Book II Mathematical Reasoning
Chapter I
The Relativity of Space
I
It is impossible to represent to oneself empty space; all our efforts to imagine a pure space, whence should be excluded the changing images of material objects, can result only in a representation where vividly colored surfaces, for example, are replaced by lines of faint coloration, and we can not go to the very end in this way without all vanishing and terminating in nothingness. Thence comes the irreducible relativity of space.
Whoever speaks of absolute space uses a meaningless phrase. This is a truth long proclaimed by all who have reflected upon the matter, but which we are too often led to forget.
I am at a determinate point in Paris, place du Panthéon for instance, and I say: I shall come back here to-morrow. If I be asked: Do you mean you will return to the same point of space, I shall be tempted to answer: yes; and yet I shall be wrong, since by to-morrow the earth will have journeyed hence, carrying with it the place du Panthéon, which will have traveled over more than two million kilometers. And if I tried to speak more precisely, I should gain nothing, since our globe has run over these two million kilometers in its motion with relation to the sun, while the sun in its turn is displaced with reference to the Milky Way, while the Milky Way itself is doubtless in motion without our being able to perceive its velocity. So that we are completely ignorant, and always shall be, of how much the place du Panthéon is displaced in a day.
In sum, I meant to say: To-morrow I shall see again the dome and the pediment of the Panthéon, and if there were no Panthéon my phrase would be meaningless and space would vanish.
This is one of the most commonplace forms of the principle of the relativity of space; but there is another, upon which Delbeuf has particularly insisted. Suppose that in the night all the dimensions of the universe become a thousand times greater: the world will have remained similar to itself, giving to the word similitude the same meaning as in Euclid, Book VI. Only what was a meter long will measure thenceforth a kilometer, what was a millimeter long will become a meter. The bed whereon I lie and my body itself will be enlarged in the same proportion.
When I awake to-morrow morning, what sensation shall I feel in presence of such an astounding transformation? Well, I shall perceive nothing at all. The most precise measurements will be incapable of revealing to me anything of this immense convulsion, since the measures I use will have varied precisely in the same proportion as the objects I seek to measure. In reality, this convulsion exists only for those who reason as if space were absolute. If I for a moment have reasoned as they do, it is the better to bring out that their way of seeing implies contradiction. In fact it would be better to say that, space being relative, nothing at all has happened, which is why we have perceived nothing.
Has one the right, therefore, to say he knows the distance between two points? No, since this distance could undergo enormous variations without our being able to perceive them, provided the other distances have varied in the same proportion. We have just seen that when I say: I shall be here to-morrow, this does not mean: To-morrow I shall be at the same point of space where I am to-day, but rather: To-morrow I shall be at the same distance from the Panthéon as to-day. And we see that this statement is no longer sufficient and that I should say: To-morrow and to-day my distance from the Panthéon will be equal to the same number of times the height of my body.
But this is not all; I have supposed the dimensions of the world to vary, but that at least the world remained always similar to itself. We might go much further, and one of the most astonishing theories of modern physics furnishes us the occasion.
According to Lorentz and Fitzgerald, all the bodies borne along in the motion of the earth undergo a deformation.
This deformation is, in reality, very slight, since all dimensions parallel to the movement of the earth diminish by a hundred millionth, while the dimensions perpendicular to this movement are unchanged. But it matters little that it is slight, that it exists suffices for the conclusion I am about to draw. And besides, I have said it was slight, but in reality I know nothing about it; I have myself been victim of the tenacious illusion which makes us believe we conceive an absolute space; I have thought of the motion of the earth in its elliptic orbit around the sun, and I have allowed thirty kilometers as its velocity. But its real velocity (I mean, this time, not its absolute velocity, which is meaningless, but its velocity with relation to the ether), I do not know that, and have no means of knowing it: it is perhaps, 10, 100 times greater, and then the deformation will be 100, 10,000 times more.
Can we show this deformation? Evidently not; here is a cube with edge one meter; in consequence of the earth’s displacement it is deformed, one of its edges, that parallel to the motion, becomes smaller, the others do not change. If I wish to assure myself of it by aid of a meter measure, I shall measure first one of the edges perpendicular to the motion and shall find that my standard meter fits this edge exactly; and in fact neither of these two lengths is changed, since both are perpendicular to the motion. Then I wish to measure the other edge, that parallel to the motion; to do this I displace my meter and turn it so as to apply it to the edge. But the meter, having changed orientation and become parallel to the motion, has undergone, in its turn, the deformation, so that though the edge be not a meter long, it will fit exactly, I shall find out nothing.
You ask then of what use is the hypothesis of Lorentz and of Fitzgerald if no experiment can permit of its verification? It is my exposition that has been incomplete; I have spoken only of measurements that can be made with a meter; but we can also measure a length by the time it takes light to traverse it, on condition we suppose the velocity of light constant and independent of direction. Lorentz could have accounted for the facts by supposing the velocity of light greater in the direction of the earth’s motion than in the perpendicular direction. He preferred to suppose that the velocity is the same in these different directions but that the bodies are smaller in the one than in the other. If the wave surfaces of light had undergone the same deformations as the material bodies we should never have perceived the Lorentz-Fitzgerald deformation.
In either case, it is not a question of absolute magnitude, but of the measure of this magnitude by means of some instrument; this instrument may be a meter, or the path traversed by light; it is only the relation of the magnitude to the instrument that we measure; and if this relation is altered, we have no way of knowing whether it is the magnitude or the instrument which has changed.
But what I wish to bring out is, that in this deformation the world has not remained similar to itself; squares have become rectangles, circles ellipses, spheres ellipsoids. And yet we have no way of knowing whether this deformation be real.
Evidently one could go much further: in place of the Lorentz-Fitzgerald deformation, whose laws are particularly simple, we could imagine any deformation whatsoever. Bodies could be deformed according to any laws, as complicated as we might wish, we never should notice it provided all bodies without exception were deformed according to the same laws. In saying, all bodies without exception, I include of course our own body and the light rays emanating from different objects.
If we look at the world in one of those mirrors of complicated shape which deform objects in a bizarre way, the mutual relations of the different parts of this world would not be altered; if, in fact two real objects touch, their images likewise seem to touch. Of course when we look in such a mirror we see indeed the deformation, but this is because the real world subsists alongside of its deformed image; and then even were this real world hidden from us, something there is could not be hidden, ourself; we could not cease to see, or at least to feel, our body and our limbs which have not been deformed and which continue to serve us as instruments of measure.
But if we imagine our body itself deformed in the same way as if seen in the mirror, these instruments of measure in their turn will fail us and the deformation will no longer be ascertainable.
Consider in the same way two worlds images of one another; to each object P of the world A corresponds in the world B an object P´, its image; the coordinates of this image P´ are determinate functions of those of the object P; moreover these functions may be any whatsoever; I only suppose them chosen once for all. Between the position of P and that of P´ there is a constant relation; what this relation is, matters not; enough that it be constant.
Well, these two worlds will be indistinguishable one from the other. I mean the first will be for its inhabitants what the second is for its. And so it will be as long as the two worlds remain strangers to each other. Suppose we lived in world A, we shall have constructed our science and in particular our geometry; during this time the inhabitants of world B will have constructed a science, and as their world is the image of ours, their geometry will also be the image of ours or, better, it will be the same. But if for us some day a window is opened upon world B, how we shall pity them: “Poor things,” we shall say, “they think they have made a geometry, but what they call so is only a grotesque image of ours; their straights are all twisted, their circles are humped, their spheres have capricious inequalities.” And we shall never suspect they say the same of us, and one never will know who is right.
We see in how broad a sense should be understood the relativity of space; space is in reality amorphous and the things which are therein alone give it a form. What then should be thought of that direct intuition we should have of the straight or of distance? So little have we intuition of distance in itself that in the night, as we have said, a distance might become a thousand times greater without our being able to perceive it, if all other distances had undergone the same alteration. And even in a night the world B might be substituted for the world A without our having any way of knowing it, and then the straight lines of yesterday would have ceased to be straight and we should never notice.
One part of space is not by itself and in the absolute sense of the word equal to another part of space; because if so it is for us, it would not be for the dwellers in world B; and these have just as much right to reject our opinion as we to condemn theirs.
I have elsewhere shown what are the consequences of these facts from the viewpoint of the idea we should form of non-Euclidean geometry and other analogous geometries; to that I do not care to return; and to-day I shall take a somewhat different point of view.
II
If this intuition of distance, of direction, of the straight line, if this direct intuition of space in a word does not exist, whence comes our belief that we have it? If this is only an illusion, why is this illusion so tenacious? It is proper to examine into this. We have said there is no direct intuition of size and we can only arrive at the relation of this magnitude to our instruments of measure. We should therefore not have been able to construct space if we had not had an instrument to measure it; well, this instrument to which we relate everything, which we use instinctively, it is our own body. It is in relation to our body that we place exterior objects, and the only spatial relations of these objects that we can represent are their relations to our body. It is our body which serves us, so to speak, as system of axes of coordinates.
For example, at an instant α, the presence of the object A is revealed to me by the sense of sight; at another instant, β, the presence of another object, B, is revealed to me by another sense, that of hearing or of touch, for instance. I judge that this object B occupies the same place as the object A. What does that mean? First that does not signify that these two objects occupy, at two different moments, the same point of an absolute space, which even if it existed would escape our cognition, since, between the instants α and β, the solar system has moved and we can not know its displacement. That means these two objects occupy the same relative position with reference to our body.
But even this, what does it mean? The impressions that have come to us from these objects have followed paths absolutely different, the optic nerve for the object A, the acoustic nerve for the object B. They have nothing in common from the qualitative point of view. The representations we are able to make of these two objects are absolutely heterogeneous, irreducible one to the other. Only I know that to reach the object A I have just to extend the right arm in a certain way; even when I abstain from doing it, I represent to myself the muscular sensations and other analogous sensations which would accompany this extension, and this representation is associated with that of the object A.
Now, I likewise know I can reach the object B by extending my right arm in the same manner, an extension accompanied by the same train of muscular sensations. And when I say these two objects occupy the same place, I mean nothing more.
I also know I could have reached the object A by another appropriate motion of the left arm and I represent to myself the muscular sensations which would have accompanied this movement; and by this same motion of the left arm, accompanied by the same sensations, I likewise could have reached the object B.
And that is very important, since thus I can defend myself against dangers menacing me from the object A or the object B. With each of the blows we can be hit, nature has associated one or more parries which permit of our guarding ourselves. The same parry may respond to several strokes; and so it is, for instance, that the same motion of the right arm would have allowed us to guard at the instant α against the object A and at the instant β against the object B. Just so, the same stroke can be parried in several ways, and we have said, for instance, the object A could be reached indifferently either by a certain movement of the right arm or by a certain movement of the left arm.
All these parries have nothing in common except warding off the same blow, and this it is, and nothing else, which is meant when we say they are movements terminating at the same point of space. Just so, these objects, of which we say they occupy the same point of space, have nothing in common, except that the same parry guards against them.
Or, if you choose, imagine innumerable telegraph wires, some centripetal, others centrifugal. The centripetal wires warn us of accidents happening without; the centrifugal wires carry the reparation. Connections are so established that when a centripetal wire is traversed by a current this acts on a relay and so starts a current in one of the centrifugal wires, and things are so arranged that several centripetal wires may act on the same centrifugal wire if the same remedy suits several ills, and that a centripetal wire may agitate different centrifugal wires, either simultaneously or in lieu one of the other when the same ill may be cured by several remedies.
It is this complex system of associations, it is this table of distribution, so to speak, which is all our geometry or, if you wish, all in our geometry that is instinctive. What we call our intuition of the straight line or of distance is the consciousness we have of these associations and of their imperious character.
And it is easy to understand whence comes this imperious character itself. An association will seem to us by so much the more indestructible as it is more ancient. But these associations are not, for the most part, conquests of the individual, since their trace is seen in the new-born babe: they are conquests of the race. Natural selection had to bring about these conquests by so much the more quickly as they were the more necessary.
On this account, those of which we speak must have been of the earliest in date, since without them the defense of the organism would have been impossible. From the time when the cellules were no longer merely juxtaposed, but were called upon to give mutual aid, it was needful that a mechanism organize analogous to what we have described, so that this aid miss not its way, but forestall the peril.
When a frog is decapitated, and a drop of acid is placed on a point of its skin, it seeks to wipe off the acid with the nearest foot, and, if this foot be amputated, it sweeps it off with the foot of the opposite side. There we have the double parry of which I have just spoken, allowing the combating of an ill by a second remedy, if the first fails. And it is this multiplicity of parries, and the resulting coordination, which is space.
We see to what depths of the unconscious we must descend to find the first traces of these spatial associations, since only the inferior parts of the nervous system are involved. Why be astonished then at the resistance we oppose to every attempt made to dissociate what so long has been associated? Now, it is just this resistance that we call the evidence for the geometric truths; this evidence is nothing but the repugnance we feel toward breaking with very old habits which have always proved good.
III
The space so created is only a little space extending no farther than my arm can reach; the intervention of the memory is necessary to push back its limits. There are points which will remain out of my reach, whatever effort I make to stretch forth my hand; if I were fastened to the ground like a hydra polyp, for instance, which can only extend its tentacles, all these points would be outside of space, since the sensations we could experience from the action of bodies there situated, would be associated with the idea of no movement allowing us to reach them, of no appropriate parry. These sensations would not seem to us to have any spatial character and we should not seek to localize them.
