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

INTRODUCTION 31
account it seems to you, as it may seem, a little strange
that the majority of mathematicians have little interest
in such work and are not familiar with it, it is sufficient
to reflect that, though its results as results are strictly
scientific, strictly a part of mathematics, they are deeply
tinged with philosophic interest and owe their discovery
primarily to the spirit of philosophic enquiry. In mathematics, as in other subjects, fashions change; it is, moreover, so large a subject that a student is obliged by his
limitations to specialize in a branch of it or in a group
of branches; and it so happens that a large majority of
mathematicians are disqualified,-some of them by breeding, more of them by temperament,-for study or research in that branch which deals with the foundations of
their science as a whole. Such disqualification is not to
be imputed to them as a fault; often no doubt,-oftener
than not, perhaps,-it is only a defect of a quality; at all
events, a mathematician may not be rightly blamed for
the temperamental bent of his scientific interests. The
same may not be said of those who are inclined to depreciate other interests than their own. I refer to the
type of mathematician,-such as you may sometimes
meet,-who, as if to mitigate his sense of guilt for being
consciously innocent of symbolic logic and so to protect
his self-respect, will occasionally ask you, in a somewhat
disparaging tone, to tell him, if possible, of any important
service rendered by symbolic logic or of any important
proposition established by it or of any important method
devised by it for the use of mathematicians. If you disregard the spirit in which such questions are sometimes
asked, it is easy to answer them in a way satisfactory to
any candid and competent enquirer. The answer, as I
conceive it, is, in brief, as follows: