ESSAYS




ORNAMENT FROM MATHEMATICS

I

THE WORLD ORDER


No fact is better established than that we live in an _orderly_
universe. The truth of this the world-war may for the moment, and to
the near and narrow view appear to contradict, but the sweep of human
history, and the stars in their courses, show an orderliness which
cannot be gainsaid.

Now of that order, _number_--that is, mathematics--is the more than
symbol, it is the very thing itself. Whence this weltering tide of
life arose, and whither it flows, we know not; but that it is governed
by mathematical law all of our knowledge in every field confirms. Were
it not so, knowledge itself would be impossible. It is because man is
a counting animal that he is master over all the beasts of the earth.

Number is the tune to which all things move, and as it were make