Mathematics and Morals

Abstract

I fear you may think us rather unpractical people in Hull, for while my colleague, Mr. Forder, will presently speak to you on the subject of infinity, my own topic has not a little of the unreal or imaginary involved in it—but at least, if I become imaginary and Mr. Forder tends to infinity, we shall not, like ‘I’ and ‘J,’ be both at infinity and unreal at once. My own thesis is not a new one, for it is at least as old as Plato. It is a claim for greater attention to the more beautiful aspects of mathematics. What one feels is that most people give to Mathematics and Science very definite and, as I think, very limited spheres of influence in the educational domain. In their view it is the duty of school science work to beget accuracy of observation, skilful manipulation and the power to make general deductions from observed facts—it is an essentially materialistic and utilitarian view. As a matter of fact, Natural Science deals with the profoundest mysteries. So, with them, Mathematics is a science cold and austere—ruthlessly precise and devoid of imagination. And yet, as a matter of fact, it deals with truth and beauty, its forms are those of rhythm and symmetry, and in it imagination has no limits. Now I fear very much that we who teach these subjects are apt to accept without demur these low valuations of mathematics and science as means of general education.