But we are not fixed to the ground like the lower animals; we can, if the enemy be too far away, advance toward him first and extend the hand when we are sufficiently near. This is still a parry, but a parry at long range. On the other hand, it is a complex parry, and into the representation we make of it enter the representation of the muscular sensations caused by the movements of the legs, that of the muscular sensations caused by the final movement of the arm, that of the sensations of the semicircular canals, etc. We must, besides, represent to ourselves, not a complex of simultaneous sensations, but a complex of successive sensations, following each other in a determinate order, and this is why I have just said the intervention of memory was necessary. Notice moreover that, to reach the same point, I may approach nearer the mark to be attained, so as to have to stretch my arm less. What more? It is not one, it is a thousand parries I can oppose to the same danger. All these parries are made of sensations which may have nothing in common and yet we regard them as defining the same point of space, since they may respond to the same danger and are all associated with the notion of this danger. It is the potentiality of warding off the same stroke which makes the unity of these different parries, as it is the possibility of being parried in the same way which makes the unity of the strokes so different in kind, which may menace us from the same point of space. It is this double unity which makes the individuality of each point of space, and, in the notion of point, there is nothing else.
The space before considered, which might be called restricted space, was referred to coordinate axes bound to my body; these axes were fixed, since my body did not move and only my members were displaced. What are the axes to which we naturally refer the extended space? that is to say the new space just defined. We define a point by the sequence of movements to be made to reach it, starting from a certain initial position of the body. The axes are therefore fixed to this initial position of the body.
But the position I call initial may be arbitrarily chosen among all the positions my body has successively occupied; if the memory more or less unconscious of these successive positions is necessary for the genesis of the notion of space, this memory may go back more or less far into the past. Thence results in the definition itself of space a certain indetermination, and it is precisely this indetermination which constitutes its relativity.
There is no absolute space, there is only space relative to a certain initial position of the body. For a conscious being fixed to the ground like the lower animals, and consequently knowing only restricted space, space would still be relative (since it would have reference to his body), but this being would not be conscious of this relativity, because the axes of reference for this restricted space would be unchanging! Doubtless the rock to which this being would be fettered would not be motionless, since it would be carried along in the movement of our planet; for us consequently these axes would change at each instant; but for him they would be changeless. We have the faculty of referring our extended space now to the position A of our body, considered as initial, again to the position B, which it had some moments afterward, and which we are free to regard in its turn as initial; we make therefore at each instant unconscious transformations of coordinates. This faculty would be lacking in our imaginary being, and from not having traveled, he would think space absolute. At every instant, his system of axes would be imposed upon him; this system would have to change greatly in reality, but for him it would be always the same, since it would be always the only system. Quite otherwise is it with us, who at each instant have many systems between which we may choose at will, on condition of going back by memory more or less far into the past.
This is not all; restricted space would not be homogeneous; the different points of this space could not be regarded as equivalent, since some could be reached only at the cost of the greatest efforts, while others could be easily attained. On the contrary, our extended space seems to us homogeneous, and we say all its points are equivalent. What does that mean?
If we start from a certain place A, we can, from this position, make certain movements, M, characterized by a certain complex of muscular sensations. But, starting from another position, B, we make movements M´ characterized by the same muscular sensations. Let a, then, be the situation of a certain point of the body, the end of the index finger of the right hand for example, in the initial position A, and b the situation of this same index when, starting from this position A, we have made the motions M. Afterwards, let a´ be the situation of this index in the position B, and b´ its situation when, starting from the position B, we have made the motions M´.
Well, I am accustomed to say that the points of space a and b are related to each other just as the points a´ and b´, and this simply means that the two series of movements M and M´ are accompanied by the same muscular sensations. And as I am conscious that, in passing from the position A to the position B, my body has remained capable of the same movements, I know there is a point of space related to the point a´ just as any point b is to the point a, so that the two points a and a´ are equivalent. This is what is called the homogeneity of space. And, at the same time, this is why space is relative, since its properties remain the same whether it be referred to the axes A or to the axes B. So that the relativity of space and its homogeneity are one sole and same thing.
Now, if I wish to pass to the great space, which no longer serves only for me, but where I may lodge the universe, I get there by an act of imagination. I imagine how a giant would feel who could reach the planets in a few steps; or, if you choose, what I myself should feel in presence of a miniature world where these planets were replaced by little balls, while on one of these little balls moved a liliputian I should call myself. But this act of imagination would be impossible for me had I not previously constructed my restricted space and my extended space for my own use.
IV
Why now have all these spaces three dimensions? Go back to the “table of distribution” of which we have spoken. We have on the one side the list of the different possible dangers; designate them by A1, A2, etc.; and, on the other side, the list of the different remedies which I shall call in the same way B1, B2, etc. We have then connections between the contact studs or push buttons of the first list and those of the second, so that when, for instance, the announcer of danger A3 functions, it will put or may put in action the relay corresponding to the parry B4.
As I have spoken above of centripetal or centrifugal wires, I fear lest one see in all this, not a simple comparison, but a description of the nervous system. Such is not my thought, and that for several reasons: first I should not permit myself to put forth an opinion on the structure of the nervous system which I do not know, while those who have studied it speak only circumspectly; again because, despite my incompetence, I well know this scheme would be too simplistic; and finally because on my list of parries, some would figure very complex, which might even, in the case of extended space, as we have seen above, consist of many steps followed by a movement of the arm. It is not a question then of physical connection between two real conductors but of psychologic association between two series of sensations.
If A1 and A2 for instance are both associated with the parry B1, and if A1 is likewise associated with the parry B2, it will generally happen that A2 and B2 will also themselves be associated. If this fundamental law were not generally true, there would exist only an immense confusion and there would be nothing resembling a conception of space or a geometry. How in fact have we defined a point of space. We have done it in two ways: it is on the one hand the aggregate of announcers A in connection with the same parry B; it is on the other hand the aggregate of parries B in connection with the same announcer A. If our law was not true, we should say A1 and A2 correspond to the same point since they are both in connection with B1; but we should likewise say they do not correspond to the same point, since A1 would be in connection with B2 and the same would not be true of A2. This would be a contradiction.
But, from another side, if the law were rigorously and always true, space would be very different from what it is. We should have categories strongly contrasted between which would be portioned out on the one hand the announcers A, on the other hand the parries B; these categories would be excessively numerous, but they would be entirely separated one from another. Space would be composed of points very numerous, but discrete; it would be discontinuous. There would be no reason for ranging these points in one order rather than another, nor consequently for attributing to space three dimensions.
But it is not so; permit me to resume for a moment the language of those who already know geometry; this is quite proper since this is the language best understood by those I wish to make understand me.
When I desire to parry the stroke, I seek to attain the point whence comes this blow, but it suffices that I approach quite near. Then the parry B1 may answer for A1 and for A2, if the point which corresponds to B1 is sufficiently near both to that corresponding to A1 and to that corresponding to A2. But it may happen that the point corresponding to another parry B2 may be sufficiently near to the point corresponding to A1 and not sufficiently near the point corresponding to A2; so that the parry B2 may answer for A1 without answering for A2. For one who does not yet know geometry, this translates itself simply by a derogation of the law stated above. And then things will happen thus:
Two parries B1 and B2 will be associated with the same warning A1 and with a large number of warnings which we shall range in the same category as A1 and which we shall make correspond to the same point of space. But we may find warnings A2 which will be associated with B2 without being associated with B1, and which in compensation will be associated with B3, which B3 was not associated with A1, and so forth, so that we may write the series
B1, A1, B2, A2, B3, A3, B4, A4,
where each term is associated with the following and the preceding, but not with the terms several places away.
Needless to add that each of the terms of these series is not isolated, but forms part of a very numerous category of other warnings or of other parries which have the same connections as it, and which may be regarded as belonging to the same point of space.
The fundamental law, though admitting of exceptions, remains therefore almost always true. Only, in consequence of these exceptions, these categories, in place of being entirely separated, encroach partially one upon another and mutually penetrate in a certain measure, so that space becomes continuous.
On the other hand, the order in which these categories are to be ranged is no longer arbitrary, and if we refer to the preceding series, we see it is necessary to put B2 between A1 and A2 and consequently between B1 and B3 and that we could not for instance put it between B3 and B4.
There is therefore an order in which are naturally arranged our categories which correspond to the points of space, and experience teaches us that this order presents itself under the form of a table of triple entry, and this is why space has three dimensions.
V
So the characteristic property of space, that of having three dimensions, is only a property of our table of distribution, an internal property of the human intelligence, so to speak. It would suffice to destroy certain of these connections, that is to say of the associations of ideas to give a different table of distribution, and that might be enough for space to acquire a fourth dimension.
Some persons will be astonished at such a result. The external world, they will think, should count for something. If the number of dimensions comes from the way we are made, there might be thinking beings living in our world, but who might be made differently from us and who would believe space has more or less than three dimensions. Has not M. de Cyon said that the Japanese mice, having only two pair of semicircular canals, believe that space is two-dimensional? And then this thinking being, if he is capable of constructing a physics, would he not make a physics of two or of four dimensions, and which in a sense would still be the same as ours, since it would be the description of the same world in another language?
It seems in fact that it would be possible to translate our physics into the language of geometry of four dimensions; to attempt this translation would be to take great pains for little profit, and I shall confine myself to citing the mechanics of Hertz where we have something analogous. However, it seems that the translation would always be less simple than the text, and that it would always have the air of a translation, that the language of three dimensions seems the better fitted to the description of our world, although this description can be rigorously made in another idiom. Besides, our table of distribution was not made at random. There is connection between the warning A1 and the parry B1, this is an internal property of our intelligence; but why this connection? It is because the parry B1 affords means effectively to guard against the danger A1; and this is a fact exterior to us, this is a property of the exterior world. Our table of distribution is therefore only the translation of an aggregate of exterior facts; if it has three dimensions, this is because it has adapted itself to a world having certain properties; and the chief of these properties is that there exist natural solids whose displacements follow sensibly the laws we call laws of motion of rigid solids. If therefore the language of three dimensions is that which permits us most easily to describe our world, we should not be astonished; this language is copied from our table of distribution; and it is in order to be able to live in this world that this table has been established.
I have said we could conceive, living in our world, thinking beings whose table of distribution would be four-dimensional and who consequently would think in hyperspace. It is not certain however that such beings, admitting they were born there, could live there and defend themselves against the thousand dangers by which they would there be assailed.
VI
A few remarks to end with. There is a striking contrast between the roughness of this primitive geometry, reducible to what I call a table of distribution, and the infinite precision of the geometers’ geometry. And yet this is born of that; but not of that alone; it must be made fecund by the faculty we have of constructing mathematical concepts, such as that of group, for instance; it was needful to seek among the pure concepts that which best adapts itself to this rough space whose genesis I have sought to explain and which is common to us and the higher animals.
The evidence for certain geometric postulates, we have said, is only our repugnance to renouncing very old habits. But these postulates are infinitely precise, while these habits have something about them essentially pliant. When we wish to think, we need postulates infinitely precise, since this is the only way to avoid contradiction; but among all the possible systems of postulates, there are some we dislike to choose because they are not sufficiently in accord with our habits; however pliant, however elastic they may be, these have a limit of elasticity.
We see that if geometry is not an experimental science, it is a science born apropos of experience; that we have created the space it studies, but adapting it to the world wherein we live. We have selected the most convenient space, but experience has guided our choice; as this choice has been unconscious, we think it has been imposed upon us; some say experience imposes it, others that we are born with our space ready made; we see from the preceding considerations, what in these two opinions is the part of truth, what of error.
In this progressive education whose outcome has been the construction of space, it is very difficult to determine what is the part of the individual, what the part of the race. How far could one of us, transported from birth to an entirely different world, where were dominant, for instance, bodies moving in conformity to the laws of motion of non-Euclidean solids, renounce the ancestral space to build a space completely new?
The part of the race seems indeed preponderant; yet if to it we owe rough space, the soft space I have spoken of, the space of the higher animals, is it not to the unconscious experience of the individual we owe the infinitely precise space of the geometer? This is a question not easy to solve. Yet we cite a fact showing that the space our ancestors have bequeathed us still retains a certain plasticity. Some hunters learn to shoot fish under water, though the image of these fish be turned up by refraction. Besides they do it instinctively: they therefore have learned to modify their old instinct of direction; or, if you choose, to substitute for the association A1, B1, another association A1, B2, because experience showed them the first would not work.
Chapter II
Mathematical Definitions and Teaching
1. I should speak here of general definitions in mathematics; at least that is the title, but it will be impossible to confine myself to the subject as strictly as the rule of unity of action would require; I shall not be able to treat it without touching upon a few other related questions, and if thus I am forced from time to time to walk on the bordering flower-beds on the right or left, I pray you bear with me.
What is a good definition? For the philosopher or the scientist it is a definition which applies to all the objects defined, and only those; it is the one satisfying the rules of logic. But in teaching it is not that; a good definition is one understood by the scholars.
How does it happen that so many refuse to understand mathematics? Is that not something of a paradox? Lo and behold! a science appealing only to the fundamental principles of logic, to the principle of contradiction, for instance, to that which is the skeleton, so to speak, of our intelligence, to that of which we can not divest ourselves without ceasing to think, and there are people who find it obscure! and they are even in the majority! That they are incapable of inventing may pass, but that they do not understand the demonstrations shown them, that they remain blind when we show them a light which seems to us flashing pure flame, this it is which is altogether prodigious.
And yet there is no need of a wide experience with examinations to know that these blind men are in no wise exceptional beings. This is a problem not easy to solve, but which should engage the attention of all those wishing to devote themselves to teaching.
