The Foundations of Science: Science and Hypothesis, The Value of Science Science and Method Part 55

We see that if geometry is not an experimental science, it is a science born apropos of experience; that we have created the s.p.a.ce it studies, but adapting it to the world wherein we live. We have selected the most convenient s.p.a.ce, 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 s.p.a.ce 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 s.p.a.ce, 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 s.p.a.ce to build a s.p.a.ce completely new?

The part of the race seems indeed preponderant; yet if to it we owe rough s.p.a.ce, the soft s.p.a.ce I have spoken of, the s.p.a.ce of the higher animals, is it not to the unconscious experience of the individual we owe the infinitely precise s.p.a.ce of the geometer? This is a question not easy to solve. Yet we cite a fact showing that the s.p.a.ce 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 subst.i.tute for the a.s.sociation _A1_, _B1_, another a.s.sociation _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 t.i.tle, 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 pa.s.s, but that they do not understand the demonstrations shown them, that they remain blind when we show them a light which seems to us flas.h.i.+ng 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 wis.h.i.+ng 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 pa.s.s 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 trans.m.u.te 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 Weierstra.s.s for example, the intuitives like Riemann. There is the same difference among our students. The one sort prefer to treat their problems 'by a.n.a.lysis' 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 Weierstra.s.s 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 debutant 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 a.s.sumptions 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 cla.s.s; 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 a.n.a.lyzing 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 a.s.sumed a continuous function can change sign only by vanis.h.i.+ng; to-day we prove it. It was a.s.sumed the ordinary rules of calculation are applicable to incommensurable numbers; to-day we prove it. Many other things were a.s.sumed 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 a.n.a.lysis, 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 princ.i.p.al 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 mult.i.tude 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 fas.h.i.+on 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 ma.s.s 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 princ.i.p.al 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.