 formal arguments, is of great importance at every stage 
 and turn, as in the deduction of consequences, in the 
 testing of hypotheses, in the detection of error, in pur- 
 ging out the dross from crude material, in chastening 
 the deliverances of intuition, and especially in the final 
 stages of a growing doctrine, in welding together and 
 concatenating the various parts into a compact and co- 
 herent whole. But, indispensable in all such ways as 
 syllogistic undoubtedly is, it is of minor importance and 
 minor difficulty compared with the supreme matters 
 of Invention and Construction. Begrijfbildung, the 
 resolution of the nebula of consciousness into star-forms 
 of definite ideas; discriminating sensibility to the log- 
 ical significances, affinities and bearings of these; sus- 
 ceptibility to the delicate intimations of the subtle or the 
 remote; sensitiveness to dim and fading tremors sent 
 below by breezes striking the higher sails; the ability 
 to grasp together and to hold in steady view at once a 
 multitude of ideas, to transcend the individuals and, 
 compounding their forces, to seize the resultant mean- 
 ing of them all ; the ability to summon not only concepts 
 but doctrines, marshalling them and bringing them to 
 bear upon a single point, like great armies converging 
 to a critical center on a battle field. These and such 
 as these are the powers that mathematical activity in 
 its higher rdles demands. The power of ratiocination, 
 as already said, is of exceeding great importance but
 
 300 MATHEMATICS 
 
 it is neither the base nor the crown of the faculties 
 essential to " Mathematicised Man." When the greatest 
 of American logicians, speaking of the powers that con- 
 stitute the born geometrician, had named Conception, 
 Imagination, and Generalization, he paused. There- 
 upon from one in the audience there came the challenge, 
 "What of Reason?" The instant response, not less 
 just than brilliant, was "Ratiocination that is but 
 the smooth pavement on which the chariot rolls." 
 When the late Sophus Lie, great comparative anatomist 
 of geometric theories, creator of the doctrines of Contact 
 Transformations, and Infinite Continuous Groups, and 
 revolutionizer of the Theory of Differential Equations, 
 was asked to name the characteristic endowment of the 
 mathematician, his answer was the following quaternion: 
 Phantasie, Energie, Selbstvertrauen, Selbstkritik. Not a 
 word, you observe, about ratiocination. Phantasie, not 
 merely the fine frenzied fancy that gives to airy nothings 
 a local habitation and a name, but the creative imagina- 
 tion that conceives ordered realms and lawful worlds 
 in which our own universe is as but a point of light 
 in a shining sky; Energie, not merely endurance and 
 doggedness, not persistence merely, but mental vis viva, 
 the kinetic, plunging, penetrating power of intellect; 
 Selbstvertrauen and Selbstkritik, self-confidence aware of 
 its ground, deepened by achievement and reinforced 
 until in men like Richard Dedekind, Bernhard Bolzano 
 and especially Georg Cantor it attains to a spiritual bold- 
 ness that even dares leap from the island shore of the 
 Finite over into the all-surrounding boundless ocean of 
 Infinitude itself, and thence brings back the gladdening 
 news that the shoreless vast of Transfinite Being differs 
 in its logical structure from that of our island home only 
 in owning the reign of more generic law.
 
 MATHEMATICS 301 
 
 Indeed it is not surprising, in view of the polydynamic 
 constitution of the genuinely mathematical mind, that 
 many of the major heroes of the science, men like 
 Desargues and Pascal, Descartes and Leibnitz, Newton, 
 Gauss, and Bolzano, Helmholtz and Clifford, Riemann 
 and Salmon and Plucker and Poincarl, have attained 
 to high distinction in other fields not only of science 
 but of philosophy and letters too. And when we reflect 
 that the very greatest mathematical achievements have 
 been due, not alone to the peering, microscopic, histo- 
 logic vision of men like Weierstrass, illuminating the 
 hidden recesses, the minute and intimate structure of 
 logical reality, but to the larger vision also of men like 
 Klein who survey the kingdoms of geometry and analysis 
 for the endless variety of things that flourish there, as 
 the eye of Darwin ranged over the flora and fauna of 
 the world, or as a commercial monarch contemplates 
 its industry, or as a statesman beholds an empire; when 
 we reflect not only that the Calculus of Probability is a 
 creation of mathematics but that the master mathe- 
 matician is constantly required to exercise judgment - 
 judgment, that is, in matters not admitting of cer- 
 tainty balancing probabilities not yet reduced nor 
 even reducible perhaps to calculation; when we reflect 
 that he is called upon to exercise a function analogous 
 to that of the comparative anatomist like Cuvier, com- 
 paring theories and doctrines of every degree of similar- 
 ity and dissimilarity of structure; when, finally, we 
 reflect that he seldom deals with a single idea at a time, 
 but is for the most part engaged in wielding organized 
 hosts of them, as a general wields at once the divisions 
 of an army or as a great civil administrator directs from 
 his central office diverse and scattered but related groups 
 of interests and operations; then, I say, the current
 
