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THE FOUNDATIONS OF ANALYSIS:
A STRAIGHTFORWARD INTRODUCTION

BooK 1
LOGIC, SETS AND NUMBERS
THE FOUNDATIONS OF
ANALYSIS:
A STRAIGHTFORWARD
INTRODUCTION
BOOK 1
LOGIC, SETS AND NUMBERS

K. G. BINMORE
Professor of Mathematics
London School of Economics and Political Science

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Cambridge
London New York New Rochelle
Melbourne Sydney
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Siio Paulo, Delhi

Cambridge University Press

The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK

Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521233224

© Cambridge University Press 1980

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception

and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 1980

Re-issued in this digitally printed version 2008

A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-0-521-23322-4 hardback

ISBN 978-0-521-29915-2 paperback
 CONTENTS

Introduction pageix

1 Proofs 1
1.1 What is a proof? 1
1.5 Mathematical proof 3
1.7 Obvious 5
1.8 The interpretation of a mathematical theory 5

2 Logic (I) 7
2.1 Statements 7
2.4 Equivalence 7
2.6 Not 8
2.7 And, or 8
2.10 Implies 9
2.12 If and only if 11
2.13 Proof schema 12

3 Logic (11) 14
3.1 Predicates and sets 14
3.4 Quantifiers 16
3.6 Manipulations with quantifiers 17
3.10 More on contradictories 18
3.13 Examples and counter-examples 19

4 Set operations 21
4.1 Subsets 21
4.4 Complements 22
4.7 Unions and intersections 23
4.13t Zermelo~Fraenkel set theory 25

5 Relations 28
5.1 Ordered pairs 28
tThis material is more advanced than the main body of the text and is perhaps best
omitted at a first reading.
V
vi Contents

5.2 Cartesian products 28

5.3 Relations 29
5.5 Equivalence relations 30
5.8 Orderings 31

6 Functions 33
6.1 Formal definition 33
6.2 Terminology 35
6.5 Composition 39
6.6t Binary operations and groups 40
6.8t Axiom of choice 41

7 Real numbers (I) 44

7.1 Introduction 44
7.2 Real numbers and length 44
7.3 Axioms of arithmetic 46
7.6 Some theorems in arithmetic 49
7.10 Axioms of order 50
7.13 Intervals 51

8 Principle of induction 54
8.1 Ordered fields 54
8.2 The natural numbers 54
8.4 Principle of induction 56
8.7 Inductive definitions 56
8.10 Properties of N 59
8.13 Integers 60
8.14 Rational numbers 60

9 Real numbers (11) 63

9.1 Introduction 63
9.2 The method of exhaustion 63
9.3 Bounds 66
9.4 Continuum axiom 66
9.7 Supremum and infimum 67
9.llt Dedekind sections 70
9.13t Powers 71
9.16 Infinity 73
9.19 Denseness of the rationals 74
9.21t Uniqueness of the real numbers 75

lOt Construction of the number systems 78

10.1 t Models 78
10.2t Basic assumptions 79
 Contents vii

10.3t Natural numbers 79

10.4t Peano postulates 80
10.6t Arithmetic and order 80
10.10t Measuring lengths 83
10.11 t Positive rational numbers 84
10.13t Positive real numbers 86
10.16t Negative numbers and displacements 88
10.17t Real numbers 89
10.19t Linear and quadratic equations 91
10.20t Complex numbers 92
10.22t Cubic equations 94
10.23t Polynomials 96

llt Number theory 98

1l.lt Introduction 98
11.2t Integers 100
11.3t Division algorithm 100
11.5t Factors 101
11.8t Euclid's algorithm 101
11.9t Primes 101
11.12t Prime factorisation theorem 102
11.13t Rational numbers 102
11.16t Ruler and compass constructions 104
11.20t Radicals 107
11.21 t Transcendental numbers 108

12 Cardinality 109
12.1 Counting 109
12.2 Cardinality 110
12.4 Countable sets 112
12.14 Uncountable sets 118
12.17t Decimal expansions 119
12.20t Transcendental numbers 121
12.23t Counting the uncountable 122
12.24t Ordinal numbers 124
12.25t Cardinals 126
12.26t Continuum hypothesis 127

Notation 128
Index 129
 INTRODUCTION

This book contains an informal but systematic account of the logical and
algebraic foundations of mathematical analysis written at a fairly elemen-
tary level. The book is entirely self-contained but will be most useful to
students who have already taken, or are in the process of taking, an
introductory course in basic mathematical analysis. Such a course nec-
essarily concentrates on the notion of convergence and the rudiments of the
differential and integral calculus. Little time is therefore left for con-
sideration of the foundations of the subject. But the foundational issues are
too important to be neglected or to be left entirely in the hands of the
algebraists (whose views on what is important do not always coincide with
those of an analyst). In particular, a good grasp of the material treated in
this book is essential as a basis for more advanced work in analysis. The
fact remains, however, that a quart will not fit into a pint bottle and only so
many topics can be covered in a given number of lectures. In my own
lecture course I deal with this problem to some extent by encouraging
students to read the more elementary material covered in this book for
themselves, monitoring their progress through problem classes. This seems
to work quite well and it is for this reason that substantial sections of the
text have been written with a view to facilitating 'self-study', even though
this leads to a certain amount of repetition and of discussion of topics which
some readers will find very elementary. Readers are invited to skip rather
briskly through these sections if at all possible.
This is the first of two books with the common title
Foundations of Analysis: A Straightforward Introduction.
The current book, subtitled
Logic, Sets and Numbers,
was conceived as an introduction to the second book, subtitled
Topological Ideas
and as a companion to the author's previous book
Mathematical Analysis: A Straightforward Approach.
Although Logic, Sets and Numbers may profitably be read independently of
these other books, I hope that some teachers will wish to use the three books
together as a basis for a sequence oflectures to be given in the first two years of a
mathematics degree.

ix
x Introduction

Certain sections of the book have been marked with a t and printed in
smaller type. This indicates material which, although relevant and interest-
ing, I regard as unsuitable for inclusion in a first year analysis course,
usually because it is too advanced, or else because it is better taught as part
of an algebra course. This fact is reflected in the style of exposition adopted
in these sections, much more being left to the reader than in the body of the
text. Occasionally, on such topics as Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory or
transfinite arithmetic, only a brief indication of the general ideas is attem-
pted. Those reading the book independently of a taught course would be
wise to leave those sections marked with a t for a second reading.
A substantial number of exercises have been provided and these should
be regarded as an integral part of the text. The exercises are not intended as
intelligence tests. By and large they require little in the way of ingenuity.
and, in any case, a large number of hints are given. The purpose of the
exercises is to give the reader an opportunity to test his or her under-
standing of the text. Mathematical concepts are sometimes considerably
more subtle than they seem at first sight and it is often not until one has
failed to solve some straightforward exercises based on a particular concept
that one begins to realise that this is the case.
Finally, I would like to thank Mimi Bell for typing the manuscript for me
so carefully and patiently.

June 1980 K. G. BINMORE

1 PROOFS

1.1 What is a proof?

Everyone knows that theorems require proofs. What is not so
widely understood is the nature of the difference between a mathematical
proof and the kind of argument considered adequate in everyday life. This
difference, however, is an important one. There would be no point, for
example, in trying to construct a mathematical theory using the sort of
arguments employed by politicians when seeking votes.
The idea of a formal mathematical proof is explained in §1.5. But it is
instructive to look first at some plausible types of argument which we shall
not accept as proofs.

1.2 Example We are asked to decide whether or not the expression

n 3 - 4n 2 + Sn- 1
is positive for n = 1, 2, 3, .... One approach would be to construct a table of
the expression for as many values of n as patience allows.

n n 3 - 4n 2 + Sn- 1
1 1
2 1
3 5
4 19
5 49
6 101

From the table it seems as though n3 - 4n 2 + Sn- 1 simply keeps on

getting larger and larger. In particular, it seems reasonable to guess that
n3 -4n 2 +5n-1 is always positive when n=1, 2, 3, .... But few people
would maintain that the argument given here is a proof of this assertion.

1.3 Example In this example the situation is not quite so clear. We

2 Proofs

are asked to decide whether or not the expression

x 2 -3x+2
is negative for all values of x satisfying 1 < x < 2. Since x 2 - 3x + 2 =
(x-1)(x-2), it is easy to draw a graph of the parabola y=x 2 -3x+2.

