Our Knowledge of the External World as a Field for Scientific Method in Philosophy Part 9

B B' B? B B' B?

A A' A? A A' A?

C C' C? C C' C?

This argument is not quite easy to follow, and it is only valid as against the a.s.sumption that a finite time consists of a finite number of instants. We may re-state it in different language. Let us suppose three drill-sergeants, A, A', and A?, standing in a row, while the two files of soldiers march past them in opposite directions. At the first moment which we consider, the three men B, B', B? in one row, and the three men C, C', C? in the other row, are respectively opposite to A, A', and A?.

At the very next moment, each row has moved on, and now B and C? are opposite A'. Thus B and C? are opposite each other. When, then, did B pa.s.s C'? It must have been somewhere between the two moments which we supposed consecutive, and therefore the two moments cannot really have been consecutive. It follows that there must be other moments between any two given moments, and therefore that there must be an infinite number of moments in any given interval of time.

The above difficulty, that B must have pa.s.sed C' at some time between two consecutive moments, is a genuine one, but is not precisely the difficulty raised by Zeno. What Zeno professes to prove is that "half of a given time is equal to double that time." The most intelligible explanation of the argument known to me is that of Gaye.[48] Since, however, his explanation is not easy to set forth shortly, I will re-state what seems to me to be the logical essence of Zeno's contention. If we suppose that time consists of a series of consecutive instants, and that motion consists in pa.s.sing through a series of consecutive points, then the fastest possible motion is one which, at each instant, is at a point consecutive to that at which it was at the previous instant. Any slower motion must be one which has intervals of rest interspersed, and any faster motion must wholly omit some points.

All this is evident from the fact that we cannot have more than one event for each instant. But now, in the case of our A's and B's and C's, B is opposite a fresh A every instant, and therefore the number of A's pa.s.sed gives the number of instants since the beginning of the motion.

But during the motion B has pa.s.sed twice as many C's, and yet cannot have pa.s.sed more than one each instant. Hence the number of instants since the motion began is twice the number of A's pa.s.sed, though we previously found it was equal to this number. From this result, Zeno's conclusion follows.

[48] _Loc. cit._, p. 105.

Zeno's arguments, in some form, have afforded grounds for almost all the theories of s.p.a.ce and time and infinity which have been constructed from his day to our own. We have seen that all his arguments are valid (with certain reasonable hypotheses) on the a.s.sumption that finite s.p.a.ces and times consist of a finite number of points and instants, and that the third and fourth almost certainly in fact proceeded on this a.s.sumption, while the first and second, which were perhaps intended to refute the opposite a.s.sumption, were in that case fallacious. We may therefore escape from his paradoxes either by maintaining that, though s.p.a.ce and time do consist of points and instants, the number of them in any finite interval is infinite; or by denying that s.p.a.ce and time consist of points and instants at all; or lastly, by denying the reality of s.p.a.ce and time altogether. It would seem that Zeno himself, as a supporter of Parmenides, drew the last of these three possible deductions, at any rate in regard to time. In this a very large number of philosophers have followed him. Many others, like M. Bergson, have preferred to deny that s.p.a.ce and time consist of points and instants. Either of these solutions will meet the difficulties in the form in which Zeno raised them. But, as we saw, the difficulties can also be met if infinite numbers are admissible. And on grounds which are independent of s.p.a.ce and time, infinite numbers, and series in which no two terms are consecutive, must in any case be admitted. Consider, for example, all the fractions less than 1, arranged in order of magnitude. Between any two of them, there are others, for example, the arithmetical mean of the two. Thus no two fractions are consecutive, and the total number of them is infinite. It will be found that much of what Zeno says as regards the series of points on a line can be equally well applied to the series of fractions.

And we cannot deny that there are fractions, so that two of the above ways of escape are closed to us. It follows that, if we are to solve the whole cla.s.s of difficulties derivable from Zeno's by a.n.a.logy, we must discover some tenable theory of infinite numbers. What, then, are the difficulties which, until the last thirty years, led philosophers to the belief that infinite numbers are impossible?