 302 MATHEMATICS 
 
 opinion that devotion to mathematics unfits the devotee 
 for practical affairs should be known for false on a 
 priori grounds. And one should be thus prepared to 
 find that as a fact Gaspard Monge, creator of descrip- 
 tive geometry, author of the classic "Applications de 
 Panalyse a la geometric"; Lazare Carnot, author of the 
 celebrated works, "Geometrie de position," and "Re- 
 flexions sur la Metaphysique du Calcul infinitesimal"; 
 Fourier, immortal creator of the "Theorie analytique 
 de la chaleur"; Arago, rightful inheritor of Monge's 
 chair of geometry; and Poncelet, creator of pure pro- 
 jective geometry; one should not be surprised, I say, 
 to find that these and other mathematicians in a land 
 sagacious enough to invoke their aid, rendered, alike 
 in peace and in war, eminent public service. 
 
 To speak at length, if that were necessary, of Huxley's 
 deliverance that the study of mathematics "knows 
 nothing of causation," the "law of my song and the 
 hastening hour forbid." Suffice it to say in passing 
 that when the mathematician seeks the consequences 
 of given suppositions, saying 'when these precede, 
 those will follow/ and when, having plied a circle, a 
 sphere or other form chosen from among infinitudes of 
 configurations, with some transformation among infinite 
 hosts at his disposal, he speaks of its 'effect/ then, I 
 submit, he is employing the language of causation 
 with as nice propriety as it admits of in a world where, 
 as everyone knows, except such as still enjoy the bless- 
 ings of a juvenile philosophy, the best we can say is 
 that the ceaseless shuttles fly back and forth, and 
 streams of events without original source flow on with- 
 out ultimate termination. Indeed it is a certain and 
 signal lesson of science in all its forms everywhere that 
 the language of cause and effect, except in the sense of
 
 MATHEMATICS 303 
 
 facts being lawfully implied in other facts, has no 
 indispensable use. 
 
 I have not spoken of "Applied Mathematics," and 
 that for the best of reasons: there is, strictly speaking, 
 no such thing. The term indeed exists, and, in a con- 
 servative practical world that cares but little for "The 
 nice sharp quillets of the law," it will doubtless persist 
 as a convenient designation for something that never 
 existed and never can. It is of the very essence of the 
 practician type of mind not to know aught as it is in 
 itself nor aught as self-justified but to mistake the 
 secondary and accidental for the primary and essential, 
 to blink and elude the presence of immediate worth, 
 and being thus blind to instant and immanent ends, 
 to revel in means and uses and applications, requiring 
 all things to excuse their being by extraneous and 
 emanant effects, vindicating the stately elm by its 
 promise of lumber, or the lily by its message of purity, 
 or the flood of Niagara by its available energy, or even 
 knowledge itself by the worldly advantage and the power 
 which it gives. I am told that even the deep and ex- 
 quisite terminology of art has been to some extent 
 invaded by such barbarous and shallow phrases as 
 'applied music,' 'applied architecture,' 'applied sculp- 
 ture,' 'applied painting/ as if Beauty, virgin mother of 
 art, could, without dissolution of her essential char- 
 acter, consciously become the willing drudge and para- 
 mour of Use. And I suppose we are fated yet to hear 
 of applied glory, applied holiness, applied poetry - 
 t. e., poetry that is consciously pedagogic or that aims 
 at a moral and thereby sinks or rises to the level of a 
 sermon of applied joy, applied ontology, yea, of 
 applied inapplicability itself. 
 