What is it, to understand? Has this word the same meaning for all the world? To understand the demonstration of a theorem, is that to examine successively each of the syllogisms composing it and to ascertain its correctness, its conformity to the rules of the game? Likewise, to understand a definition, is this merely to recognize that one already knows the meaning of all the terms employed and to ascertain that it implies no contradiction?
For some, yes; when they have done this, they will say: I understand.
For the majority, no. Almost all are much more exacting; they wish to know not merely whether all the syllogisms of a demonstration are correct, but why they link together in this order rather than another. In so far as to them they seem engendered by caprice and not by an intelligence always conscious of the end to be attained, they do not believe they understand.
Doubtless they are not themselves just conscious of what they crave and they could not formulate their desire, but if they do not get satisfaction, they vaguely feel that something is lacking. Then what happens? In the beginning they still perceive the proofs one puts under their eyes; but as these are connected only by too slender a thread to those which precede and those which follow, they pass without leaving any trace in their head; they are soon forgotten; a moment bright, they quickly vanish in night eternal. When they are farther on, they will no longer see even this ephemeral light, since the theorems lean one upon another and those they would need are forgotten; thus it is they become incapable of understanding mathematics.
This is not always the fault of their teacher; often their mind, which needs to perceive the guiding thread, is too lazy to seek and find it. But to come to their aid, we first must know just what hinders them.
Others will always ask of what use is it; they will not have understood if they do not find about them, in practise or in nature, the justification of such and such a mathematical concept. Under each word they wish to put a sensible image; the definition must evoke this image, so that at each stage of the demonstration they may see it transform and evolve. Only upon this condition do they comprehend and retain. Often these deceive themselves; they do not listen to the reasoning, they look at the figures; they think they have understood and they have only seen.
2. How many different tendencies! Must we combat them? Must we use them? And if we wish to combat them, which should be favored? Must we show those content with the pure logic that they have seen only one side of the matter? Or need we say to those not so cheaply satisfied that what they demand is not necessary?
In other words, should we constrain the young people to change the nature of their minds? Such an attempt would be vain; we do not possess the philosopher’s stone which would enable us to transmute one into another the metals confided to us; all we can do is to work with them, adapting ourselves to their properties.
Many children are incapable of becoming mathematicians, to whom however it is necessary to teach mathematics; and the mathematicians themselves are not all cast in the same mold. To read their works suffices to distinguish among them two sorts of minds, the logicians like Weierstrass for example, the intuitives like Riemann. There is the same difference among our students. The one sort prefer to treat their problems ‘by analysis’ as they say, the others ‘by geometry.’
It is useless to seek to change anything of that, and besides would it be desirable? It is well that there are logicians and that there are intuitives; who would dare say whether he preferred that Weierstrass had never written or that there never had been a Riemann? We must therefore resign ourselves to the diversity of minds, or better we must rejoice in it.
3. Since the word understand has many meanings, the definitions which will be best understood by some will not be best suited to others. We have those which seek to produce an image, and those where we confine ourselves to combining empty forms, perfectly intelligible, but purely intelligible, which abstraction has deprived of all matter.
I know not whether it be necessary to cite examples. Let us cite them, anyhow, and first the definition of fractions will furnish us an extreme case. In the primary schools, to define a fraction, one cuts up an apple or a pie; it is cut up mentally of course and not in reality, because I do not suppose the budget of the primary instruction allows of such prodigality. At the Normal School, on the other hand, or at the college, it is said: a fraction is the combination of two whole numbers separated by a horizontal bar; we define by conventions the operations to which these symbols may be submitted; it is proved that the rules of these operations are the same as in calculating with whole numbers, and we ascertain finally that multiplying the fraction, according to these rules, by the denominator gives the numerator. This is all very well because we are addressing young people long familiarized with the notion of fractions through having cut up apples or other objects, and whose mind, matured by a hard mathematical education, has come little by little to desire a purely logical definition. But the débutant to whom one should try to give it, how dumfounded!
Such also are the definitions found in a book justly admired and greatly honored, the Foundations of Geometry by Hilbert. See in fact how he begins: We think three systems of things which we shall call points, straights and planes. What are these ‘things’?
We know not, nor need we know; it would even be a pity to seek to know; all we have the right to know of them is what the assumptions tell us; this for example: Two distinct points always determine a straight, which is followed by this remark: in place of determine, we may say the two points are on the straight, or the straight goes through these two points or joins the two points.
Thus ‘to be on a straight’ is simply defined as synonymous with ‘determine a straight.’ Behold a book of which I think much good, but which I should not recommend to a school boy. Yet I could do so without fear, he would not read much of it. I have taken extreme examples and no teacher would dream of going that far. But even stopping short of such models, does he not already expose himself to the same danger?
Suppose we are in a class; the professor dictates: the circle is the locus of points of the plane equidistant from an interior point called the center. The good scholar writes this phrase in his note-book; the bad scholar draws faces; but neither understands; then the professor takes the chalk and draws a circle on the board. “Ah!” think the scholars, “why did he not say at once: a circle is a ring, we should have understood.” Doubtless the professor is right. The scholars’ definition would have been of no avail, since it could serve for no demonstration, since besides it would not give them the salutary habit of analyzing their conceptions. But one should show them that they do not comprehend what they think they know, lead them to be conscious of the roughness of their primitive conception, and of themselves to wish it purified and made precise.
4. I shall return to these examples; I only wished to show you the two opposed conceptions; they are in violent contrast. This contrast the history of science explains. If we read a book written fifty years ago, most of the reasoning we find there seems lacking in rigor. Then it was assumed a continuous function can change sign only by vanishing; to-day we prove it. It was assumed the ordinary rules of calculation are applicable to incommensurable numbers; to-day we prove it. Many other things were assumed which sometimes were false.
We trusted to intuition; but intuition can not give rigor, nor even certainty; we see this more and more. It tells us for instance that every curve has a tangent, that is to say that every continuous function has a derivative, and that is false. And as we sought certainty, we had to make less and less the part of intuition.
What has made necessary this evolution? We have not been slow to perceive that rigor could not be established in the reasonings, if it were not first put into the definitions.
The objects occupying mathematicians were long ill defined; we thought we knew them because we represented them with the senses or the imagination; but we had of them only a rough image and not a precise concept upon which reasoning could take hold. It is there that the logicians would have done well to direct their efforts.
So for the incommensurable number, the vague idea of continuity, which we owe to intuition, has resolved itself into a complicated system of inequalities bearing on whole numbers. Thus have finally vanished all those difficulties which frightened our fathers when they reflected upon the foundations of the infinitesimal calculus. To-day only whole numbers are left in analysis, or systems finite or infinite of whole numbers, bound by a plexus of equalities and inequalities. Mathematics we say is arithmetized.
5. But do you think mathematics has attained absolute rigor without making any sacrifice? Not at all; what it has gained in rigor it has lost in objectivity. It is by separating itself from reality that it has acquired this perfect purity. We may freely run over its whole domain, formerly bristling with obstacles, but these obstacles have not disappeared. They have only been moved to the frontier, and it would be necessary to vanquish them anew if we wished to break over this frontier to enter the realm of the practical.
We had a vague notion, formed of incongruous elements, some a priori, others coming from experiences more or less digested; we thought we knew, by intuition, its principal properties. To-day we reject the empiric elements, retaining only the a priori; one of the properties serves as definition and all the others are deduced from it by rigorous reasoning. This is all very well, but it remains to be proved that this property, which has become a definition, pertains to the real objects which experience had made known to us and whence we drew our vague intuitive notion. To prove that, it would be necessary to appeal to experience, or to make an effort of intuition, and if we could not prove it, our theorems would be perfectly rigorous, but perfectly useless.
Logic sometimes makes monsters. Since half a century we have seen arise a crowd of bizarre functions which seem to try to resemble as little as possible the honest functions which serve some purpose. No longer continuity, or perhaps continuity, but no derivatives, etc. Nay more, from the logical point of view, it is these strange functions which are the most general, those one meets without seeking no longer appear except as particular case. There remains for them only a very small corner.
Heretofore when a new function was invented, it was for some practical end; to-day they are invented expressly to put at fault the reasonings of our fathers, and one never will get from them anything more than that.
If logic were the sole guide of the teacher, it would be necessary to begin with the most general functions, that is to say with the most bizarre. It is the beginner that would have to be set grappling with this teratologic museum. If you do not do it, the logicians might say, you will achieve rigor only by stages.
6. Yes, perhaps, but we can not make so cheap of reality, and I mean not only the reality of the sensible world, which however has its worth, since it is to combat against it that nine tenths of your students ask of you weapons. There is a reality more subtile, which makes the very life of the mathematical beings, and which is quite other than logic.
Our body is formed of cells, and the cells of atoms; are these cells and these atoms then all the reality of the human body? The way these cells are arranged, whence results the unity of the individual, is it not also a reality and much more interesting?
A naturalist who never had studied the elephant except in the microscope, would he think he knew the animal adequately? It is the same in mathematics. When the logician shall have broken up each demonstration into a multitude of elementary operations, all correct, he still will not possess the whole reality; this I know not what which makes the unity of the demonstration will completely escape him.
In the edifices built up by our masters, of what use to admire the work of the mason if we can not comprehend the plan of the architect? Now pure logic can not give us this appreciation of the total effect; this we must ask of intuition.
Take for instance the idea of continuous function. This is at first only a sensible image, a mark traced by the chalk on the blackboard. Little by little it is refined; we use it to construct a complicated system of inequalities, which reproduces all the features of the primitive image; when all is done, we have removed the centering, as after the construction of an arch; this rough representation, support thenceforth useless, has disappeared and there remains only the edifice itself, irreproachable in the eyes of the logician. And yet, if the professor did not recall the primitive image, if he did not restore momentarily the centering, how could the student divine by what caprice all these inequalities have been scaffolded in this fashion one upon another? The definition would be logically correct, but it would not show him the veritable reality.
7. So back we must return; doubtless it is hard for a master to teach what does not entirely satisfy him; but the satisfaction of the master is not the unique object of teaching; we should first give attention to what the mind of the pupil is and to what we wish it to become.
Zoologists maintain that the embryonic development of an animal recapitulates in brief the whole history of its ancestors throughout geologic time. It seems it is the same in the development of minds. The teacher should make the child go over the path his fathers trod; more rapidly, but without skipping stations. For this reason, the history of science should be our first guide.
Our fathers thought they knew what a fraction was, or continuity, or the area of a curved surface; we have found they did not know it. Just so our scholars think they know it when they begin the serious study of mathematics. If without warning I tell them: “No, you do not know it; what you think you understand, you do not understand; I must prove to you what seems to you evident,” and if in the demonstration I support myself upon premises which to them seem less evident than the conclusion, what shall the unfortunates think? They will think that the science of mathematics is only an arbitrary mass of useless subtilities; either they will be disgusted with it, or they will play it as a game and will reach a state of mind like that of the Greek sophists.
Later, on the contrary, when the mind of the scholar, familiarized with mathematical reasoning, has been matured by this long frequentation, the doubts will arise of themselves and then your demonstration will be welcome. It will awaken new doubts, and the questions will arise successively to the child, as they arose successively to our fathers, until perfect rigor alone can satisfy him. To doubt everything does not suffice, one must know why he doubts.
8. The principal aim of mathematical teaching is to develop certain faculties of the mind, and among them intuition is not the least precious. It is through it that the mathematical world remains in contact with the real world, and if pure mathematics could do without it, it would always be necessary to have recourse to it to fill up the chasm which separates the symbol from reality. The practician will always have need of it, and for one pure geometer there should be a hundred practicians.
The engineer should receive a complete mathematical education, but for what should it serve him?
To see the different aspects of things and see them quickly; he has no time to hunt mice. It is necessary that, in the complex physical objects presented to him, he should promptly recognize the point where the mathematical tools we have put in his hands can take hold. How could he do it if we should leave between instruments and objects the deep chasm hollowed out by the logicians?
9. Besides the engineers, other scholars, less numerous, are in their turn to become teachers; they therefore must go to the very bottom; a knowledge deep and rigorous of the first principles is for them before all indispensable. But this is no reason not to cultivate in them intuition; for they would get a false idea of the science if they never looked at it except from a single side, and besides they could not develop in their students a quality they did not themselves possess.
For the pure geometer himself, this faculty is necessary; it is by logic one demonstrates, by intuition one invents. To know how to criticize is good, to know how to create is better. You know how to recognize if a combination is correct; what a predicament if you have not the art of choosing among all the possible combinations. Logic tells us that on such and such a way we are sure not to meet any obstacle; it does not say which way leads to the end. For that it is necessary to see the end from afar, and the faculty which teaches us to see is intuition. Without it the geometer would be like a writer who should be versed in grammar but had no ideas. Now how could this faculty develop if, as soon as it showed itself, we chase it away and proscribe it, if we learn to set it at naught before knowing the good of it.
And here permit a parenthesis to insist upon the importance of written exercises. Written compositions are perhaps not sufficiently emphasized in certain examinations, at the polytechnic school, for instance. I am told they would close the door against very good scholars who have mastered the course, thoroughly understanding it, and who nevertheless are incapable of making the slightest application. I have just said the word understand has several meanings: such students only understand in the first way, and we have seen that suffices neither to make an engineer nor a geometer. Well, since choice must be made, I prefer those who understand completely.