From the diagram it seems quite 'obvious' that y = x 2 - 3x + 2 is negative

when 1 <x<2 and positive or zero otherwise. But let us examine this
question more closely.
How do we know that the graph we have drawn really does represent the
behaviour of the equation y = x 2 - 3x + 2? School children learn to draw
graphs by plotting lots of points and then joining them up. But this
amounts to guessing that the graph behaves as we think it should in the
gaps between the plotted points. One might counter this criticism by
observing that we know from our experience that the use of the graph
always leads to correct answers. This would be a clinching argument in the
field of physics. But, in mathematics, we are not supposed to accept
arguments which are based on our experience of the world.
One might, of course, use a mathematical argument to deduce the
properties of the graph, but then the graph would be unnecessary anyway.
We are forced (reluctantly) to the conclusion that an appeal to the graph
of y = x 2 - 3x + 2 cannot be regarded as a proof that x 2 - 3x + 2 is negative
for 1 <x<2.

1.4 Example In the diagram below, the point 0 has been chosen as
the point of intersection of the bisector of the angle A and the perpendicular
bisector of the side BC. The dotted lines are then constructed as shown.
With the help of this diagram we shall show by the methods of elemen-
tary geometry that AB= AC - i.e. all triangles are isosceles.
The triangles AEO and AFO are congruent and hence
AE=AF (1)
OE=OF. (2)
 Proofs 3

Also the triangles OBD and OCD are congruent. Thus

OB=OC. (3)

From (2), (3) and Pythagoras' theorem it follows that

EB=FC. (4)
Finally, from (1) and (4) we obtain that
AB=AC.
The explanation of this well-known fallacy is that the point 0 should lie
outside the triangle ABC. In other words, the diagram does not represent
the way things 'really are', and we have been led into error by depending on
it. The objection that the diagram was not 'properly drawn' carries no
weight since it is clearly not acceptable that a mathematical proof should
depend on accurate measurement with ruler and compasses. This means, in
particular, that the classical arguments of Euclidean geometry are not
acceptable as proofs in modern mathematics because of their dependence
on diagrams.

1.5 Mathematical proof

So far we have seen a number of arguments which are not proofs.
What then is a proof?
Ideally, the description of a mathematical theory should begin with a list
of symbols. This should be a finite list and contain all of the symbols which
will be used in the theory. For even the simplest theory quite a few symbols
will be needed. One will need symbols for variables - e.g. x, y and z. One
will need symbols for the logical connectives (and, or, implies, etc.). The
highly useful symbols ) and ( should not be forgotten and for a minimum of
mathematical content one should perhaps include the symbols + and =.
Having listed the symbols of the theory (and those mentioned above are
just some of the symbols which might appear in the list), it is then necessary
4 Proofs

to specify how these symbols may be put together to make up formulae and
then how such formulae may be put together to make up sentences.
Next, it is necessary to specify which of these sentences are to be called
axioms.
Finally, we must specify rules of deduction which will tell us under what
circumstances a sentence may be deduced from other sentences.
A mathematical proof of a theorem S is then defined to be a list of
sentences, the last of which is S. Each sentence in the list must be either an
axiom or else a deduction from sentences appearing earlier in the list.
What is more, we demand that all of the processes described above be
specified so clearly and unambiguously that even that arch-idiot of in-
tellectuals, the computer, could be programmed to check that a given list of
sentences is a proof.
Of course, the ideas set out above only represent an ideal. It is one thing
to set a computer to checking a list of several million sentences and quite
another to prepare such a list for oneself. Apart from any other considera-
tion, it would be extremely boring.

1.6 Example The list of sentences given below shows what a formal
proof looks like. It is a proof taken from S. C. Kleene's Introduction to
Metamathematics (North-Holland, 1967) of the proposition 'a=a'. This does
not happen to be one of his axioms and therefore needs to be proved as a
theorem.
(1) a=b =(a=c =h=c)
(2) 0=0 =>(0=0 =>0=0)
(3) (a=b =(a=c =>h=c)} => {[0=0 =(0=0 =0=0)] =>
[a=b =>(a=c =h=c)]}
(4) [0=0 =>(0=0 =0=0)] => [a=b =>(a=c =h=c)]
(5) [0=0 =>(0=0 =0=0)] => l;ic[a=b =>(a=c =h=c)]
(6) [0 = 0 =>(0 = 0 =>0 = 0)] => \;7' b\;7' c[a = b =(a =c =>h =c)]
(7) [0 = 0 =>(0 = 0 =>0 = 0)] => \;7' a\;7' b\;7' c[a = b =(a =c =>b =c)]
(8) \;7' aVbVc[a=b =>(a=c =>h=c)]
(9) \;7' a\;ibl;ic[a=b =>(a=c =h=c)] => VbVc[a+O=b =(a +O=c =>b =c)]
(10) VbVc[a+O=b=(a+O=c=b=c)]
(11) \;7' b\;7' c[a + 0= b =(a+ O=c =>h =c)]=> \;7' c[a + 0 =a =(a+ 0 =c =>a =c)]
(12) Vc[a+O=a=(a+D=c=a=c)]
(13) \;7' c[a +O=a =>(a+O =c =a =c)]=> [a +O=a =(a +O=a =>a =a)]
(14) a+O=a=(a+O=a=a=a)
(15) a+ O=a
(16) a+O=a=a=a
(17) a=a.
 Proofs 5

