Mathematical philosophy, a study of fate and freedom; lectures for educated laymen, by Cassius J. Keyser.

1492 MATHEMATICAL PHILOSOPHY
tonomy. They are heteronomous, or anautonomous, doctrines. These are, I grant you, terrifying words. Why
not say mathematical and non-mathematical, and have
done with it? Because the other words serve to direct
and fix attention upon what is precisely characteristic of
mathematical doctrine, on the one hand, and of the nonmathematical, on the other.
Why is it that nearly all doctrines in the world, even
those which deal with the most familiar subjects, not
excluding some doctrines that are currently called mathematical, have been and are anautonomous? The causes
are evidently many. There is the general feebleness, the
logical meagreness, of the human intellect; there are the
strong unruly passions of men driving them in uncharted
courses as rudderless vessels in a storm; there are their
lusts and greeds aiming at the gratification of propensities infinitely beneath and commonly hostile to the craving
for truth; there are laziness, fickleness, and impatience;
there is the marvelous copiousness and prodigality of
mother Nature enabling her children to get on somehow
even though they have but meagre care for wisdom; and,
finally, there is the inherent intractableness of the great
subject-matters with which most doctrines deal.
Hence a rough general answer to our question evidently is that the building of an autonomous doctrine regarding any great matter is, for us humans, constituted
and circumstanced as we are, exceedingly difficult, while
the making of the other kind is easy: there are so many,
many ways in which a doctrine may fail of autonomyso many possibilities, so many opportunities, so many solicitations from within ourselves and from without, for
going wrong in the business and incurring delay. Do
but reflect a little upon the matter. An autonomous doc