Mathematics in the Quest for the Unknown. as false. To his great delight a mistake is discovered in regard to the facts upon which he had based his calculations, and in a second attempt the test is satisfied and the law forever estab lished. Just here lies the beauty of mathethatics. Whatever she affirms to be true all the wisdom of earth dare not dispute nor deny. Ancient philosophers sought the truth without the aid of this calm and noble science. They built up many beautiful systems of philosophy from which they professed to have eliminated even the very postulates of mathematics. But what truths did they reveal ? The testimony of history is that they simply led into the mazes of doubt and uncertainty. The universal conclusion of such philosophers has been simply this : Ido not know. Beauti ful as such systems may have appeared, perfect though their founders may have imagined them to be, one fate awaited them all. Built upon false foundations, they were powerless to with stand the merciless onslaught Of •severe criticism, and to-day they exist only as beautiful dreams, each having sprung from a single man, ruled the minds of a few and was soon lost in the debris of its own ruins. Plato objected to mathematics because it is built upon as sumed principles. Consider such an obj ection valid and what is the result ? Science becomes a myth, philosophy itself, without a single support, falls never to rise, and the human mind seeks in vain in the darkness of skepticism for sonic ray of light to guide it to the realms of truth. Those who take such a position either refuse to admit the limitations of human wisdom, or on the other extreme, consider the attainment of knowledge an impossibility. For only an infinite mind can build up a system of knowledge with absolutely no assumptions. All attempts to ignore mathemathics have only revealed the poverty of the human mind without it. And should it not be so. since it is but the interpretation of the laws that guided the thoughts of the Infinite— "When he gave the stars their being And fixed for each its place ?
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