10. But is the art of sound reasoning not also a precious thing, which the professor of mathematics ought before all to cultivate? I take good care not to forget that. It should occupy our attention and from the very beginning. I should be distressed to see geometry degenerate into I know not what tachymetry of low grade and I by no means subscribe to the extreme doctrines of certain German Oberlehrer. But there are occasions enough to exercise the scholars in correct reasoning in the parts of mathematics where the inconveniences I have pointed out do not present themselves. There are long chains of theorems where absolute logic has reigned from the very first and, so to speak, quite naturally, where the first geometers have given us models we should constantly imitate and admire.
It is in the exposition of first principles that it is necessary to avoid too much subtility; there it would be most discouraging and moreover useless. We can not prove everything and we can not define everything; and it will always be necessary to borrow from intuition; what does it matter whether it be done a little sooner or a little later, provided that in using correctly premises it has furnished us, we learn to reason soundly.
11. Is it possible to fulfill so many opposing conditions? Is this possible in particular when it is a question of giving a definition? How find a concise statement satisfying at once the uncompromising rules of logic, our desire to grasp the place of the new notion in the totality of the science, our need of thinking with images? Usually it will not be found, and this is why it is not enough to state a definition; it must be prepared for and justified.
What does that mean? You know it has often been said: every definition implies an assumption, since it affirms the existence of the object defined. The definition then will not be justified, from the purely logical point of view, until one shall have proved that it involves no contradiction, neither in the terms, nor with the verities previously admitted.
But this is not enough; the definition is stated to us as a convention; but most minds will revolt if we wish to impose it upon them as an arbitrary convention. They will be satisfied only when you have answered numerous questions.
Usually mathematical definitions, as M. Liard has shown, are veritable constructions built up wholly of more simple notions. But why assemble these elements in this way when a thousand other combinations were possible?
Is it by caprice? If not, why had this combination more right to exist than all the others? To what need does it respond? How was it foreseen that it would play an important rôle in the development of the science, that it would abridge our reasonings and our calculations? Is there in nature some familiar object which is so to speak the rough and vague image of it?
This is not all; if you answer all these questions in a satisfactory manner, we shall see indeed that the new-born had the right to be baptized; but neither is the choice of a name arbitrary; it is needful to explain by what analogies one has been guided and that if analogous names have been given to different things, these things at least differ only in material and are allied in form; that their properties are analogous and so to say parallel.
At this cost we may satisfy all inclinations. If the statement is correct enough to please the logician, the justification will satisfy the intuitive. But there is still a better procedure; wherever possible, the justification should precede the statement and prepare for it; one should be led on to the general statement by the study of some particular examples.
Still another thing: each of the parts of the statement of a definition has as aim to distinguish the thing to be defined from a class of other neighboring objects. The definition will be understood only when you have shown, not merely the object defined, but the neighboring objects from which it is proper to distinguish it, when you have given a grasp of the difference and when you have added explicitly: this is why in stating the definition I have said this or that.
But it is time to leave generalities and examine how the somewhat abstract principles I have expounded may be applied in arithmetic, geometry, analysis and mechanics.
Arithmetic
12. The whole number is not to be defined; in return, one ordinarily defines the operations upon whole numbers; I believe the scholars learn these definitions by heart and attach no meaning to them. For that there are two reasons: first they are made to learn them too soon, when their mind as yet feels no need of them; then these definitions are not satisfactory from the logical point of view. A good definition for addition is not to be found just simply because we must stop and can not define everything. It is not defining addition to say it consists in adding. All that can be done is to start from a certain number of concrete examples and say: the operation we have performed is called addition.
For subtraction it is quite otherwise; it may be logically defined as the operation inverse to addition; but should we begin in that way? Here also start with examples, show on these examples the reciprocity of the two operations; thus the definition will be prepared for and justified.
Just so again for multiplication; take a particular problem; show that it may be solved by adding several equal numbers; then show that we reach the result more quickly by a multiplication, an operation the scholars already know how to do by routine and out of that the logical definition will issue naturally.
Division is defined as the operation inverse to multiplication; but begin by an example taken from the familiar notion of partition and show on this example that multiplication reproduces the dividend.
There still remain the operations on fractions. The only difficulty is for multiplication. It is best to expound first the theory of proportion; from it alone can come a logical definition; but to make acceptable the definitions met at the beginning of this theory, it is necessary to prepare for them by numerous examples taken from classic problems of the rule of three, taking pains to introduce fractional data.
Neither should we fear to familiarize the scholars with the notion of proportion by geometric images, either by appealing to what they remember if they have already studied geometry, or in having recourse to direct intuition, if they have not studied it, which besides will prepare them to study it. Finally I shall add that after defining multiplication of fractions, it is needful to justify this definition by showing that it is commutative, associative and distributive, and calling to the attention of the auditors that this is established to justify the definition.
One sees what a rôle geometric images play in all this; and this rôle is justified by the philosophy and the history of the science. If arithmetic had remained free from all admixture of geometry, it would have known only the whole number; it is to adapt itself to the needs of geometry that it invented anything else.
Geometry
In geometry we meet forthwith the notion of the straight line. Can the straight line be defined? The well-known definition, the shortest path from one point to another, scarcely satisfies me. I should start simply with the ruler and show at first to the scholar how one may verify a ruler by turning; this verification is the true definition of the straight line; the straight line is an axis of rotation. Next he should be shown how to verify the ruler by sliding and he would have one of the most important properties of the straight line.
As to this other property of being the shortest path from one point to another, it is a theorem which can be demonstrated apodictically, but the demonstration is too delicate to find a place in secondary teaching. It will be worth more to show that a ruler previously verified fits on a stretched thread. In presence of difficulties like these one need not dread to multiply assumptions, justifying them by rough experiments.
It is needful to grant these assumptions, and if one admits a few more of them than is strictly necessary, the evil is not very great; the essential thing is to learn to reason soundly on the assumptions admitted. Uncle Sarcey, who loved to repeat, often said that at the theater the spectator accepts willingly all the postulates imposed upon him at the beginning, but the curtain once raised, he becomes uncompromising on the logic. Well, it is just the same in mathematics.
For the circle, we may start with the compasses; the scholars will recognize at the first glance the curve traced; then make them observe that the distance of the two points of the instrument remains constant, that one of these points is fixed and the other movable, and so we shall be led naturally to the logical definition.
The definition of the plane implies an axiom and this need not be hidden. Take a drawing board and show that a moving ruler may be kept constantly in complete contact with this plane and yet retain three degrees of freedom. Compare with the cylinder and the cone, surfaces on which an applied straight retains only two degrees of freedom; next take three drawing boards; show first that they will glide while remaining applied to one another and this with three degrees of freedom; and finally to distinguish the plane from the sphere, show that two of these boards which fit a third will fit each other.
Perhaps you are surprised at this incessant employment of moving things; this is not a rough artifice; it is much more philosophic than one would at first think. What is geometry for the philosopher? It is the study of a group. And what group? That of the motions of solid bodies. How define this group then without moving some solids?
Should we retain the classic definition of parallels and say parallels are two coplanar straights which do not meet, however far they be prolonged? No, since this definition is negative, since it is unverifiable by experiment, and consequently can not be regarded as an immediate datum of intuition. No, above all because it is wholly strange to the notion of group, to the consideration of the motion of solid bodies which is, as I have said, the true source of geometry. Would it not be better to define first the rectilinear translation of an invariable figure, as a motion wherein all the points of this figure have rectilinear trajectories; to show that such a translation is possible by making a square glide on a ruler?
From this experimental ascertainment, set up as an assumption, it would be easy to derive the notion of parallel and Euclid’s postulate itself.
Mechanics
I need not return to the definition of velocity, or acceleration, or other kinematic notions; they may be advantageously connected with that of the derivative.
I shall insist, on the other hand, upon the dynamic notions of force and mass.
I am struck by one thing: how very far the young people who have received a high-school education are from applying to the real world the mechanical laws they have been taught. It is not only that they are incapable of it; they do not even think of it. For them the world of science and the world of reality are separated by an impervious partition wall.
If we try to analyze the state of mind of our scholars, this will astonish us less. What is for them the real definition of force? Not that which they recite, but that which, crouching in a nook of their mind, from there directs it wholly. Here is the definition: forces are arrows with which one makes parallelograms. These arrows are imaginary things which have nothing to do with anything existing in nature. This would not happen if they had been shown forces in reality before representing them by arrows.
How shall we define force?
I think I have elsewhere sufficiently shown there is no good logical definition. There is the anthropomorphic definition, the sensation of muscular effort; this is really too rough and nothing useful can be drawn from it.
Here is how we should go: first, to make known the genus force, we must show one after the other all the species of this genus; they are very numerous and very different; there is the pressure of fluids on the insides of the vases wherein they are contained; the tension of threads; the elasticity of a spring; the gravity working on all the molecules of a body; friction; the normal mutual action and reaction of two solids in contact.
This is only a qualitative definition; it is necessary to learn to measure force. For that begin by showing that one force may be replaced by another without destroying equilibrium; we may find the first example of this substitution in the balance and Borda’s double weighing.
Then show that a weight may be replaced, not only by another weight, but by force of a different nature; for instance, Prony’s brake permits replacing weight by friction.
From all this arises the notion of the equivalence of two forces.
The direction of a force must be defined. If a force F is equivalent to another force F´ applied to the body considered by means of a stretched string, so that F may be replaced by F´ without affecting the equilibrium, then the point of attachment of the string will be by definition the point of application of the force F´, and that of the equivalent force F; the direction of the string will be the direction of the force F´ and that of the equivalent force F.
From that, pass to the comparison of the magnitude of forces. If a force can replace two others with the same direction, it equals their sum; show for example that a weight of 20 grams may replace two 10-gram weights.
Is this enough? Not yet. We now know how to compare the intensity of two forces which have the same direction and same point of application; we must learn to do it when the directions are different. For that, imagine a string stretched by a weight and passing over a pulley; we shall say that the tensor of the two legs of the string is the same and equal to the tension weight.
This definition of ours enables us to compare the tensions of the two pieces of our string, and, using the preceding definitions, to compare any two forces having the same direction as these two pieces. It should be justified by showing that the tension of the last piece of the string remains the same for the same tensor weight, whatever be the number and the disposition of the reflecting pulleys. It has still to be completed by showing this is only true if the pulleys are frictionless.
Once master of these definitions, it is to be shown that the point of application, the direction and the intensity suffice to determine a force; that two forces for which these three elements are the same are always equivalent and may always be replaced by one another, whether in equilibrium or in movement, and this whatever be the other forces acting.
It must be shown that two concurrent forces may always be replaced by a unique resultant; and that this resultant remains the same, whether the body be at rest or in motion and whatever be the other forces applied to it.
Finally it must be shown that forces thus defined satisfy the principle of the equality of action and reaction.
Experiment it is, and experiment alone, which can teach us all that. It will suffice to cite certain common experiments, which the scholars make daily without suspecting it, and to perform before them a few experiments, simple and well chosen.
It is after having passed through all these meanders that one may represent forces by arrows, and I should even wish that in the development of the reasonings return were made from time to time from the symbol to the reality. For instance it would not be difficult to illustrate the parallelogram of forces by aid of an apparatus formed of three strings, passing over pulleys, stretched by weights and in equilibrium while pulling on the same point.
Knowing force, it is easy to define mass; this time the definition should be borrowed from dynamics; there is no way of doing otherwise, since the end to be attained is to give understanding of the distinction between mass and weight. Here again, the definition should be led up to by experiments; there is in fact a machine which seems made expressly to show what mass is, Atwood’s machine; recall also the laws of the fall of bodies, that the acceleration of gravity is the same for heavy as for light bodies, and that it varies with the latitude, etc.
Now, if you tell me that all the methods I extol have long been applied in the schools, I shall rejoice over it more than be surprised at it. I know that on the whole our mathematical teaching is good. I do not wish it overturned; that would even distress me. I only desire betterments slowly progressive. This teaching should not be subjected to brusque oscillations under the capricious blast of ephemeral fads. In such tempests its high educative value would soon founder. A good and sound logic should continue to be its basis. The definition by example is always necessary, but it should prepare the way for the logical definition, it should not replace it; it should at least make this wished for, in the cases where the true logical definition can be advantageously given only in advanced teaching.
Understand that what I have here said does not imply giving up what I have written elsewhere. I have often had occasion to criticize certain definitions I extol to-day. These criticisms hold good completely. These definitions can only be provisory. But it is by way of them that we must pass.
Chapter III
Mathematics and Logic
Introduction
Can mathematics be reduced to logic without having to appeal to principles peculiar to mathematics? There is a whole school, abounding in ardor and full of faith, striving to prove it. They have their own special language, which is without words, using only signs. This language is understood only by the initiates, so that commoners are disposed to bow to the trenchant affirmations of the adepts. It is perhaps not unprofitable to examine these affirmations somewhat closely, to see if they justify the peremptory tone with which they are presented.
But to make clear the nature of the question it is necessary to enter upon certain historical details and in particular to recall the character of the works of Cantor.
Since long ago the notion of infinity had been introduced into mathematics; but this infinite was what philosophers call a becoming. The mathematical infinite was only a quantity capable of increasing beyond all limit: it was a variable quantity of which it could not be said that it had passed all limits, but only that it could pass them.
Cantor has undertaken to introduce into mathematics an actual infinite, that is to say a quantity which not only is capable of passing all limits, but which is regarded as having already passed them. He has set himself questions like these: Are there more points in space than whole numbers? Are there more points in space than points in a plane? etc.
And then the number of whole numbers, that of the points of space, etc., constitutes what he calls a transfinite cardinal number, that is to say a cardinal number greater than all the ordinary cardinal numbers. And he has occupied himself in comparing these transfinite cardinal numbers. In arranging in a proper order the elements of an aggregate containing an infinity of them, he has also imagined what he calls transfinite ordinal numbers upon which I shall not dwell.
