The fourth dimension

THE SECOND CHAPTER IN THE HISTORY OF FOUR SPACE 45

“Tf I begin with saying that ‘I ought not to praise it,’ you will be staggered for a moment. But I cannot say anything else. ‘To praise it is to praise myself, for the path your son has broken in upon and the results to which he has been led are almost exactly the same as my own reflections, some of which date from thirty to thirty-five years ago.

“Tn fact I am astonished to the uttermost. My intention was to let nothing be known in my lifetime about my own work, of which, for the rest, but little is committed to writing. Most people have but little perception of the problem, and I have found very few who took any interest in the views I expressed to them. To be able to do that one must first of all have had a real live feeling of what is wanting, and as to that most men are completely in the dark.

“Still it was my intention to commit everything to

writing in the course of time, so that at least it should

not perish with me. “JT am deeply surprised that this task can be spared

me, and I am most of all pleased in this that it is the son of my old friend who has in so remarkable a manner |

preceded me.”

The impression which we receive from Gauss’s inexplicable silence towards his old friend is swept away by this letter. Hence we breathe the clear air of the mountain tops. Gauss would not have failed to perceive the vast significance of his thoughts, sure to be all the greater in their effect on future ages from the want of comprehension of the present. Yet there is not a word or a sign in his writing to claim the thought for himself. He published no single line on the subject. By the measure of what he thus silently relinquishes, by such a measure of a world-transforming thought, we can appreciate his greatness.