The above example is given only to illustrate that the formal proofs of
even the most trivial propositions are likely to be long and tedious. What is
more, although a computer may find formal proofs entirely satisfactory, the
human mind needs to have some explanation of the 'idea' behind the proof
before it can readily assimilate the details of a formal argument.
What mathematicians do in practice therefore is to write out 'informal
proofs' which can 'in principle' be reduced to lists of sentences suitable for
computer ingestion. This may not be entirely satisfactory, but neither is the
dreadfully boring alternative. In this book our approach will be even less
satisfactory from the point of view of those seeking 'absolute certainty',
since we shall not even describe in detail the manner in which mathematical
assertions can be coded as formal lists of symbols. We shall, however, make
a serious effort to remain true to the spirit of a mathematical proof, if not to
the letter.

1.7 Obvious
The word 'obvious' is much abused. We shall follow the famous
English mathematician G. H. Hardy in interpreting the sentence 'P is
obvious' as meaning 'It is easy to think of a proof of P'. This usage accords
with what was said in the section above.
A much more common usage is to interpret 'P is obvious' as meaning 'I
cannot think of a proof of P but I am sure it must be true'. This usage
should be avoided.

1.8 The interpretation of a mathematical theory

Observe that in our account of a formal mathematical theory the
content has been entirely divorced from 'reality'. This is so that we can be
sure, in so far as it is possible to be sure of anything, that the theorems are
correct.
But mathematical theories are not made up at random. Often they arise
as an attempt to abstract the essential features of a·'real world' situation.
One sets up a system of axioms each of which corresponds to a well-
established 'real world' fact. The theorems which arise may then be in-
terpreted as predictions about what happens in the 'real world'.
But this viewpoint can be reversed. In many cases it turns out to be very
useful when seeking a proof of a theorem to think about the real world
situation of which the mathematical theory is an abstraction. This can often
suggest an approach which might not otherwise come to mind. It is
sometimes useful, for example, to examine theorems in complex analysis in
terms of their electrostatic interpretation. In optimisation theory, insight
can sometimes be obtained by viewing the theorems in terms of their game-
theoretic or economic interpretation.
6 Proofs

For our purposes, however, it is the interpretation in terms of geometry

that we shall find most useful. One interprets the real numbers as points
along an ideal ruler with which we measure distances in Euclidean geo-
metry. This interpretation allows us to draw pictures illustrating prop-
ositions in analysis. These pictures then often suggest how the theorem in
question may be proved. But it must be emphasised again that these
pictures cannot serve as a substitute for a proof, since our theorems should
be true regardless of whether our geometric interpretation is a good one or
a bad one.
2 LOGIC (I)

2.1 Statements
The purpose of logic is to label sentences either with the symbol T
(for true) or with the symbol F (for false). A sentence which can be labelled
in one of these two ways will· be called a statement.

2.2 Example The following are both statements.

(i) Trafalgar Square is in London.
(ii) 2+2=5.
The first is true and the second is false.

2.3 Exercise
Which of the following sentences are statements?

(i) More than 10 000 000 people live in New York City.
(ii) Is Paris bigger than Rome?
(iii) Go jump in a lake!
(iv) The moon is made of green cheese.

2.4 Equivalence
From the point of view of logic, the only thing which really
matters about a statement is its truth value (i.e. T or F). Thus two
statements P and Q are logically equivalent and we write
P~Q

if they have the same truth value. If P and Q are both statements, then so is
P~Q and its truth value may be determined with the aid of the following truth
table.

7
8 Logic (I)

p Q P"""'Q
T T T
T F F
F T F
F F T

In this table the right-hand column contains the truth value of 'P"""'Q' for
all possible combinations of the truth values of the statements P and Q.