Many mathematicians followed his lead and set a series of questions of the sort. They so familiarized themselves with transfinite numbers that they have come to make the theory of finite numbers depend upon that of Cantor’s cardinal numbers. In their eyes, to teach arithmetic in a way truly logical, one should begin by establishing the general properties of transfinite cardinal numbers, then distinguish among them a very small class, that of the ordinary whole numbers. Thanks to this détour, one might succeed in proving all the propositions relative to this little class (that is to say all our arithmetic and our algebra) without using any principle foreign to logic. This method is evidently contrary to all sane psychology; it is certainly not in this way that the human mind proceeded in constructing mathematics; so its authors do not dream, I think, of introducing it into secondary teaching. But is it at least logic, or, better, is it correct? It may be doubted.
The geometers who have employed it are however very numerous. They have accumulated formulas and they have thought to free themselves from what was not pure logic by writing memoirs where the formulas no longer alternate with explanatory discourse as in the books of ordinary mathematics, but where this discourse has completely disappeared.
Unfortunately they have reached contradictory results, what are called the cantorian antinomies, to which we shall have occasion to return. These contradictions have not discouraged them and they have tried to modify their rules so as to make those disappear which had already shown themselves, without being sure, for all that, that new ones would not manifest themselves.
It is time to administer justice on these exaggerations. I do not hope to convince them; for they have lived too long in this atmosphere. Besides, when one of their demonstrations has been refuted, we are sure to see it resurrected with insignificant alterations, and some of them have already risen several times from their ashes. Such long ago was the Lernæan hydra with its famous heads which always grew again. Hercules got through, since his hydra had only nine heads, or eleven; but here there are too many, some in England, some in Germany, in Italy, in France, and he would have to give up the struggle. So I appeal only to men of good judgment unprejudiced.
I
In these latter years numerous works have been published on pure mathematics and the philosophy of mathematics, trying to separate and isolate the logical elements of mathematical reasoning. These works have been analyzed and expounded very clearly by M. Couturat in a book entitled: The Principles of Mathematics.
For M. Couturat, the new works, and in particular those of Russell and Peano, have finally settled the controversy, so long pending between Leibnitz and Kant. They have shown that there are no synthetic judgments a priori (Kant’s phrase to designate judgments which can neither be demonstrated analytically, nor reduced to identities, nor established experimentally), they have shown that mathematics is entirely reducible to logic and that intuition here plays no rôle.
This is what M. Couturat has set forth in the work just cited; this he says still more explicitly in his Kant jubilee discourse, so that I heard my neighbor whisper: “I well see this is the centenary of Kant’s death.”
Can we subscribe to this conclusive condemnation? I think not, and I shall try to show why.
II
What strikes us first in the new mathematics is its purely formal character: “We think,” says Hilbert, “three sorts of things, which we shall call points, straights and planes. We convene that a straight shall be determined by two points, and that in place of saying this straight is determined by these two points, we may say it passes through these two points, or that these two points are situated on this straight.” What these things are, not only we do not know, but we should not seek to know. We have no need to, and one who never had seen either point or straight or plane could geometrize as well as we. That the phrase to pass through, or the phrase to be situated upon may arouse in us no image, the first is simply a synonym of to be determined and the second of to determine.
Thus, be it understood, to demonstrate a theorem, it is neither necessary nor even advantageous to know what it means. The geometer might be replaced by the logic piano imagined by Stanley Jevons; or, if you choose, a machine might be imagined where the assumptions were put in at one end, while the theorems came out at the other, like the legendary Chicago machine where the pigs go in alive and come out transformed into hams and sausages. No more than these machines need the mathematician know what he does.
I do not make this formal character of his geometry a reproach to Hilbert. This is the way he should go, given the problem he set himself. He wished to reduce to a minimum the number of the fundamental assumptions of geometry and completely enumerate them; now, in reasonings where our mind remains active, in those where intuition still plays a part, in living reasonings, so to speak, it is difficult not to introduce an assumption or a postulate which passes unperceived. It is therefore only after having carried back all the geometric reasonings to a form purely mechanical that he could be sure of having accomplished his design and finished his work.
What Hilbert did for geometry, others have tried to do for arithmetic and analysis. Even if they had entirely succeeded, would the Kantians be finally condemned to silence? Perhaps not, for in reducing mathematical thought to an empty form, it is certainly mutilated.
Even admitting it were established that all the theorems could be deduced by procedures purely analytic, by simple logical combinations of a finite number of assumptions, and that these assumptions are only conventions; the philosopher would still have the right to investigate the origins of these conventions, to see why they have been judged preferable to the contrary conventions.
And then the logical correctness of the reasonings leading from the assumptions to the theorems is not the only thing which should occupy us. The rules of perfect logic, are they the whole of mathematics? As well say the whole art of playing chess reduces to the rules of the moves of the pieces. Among all the constructs which can be built up of the materials furnished by logic, choice must be made; the true geometer makes this choice judiciously because he is guided by a sure instinct, or by some vague consciousness of I know not what more profound and more hidden geometry, which alone gives value to the edifice constructed.
To seek the origin of this instinct, to study the laws of this deep geometry, felt, not stated, would also be a fine employment for the philosophers who do not want logic to be all. But it is not at this point of view I wish to put myself, it is not thus I wish to consider the question. The instinct mentioned is necessary for the inventor, but it would seem at first we might do without it in studying the science once created. Well, what I wish to investigate is if it be true that, the principles of logic once admitted, one can, I do not say discover, but demonstrate, all the mathematical verities without making a new appeal to intuition.
III
I once said no to this question:12 should our reply be modified by the recent works? My saying no was because “the principle of complete induction” seemed to me at once necessary to the mathematician and irreducible to logic. The statement of this principle is: “If a property be true of the number 1, and if we establish that it is true of n + 1 provided it be of n, it will be true of all the whole numbers.” Therein I see the mathematical reasoning par excellence. I did not mean to say, as has been supposed, that all mathematical reasonings can be reduced to an application of this principle. Examining these reasonings closely, we there should see applied many other analogous principles, presenting the same essential characteristics. In this category of principles, that of complete induction is only the simplest of all and this is why I have chosen it as type.
The current name, principle of complete induction, is not justified. This mode of reasoning is none the less a true mathematical induction which differs from ordinary induction only by its certitude.
IV
Definitions and Assumptions
The existence of such principles is a difficulty for the uncompromising logicians; how do they pretend to get out of it? The principle of complete induction, they say, is not an assumption properly so called or a synthetic judgment a priori; it is just simply the definition of whole number. It is therefore a simple convention. To discuss this way of looking at it, we must examine a little closely the relations between definitions and assumptions.
Let us go back first to an article by M. Couturat on mathematical definitions which appeared in l’Enseignement mathématique, a magazine published by Gauthier-Villars and by Georg at Geneva. We shall see there a distinction between the direct definition and the definition by postulates.
“The definition by postulates,” says M. Couturat, “applies not to a single notion, but to a system of notions; it consists in enumerating the fundamental relations which unite them and which enable us to demonstrate all their other properties; these relations are postulates.”
If previously have been defined all these notions but one, then this last will be by definition the thing which verifies these postulates. Thus certain indemonstrable assumptions of mathematics would be only disguised definitions. This point of view is often legitimate; and I have myself admitted it in regard for instance to Euclid’s postulate.
The other assumptions of geometry do not suffice to completely define distance; the distance then will be, by definition, among all the magnitudes which satisfy these other assumptions, that which is such as to make Euclid’s postulate true.
Well the logicians suppose true for the principle of complete induction what I admit for Euclid’s postulate; they want to see in it only a disguised definition.
But to give them this right, two conditions must be fulfilled. Stuart Mill says every definition implies an assumption, that by which the existence of the defined object is affirmed. According to that, it would no longer be the assumption which might be a disguised definition, it would on the contrary be the definition which would be a disguised assumption. Stuart Mill meant the word existence in a material and empirical sense; he meant to say that in defining the circle we affirm there are round things in nature.
Under this form, his opinion is inadmissible. Mathematics is independent of the existence of material objects; in mathematics the word exist can have only one meaning, it means free from contradiction. Thus rectified, Stuart Mill’s thought becomes exact; in defining a thing, we affirm that the definition implies no contradiction.
If therefore we have a system of postulates, and if we can demonstrate that these postulates imply no contradiction, we shall have the right to consider them as representing the definition of one of the notions entering therein. If we can not demonstrate that, it must be admitted without proof, and that then will be an assumption; so that, seeking the definition under the postulate, we should find the assumption under the definition.
Usually, to show that a definition implies no contradiction, we proceed by example, we try to make an example of a thing satisfying the definition. Take the case of a definition by postulates; we wish to define a notion A, and we say that, by definition, an A is anything for which certain postulates are true. If we can prove directly that all these postulates are true of a certain object B, the definition will be justified; the object B will be an example of an A. We shall be certain that the postulates are not contradictory, since there are cases where they are all true at the same time.
But such a direct demonstration by example is not always possible.
To establish that the postulates imply no contradiction, it is then necessary to consider all the propositions deducible from these postulates considered as premises, and to show that, among these propositions, no two are contradictory. If these propositions are finite in number, a direct verification is possible. This case is infrequent and uninteresting. If these propositions are infinite in number, this direct verification can no longer be made; recourse must be had to procedures where in general it is necessary to invoke just this principle of complete induction which is precisely the thing to be proved.
This is an explanation of one of the conditions the logicians should satisfy, and further on we shall see they have not done it.
V
There is a second. When we give a definition, it is to use it.
We therefore shall find in the sequel of the exposition the word defined; have we the right to affirm, of the thing represented by this word, the postulate which has served for definition? Yes, evidently, if the word has retained its meaning, if we do not attribute to it implicitly a different meaning. Now this is what sometimes happens and it is usually difficult to perceive it; it is needful to see how this word comes into our discourse, and if the gate by which it has entered does not imply in reality a definition other than that stated.
This difficulty presents itself in all the applications of mathematics. The mathematical notion has been given a definition very refined and very rigorous; and for the pure mathematician all doubt has disappeared; but if one wishes to apply it to the physical sciences for instance, it is no longer a question of this pure notion, but of a concrete object which is often only a rough image of it. To say that this object satisfies, at least approximately, the definition, is to state a new truth, which experience alone can put beyond doubt, and which no longer has the character of a conventional postulate.
But without going beyond pure mathematics, we also meet the same difficulty.
You give a subtile definition of numbers; then, once this definition given, you think no more of it; because, in reality, it is not it which has taught you what number is; you long ago knew that, and when the word number further on is found under your pen, you give it the same sense as the first comer. To know what is this meaning and whether it is the same in this phrase or that, it is needful to see how you have been led to speak of number and to introduce this word into these two phrases. I shall not for the moment dilate upon this point, because we shall have occasion to return to it.
Thus consider a word of which we have given explicitly a definition A; afterwards in the discourse we make a use of it which implicitly supposes another definition B. It is possible that these two definitions designate the same thing. But that this is so is a new truth which must either be demonstrated or admitted as an independent assumption.
We shall see farther on that the logicians have not fulfilled the second condition any better than the first.
VI
The definitions of number are very numerous and very different; I forego the enumeration even of the names of their authors. We should not be astonished that there are so many. If one among them was satisfactory, no new one would be given. If each new philosopher occupying himself with this question has thought he must invent another one, this was because he was not satisfied with those of his predecessors, and he was not satisfied with them because he thought he saw a petitio principii.
I have always felt, in reading the writings devoted to this problem, a profound feeling of discomfort; I was always expecting to run against a petitio principii, and when I did not immediately perceive it, I feared I had overlooked it.
This is because it is impossible to give a definition without using a sentence, and difficult to make a sentence without using a number word, or at least the word several, or at least a word in the plural. And then the declivity is slippery and at each instant there is risk of a fall into petitio principii.
I shall devote my attention in what follows only to those of these definitions where the petitio principii is most ably concealed.
VII
Pasigraphy
The symbolic language created by Peano plays a very grand rôle in these new researches. It is capable of rendering some service, but I think M. Couturat attaches to it an exaggerated importance which must astonish Peano himself.
The essential element of this language is certain algebraic signs which represent the different conjunctions: if, and, or, therefore. That these signs may be convenient is possible; but that they are destined to revolutionize all philosophy is a different matter. It is difficult to admit that the word if acquires, when written C, a virtue it had not when written if. This invention of Peano was first called pasigraphy, that is to say the art of writing a treatise on mathematics without using a single word of ordinary language. This name defined its range very exactly. Later, it was raised to a more eminent dignity by conferring on it the title of logistic. This word is, it appears, employed at the Military Academy, to designate the art of the quartermaster of cavalry, the art of marching and cantoning troops; but here no confusion need be feared, and it is at once seen that this new name implies the design of revolutionizing logic.
We may see the new method at work in a mathematical memoir by Burali-Forti, entitled: Una Questione sui numeri transfiniti, inserted in Volume XI of the Rendiconti del circolo matematico di Palermo.
I begin by saying this memoir is very interesting, and my taking it here as example is precisely because it is the most important of all those written in the new language. Besides, the uninitiated may read it, thanks to an Italian interlinear translation.
What constitutes the importance of this memoir is that it has given the first example of those antinomies met in the study of transfinite numbers and making since some years the despair of mathematicians. The aim, says Burali-Forti, of this note is to show there may be two transfinite numbers (ordinals), a and b, such that a is neither equal to, greater than, nor less than b.
