Always and everywhere the Complex had
been true and the Contradiction had been certain. Thought started
by it. Mathematics itself began by counting one -- two -- three;
then imagining their continuity, which M. Poincare was still
exhausting his wits to explain or defend; and this was his
explanation: "In short, the mind has the faculty of creating
symbols, and it is thus that it has constructed mathematical
continuity which is only a particular system of symbols." With
the same light touch, more destructive in its artistic measure
than the heaviest-handed brutality of Englishmen or Germans, he
went on to upset relative truth itself: "How should I answer the
question whether Euclidian Geometry is true? It has no sense! . .
. Euclidian Geometry is, and will remain, the most convenient."
Chaos was a primary fact even in Paris -- especially in Paris
-- as it was in the Book of Genesis; but every thinking being in
Paris or out of it had exhausted thought in the effort to prove
Unity, Continuity, Purpose, Order, Law, Truth, the Universe, God,
after having begun by taking it for granted, and discovering, to
their profound dismay, that some minds denied it. The direction
of mind, as a single force of nature, had been constant since
history began. Its own unity had created a universe the essence
of which was abstract Truth; the Absolute; God! To Thomas
Aquinas, the universe was still a person; to Spinoza, a
substance; to Kant, Truth was the essence of the "I"; an innate
conviction; a categorical imperative; to Poincare, it was a
convenience; and to Karl Pearson, a medium of exchange.
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