The difficulties of infinity are of two kinds, of which the first may be called sham, while the others involve, for their solution, a certain amount of new and not altogether easy thinking. The sham difficulties are those suggested by the etymology, and those suggested by confusion of the mathematical infinite with what philosophers impertinently call the "true" infinite. Etymologically, "infinite" should mean "having no end." But in fact some infinite series have ends, some have not; while some collections are infinite without being serial, and can therefore not properly be regarded as either endless or having ends. The series of instants from any earlier one to any later one (both included) is infinite, but has two ends; the series of instants from the beginning of time to the present moment has one end, but is infinite. Kant, in his first antinomy, seems to hold that it is harder for the past to be infinite than for the future to be so, on the ground that the past is now completed, and that nothing infinite can be completed. It is very difficult to see how he can have imagined that there was any sense in this remark; but it seems most probable that he was thinking of the infinite as the "unended." It is odd that he did not see that the future too has one end at the present, and is precisely on a level with the past. His regarding the two as different in this respect ill.u.s.trates just that kind of slavery to time which, as we agreed in speaking of Parmenides, the true philosopher must learn to leave behind him.

The confusions introduced into the notions of philosophers by the so-called "true" infinite are curious. They see that this notion is not the same as the mathematical infinite, but they choose to believe that it is the notion which the mathematicians are vainly trying to reach.

They therefore inform the mathematicians, kindly but firmly, that they are mistaken in adhering to the "false" infinite, since plainly the "true" infinite is something quite different. The reply to this is that what they call the "true" infinite is a notion totally irrelevant to the problem of the mathematical infinite, to which it has only a fanciful and verbal a.n.a.logy. So remote is it that I do not propose to confuse the issue by even mentioning what the "true" infinite is. It is the "false"

infinite that concerns us, and we have to show that the epithet "false"

is undeserved.

There are, however, certain genuine difficulties in understanding the infinite, certain habits of mind derived from the consideration of finite numbers, and easily extended to infinite numbers under the mistaken notion that they represent logical necessities. For example, every number that we are accustomed to, except 0, has another number immediately before it, from which it results by adding 1; but the first infinite number does not have this property. The numbers before it form an infinite series, containing all the ordinary finite numbers, having no maximum, no last finite number, after which one little step would plunge us into the infinite. If it is a.s.sumed that the first infinite number is reached by a succession of small steps, it is easy to show that it is self-contradictory. The first infinite number is, in fact, beyond the whole unending series of finite numbers. "But," it will be said, "there cannot be anything beyond the whole of an unending series."

This, we may point out, is the very principle upon which Zeno relies in the arguments of the race-course and the Achilles. Take the race-course: there is the moment when the runner still has half his distance to run, then the moment when he still has a quarter, then when he still has an eighth, and so on in a strictly unending series. Beyond the whole of this series is the moment when he reaches the goal. Thus there certainly can be something beyond the whole of an unending series. But it remains to show that this fact is only what might have been expected.

The difficulty, like most of the vaguer difficulties besetting the mathematical infinite, is derived, I think, from the more or less unconscious operation of the idea of _counting_. If you set to work to count the terms in an infinite collection, you will never have completed your task. Thus, in the case of the runner, if half, three-quarters, seven-eighths, and so on of the course were marked, and the runner was not allowed to pa.s.s any of the marks until the umpire said "Now," then Zeno's conclusion would be true in practice, and he would never reach the goal.

But it is not essential to the existence of a collection, or even to knowledge and reasoning concerning it, that we should be able to pa.s.s its terms in review one by one. This may be seen in the case of finite collections; we can speak of "mankind" or "the human race," though many of the individuals in this collection are not personally known to us. We can do this because we know of various characteristics which every individual has if he belongs to the collection, and not if he does not.

And exactly the same happens in the case of infinite collections: they may be known by their characteristics although their terms cannot be enumerated. In this sense, an unending series may nevertheless form a whole, and there may be new terms beyond the whole of it.

Some purely arithmetical peculiarities of infinite numbers have also caused perplexity. For instance, an infinite number is not increased by adding one to it, or by doubling it. Such peculiarities have seemed to many to contradict logic, but in fact they only contradict confirmed mental habits. The whole difficulty of the subject lies in the necessity of thinking in an unfamiliar way, and in realising that many properties which we have thought inherent in number are in fact peculiar to finite numbers. If this is remembered, the positive theory of infinity, which will occupy the next lecture, will not be found so difficult as it is to those who cling obstinately to the prejudices instilled by the arithmetic which is learnt in childhood.