 It is in implications and not in applications that
 
 304 MATHEMATICS 
 
 mathematics has its lair. Applied mathematics is mathe- 
 matics simply or is not mathematics at all. To think 
 aright is no characteristic striving of a class of men; it 
 is a common aspiration; and Mechanics, Mathematical 
 Physics, Mathematical Astronomy, and the other chief 
 Anwendungsgebiete of mathematics, as Geodesy, Geo- 
 physics, and Engineering in its various branches, are all 
 of them but so many witnesses of the truth of Riemann's 
 saying that "Natural science is the attempt to com- 
 prehend nature by means of exact concepts." A gas 
 molecule regarded as a minute sphere or other geometric 
 form, however complicate; stars and planets conceived as 
 ellipsoids or as points, and their orbits as loci; time and 
 space, mass and motion and impenetrability; velocity, 
 acceleration and energy; the concepts of norm and 
 average; what are these but mathematical notions? 
 And the wondrous garment woven of them in the loom 
 of logic what is that but mathematics? Indeed 
 every branch of so-called applied mathematics is a 
 mixed doctrine, being thoroughly analyzable into two 
 disparate parts: one of these consists of determinate 
 concepts formally combined in accordance with the 
 canons of logic, i. e., it is mathematics and not natural 
 science viewed as matter of observation and experiment; 
 the other is such matter and is natural science in that 
 conception of it and not mathematics. No fibre of 
 either component is a filament of the other. It is a 
 fundamental error to regard the term Mathematicisa- 
 tion of thought as the importation of a tool into a 
 foreign workshop. It does not signify the transition of 
 mathematics conceived as a thing accomplished over into 
 some outlying domain like physics, for example. Its 
 significance is different radically, far deeper and far 
 wider. It means the growth of mathematics itself, its
 
 MATHEMATICS 305 
 
 extension and development from within; it signifies 
 the continuous revelation, the endlessly progressive 
 coming into view, of the static universe of logic; or, 
 to put it dynamically, it means the evolution of intel- 
 lect, the upward striving and aspiration of thought 
 everywhere, to the level of cogency, precision and exacti- 
 tude. This self-propagation of the rational logos, the 
 springing up of mathetic rigor even in void and formless 
 places, in the very retreats of chaos, is to my mind the 
 most impressive and significant phenomenon in the 
 history of science, and never so strikingly manifest as 
 in the last half hundred years. Seventy-two years ago, 
 even Comte, the stout advocate of mathematics as 
 constituting "the veritable point of departure for all 
 rational scientific education, general or special," ex- 
 pressed the opinion that we should never "be in posi- 
 tion by any means whatever to study the chemical 
 composition of the stars." In less than twenty-five 
 years thereafter that negative prophecy was falsified 
 by the chemical genius of Bunsen fortified by the mathe- 
 matics of Kirchoff. Not only has mathematics grown, 
 in the domain of Physics, into the vast proportions of 
 Rational Dynamics, but the derivative and integral of 
 the Calculus, and Differential Equations, are more and 
 more finding subsistence in Chemistry also, and by the 
 work of Nernst and others even the foundations of the 
 latter science are being laid in mathematico-physical 
 considerations. Merely to sketch most briefly the 
 mathematical literature that has grown up in the field 
 of Political Economy requires twenty-five pages of the 
 above mentioned Encyklop&dit of mathematics. Similar 
 sketches for Statistics and Life Insurance require no 
 less than thirty and sixty-five pages respectively. Even 
 in the baffling and elusive matter of Psychology, the
 
 306 MATHEMATICS 
 
 work of Herbart, Fechner, Weber, Wundt and others 
 confirms the hope that the soil of that great field will 
 some day support a vigorous growth of mathematics. 
 It seems indeed as if the entire surface of the world of 
 human consciousness were predestined to be covered 
 over, in varying degrees of luxuriance, by the flora of 
 mathetic science. 
 