2.5 Example Let P denote the statement 'Katmandu is larger than

Timbuktu' and Q denote the statement Timbuktu is smaller than
Katmandu'. Then P and Q are logically equivalent even though it would be
quite difficult in practice to determine what the truth values of P and Q are.

2.6 Not
If Pis a statement, the truth value of the statement (not P) may be
determined from the following truth table.

P not P
T F
F T

2.7 And, or
If P and Q are statements, the statements 'P and Q' and 'P or Q'
are defined by the following truth tables.

p Q P and Q p Q P or Q

T T T T T T
T F F T F T
F T F F T T
F F F F F F

The English language is somewhat ambiguous in its use of the word 'or'.
Sometimes it is used in the sense of 'eitherfor' and sometimes in the sense of
'andjor'. In mathematics it is always used in the second of these two senses.

2.8 Example Let P be the statement The Louvre is in Paris' and Q

the statement 'The Kremlin is in New York City'. Then 'P and Q' is false
 Logic (!) 9

but 'P and (not Q)' is true. On the other hand, 'P or Q' and 'P or (not Q)'
are both true.

2.9 Exercise

(1) If P is a statement, (not P) is its contradictory. Show by means of truth

tables that 'P or (not P)' is a tautology (i.e. that it is true regardless of
the truth or falsehood of P). Similarly, show that 'P and (not P)' is a
contradiction (i.e. that it is false regardless of the truth or falsehood of
P).
(2) The following pairs of siatements are equivalent regardless of the truth
or falsehood of the statements P, Q and R. Show this by means of truth
tables in the case of the odd numbered pairs.
(i) P, not (not P)
(ii) P or (Q or R), (P or Q) or R
(iii) P and (Q and R), (P and Q) and R
(iv) P and (Q or R), (P and Q) or (P and R)
(v) P or (Q and R), (P or Q) and (P or R)
(vi) not (P and Q), (not P) or (not Q)
(vii) not (P or Q), (not P) and (not Q).
[Hint: For example, the column headings for the truth table m (iii)
should read

There should be eight rows in the table to account for all the possible
truth value combinations of P, Q and R.]
(3) From 2(ii) above it follows that it does not matter how brackets are
inserted in the expressions 'P or (Q or R)' and '(P or Q) or R' and so we
might just as well write 'P or Q or R'. Equally we may write 'P and Q
and R' instead of the statements of 2(iii).
Show by truth tables that the statements '(P and Q) or R' and 'P and
(Q or R)' need not be equivalent.
(4) Deduce from 2(iv) that the statements 'P and (Q 1 or Q 2 or Q 3 )', '(P and
Qd or (P and Q2 ) or (P and Q3 )' are equivalent. Write down similar
results which arise from 2(v), 2(vi) and 2(vii). What happens with four or
more Qs?

2.10 Implies
Suppose that P and Q are two statements. Then the statement
'P implies Q' (or 'P =Q') is defined by the following truth table.
10 Logic(/)

p Q P implies Q

T T T
T F F
F T T
F F T

In simple terms the truth of' P implies Q' means that, from the truth of P,
we can deduce the truth of Q. In English this is usually expressed by saying
'If P, then Q'
or sometimes
'P is a sufficient condition for Q'.
It strikes some people as odd that 'P implies Q' should be defined as true
in the case when P is false. This is so that a proposition like 'x > 2 implies
x > 1' may be asserted to be true for all values of x.
Consider next the following truth table.

p Q P implies Q not Q not P (not Q) implies (not P)

T T T F F T
T F F T F F
F T T F T T
F F T T T T

Observe that the entries in the third and sixth columns are identical. This
means that the statements 'P implies Q' and ~(not Q) implies (not P)' are
either both true or both false- i.e. they are logically equivalent. Wherever we
see 'P implies Q' we might therefore just as well write '(not Q) implies (not
P)' since this is an equivalent statement.
The statement '(not Q) implies (not P)' is called the contrapositive of 'P
implies Q'. In ordinary English it is usually rendered in the form
'P only if Q'
or sometimes
'Q is a necessary condition for P'.
These last two expressions are therefore two more paraphrases for the
simple statement 'P implies Q'.