To reassure the reader, to comprehend the considerations which follow, he has no need of knowing what a transfinite ordinal number is.
Now, Cantor had precisely proved that between two transfinite numbers as between two finite, there can be no other relation than equality or inequality in one sense or the other. But it is not of the substance of this memoir that I wish to speak here; that would carry me much too far from my subject; I only wish to consider the form, and just to ask if this form makes it gain much in rigor and whether it thus compensates for the efforts it imposes upon the writer and the reader.
First we see Burali-Forti define the number 1 as follows:
a definition eminently fitted to give an idea of the number 1 to persons who had never heard speak of it.
I understand Peanian too ill to dare risk a critique, but still I fear this definition contains a petitio principii, considering that I see the figure 1 in the first member and Un in letters in the second.
However that may be, Burali-Forti starts from this definition and, after a short calculation, reaches the equation:
which tells us that One is a number.
And since we are on these definitions of the first numbers, we recall that M. Couturat has also defined 0 and 1.
What is zero? It is the number of elements of the null class. And what is the null class? It is that containing no element.
To define zero by null, and null by no, is really to abuse the wealth of language; so M. Couturat has introduced an improvement in his definition, by writing:
which means: zero is the number of things satisfying a condition never satisfied.
But as never means in no case I do not see that the progress is great.
I hasten to add that the definition M. Couturat gives of the number 1 is more satisfactory.
One, says he in substance, is the number of elements in a class in which any two elements are identical.
It is more satisfactory, I have said, in this sense that to define 1, he does not use the word one; in compensation, he uses the word two. But I fear, if asked what is two, M. Couturat would have to use the word one.
VIII
But to return to the memoir of Burali-Forti; I have said his conclusions are in direct opposition to those of Cantor. Now, one day M. Hadamard came to see me and the talk fell upon this antinomy.
“Burali-Forti’s reasoning,” I said, “does it not seem to you irreproachable?” “No, and on the contrary I find nothing to object to in that of Cantor. Besides, Burali-Forti had no right to speak of the aggregate of all the ordinal numbers.”
“Pardon, he had the right, since he could always put
I should like to know who was to prevent him, and can it be said a thing does not exist, when we have called it Ω?”
It was in vain, I could not convince him (which besides would have been sad, since he was right). Was it merely because I do not speak the Peanian with enough eloquence? Perhaps; but between ourselves I do not think so.
Thus, despite all this pasigraphic apparatus, the question was not solved. What does that prove? In so far as it is a question only of proving one a number, pasigraphy suffices, but if a difficulty presents itself, if there is an antinomy to solve, pasigraphy becomes impotent.
Chapter IV
The New Logics
I
The Russell Logic
To justify its pretensions, logic had to change. We have seen new logics arise of which the most interesting is that of Russell. It seems he has nothing new to write about formal logic, as if Aristotle there had touched bottom. But the domain Russell attributes to logic is infinitely more extended than that of the classic logic, and he has put forth on the subject views which are original and at times well warranted.
First, Russell subordinates the logic of classes to that of propositions, while the logic of Aristotle was above all the logic of classes and took as its point of departure the relation of subject to predicate. The classic syllogism, “Socrates is a man,” etc., gives place to the hypothetical syllogism: “If A is true, B is true; now if B is true, C is true,” etc. And this is, I think, a most happy idea, because the classic syllogism is easy to carry back to the hypothetical syllogism, while the inverse transformation is not without difficulty.
And then this is not all. Russell’s logic of propositions is the study of the laws of combination of the conjunctions if, and, or, and the negation not.
In adding here two other conjunctions, and and or, Russell opens to logic a new field. The symbols and, or follow the same laws as the two signs × and +, that is to say the commutative associative and distributive laws. Thus and represents logical multiplication, while or represents logical addition. This also is very interesting.
Russell reaches the conclusion that any false proposition implies all other propositions true or false. M. Couturat says this conclusion will at first seem paradoxical. It is sufficient however to have corrected a bad thesis in mathematics to recognize how right Russell is. The candidate often is at great pains to get the first false equation; but that once obtained, it is only sport then for him to accumulate the most surprising results, some of which even may be true.
II
We see how much richer the new logic is than the classic logic; the symbols are multiplied and allow of varied combinations which are no longer limited in number. Has one the right to give this extension to the meaning of the word logic? It would be useless to examine this question and to seek with Russell a mere quarrel about words. Grant him what he demands; but be not astonished if certain verities declared irreducible to logic in the old sense of the word find themselves now reducible to logic in the new sense—something very different.
A great number of new notions have been introduced, and these are not simply combinations of the old. Russell knows this, and not only at the beginning of the first chapter, ‘The Logic of Propositions,’ but at the beginning of the second and third, ‘The Logic of Classes’ and ‘The Logic of Relations,’ he introduces new words that he declares indefinable.
And this is not all; he likewise introduces principles he declares indemonstrable. But these indemonstrable principles are appeals to intuition, synthetic judgments a priori. We regard them as intuitive when we meet them more or less explicitly enunciated in mathematical treatises; have they changed character because the meaning of the word logic has been enlarged and we now find them in a book entitled Treatise on Logic? They have not changed nature; they have only changed place.
III
Could these principles be considered as disguised definitions? It would then be necessary to have some way of proving that they imply no contradiction. It would be necessary to establish that, however far one followed the series of deductions, he would never be exposed to contradicting himself.
We might attempt to reason as follows: We can verify that the operations of the new logic applied to premises exempt from contradiction can only give consequences equally exempt from contradiction. If therefore after n operations we have not met contradiction, we shall not encounter it after n + 1. Thus it is impossible that there should be a moment when contradiction begins, which shows we shall never meet it. Have we the right to reason in this way? No, for this would be to make use of complete induction; and remember, we do not yet know the principle of complete induction.
We therefore have not the right to regard these assumptions as disguised definitions and only one resource remains for us, to admit a new act of intuition for each of them. Moreover I believe this is indeed the thought of Russell and M. Couturat.
Thus each of the nine indefinable notions and of the twenty indemonstrable propositions (I believe if it were I that did the counting, I should have found some more) which are the foundation of the new logic, logic in the broad sense, presupposes a new and independent act of our intuition and (why not say it?) a veritable synthetic judgment a priori. On this point all seem agreed, but what Russell claims, and what seems to me doubtful, is that after these appeals to intuition, that will be the end of it; we need make no others and can build all mathematics without the intervention of any new element.
IV
M. Couturat often repeats that this new logic is altogether independent of the idea of number. I shall not amuse myself by counting how many numeral adjectives his exposition contains, both cardinal and ordinal, or indefinite adjectives such as several. We may cite, however, some examples:
“The logical product of two or more propositions is....”;
“All propositions are capable only of two values, true and false”;
“The relative product of two relations is a relation”;
“A relation exists between two terms,” etc., etc.
Sometimes this inconvenience would not be unavoidable, but sometimes also it is essential. A relation is incomprehensible without two terms; it is impossible to have the intuition of the relation, without having at the same time that of its two terms, and without noticing they are two, because, if the relation is to be conceivable, it is necessary that there be two and only two.
V
Arithmetic
I reach what M. Couturat calls the ordinal theory which is the foundation of arithmetic properly so called. M. Couturat begins by stating Peano’s five assumptions, which are independent, as has been proved by Peano and Padoa.
1. Zero is an integer.
2. Zero is not the successor of any integer.
3. The successor of an integer is an integer.
To this it would be proper to add,
Every integer has a successor.
4. Two integers are equal if their successors are.
The fifth assumption is the principle of complete induction.
M. Couturat considers these assumptions as disguised definitions; they constitute the definition by postulates of zero, of successor, and of integer.
But we have seen that for a definition by postulates to be acceptable we must be able to prove that it implies no contradiction.
Is this the case here? Not at all.
The demonstration can not be made by example. We can not take a part of the integers, for instance the first three, and prove they satisfy the definition.
If I take the series 0, 1, 2, I see it fulfils the assumptions 1, 2, 4 and 5; but to satisfy assumption 3 it still is necessary that 3 be an integer, and consequently that the series 0, 1, 2, 3, fulfil the assumptions; we might prove that it satisfies assumptions 1, 2, 4, 5, but assumption 3 requires besides that 4 be an integer and that the series 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 fulfil the assumptions, and so on.
It is therefore impossible to demonstrate the assumptions for certain integers without proving them for all; we must give up proof by example.
It is necessary then to take all the consequences of our assumptions and see if they contain no contradiction.
If these consequences were finite in number, this would be easy; but they are infinite in number; they are the whole of mathematics, or at least all arithmetic.
What then is to be done? Perhaps strictly we could repeat the reasoning of number III.
But as we have said, this reasoning is complete induction, and it is precisely the principle of complete induction whose justification would be the point in question.
VI
The Logic of Hilbert
I come now to the capital work of Hilbert which he communicated to the Congress of Mathematicians at Heidelberg, and of which a French translation by M. Pierre Boutroux appeared in l’Enseignement mathématique, while an English translation due to Halsted appeared in The Monist.13 In this work, which contains profound thoughts, the author’s aim is analogous to that of Russell, but on many points he diverges from his predecessor.
“But,” he says (Monist, p. 340), “on attentive consideration we become aware that in the usual exposition of the laws of logic certain fundamental concepts of arithmetic are already employed; for example, the concept of the aggregate, in part also the concept of number.
“We fall thus into a vicious circle and therefore to avoid paradoxes a partly simultaneous development of the laws of logic and arithmetic is requisite.”
We have seen above that what Hilbert says of the principles of logic in the usual exposition applies likewise to the logic of Russell. So for Russell logic is prior to arithmetic; for Hilbert they are ‘simultaneous.’ We shall find further on other differences still greater, but we shall point them out as we come to them. I prefer to follow step by step the development of Hilbert’s thought, quoting textually the most important passages.
“Let us take as the basis of our consideration first of all a thought-thing 1 (one)” (p. 341). Notice that in so doing we in no wise imply the notion of number, because it is understood that 1 is here only a symbol and that we do not at all seek to know its meaning. “The taking of this thing together with itself respectively two, three or more times....” Ah! this time it is no longer the same; if we introduce the words ‘two,’ ‘three,’ and above all ‘more,’ ‘several,’ we introduce the notion of number; and then the definition of finite whole number which we shall presently find, will come too late. Our author was too circumspect not to perceive this begging of the question. So at the end of his work he tries to proceed to a truly patching-up process.
Hilbert then introduces two simple objects 1 and =, and considers all the combinations of these two objects, all the combinations of their combinations, etc. It goes without saying that we must forget the ordinary meaning of these two signs and not attribute any to them.
Afterwards he separates these combinations into two classes, the class of the existent and the class of the non-existent, and till further orders this separation is entirely arbitrary. Every affirmative statement tells us that a certain combination belongs to the class of the existent; every negative statement tells us that a certain combination belongs to the class of the non-existent.
VII
Note now a difference of the highest importance. For Russell any object whatsoever, which he designates by x, is an object absolutely undetermined and about which he supposes nothing; for Hilbert it is one of the combinations formed with the symbols 1 and =; he could not conceive of the introduction of anything other than combinations of objects already defined. Moreover Hilbert formulates his thought in the neatest way, and I think I must reproduce in extenso his statement (p. 348):
“In the assumptions the arbitraries (as equivalent for the concept ‘every’ and ‘all’ in the customary logic) represent only those thought-things and their combinations with one another, which at this stage are laid down as fundamental or are to be newly defined. Therefore in the deduction of inferences from the assumptions, the arbitraries, which occur in the assumptions, can be replaced only by such thought-things and their combinations.
“Also we must duly remember, that through the super-addition and making fundamental of a new thought-thing the preceding assumptions undergo an enlargement of their validity, and where necessary, are to be subjected to a change in conformity with the sense.”
The contrast with Russell’s view-point is complete. For this philosopher we may substitute for x not only objects already known, but anything.
Russell is faithful to his point of view, which is that of comprehension. He starts from the general idea of being, and enriches it more and more while restricting it, by adding new qualities. Hilbert on the contrary recognizes as possible beings only combinations of objects already known; so that (looking at only one side of his thought) we might say he takes the view-point of extension.
VIII
Let us continue with the exposition of Hilbert’s ideas. He introduces two assumptions which he states in his symbolic language but which signify, in the language of the uninitiated, that every quality is equal to itself and that every operation performed upon two identical quantities gives identical results.
So stated, they are evident, but thus to present them would be to misrepresent Hilbert’s thought. For him mathematics has to combine only pure symbols, and a true mathematician should reason upon them without preconceptions as to their meaning. So his assumptions are not for him what they are for the common people.
He considers them as representing the definition by postulates of the symbol (=) heretofore void of all signification. But to justify this definition we must show that these two assumptions lead to no contradiction. For this Hilbert used the reasoning of our number III, without appearing to perceive that he is using complete induction.
IX
The end of Hilbert’s memoir is altogether enigmatic and I shall not lay stress upon it. Contradictions accumulate; we feel that the author is dimly conscious of the petitio principii he has committed, and that he seeks vainly to patch up the holes in his argument.
What does this mean? At the point of proving that the definition of the whole number by the assumption of complete induction implies no contradiction, Hilbert withdraws as Russell and Couturat withdrew, because the difficulty is too great.
X
Geometry
Geometry, says M. Couturat, is a vast body of doctrine wherein the principle of complete induction does not enter. That is true in a certain measure; we can not say it is entirely absent, but it enters very slightly. If we refer to the Rational Geometry of Dr. Halsted (New York, John Wiley and Sons, 1904) built up in accordance with the principles of Hilbert, we see the principle of induction enter for the first time on page 114 (unless I have made an oversight, which is quite possible).14
So geometry, which only a few years ago seemed the domain where the reign of intuition was uncontested, is to-day the realm where the logicians seem to triumph. Nothing could better measure the importance of the geometric works of Hilbert and the profound impress they have left on our conceptions.
But be not deceived. What is after all the fundamental theorem of geometry? It is that the assumptions of geometry imply no contradiction, and this we can not prove without the principle of induction.
How does Hilbert demonstrate this essential point? By leaning upon analysis and through it upon arithmetic and through it upon the principle of induction.
And if ever one invents another demonstration, it will still be necessary to lean upon this principle, since the possible consequences of the assumptions, of which it is necessary to show that they are not contradictory, are infinite in number.
XI
Conclusion
Our conclusion straightway is that the principle of induction can not be regarded as the disguised definition of the entire world.
Here are three truths: (1) The principle of complete induction; (2) Euclid’s postulate; (3) the physical law according to which phosphorus melts at 44° (cited by M. Le Roy).
These are said to be three disguised definitions: the first, that of the whole number; the second, that of the straight line; the third, that of phosphorus.
I grant it for the second; I do not admit it for the other two. I must explain the reason for this apparent inconsistency.
First, we have seen that a definition is acceptable only on condition that it implies no contradiction. We have shown likewise that for the first definition this demonstration is impossible; on the other hand, we have just recalled that for the second Hilbert has given a complete proof.
As to the third, evidently it implies no contradiction. Does this mean that the definition guarantees, as it should, the existence of the object defined? We are here no longer in the mathematical sciences, but in the physical, and the word existence has no longer the same meaning. It no longer signifies absence of contradiction; it means objective existence.
You already see a first reason for the distinction I made between the three cases; there is a second. In the applications we have to make of these three concepts, do they present themselves to us as defined by these three postulates?
The possible applications of the principle of induction are innumerable; take, for example, one of those we have expounded above, and where it is sought to prove that an aggregate of assumptions can lead to no contradiction. For this we consider one of the series of syllogisms we may go on with in starting from these assumptions as premises. When we have finished the nth syllogism, we see we can make still another and this is the n + 1th. Thus the number n serves to count a series of successive operations; it is a number obtainable by successive additions. This therefore is a number from which we may go back to unity by successive subtractions. Evidently we could not do this if we had n = n − 1, since then by subtraction we should always obtain again the same number. So the way we have been led to consider this number n implies a definition of the finite whole number and this definition is the following: A finite whole number is that which can be obtained by successive additions; it is such that n is not equal to n − 1.
That granted, what do we do? We show that if there has been no contradiction up to the nth syllogism, no more will there be up to the n + 1th, and we conclude there never will be. You say: I have the right to draw this conclusion, since the whole numbers are by definition those for which a like reasoning is legitimate. But that implies another definition of the whole number, which is as follows: A whole number is that on which we may reason by recurrence. In the particular case it is that of which we may say that, if the absence of contradiction up to the time of a syllogism of which the number is an integer carries with it the absence of contradiction up to the time of the syllogism whose number is the following integer, we need fear no contradiction for any of the syllogisms whose number is an integer.
The two definitions are not identical; they are doubtless equivalent, but only in virtue of a synthetic judgment a priori; we can not pass from one to the other by a purely logical procedure. Consequently we have no right to adopt the second, after having introduced the whole number by a way that presupposes the first.
On the other hand, what happens with regard to the straight line? I have already explained this so often that I hesitate to repeat it again, and shall confine myself to a brief recapitulation of my thought. We have not, as in the preceding case, two equivalent definitions logically irreducible one to the other. We have only one expressible in words. Will it be said there is another which we feel without being able to word it, since we have the intuition of the straight line or since we represent to ourselves the straight line? First of all, we can not represent it to ourselves in geometric space, but only in representative space, and then we can represent to ourselves just as well the objects which possess the other properties of the straight line, save that of satisfying Euclid’s postulate. These objects are ‘the non-Euclidean straights,’ which from a certain point of view are not entities void of sense, but circles (true circles of true space) orthogonal to a certain sphere. If, among these objects equally capable of representation, it is the first (the Euclidean straights) which we call straights, and not the latter (the non-Euclidean straights), this is properly by definition.
And arriving finally at the third example, the definition of phosphorus, we see the true definition would be: Phosphorus is the bit of matter I see in yonder flask.
XII
And since I am on this subject, still another word. Of the phosphorus example I said: “This proposition is a real verifiable physical law, because it means that all bodies having all the other properties of phosphorus, save its point of fusion, melt like it at 44°.” And it was answered: “No, this law is not verifiable, because if it were shown that two bodies resembling phosphorus melt one at 44° and the other at 50°, it might always be said that doubtless, besides the point of fusion, there is some other unknown property by which they differ.”
That was not quite what I meant to say. I should have written, “All bodies possessing such and such properties finite in number (to wit, the properties of phosphorus stated in the books on chemistry, the fusion-point excepted) melt at 44°.”
And the better to make evident the difference between the case of the straight and that of phosphorus, one more remark. The straight has in nature many images more or less imperfect, of which the chief are the light rays and the rotation axis of the solid. Suppose we find the ray of light does not satisfy Euclid’s postulate (for example by showing that a star has a negative parallax), what shall we do? Shall we conclude that the straight being by definition the trajectory of light does not satisfy the postulate, or, on the other hand, that the straight by definition satisfying the postulate, the ray of light is not straight?
Assuredly we are free to adopt the one or the other definition and consequently the one or the other conclusion; but to adopt the first would be stupid, because the ray of light probably satisfies only imperfectly not merely Euclid’s postulate, but the other properties of the straight line, so that if it deviates from the Euclidean straight, it deviates no less from the rotation axis of solids which is another imperfect image of the straight line; while finally it is doubtless subject to change, so that such a line which yesterday was straight will cease to be straight to-morrow if some physical circumstance has changed.
Suppose now we find that phosphorus does not melt at 44°, but at 43.9°. Shall we conclude that phosphorus being by definition that which melts at 44°, this body that we did call phosphorus is not true phosphorus, or, on the other hand, that phosphorous melts at 43.9°? Here again we are free to adopt the one or the other definition and consequently the one or the other conclusion; but to adopt the first would be stupid because we can not be changing the name of a substance every time we determine a new decimal of its fusion-point.
XIII
To sum up, Russell and Hilbert have each made a vigorous effort; they have each written a work full of original views, profound and often well warranted. These two works give us much to think about and we have much to learn from them. Among their results, some, many even, are solid and destined to live.
But to say that they have finally settled the debate between Kant and Leibnitz and ruined the Kantian theory of mathematics is evidently incorrect. I do not know whether they really believed they had done it, but if they believed so, they deceived themselves.
Chapter V
The Latest Efforts of the Logisticians
I
The logicians have attempted to answer the preceding considerations. For that, a transformation of logistic was necessary, and Russell in particular has modified on certain points his original views. Without entering into the details of the debate, I should like to return to the two questions to my mind most important: Have the rules of logistic demonstrated their fruitfulness and infallibility? Is it true they afford means of proving the principle of complete induction without any appeal to intuition?
II
The Infallibility of Logistic
On the question of fertility, it seems M. Couturat has naïve illusions. Logistic, according to him, lends invention ‘stilts and wings,’ and on the next page: “Ten years ago, Peano published the first edition of his Formulaire.” How is that, ten years of wings and not to have flown!
I have the highest esteem for Peano, who has done very pretty things (for instance his ‘space-filling curve,’ a phrase now discarded); but after all he has not gone further nor higher nor quicker than the majority of wingless mathematicians, and would have done just as well with his legs.
On the contrary I see in logistic only shackles for the inventor. It is no aid to conciseness—far from it, and if twenty-seven equations were necessary to establish that 1 is a number, how many would be needed to prove a real theorem? If we distinguish, with Whitehead, the individual x, the class of which the only member is x and which shall be called ιx, then the class of which the only member is the class of which the only member is x and which shall be called μx, do you think these distinctions, useful as they may be, go far to quicken our pace?
Logistic forces us to say all that is ordinarily left to be understood; it makes us advance step by step; this is perhaps surer but not quicker.
It is not wings you logisticians give us, but leading-strings. And then we have the right to require that these leading-strings prevent our falling. This will be their only excuse. When a bond does not bear much interest, it should at least be an investment for a father of a family.
Should your rules be followed blindly? Yes, else only intuition could enable us to distinguish among them; but then they must be infallible; for only in an infallible authority can one have a blind confidence. This, therefore, is for you a necessity. Infallible you shall be, or not at all.
You have no right to say to us: “It is true we make mistakes, but so do you.” For us to blunder is a misfortune, a very great misfortune; for you it is death.
Nor may you ask: Does the infallibility of arithmetic prevent errors in addition? The rules of calculation are infallible, and yet we see those blunder who do not apply these rules; but in checking their calculation it is at once seen where they went wrong. Here it is not at all the case; the logicians have applied their rules, and they have fallen into contradiction; and so true is this, that they are preparing to change these rules and to “sacrifice the notion of class.” Why change them if they were infallible?
“We are not obliged,” you say, “to solve hic et nunc all possible problems.” Oh, we do not ask so much of you. If, in face of a problem, you would give no solution, we should have nothing to say; but on the contrary you give us two of them and those contradictory, and consequently at least one false; this it is which is failure.
Russell seeks to reconcile these contradictions, which can only be done, according to him, “by restricting or even sacrificing the notion of class.” And M. Couturat, discovering the success of his attempt, adds: “If the logicians succeed where others have failed, M. Poincaré will remember this phrase, and give the honor of the solution to logistic.”
But no! Logistic exists, it has its code which has already had four editions; or rather this code is logistic itself. Is Mr. Russell preparing to show that one at least of the two contradictory reasonings has transgressed the code? Not at all; he is preparing to change these laws and to abrogate a certain number of them. If he succeeds, I shall give the honor of it to Russell’s intuition and not to the Peanian logistic which he will have destroyed.
III
The Liberty of Contradiction
I made two principal objections to the definition of whole number adopted in logistic. What says M. Couturat to the first of these objections?
What does the word exist mean in mathematics? It means, I said, to be free from contradiction. This M. Couturat contests. “Logical existence,” says he, “is quite another thing from the absence of contradiction. It consists in the fact that a class is not empty.” To say: a’s exist, is, by definition, to affirm that the class a is not null.
And doubtless to affirm that the class a is not null, is, by definition, to affirm that a’s exist. But one of the two affirmations is as denuded of meaning as the other, if they do not both signify, either that one may see or touch a’s which is the meaning physicists or naturalists give them, or that one may conceive an a without being drawn into contradictions, which is the meaning given them by logicians and mathematicians.
For M. Couturat, “it is not non-contradiction that proves existence, but it is existence that proves non-contradiction.” To establish the existence of a class, it is necessary therefore to establish, by an example, that there is an individual belonging to this class: “But, it will be said, how is the existence of this individual proved? Must not this existence be established, in order that the existence of the class of which it is a part may be deduced? Well, no; however paradoxical may appear the assertion, we never demonstrate the existence of an individual. Individuals, just because they are individuals, are always considered as existent.... We never have to express that an individual exists, absolutely speaking, but only that it exists in a class.” M. Couturat finds his own assertion paradoxical, and he will certainly not be the only one. Yet it must have a meaning. It doubtless means that the existence of an individual, alone in the world, and of which nothing is affirmed, can not involve contradiction; in so far as it is all alone it evidently will not embarrass any one. Well, so let it be; we shall admit the existence of the individual, ‘absolutely speaking,’ but nothing more. It remains to prove the existence of the individual ‘in a class,’ and for that it will always be necessary to prove that the affirmation, “Such an individual belongs to such a class,” is neither contradictory in itself, nor to the other postulates adopted.
“It is then,” continues M. Couturat, “arbitrary and misleading to maintain that a definition is valid only if we first prove it is not contradictory.” One could not claim in prouder and more energetic terms the liberty of contradiction. “In any case, the onus probandi rests upon those who believe that these principles are contradictory.” Postulates are presumed to be compatible until the contrary is proved, just as the accused person is presumed innocent. Needless to add that I do not assent to this claim. But, you say, the demonstration you require of us is impossible, and you can not ask us to jump over the moon. Pardon me; that is impossible for you, but not for us, who admit the principle of induction as a synthetic judgment a priori. And that would be necessary for you, as for us.
To demonstrate that a system of postulates implies no contradiction, it is necessary to apply the principle of complete induction; this mode of reasoning not only has nothing ‘bizarre’ about it, but it is the only correct one. It is not ‘unlikely’ that it has ever been employed; and it is not hard to find ‘examples and precedents’ of it. I have cited two such instances borrowed from Hilbert’s article. He is not the only one to have used it, and those who have not done so have been wrong. What I have blamed Hilbert for is not his having recourse to it (a born mathematician such as he could not fail to see a demonstration was necessary and this the only one possible), but his having recourse without recognizing the reasoning by recurrence.
IV
The Second Objection
I pointed out a second error of logistic in Hilbert’s article. To-day Hilbert is excommunicated and M. Couturat no longer regards him as of the logistic cult; so he asks if I have found the same fault among the orthodox. No, I have not seen it in the pages I have read; I know not whether I should find it in the three hundred pages they have written which I have no desire to read.
Only, they must commit it the day they wish to make any application of mathematics. This science has not as sole object the eternal contemplation of its own navel; it has to do with nature and some day it will touch it. Then it will be necessary to shake off purely verbal definitions and to stop paying oneself with words.
