to philosophy. The solution is definitive, in the sense that it entirely satisfies and convinces all who study it carefully. For over two thousand years the human intellect was baffled by the problem; its many failures and its ultimate success make this problem peculiarly apt for the illustration of method.
The problem appears to have first arisen in some such way as the following.[1] Pythagoras and his followers, who were interested, like Descartes, in the application of number to geometry, adopted in that science more arithmetical methods than those with which Euclid has made us familiar. They, or their contemporaries the atomists, believed, apparently, that space is composed of indivisible points, while time is composed of indivisible instants.[2] This belief would not, by itself, have raised the difficulties which they encountered, but it was presumably accompanied by another belief, that the number of points in any finite area or of instants in any finite period must be finite. I do not suppose that this latter belief was a conscious one, because probably no other possibility had occurred to them. But the belief nevertheless operated, and very soon brought them into conflict with facts which they themselves discovered. Before explaining how this occurred, however, it is necessary to say one word in explanation of the phrase "finite number." The exact explanation is a matter for our next lecture; for the present, it must suffice to say that I mean 0 and 1 and 2 and 3 and so on, for ever—in other words, any number that can be obtained by
- ↑ In what concerns the early Greek philosophers, my knowledge is largely derived from Burnet's valuable work, Early Greek Philosophy (2nd ed., London, 1908). I have also been greatly assisted by Mr D. S. Robertson of Trinity College, who has supplied the deficiencies of my knowledge of Greek, and brought important references to my notice.
- ↑ Cf. Aristotle, Metaphysics, M. 6, 1080b, 18 sqq., and 1083b, 8 sqq.