 But while mathematics may spring up and flourish 
 in any and all experimental and observational fields, it 
 is by no means to be expected that 'experiment and 
 observation' will ever thus be superseded. Such domains 
 are rather destined to be occupied at the same time by 
 two tenants, mathematical science and science that is 
 not mathematical. But while the former will serve as 
 an ideal standard for the latter, mathematics has 
 neither the power nor the disposition to disseize experi- 
 ment and observation of any holdings that are theirs 
 by the rights of conquest and use. Between mathe- 
 matics on the one hand and non-mathematical science 
 on the other, there can never occur collision or quarrel, 
 for the reason that the two interests are ultimately 
 discriminated by the kind of curiosity whence they 
 spring. The mathematician is curious about definite 
 naked relationships, about logically possible modes of 
 order, about varieties of implication, about completely 
 determined or determinable functional relationships, 
 considered solely in and of themselves, considered, that 
 is, without the slightest concern about any question 
 whether or no they have any external or sensuous 
 validity or other sort of validity than that of being 
 logically thinkable. It is the aggregate of things think- 
 able logically that constitutes the mathematician's 
 universe, and it is inconceivably richer in mathetic 
 content than can be any outer world of sense such as the
 
 MATHEMATICS 307 
 
 physical universe according to which we chance to have 
 our physical being. 
 
 This mere speck of a physical universe in which the 
 chemist, the physicist, the astronomer, the biologist, 
 the sociologist, and the rest of nature students, find 
 their great fields and their deep and teeming interests, 
 may be a realm of invariant uniformities, or laws; it 
 may be a mechanically organic aggregate, connected 
 into an ordered whole by a tissue of completely defin- 
 able functional relationships; and it may not. It may 
 be that the universe eternally has been and is a genuine 
 cosmos; it may be that the external sea of things im- 
 mersing us, although it is ever changing infinitely, 
 changes only lawfully, in accordance with a system 
 of immutable rules of order that constitute an invariant 
 at once underived and indestructible and securing 
 everlasting harmony through and through; and it may 
 not be such. The student of nature assumes, he rightly 
 assumes, that it is; and, moved and sustained by char- 
 acteristic appropriate curiosity, he endeavors to find 
 in the outer world what are the elements and what the 
 relationships assumed by him to be valid there. The 
 mathematician as such does not make that assumption 
 and does not seek for elements and relationships in 
 the outer world. 
 
 Is the assumption correct? Undoubtedly it is admis- 
 sible, and as a working hypothesis it is undoubtedly 
 exceedingly useful or even indispensable to the student 
 of external nature; but is it true? The mathematician 
 as man does not know although he cares. Man as 
 mathematician neither knows nor cares. The mathe- 
 matician does know, however, that, if the assumption 
 be correct, every relationship that is valid in nature 
 is, in abstractu, an element in his domain, a subject for
 
 308 MATHEMATICS 
 
 his study. He knows, too, at least he strongly suspects, 
 that, if the assumption be not correct, his domain 
 remains the same absolutely, and the title of mathe- 
 matics to human regard "would remain unimpeached 
 and unimpaired" were the universe without a plan or, 
 having a plan, if it "were unrolled like a map at our 
 feet, and the mind of man qualified to take in the 
 whole scheme of creation at a glance." 
 
 The two realms, of mathematics, of natural science, 
 like the two curiosities and the two attitudes, the mathe- 
 matician's and the nature student's, are fundamentally 
 distinct and disparate. To think logically the logically 
 thinkable that is the mathematician's aim. To as- 
 sume that nature is thus thinkable, an embodied rational 
 logos, and to discover the thought supposed incarnate 
 there these are at once the principle and the hope of 
 the student of nature. 
 
 Suppose the latter student is right and that the outer 
 universe really is an embodied logos of reason, does it 
 follow that all the logically thinkable is incorporated 
 in it? It seems not. Indeed there appears to be many 
 a rational logos. A cosmos, a harmoniously ordered 
 universe, one that through and through is self -com- 
 patible, can hardly be the whole of reason materialized 
 and objectified. At all events the mathematician has 
 delight in the conceptual construction and in the con- 
 templation of divers systems that are inconsistent 
 with one another though each is thoroughly self -coherent. 
 He constructs in thought a summitless hierarchy of 
 hyperspaces, an endless series of ordered worlds, worlds 
 that are possible and logically actual. And he is con- 
 tent not to know if any of them be otherwise actual 
 or actualized. There is, for example, a Euclidean 
 geometry and there are infinitely many kinds of non-
 
 MATHEMATICS 309 
 
 Euclidean. These doctrines, regarded as true descrip- 
 tions of some one actual space, are incompatible. In 
 our universe, to be specific, if it be as Plato thought 
 and natural science takes for granted, a geometrized 
 or geometrizable affair, then one of these geometries 
 may be, none of them may be, not all of them can be, 
 objectively valid. But in the infinitely vaster world of 
 pure thought, in the world of mathesis, all of them are 
 valid; there they co-exist, there they interlace and blend 
 among themselves and others as differing strains of 
 a hypercosmic harmony. 
 