2.11 Exercise
(1) Given that the statements 'P' and 'P=Q' are both true, deduce that Q is
true. [Hint: Delete from the truth table for P=Q those rows which do
 Logic (J) 11

not apply.] If, instead, you are given that the statements 'Q' and 'P=Q'
are true, show that no conclusion may be drawn about the truth
value of P (unless further information is available).
[Note: The first rule of deduction described above is called 'Modus
Ponens'. To deduce P from 'Q' and 'P=Q' has been called 'Modus
Morons'.]
(2) Given that P=Q is true but Q false, show that P is false.
(3) The great philosopher Descartes based his system of philosophy on the
principle 'cogito ergo sum' (I think, therefore I am). Dr Strabismus
(whom God preserve) of Utrecht has founded a rival system based on
the principle 'Non cogito ergo non sum' (I do not think, therefore I am~
not).
Express both these principles in the form 'P=Q' and hence clear Dr
Strabismus (and the Daily Express, where his thoughts were once
published) from the insinuation that his principle may be deduced from
that of Descartes.
(4) Rain on Tuesday is a necessary condition for rain on Sunday. If it rains
on Tuesday then it rains on Wednesday. But it rains on Wednesday
only if it rains on Friday. Moreover no rain Monday implies no rain on
Friday. Finally, rain on Monday is a sufficient condition for rain on
Saturday.
Express each of these statements in the form 'P=Q'. Given that it
rains on Sunday, what can be said about Saturday's weather?
(5) Show that the statement 'P implies Q' is equivalent to '(not P) or Q'.
Deduce that 'P implies Q' is also equivalent to 'not {P and (not Q)}'.
(6) What conclusion (if any) may be drawn from the truth of '(not P)=P'?

2.12 If and only if

Consider the truth table below.

p Q P=Q Q=P (P=Q) and (Q=P) P=Q

T T T T T T
T F F T F F
F T T F F F
F F T T T T

Observe that the entries in the fifth and sixth columns are identical. Thus to
say that 'P is logically equivalent to Q' is the same thing as saying
'(P implies Q) and (Q implies P)'.
In ordinary English this statement is usually expressed in the form
'P if and only if Q'
12 Logic (I)

- i.e. '(P only if Q) and (if Q then P)'. Alternatively it may be paraphrased as
'P is a necessary and sufficient condition for Q'.

2.13 Proof schema

Most theorems take one of the two forms 'If P, then Q' or 'P if
and only if Q'. The second of these really consists of two theorems in one
and is usually proved in two parts. First it is shown that 'P implies Q' and
then that 'Q implies P'.
To show that 'P implies Q' we normally use one of the following three
methods.
( l) The most straightforward method is to assume that P is true and try
and deduce the truth of Q (there is no need to worry about what
happens when P is false since then 'P implies Q' is automatically true).
(2) A second method is to write down the contrapositive '(not Q) implies
(not P)' and prove this instead. We then assume the truth of (not Q) and
try and deduce the truth of (not P).
(3) Finally, we may argue by contradiction (reductio ad absurdum). For this
argument we assume the truth of both P and (not Q) and seek a
contradiction.
From this we conclude that our hypothesis 'P and (not Q)' is false-
i.e. 'not (P and (not Q))' is true. But this is equivalent to 'P implies Q'
(exercise 2.11 (5)).
In practice Q may often be quite a complicated statement. In this case the
effectiveness of the second and third methods depends on the extent to which the
contradictory of Q (i.e. not Q) can be expressed in a useful form. In general, it is a
good idea to get the 'not' as far inside the expression as possible. For example,
'not {(Pand Q)or (not R)}'is more usefully expressed in the form'{ (not P)or (not
Q)} and R'. We return to this topic again in the next chapter.

2.14 Example We give three different proofs of the fact that, if

x 2 -3x+2<0, then x>O.
Proof 1 Assume that x 2 - 3x + 2 < 0. Then
3x > x 2 + 2 ~ 2 (because x 2 ~ 0).
Hence
It follows that 'x 2 - 3x + 2 < 0 implies x > 0'.

Proof 2 The contrapositive statement is that 'x:;;:; 0 implies

xx 2 - 3x + 2 ~ 0'. We therefore assume that x:;;:; 0. Then
x-1 :;:;o and x-2:;:;0.
 Logic (I) 13

Hence x 2 - 3x + 2=(x -l)(x- 2)~0.

It follows that 'x :;=; 0 implies x 2 - 3x + 2 ~ 0' and hence that 'x 2 - 3x + 2 < 0
implies x>O'.