To go back to the example of Hilbert: always the point at issue is reasoning by recurrence and the question of knowing whether a system of postulates is not contradictory. M. Couturat will doubtless say that then this does not touch him, but it perhaps will interest those who do not claim, as he does, the liberty of contradiction.
We wish to establish, as above, that we shall never encounter contradiction after any number of deductions whatever, provided this number be finite. For that, it is necessary to apply the principle of induction. Should we here understand by finite number every number to which by definition the principle of induction applies? Evidently not, else we should be led to most embarrassing consequences. To have the right to lay down a system of postulates, we must be sure they are not contradictory. This is a truth admitted by most scientists; I should have written by all before reading M. Couturat’s last article. But what does this signify? Does it mean that we must be sure of not meeting contradiction after a finite number of propositions, the finite number being by definition that which has all properties of recurrent nature, so that if one of these properties fails—if, for instance, we come upon a contradiction—we shall agree to say that the number in question is not finite? In other words, do we mean that we must be sure not to meet contradictions, on condition of agreeing to stop just when we are about to encounter one? To state such a proposition is enough to condemn it.
So, Hilbert’s reasoning not only assumes the principle of induction, but it supposes that this principle is given us not as a simple definition, but as a synthetic judgment a priori.
To sum up:
A demonstration is necessary.
The only demonstration possible is the proof by recurrence.
This is legitimate only if we admit the principle of induction and if we regard it not as a definition but as a synthetic judgment.
V
The Cantor Antinomies
Now to examine Russell’s new memoir. This memoir was written with the view to conquer the difficulties raised by those Cantor antinomies to which frequent allusion has already been made. Cantor thought he could construct a science of the infinite; others went on in the way he opened, but they soon ran foul of strange contradictions. These antinomies are already numerous, but the most celebrated are:
1. The Burali-Forti antinomy;
2. The Zermelo-König antinomy;
3. The Richard antinomy.
Cantor proved that the ordinal numbers (the question is of transfinite ordinal numbers, a new notion introduced by him) can be ranged in a linear series; that is to say that of two unequal ordinals one is always less than the other. Burali-Forti proves the contrary; and in fact he says in substance that if one could range all the ordinals in a linear series, this series would define an ordinal greater than all the others; we could afterwards adjoin 1 and would obtain again an ordinal which would be still greater, and this is contradictory.
We shall return later to the Zermelo-König antinomy which is of a slightly different nature. The Richard antinomy15 is as follows: Consider all the decimal numbers definable by a finite number of words; these decimal numbers form an aggregate E, and it is easy to see that this aggregate is countable, that is to say we can number the different decimal numbers of this assemblage from 1 to infinity. Suppose the numbering effected, and define a number N as follows: If the nth decimal of the nth number of the assemblage E is
0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
the nth decimal of N shall be:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 1, 1
As we see, N is not equal to the nth number of E, and as n is arbitrary, N does not appertain to E and yet N should belong to this assemblage since we have defined it with a finite number of words.
We shall later see that M. Richard has himself given with much sagacity the explanation of his paradox and that this extends, mutatis mutandis, to the other like paradoxes. Again, Russell cites another quite amusing paradox: What is the least whole number which can not be defined by a phrase composed of less than a hundred English words?
This number exists; and in fact the numbers capable of being defined by a like phrase are evidently finite in number since the words of the English language are not infinite in number. Therefore among them will be one less than all the others. And, on the other hand, this number does not exist, because its definition implies contradiction. This number, in fact, is defined by the phrase in italics which is composed of less than a hundred English words; and by definition this number should not be capable of definition by a like phrase.
VI
Zigzag Theory and No-class Theory
What is Mr. Russell’s attitude in presence of these contradictions? After having analyzed those of which we have just spoken, and cited still others, after having given them a form recalling Epimenides, he does not hesitate to conclude: “A propositional function of one variable does not always determine a class.” A propositional function (that is to say a definition) does not always determine a class. A ‘propositional function’ or ‘norm’ may be ‘non-predicative.’ And this does not mean that these non-predicative propositions determine an empty class, a null class; this does not mean that there is no value of x satisfying the definition and capable of being one of the elements of the class. The elements exist, but they have no right to unite in a syndicate to form a class.
But this is only the beginning and it is needful to know how to recognize whether a definition is or is not predicative. To solve this problem Russell hesitates between three theories which he calls
A. The zigzag theory;
B. The theory of limitation of size;
C. The no-class theory.
According to the zigzag theory “definitions (propositional functions) determine a class when they are very simple and cease to do so only when they are complicated and obscure.” Who, now, is to decide whether a definition may be regarded as simple enough to be acceptable? To this question there is no answer, if it be not the loyal avowal of a complete inability: “The rules which enable us to recognize whether these definitions are predicative would be extremely complicated and can not commend themselves by any plausible reason. This is a fault which might be remedied by greater ingenuity or by using distinctions not yet pointed out. But hitherto in seeking these rules, I have not been able to find any other directing principle than the absence of contradiction.”
This theory therefore remains very obscure; in this night a single light—the word zigzag. What Russell calls the ‘zigzaginess’ is doubtless the particular characteristic which distinguishes the argument of Epimenides.
According to the theory of limitation of size, a class would cease to have the right to exist if it were too extended. Perhaps it might be infinite, but it should not be too much so. But we always meet again the same difficulty; at what precise moment does it begin to be too much so? Of course this difficulty is not solved and Russell passes on to the third theory.
In the no-classes theory it is forbidden to speak the word ‘class’ and this word must be replaced by various periphrases. What a change for logistic which talks only of classes and classes of classes! It becomes necessary to remake the whole of logistic. Imagine how a page of logistic would look upon suppressing all the propositions where it is a question of class. There would only be some scattered survivors in the midst of a blank page. Apparent rari nantes in gurgite vasto.
Be that as it may, we see how Russell hesitates and the modifications to which he submits the fundamental principles he has hitherto adopted. Criteria are needed to decide whether a definition is too complex or too extended, and these criteria can only be justified by an appeal to intuition.
It is toward the no-classes theory that Russell finally inclines. Be that as it may, logistic is to be remade and it is not clear how much of it can be saved. Needless to add that Cantorism and logistic are alone under consideration; real mathematics, that which is good for something, may continue to develop in accordance with its own principles without bothering about the storms which rage outside it, and go on step by step with its usual conquests which are final and which it never has to abandon.
VII
The True Solution
What choice ought we to make among these different theories? It seems to me that the solution is contained in a letter of M. Richard of which I have spoken above, to be found in the Revue générale des sciences of June 30, 1905. After having set forth the antinomy we have called Richard’s antinomy, he gives its explanation. Recall what has already been said of this antinomy. E is the aggregate of all the numbers definable by a finite number of words, without introducing the notion of the aggregate E itself. Else the definition of E would contain a vicious circle; we must not define E by the aggregate E itself.
Now we have defined N with a finite number of words, it is true, but with the aid of the notion of the aggregate E. And this is why N is not part of E. In the example selected by M. Richard, the conclusion presents itself with complete evidence and the evidence will appear still stronger on consulting the text of the letter itself. But the same explanation holds good for the other antinomies, as is easily verified. Thus the definitions which should be regarded as not predicative are those which contain a vicious circle. And the preceding examples sufficiently show what I mean by that. Is it this which Russell calls the ‘zigzaginess’? I put the question without answering it.
VIII
The Demonstrations of the Principle of Induction
Let us now examine the pretended demonstrations of the principle of induction and in particular those of Whitehead and of Burali-Forti.
We shall speak of Whitehead’s first, and take advantage of certain new terms happily introduced by Russell in his recent memoir. Call recurrent class every class containing zero, and containing n + 1 if it contains n. Call inductive number every number which is a part of all the recurrent classes. Upon what condition will this latter definition, which plays an essential rôle in Whitehead’s proof, be ‘predicative’ and consequently acceptable?
In accordance with what has been said, it is necessary to understand by all the recurrent classes, all those in whose definition the notion of inductive number does not enter. Else we fall again upon the vicious circle which has engendered the antinomies.
Now Whitehead has not taken this precaution. Whitehead’s reasoning is therefore fallacious; it is the same which led to the antinomies. It was illegitimate when it gave false results; it remains illegitimate when by chance it leads to a true result.
A definition containing a vicious circle defines nothing. It is of no use to say, we are sure, whatever meaning we may give to our definition, zero at least belongs to the class of inductive numbers; it is not a question of knowing whether this class is void, but whether it can be rigorously deliminated. A ‘non-predicative’ class is not an empty class, it is a class whose boundary is undetermined. Needless to add that this particular objection leaves in force the general objections applicable to all the demonstrations.
IX
Burali-Forti has given another demonstration.16 But he is obliged to assume two postulates: First, there always exists at least one infinite class. The second is thus expressed:
The first postulate is not more evident than the principle to be proved. The second not only is not evident, but it is false, as Whitehead has shown; as moreover any recruit would see at the first glance, if the axiom had been stated in intelligible language, since it means that the number of combinations which can be formed with several objects is less than the number of these objects.
X
Zermelo’s Assumption
A famous demonstration by Zermelo rests upon the following assumption: In any aggregate (or the same in each aggregate of an assemblage of aggregates) we can always choose at random an element (even if this assemblage of aggregates should contain an infinity of aggregates). This assumption had been applied a thousand times without being stated, but, once stated, it aroused doubts. Some mathematicians, for instance M. Borel, resolutely reject it; others admire it. Let us see what, according to his last article, Russell thinks of it. He does not speak out, but his reflections are very suggestive.
And first a picturesque example: Suppose we have as many pairs of shoes as there are whole numbers, and so that we can number the pairs from one to infinity, how many shoes shall we have? Will the number of shoes be equal to the number of pairs? Yes, if in each pair the right shoe is distinguishable from the left; it will in fact suffice to give the number 2n − 1 to the right shoe of the nth pair, and the number 2n to the left shoe of the nth pair. No, if the right shoe is just like the left, because a similar operation would become impossible—unless we admit Zermelo’s assumption, since then we could choose at random in each pair the shoe to be regarded as the right.
XI
Conclusions
A demonstration truly founded upon the principles of analytic logic will be composed of a series of propositions. Some, serving as premises, will be identities or definitions; the others will be deduced from the premises step by step. But though the bond between each proposition and the following is immediately evident, it will not at first sight appear how we get from the first to the last, which we may be tempted to regard as a new truth. But if we replace successively the different expressions therein by their definition and if this operation be carried as far as possible, there will finally remain only identities, so that all will reduce to an immense tautology. Logic therefore remains sterile unless made fruitful by intuition.
This I wrote long ago; logistic professes the contrary and thinks it has proved it by actually proving new truths. By what mechanism? Why in applying to their reasonings the procedure just described—namely, replacing the terms defined by their definitions—do we not see them dissolve into identities like ordinary reasonings? It is because this procedure is not applicable to them. And why? Because their definitions are not predicative and present this sort of hidden vicious circle which I have pointed out above; non-predicative definitions can not be substituted for the terms defined. Under these conditions logistic is not sterile, it engenders antinomies.
It is the belief in the existence of the actual infinite which has given birth to those non-predicative definitions. Let me explain. In these definitions the word ‘all’ figures, as is seen in the examples cited above. The word ‘all’ has a very precise meaning when it is a question of a finite number of objects; to have another one, when the objects are infinite in number, would require there being an actual (given complete) infinity. Otherwise all these objects could not be conceived as postulated anteriorly to their definition, and then if the definition of a notion N depends upon all the objects A, it may be infected with a vicious circle, if among the objects A are some indefinable without the intervention of the notion N itself.
The rules of formal logic express simply the properties of all possible classifications. But for them to be applicable it is necessary that these classifications be immutable and that we have no need to modify them in the course of the reasoning. If we have to classify only a finite number of objects, it is easy to keep our classifications without change. If the objects are indefinite in number, that is to say if one is constantly exposed to seeing new and unforeseen objects arise, it may happen that the appearance of a new object may require the classification to be modified, and thus it is we are exposed to antinomies. There is no actual (given complete) infinity. The Cantorians have forgotten this, and they have fallen into contradiction. It is true that Cantorism has been of service, but this was when applied to a real problem whose terms were precisely defined, and then we could advance without fear.
Logistic also forgot it, like the Cantorians, and encountered the same difficulties. But the question is to know whether they went this way by accident or whether it was a necessity for them. For me, the question is not doubtful; belief in an actual infinity is essential in the Russell logic. It is just this which distinguishes it from the Hilbert logic. Hilbert takes the view-point of extension, precisely in order to avoid the Cantorian antinomies. Russell takes the view-point of comprehension. Consequently for him the genus is anterior to the species, and the summum genus is anterior to all. That would not be inconvenient if the summum genus was finite; but if it is infinite, it is necessary to postulate the infinite, that is to say to regard the infinite as actual (given complete). And we have not only infinite classes; when we pass from the genus to the species in restricting the concept by new conditions, these conditions are still infinite in number. Because they express generally that the envisaged object presents such or such a relation with all the objects of an infinite class.
But that is ancient history. Russell has perceived the peril and takes counsel. He is about to change everything, and, what is easily understood, he is preparing not only to introduce new principles which shall allow of operations formerly forbidden, but he is preparing to forbid operations he formerly thought legitimate. Not content to adore what he burned, he is about to burn what he adored, which is more serious. He does not add a new wing to the building, he saps its foundation.
The old logistic is dead, so much so that already the zigzag theory and the no-classes theory are disputing over the succession. To judge of the new, we shall await its coming.