 It is from some such elevation, not the misty lowland 
 of the sensuously and materially Actual, but from 
 a mount of speculation lawfully rising into the azure 
 of the logically Possible, that one may glimpse the 
 dawn heralded by the avowal of Leibnitz: "J/a mtta- 
 physique est touie mathtmaliquc" Time fails me to deal 
 fittingly with the great theme herewith suggested, but 
 I cannot quite forbear to express briefly my conviction 
 that, apart from its service to kindred interests of 
 thought as a standard of clarity, rigor and certitude, 
 mathematics is and will be found to be an inexhaust- 
 ible quarry of material of ontologic types, of ideas 
 and problems, of distinctions, discriminants and hints, 
 evidences, analogies and intimations all for the ex- 
 ploitation and use of Philosophy, Psychology, and 
 Theology. The allusion is not to such celebrated alli- 
 ances of philosophy and mathesis as flourished in the 
 school of Pythagoras and in the gigantic personalities 
 of Plato, Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibnitz, nor to the 
 more technical mat he matico- philosophical researches 
 and speculations of our own time by such as C. S. 
 Peirce, Russell, Whitehead, Peano, G. Cantor, Couturat 
 and Poincare, glorious as were those alliances and
 
 310 MATHEMATICS 
 
 important as these researches are. The reference is 
 rather to the unappreciated fact that the measureless 
 accumulated wealth of the realm of exact thought is 
 at once a marvelous mine of subject matter and a rich 
 and ready arsenal for those great human concerns of 
 reflective and militant thought that is none the less 
 important because it is not exact. 
 
 For the vindication of that claim, a hint or two must 
 here suffice. The modern mathematical concepts of 
 number, time, space, order, infinitude, finitude, group, 
 manifold, functionality, and innumerable hosts of others, 
 the varied processes of mathematics, and the principles 
 and modes of its growth and evolution, all of these or 
 nearly all still challenge and still await those kinds of 
 analysis that are proper to the philosopher and the 
 psychologist. The psychology of Euclidean, non-Eu- 
 clidean, and hyperspaces, the question of the intuita- 
 bility of the latter, the secret of their having become 
 not only indispensable in various branches of mathe- 
 matics but instrumentally useful in other fields also, 
 as in the kinetic theory of gases; the question, for 
 example, why it is that while thought maintains a 
 straightforward course through four-dimensional space, 
 imagination travels through it on a zigzag path, of 
 two logically identical configurations, being partially 
 or completely blind to the one, yet perfectly beholding 
 the other; the evaluation and adjustment of the con- 
 tradictory claims of Poincare and his school on the one 
 hand and of Mach and his disciples on the other, the 
 former contending that Modern Analysis is a "free 
 creation of the human spirit" guided indeed but not 
 constrained by experience of the external world, being 
 merely kept by this from aimless wandering in wayward 
 paths; while the latter maintain that mathematical
 
 MATHEMATICS 31 1 
 
 concepts, however tenuous or remote or recondite, have 
 been literally evolved continuously in accordance with 
 the needs of the animal organism and with environ- 
 mental conditions out of the veriest elements (feelings) 
 of physical life, and accordingly that the purest offspring 
 of mathematical thought may trace a legitimate lineage 
 back and down to the lowliest rudiments of physical 
 and physiological experience: these problems and 
 such as these are, I take it, problems for the student 
 of mind as mind and for the student of psycho-physics. 
 Regarding the relations of mathesis to the former 
 "queen of ail the sciences," I have on this occasion 
 but little to say. I do not believe that the declined 
 estate of Theology is destined to be permanent. The 
 present is but an interregnum in her reign and her 
 fallen days will have an end. She has been deposed 
 mainly because she has not seen fit to avail herself 
 promptly and fully of the dispensations of advancing 
 knowledge. The aims, however, of the ancient mistress 
 are as high as ever, and when she shall have made good 
 her present lack of modern education and learned to 
 extend a generous and eager hospitality to modern 
 light, she will reascend, and will occupy with dignity as 
 of yore an exalted place in the ascending scale of human 
 interests and the esteem of enlightened men. And 
 mathematics, by the character of her inmost being, is 
 especially qualified, I believe, to assist in the restoration. 
 It was but little more than a generation ago that the 
 mathematician, philosopher and theologian, Bernhard 
 Bolzano, dispelled the clouds that throughout all the 
 foregone centuries had enveloped the notion of Infini- 
 tude in darkness, completely sheared the great term of 
 its vagueness without shearing it of its strength, and 
 thus rendered it forever available for the purposes of
 
