19

Summary

I MUST return to my Oxford apology, and examine a little more carefully some of the points which I postponed in § 6. It will be obvious by now that I am interested in mathematics only as a creative art. But there are other questions to be considered, and in particular that of the ‘utility’ (or uselessness) of mathematics, about which there is much confusion of thought. We must also consider whether mathematics is really quite so ‘harmless’ as I took for granted in my Oxford lecture.

A science or an art may be said to be ‘useful’ if its development increases, even indirectly, the material well-being and comfort of men, if it promotes happiness, using that word in a crude and commonplace way. Thus medicine and physiology are useful because they relieve suffering, and engineering is useful because it helps us to build houses and bridges, and so to raise the standard of life (engineering, of course, does harm as well, but that is not the question at the moment). Now some mathematics is certainly useful in this way; the engineers could not do their job without a fair working knowledge of mathematics, and mathematics is beginning to find applications even in physiology. So here we have a possible ground for a defence of mathematics; it may not be the best, or even a particularly strong defence, but it is one which we must examine.