Abstract
WHEN one leans over the infinite, speech appears a rather embarrassing means of conveying to others the volcanic impetus of one's intuitions. Yet, is it not a privilege of the philosopher to attempt a faithful translation of this unique experience? So long as he respects the steady parallelism between facts and their expression, he is allowed to enlist the help of analogy and mathematical symbolism in his errand of spiritual charity. But woe to him if he yields to the charm of his endeavours, and allows himself to be carried by his symbols further than the brutal facts permit. Though he need not fear a violent end as a reward for his exaggerations, he may be liable to suffer the more dreadful penalty of seeing his theories universally dismissed as being castles in the air.
(1) The Emergence of Life: being a Treatise on Mathematical Philosophy and Symbolic Logic by which a New Theory of Space and Time is Evolved.
By John Butler Burke. Pp. ix + 396. (London: Oxford University Press, 1931.) 30s. net.
(2) The Mystery of Life.
By John Butler Burke. (The Library of New Ideas, No. 5.) Pp. 160. (London: Elkin Mathews and Marrot, Ltd., 1931.) 3s. 6d. net.
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GREENWOOD, T. (1) The Emergence of Life: being a Treatise on Mathematical Philosophy and Symbolic Logic by which a New Theory of Space and Time is Evolved (2) The Mystery of Life. Nature 130, 5–6 (1932). https://doi.org/10.1038/130005a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/130005a0
