The Organisation of Thought

THE discourses included in this volume have been delivered as addresses on various occasions which are duly noted; the only exception is The Anatomy of Some Scientific Ideas, which is now published for the first time. These discourses fall into two sections, the first five chapters deal with education, and the remaining three embody discussions on certain points arising in the philosophy of science. But a common line of reflection extends through the whole, and the two sections influence each other.

I have left in each chapter the reference to the particular occasion of its first production, and I have not sought for a verbal consistency covering perplexity. But the various parts of the book were in fact composed with express reference to each other, so as to form one whole.

I have to thank the Syndics of the Cambridge University Press for permission to republish the contents of Chapter V.

Imperial College of Science and Technology, April 1917.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

PREFACE v

I. THE AIMS OF EDUCATION--A PLEA FOR REFORM 1 (Presidential Address to the Mathematical Association, January, 1916.)

II. TECHNICAL EDUCATION AND ITS RELATION TO SCIENCE AND LITERATURE 29 (Presidential Address to the Mathematical Association, January, 1917.)

III. A POLYTECHNIC IN WAR-TIME 58 (Address at the Prize Distribution, Borough Polytechnic Institute, Southwark, February, 1917.)

IV. THE MATHEMATICAL CURRICULUM 69 (Presidential Address to the London Branch of the Mathematical Association, 1912.)

V. THE PRINCIPLES OF MATHEMATICS IN RELATION TO ELEMENTARY TEACHING 92 (Paper read in the Educational Section of the International Congress of Mathematicians, Cambridge, 1912.)

VI. THE ORGANISATION OF THOUGHT 105 (Presidential Address to Section A, British Association, Newcastle, 1916; also read subsequently before the Aristotelian Society.)

VII. THE ANATOMY OF SOME SCIENTIFIC IDEAS 134

VIII. SPACE, TIME, AND RELATIVITY 191 (Paper read to Section A at the Manchester Meeting of Section A, 1915; also, with the appended Commentary, read subsequently before the Aristotelian Society.)

ORGANISATION OF THOUGHT

CHAPTER I

THE AIMS OF EDUCATION--A PLEA FOR REFORM

(Presidential Address to the Mathematical Association, January, 1916)

WHEN I had the honour of being made President of the Mathematical Association, I did not foresee the unusual responsibility which it entailed. It was my intention to take as the theme of a presidential address the consideration of some aspect of those special subjects to which my own researches have principally been directed. Events have forced me to abandon that intention. It is useless to discuss abstract questions in the midst of dominant practical preoccupation. We cannot disregard the present crisis in European civilisation. It affects every function of life. In the harder struggle for existence which lies before the nation, all departments of national effort will be reviewed for judgment. The mere necessity for economy in resources will provoke this reformation.

We are concerned with education. This Association, so rich in its membership of educationalists, with the conception of reform as the very reason of its being, is among those bodies which must take the lead in guiding that educational reconstruction which by a sociological law follows every social revolution. We do not want impracticable ideals, only to be realised beyond the clouds in