LECTURE VII

THE POSITIVE THEORY OF INFINITY

The positive theory of infinity, and the general theory of number to which it has given rise, are among the triumphs of scientific method in philosophy, and are therefore specially suitable for ill.u.s.trating the logical-a.n.a.lytic character of that method. The work in this subject has been done by mathematicians, and its results can be expressed in mathematical symbolism. Why, then, it may be said, should the subject be regarded as philosophy rather than as mathematics? This raises a difficult question, partly concerned with the use of words, but partly also of real importance in understanding the function of philosophy.

Every subject-matter, it would seem, can give rise to philosophical investigations as well as to the appropriate science, the difference between the two treatments being in the direction of movement and in the kind of truths which it is sought to establish. In the special sciences, when they have become fully developed, the movement is forward and synthetic, from the simpler to the more complex. But in philosophy we follow the inverse direction: from the complex and relatively concrete we proceed towards the simple and abstract by means of a.n.a.lysis, seeking, in the process, to eliminate the particularity of the original subject-matter, and to confine our attention entirely to the logical _form_ of the facts concerned.

Between philosophy and pure mathematics there is a certain affinity, in the fact that both are general and _a priori_. Neither of them a.s.serts propositions which, like those of history and geography, depend upon the actual concrete facts being just what they are. We may ill.u.s.trate this characteristic by means of Leibniz's conception of many _possible_ worlds, of which one only is _actual_. In all the many possible worlds, philosophy and mathematics will be the same; the differences will only be in respect of those particular facts which are chronicled by the descriptive sciences. Any quality, therefore, by which our actual world is distinguished from other abstractly possible worlds, must be ignored by mathematics and philosophy alike. Mathematics and philosophy differ, however, in their manner of treating the general properties in which all possible worlds agree; for while mathematics, starting from comparatively simple propositions, seeks to build up more and more complex results by deductive synthesis, philosophy, starting from data which are common knowledge, seeks to purify and generalise them into the simplest statements of abstract form that can be obtained from them by logical a.n.a.lysis.

The difference between philosophy and mathematics may be ill.u.s.trated by our present problem, namely, the nature of number. Both start from certain facts about numbers which are evident to inspection. But mathematics uses these facts to deduce more and more complicated theorems, while philosophy seeks, by a.n.a.lysis, to go behind these facts to others, simpler, more fundamental, and inherently more fitted to form the premisses of the science of arithmetic. The question, "What is a number?" is the pre-eminent philosophic question in this subject, but it is one which the mathematician as such need not ask, provided he knows enough of the properties of numbers to enable him to deduce his theorems. We, since our object is philosophical, must grapple with the philosopher's question. The answer to the question, "What is a number?"

which we shall reach in this lecture, will be found to give also, by implication, the answer to the difficulties of infinity which we considered in the previous lecture.

The question "What is a number?" is one which, until quite recent times, was never considered in the kind of way that is capable of yielding a precise answer. Philosophers were content with some vague dictum such as, "Number is unity in plurality." A typical definition of the kind that contented philosophers is the following from Sigwart's _Logic_ (-- 66, section 3): "Every number is not merely a _plurality_, but a plurality thought _as held together and closed, and to that extent as a unity_." Now there is in such definitions a very elementary blunder, of the same kind that would be committed if we said "yellow is a flower"

because some flowers are yellow. Take, for example, the number 3. A single collection of three things might conceivably be described as "a plurality thought as held together and closed, and to that extent as a unity"; but a collection of three things is not the number 3. The number 3 is something which all collections of three things have in common, but is not itself a collection of three things. The definition, therefore, apart from any other defects, has failed to reach the necessary degree of abstraction: the number 3 is something more abstract than any collection of three things.

Such vague philosophic definitions, however, remained inoperative because of their very vagueness. What most men who thought about numbers really had in mind was that numbers are the result of _counting_. "On the consciousness of the law of counting," says Sigwart at the beginning of his discussion of number, "rests the possibility of spontaneously prolonging the series of numbers _ad infinitum_." It is this view of number as generated by counting which has been the chief psychological obstacle to the understanding of infinite numbers. Counting, because it is familiar, is erroneously supposed to be simple, whereas it is in fact a highly complex process, which has no meaning unless the numbers reached in counting have some significance independent of the process by which they are reached. And infinite numbers cannot be reached at all in this way. The mistake is of the same kind as if cows were defined as what can be bought from a cattle-merchant. To a person who knew several cattle-merchants, but had never seen a cow, this might seem an admirable definition. But if in his travels he came across a herd of wild cows, he would have to declare that they were not cows at all, because no cattle-merchant could sell them. So infinite numbers were declared not to be numbers at all, because they could not be reached by counting.