 312 MATHEMATICS 
 
 logical discourse. Whereas, too, in former times the 
 Infinite betrayed its presence not indeed to the faculties 
 of Logic but only to the spiritual Imagination and Sensi- 
 bility, mathematics has shown, even during the life of 
 the elder men here present, and the achievement 
 marks an epoch in the history of man, that the 
 structure of Transfinite Being is open to exploration 
 by the organon of Thought. Again, it is in the mathe- 
 matical doctrine of Invariance, the realm wherein are 
 sought and found configurations and types of being 
 that, amid the swirl and stress of countless hosts of 
 transformations, remain immutable, and the spirit dwells 
 in contemplation of the serene and eternal reign of the 
 subtile law of Form, it is there that Theology may find, 
 if she will, the clearest conceptions, the noblest symbols, 
 the most inspiring intimations, the most illuminating 
 illustrations, and the surest guarantees of the object of 
 her teaching and her quest, an Eternal Being, unchan- 
 ging in the midst of the universal flux. 
 
 It is not, however, by any considerations or estimates 
 of utility in any form however high it be or essential 
 to the worldly weal of 'man; it is not by evaluating 
 mastery of the processes of measurement and compu- 
 tation, though these are continuously vital everywhere 
 to the conduct of practical life; nor is it by strengthen- 
 ing the arms of natural science and speeding her con- 
 quests in a thousand ways and a hundred fields; nor yet 
 by extending the empire of the human intellect over the 
 realms of number and space and establishing the do- 
 minion of thought throughout the universe of logic; it is 
 not even by affording argument and fact and light to 
 theology and so contributing to the advancement of 
 her supreme concerns; it is not by any of these 
 considerations nor by all of them that Mathematics,
 
 MATHEMATICS 313 
 
 were she called upon to do so, would rightly seek to 
 vindicate her highest claims to human regard. It 
 requires indeed but little penetration to see that no 
 science, no art, no doctrine, no human activity whatever, 
 however humble or high, can ultimately succeed in 
 justifying itself in terms of measurable fruits and ema- 
 nant effects, for these remain always to be themselves 
 appraised, and the process of such attempted vindica- 
 tion is plainly fated to issue only in regression without 
 an end. Such Baconian apologetic, when offered as 
 final, quite mistakes the finest mood of the scientific 
 spirit and is beneath the level of academic faith. Sci- 
 ence does not seek emancipation in order to become a 
 drudge, she consents to serve indeed but her service 
 aims at freedom as an end. 
 
 Man has been so long a slave of circumstance and 
 need, he has been so long constrained to seek license 
 for his summit faculties, in lower courts without appeal, 
 that a sudden transitory moment of release sets him 
 trembling with distrust and fear, an occasional imperfect 
 vision of the instant dignity of his spiritual enterprises 
 is at once obscured by doubt, and he straightway 
 descends into the market places of the world to excuse 
 or to justify his illumination, pleading some mere utility 
 against the ignoring or the condemnation of an insight 
 or an inspiration whose worth is nevertheless immediate 
 and no more needs and no more admits of utilitarian 
 justification than the breaking of morning light on 
 mountain peaks or the bounding of lambs in a meadow. 
 
 The solemn cant of Science in our day and her 
 sombre visage are but the lingering tone and shade of 
 the prisonhouse, and they will pass away. Science is 
 destined to appear as the child and the parent of freedom 
 blessing the earth without design. Not in the ground
 
 314 MATHEMATICS 
 
 of need, not in bent and painful toil, but in the deep- 
 centred play-instinct of the world, in the joyous mood 
 of the eternal Being, which is always young, Science 
 has her origin and root; and her spirit, which is the 
 spirit of genius in moments of elevation, is but a sub- 
 limated form of play, the austere and lofty analogue 
 of the kitten playing with the entangled skein or of the 
 eaglet sporting with the mountain winds.
 
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