SIDELIGHTS ON RELATIVITY

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by which other laws are to be deduced therefrom. But there is another
reason for the high repute of mathematics, in that it is mathematics
which affords the exact natural sciences a certain measure of
security, to which without mathematics they could not attain.

At this point an enigma presents itself which in all ages has agitated
inquiring minds. How can it be that mathematics, being after all
a product of human thought which is independent of experience, is
so admirably appropriate to the objects of reality? Is human reason,
then, without experience, merely by taking thought, able to fathom
the properties of real things.

In my opinion the answer to this question is, briefly, this:--As far
as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain;
and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.
It seems to me that complete clearness as to this state of things
first became common property through that new departure in mathematics