It will be worth while to consider for a moment what counting actually is. We count a set of objects when we let our attention pa.s.s from one to another, until we have attended once to each, saying the names of the numbers in order with each successive act of attention. The last number named in this process is the number of the objects, and therefore counting is a method of finding out what the number of the objects is.

But this operation is really a very complicated one, and those who imagine that it is the logical source of number show themselves remarkably incapable of a.n.a.lysis. In the first place, when we say "one, two, three ..." as we count, we cannot be said to be discovering the number of the objects counted unless we attach some meaning to the words one, two, three, ... A child may learn to know these words in order, and to repeat them correctly like the letters of the alphabet, without attaching any meaning to them. Such a child may count correctly from the point of view of a grown-up listener, without having any idea of numbers at all. The operation of counting, in fact, can only be intelligently performed by a person who already has some idea what the numbers are; and from this it follows that counting does not give the logical basis of number.

Again, how do we know that the last number reached in the process of counting is the number of the objects counted? This is just one of those facts that are too familiar for their significance to be realised; but those who wish to be logicians must acquire the habit of dwelling upon such facts. There are two propositions involved in this fact: first, that the number of numbers from 1 up to any given number is that given number--for instance, the number of numbers from 1 to 100 is a hundred; secondly, that if a set of numbers can be used as names of a set of objects, each number occurring only once, then the number of numbers used as names is the same as the number of objects. The first of these propositions is capable of an easy arithmetical proof so long as finite numbers are concerned; but with infinite numbers, after the first, it ceases to be true. The second proposition remains true, and is in fact, as we shall see, an immediate consequence of the definition of number.

But owing to the falsehood of the first proposition where infinite numbers are concerned, counting, even if it were practically possible, would not be a valid method of discovering the number of terms in an infinite collection, and would in fact give different results according to the manner in which it was carried out.

There are two respects in which the infinite numbers that are known differ from finite numbers: first, infinite numbers have, while finite numbers have not, a property which I shall call _reflexiveness_; secondly, finite numbers have, while infinite numbers have not, a property which I shall call _inductiveness_. Let us consider these two properties successively.

(1) _Reflexiveness._--A number is said to be _reflexive_ when it is not increased by adding 1 to it. It follows at once that any finite number can be added to a reflexive number without increasing it. This property of infinite numbers was always thought, until recently, to be self-contradictory; but through the work of Georg Cantor it has come to be recognised that, though at first astonis.h.i.+ng, it is no more self-contradictory than the fact that people at the antipodes do not tumble off. In virtue of this property, given any infinite collection of objects, any finite number of objects can be added or taken away without increasing or diminis.h.i.+ng the number of the collection. Even an infinite number of objects may, under certain conditions, be added or taken away without altering the number. This may be made clearer by the help of some examples.

Imagine all the natural numbers 0, 1, 2, 3, ... to be written down in a row, and immediately beneath them write down the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, ..., so that 1 is under 0, 2 is under 1, and so on. Then every number in the top row has a number directly under it in the bottom row, and no number occurs twice in either row. It follows that the number of numbers in the two rows must be the same. But all the numbers that occur in the bottom row also occur in the top row, and one more, namely 0; thus the number of terms in the top row is obtained by adding one to the number of the bottom row. So long, therefore, as it was supposed that a number must be increased by adding 1 to it, this state of things const.i.tuted a contradiction, and led to the denial that there are infinite numbers.

0, 1, 2, 3, ... _n_ ...

1, 2, 3, 4, ... _n_ + 1 ...

