688 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



cleverly used as tools by those in power, it is a very sincere love of science 

 that has prompted the scientific men to do much valuable, laborious, and self- 

 sacrificing work : it is certainly not hope of financial gain that lies at the back 

 of their minds. I happen to know that the rate of payment offered to collaborators 

 of the Jahrbuch is i mark 50 pfennigs, or slightly less than eighteenpence, per 

 printed page of their writings and summaries. A printed page of the Jahrbuch 

 represents about 500 words ; and it is useful to remember that the cost of having 

 what would fill one of these printed pages typewritten would be, in all, about 

 eightpence. So, if a contributor studies, as all contributors ought to study, the 

 patience and eyesight of the editor and printer, the rate of payment would be at 

 the glorious rate of about one penny for ten lines of text. By the side of this, a 

 " penny-a-liner" would seem a person who was paid at a very high rate. Further, 

 many of the contributors prefer to receive a complete copy of the Jahrbuch instead 

 of any money payment at all. It seems that those who do a vast amount of work 

 for a reward whose money-value is less than thirty-six shillings may fairly be 

 absolved of any motive except the creditable ones of duty and ideals. 



It may possibly be of some slight interest to give an example of the eagerness 

 with which points of view which are not those of the average German mathema- 

 tician are accepted in the Jahrbuch. For many years past, owing to the able and 

 important work done by mathematical logicians in Italy, Great Britain, America, 

 and France, and owing to the lack of such valuable work by Germans, it has 

 become almost a commonplace among mathematical logicians that the floundering 

 attempts of German mathematicians to deal with logical difficulties are quite futile. 

 Indeed, since the time of Leibniz, there has been only one really great logician in 

 Germany, and Frege's splendid work is not even yet appreciated by his country- 

 men. At the Intel-national Congress of Mathematicians held at Cambridge in 

 1912, it was rather amusing to notice the invariable method of dealing with per- 

 plexing logical questions on the principles of mathematics which was used by 

 eminent German mathematicians. When any such difficulty was mentioned, this 

 method was to smile indulgently and remark that such questions belonged to 

 " Philosophic" It was quite a recognised way of discussing such awkward 

 questions to call them by another name ; so that " Mathematik " would ultimately 

 seem to denote a branch of science or art which had no principles that needed 

 serious discussion. Of course, the assumption that philosophy, which presumably 

 included logic, and mathematics were mutually exclusive domains implies that 

 there is no common domain, and a certain German tactlessly asserted to a friend 

 of mine who has done much good work on the principles of mathematics that "a 

 philosopher-mathematician is a contradiction in terms." Of course the only 

 possible reply was : " Very well then, you are sitting next to a contradiction in 

 terms." 



Now, it appeared to me about nine years ago, and still appears to me, that the 

 best thing to do in this case was to bring as clearly and frankly as I could the 

 work of those of us which is published in periodicals dealing with philosophical 

 questions as well as logical ones— such as Mind, the Monist, and the Proceedings 

 of the Aristotelian Society— before the eyes of mathematicians by profession for 

 the sake of the light which such logical investigations throw on the principles of 

 mathematics. This, then, is the motive of much of my particular work in the 

 organisation of scientific literature. But we can and ought to take a wider view. 



Let us consider the relation of the collection and critical examination of the 

 published researches of others to truth and our own search for it. In most cases, 

 our research will not have as its object the statement of the results and opinions of 



