Abstract
THE sentence italicised in the following from a work published in 1877, seems to have anticipated the views of relativists by half a century: “Any kabalist well acquainted with the Pythagorean system of numerals and geometry can demonstrate that the metaphysical views of Plato were based upon the strictest mathematical principles. ‘True mathematics,’ says the Magicon, ‘is something with which all higher sciences are connected; common mathematics is but a deceitful phantasmagoria whose much-praised infallibility only arises from this—that materials, conditions, and references are made its foundation.’ … As long as exact science confines its observations to physical conditions and proceeds by the Aristotelian method it certainly cannot fail. But, notwithstanding that the world of matter is boundless for us, it still is finite; and thus materialism will turn forever in this vitiated circle, unable to soar higher than the circumference will permit. The cosmological theory of numerals which Pythagoras learned from the Egyptian hierophants is alone able to reconcile the two units, ‘matter’ and ‘spirit,’ and cause each to demonstrate the other mathematically”.—“Isis Unveiled”, i. 7.
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L., W. Science and Mathematics. Nature 123, 569 (1929). https://doi.org/10.1038/123569e0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/123569e0
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