The following example is even more surprising. Write the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, ... in the top row, and the even numbers 2, 4, 6, 8, ... in the bottom row, so that under each number in the top row stands its double in the bottom row. Then, as before, the number of numbers in the two rows is the same, yet the second row results from taking away all the odd numbers--an infinite collection--from the top row. This example is given by Leibniz to prove that there can be no infinite numbers. He believed in infinite collections, but, since he thought that a number must always be increased when it is added to and diminished when it is subtracted from, he maintained that infinite collections do not have numbers. "The number of all numbers," he says, "implies a contradiction, which I show thus: To any number there is a corresponding number equal to its double. Therefore the number of all numbers is not greater than the number of even numbers, _i.e._ the whole is not greater than its part."[49] In dealing with this argument, we ought to subst.i.tute "the number of all finite numbers" for "the number of all numbers"; we then obtain exactly the ill.u.s.tration given by our two rows, one containing all the finite numbers, the other only the even finite numbers. It will be seen that Leibniz regards it as self-contradictory to maintain that the whole is not greater than its part. But the word "greater" is one which is capable of many meanings; for our purpose, we must subst.i.tute the less ambiguous phrase "containing a greater number of terms." In this sense, it is not self-contradictory for whole and part to be equal; it is the realisation of this fact which has made the modern theory of infinity possible.

[49] _Phil. Werke_, Gerhardt's edition, vol. i. p. 338.

There is an interesting discussion of the reflexiveness of infinite wholes in the first of Galileo's Dialogues on Motion. I quote from a translation published in 1730.[50] The personages in the dialogue are Salviati, Sagredo, and Simplicius, and they reason as follows:

"_Simp._ Here already arises a Doubt which I think is not to be resolv'd; and that is this: Since 'tis plain that one Line is given greater than another, and since both contain infinite Points, we must surely necessarily infer, that we have found in the same Species something greater than Infinite, since the Infinity of Points of the greater Line exceeds the Infinity of Points of the lesser. But now, to a.s.sign an Infinite greater than an Infinite, is what I can't possibly conceive.

"_Salv._ These are some of those Difficulties which arise from Discourses which our finite Understanding makes about Infinites, by ascribing to them Attributes which we give to Things finite and terminate, which I think most improper, because those Attributes of Majority, Minority, and Equality, agree not with Infinities, of which we can't say that one is greater than, less than, or equal to another. For Proof whereof I have something come into my Head, which (that I may be the better understood) I will propose by way of Interrogatories to _Simplicius_, who started this Difficulty. To begin then: I suppose you know which are square Numbers, and which not?

"_Simp._ I know very well that a square Number is that which arises from the Multiplication of any Number into itself; thus 4 and 9 are square Numbers, that arising from 2, and this from 3, multiplied by themselves.

"_Salv._ Very well; And you also know, that as the Products are call'd Squares, the Factors are call'd Roots: And that the other Numbers, which proceed not from Numbers multiplied into themselves, are not Squares.

Whence taking in all Numbers, both Squares and Not Squares, if I should say, that the Not Squares are more than the Squares, should I not be in the right?

"_Simp._ Most certainly.

"_Salv._ If I go on with you then, and ask you, How many squar'd Numbers there are? you may truly answer, That there are as many as are their proper Roots, since every Square has its own Root, and every Root its own Square, and since no Square has more than one Root, nor any Root more than one Square.

"_Simp._ Very true.

"_Salv._ But now, if I should ask how many Roots there are, you can't deny but there are as many as there are Numbers, since there's no Number but what's the Root to some Square. And this being granted, we may likewise affirm, that there are as many square Numbers, as there are Numbers; for there are as many Squares as there are Roots, and as many Roots as Numbers. And yet in the Beginning of this, we said, there were many more Numbers than Squares, the greater Part of Numbers being not Squares: And tho' the Number of Squares decreases in a greater proportion, as we go on to bigger Numbers, for count to an Hundred you'll find 10 Squares, viz. 1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36, 49, 64, 81, 100, which is the same as to say the 10th Part are Squares; in Ten thousand only the 100th Part are Squares; in a Million only the 1000th: And yet in an infinite Number, if we can but comprehend it, we may say the Squares are as many as all the Numbers taken together.

"_Sagr._ What must be determin'd then in this Case?

"_Salv._ I see no other way, but by saying that all Numbers are infinite; Squares are Infinite, their Roots Infinite, and that the Number of Squares is not less than the Number of Numbers, nor this less than that: and then by concluding that the Attributes or Terms of Equality, Majority, and Minority, have no Place in Infinites, but are confin'd to terminate Quant.i.ties."