Proof 3 Assume x 2 - 3x + 2 < 0 and x :;=; 0. Then

x 2 < 3x - 2 :;=; - 2 < 0.
This is a contradiction and hence 'x 2 - 3x + 2 < 0 implies x > 0'.
3 LOGIC (11)

3.1 Predicates and sets

A set is a collection of objects which are called its elements. If a is
an element of the set S, we say that a belongs to S and write
aES.
If b does not belong to S, we write b rf S.
In a given context, there will be a set to which all the objects we wish to
consider belong - i.e. the set over which we want our variables to range.
This set is called the universal set V. It is important to emphasise that the
universal set will not.always be the same. If we are discussing the properties
of the real number system, we shall want V to be the set of all real numbers.
If we are discussing people, we shall want V to be the set of all human
beings.
When it is clearly understood what the universal set is, we can discuss
predicates. A predicate is a sentence which contains one or more variables
but which becomes a statement when we replace the variables by objects
from their range.

3.2 Examples
(i) Let the universal set be the set IR of all real numbers. Some examples
of predicates which are meaningful for this universal set are:
(a) x>3 (b) 2x=x 2 (c) x+ y=z.

These predicates can be converted into statements by replacing x, y and z

by objects from their range. For example, the substitutions x = 2, y = 1, z = 3
yield the statements
(a) 2>3 (b) 2·2=2 2 (c) 2+ 1 =3
of which the first is false and the others true.
(ii) Let the universal set be the set of all people. Some examples of
predicates which are meaningful for this universal set are:
(a) x is president (b) x loves y.

14
 Logic (II) 15

If x and y are replaced by Romeo and Juliet respectively, we obtain two

statements of which the first is false and the second true.

One use of predicates is in specifying sets. The simplest way of specifying

a set is by listing its elements. We use the notation
A={t, 1, j2, e, n}
to denote the set whose elements are the real numbers t, 1, j2, e and n.
Similarly,
B = {Romeo, Juliet}
denotes the set whose elements are Romeo and Juliet. But this notation is,
of course, no use in specifying a set which has an infinite number of
elements. For such sets one has to name the property which distinguishes
elements of the set from objects which are not in the set. Predicates are used
for this purpose. For example, the notation
C={x:x>3}
denotes the set of all real nnmbers larger than 3 provided that it is
understood that the variable x ranges over the universal set IR1. Similarly,
D = {y: y loves Romeo}
denotes the set of people who love Romeo, provided that the variable y is
understood to range over the universal set of all people.
It is convenient to have a notation for the empty set (/). This is the
set which has no elements. For example, if x ranges over the real numbers,
then
{x: x 2 + 1 =0} =(,Z>.
This is because there are no real numbers x such that x 2 = - 1.

3.3 Exercise
(1) Let the universal set V be the set N of all natural numbers (i.e. 1, 2,
3, ... ). Then, for example, {x: 2 ~x ~4} = {2, 3,4}. Obtain similar identities
in each of the following cases.
(i) {x:x 2 -3x+2=0} (ii) {x:x 2 -x+2=0}
(iii) {x:x 2 +3x+2=0} (iv) {x:x 2 ~3+x}.
(2) Let the universal set V be the set IR1 of all real numbers. If
S={x:x 2 -3x+2~0},
16 Logic (11)

decide which of the following statements are true:

(i) lES (ii) 2~S (iii) 2ES (iv) 4~S.

3.4 Quantifiers
A predicate may be converted into a statement by substituting for
the variables objects from their range. For example, the predicate 'x > 3'
becomes the false statement '2 > 3' when 2 is substituted for x.
Another way that predicates may be converted into statements is with the
use of the quantifiers 'for any' and 'there exists'.
For example, from the predicates 'x > 3' and 'x loves y' we may obtain the
statements
'For any x, x> 3'
'For any y, there exists an x such that x loves y'.
These statements may be paraphrased in the more natural forms 'All real
numbers are bigger than three' and 'Everybody can find somebody to love
them'.
It is sometimes convenient to use the abbreviations 'V' instead of 'for any'
and '3' instead of 'there exists'. With this notation the statements above
become
Vx(x> 3)
Vy 3x(x loves y).

3.5 Exercise
(1) Paraphrase in ordinary English the following statements. Venture an
opinion in each case as to whether the given statement is true or false.
(i) 3x(x>3) (ii) Vx(2x=x 2 ) (iii) VxVz3y(x+y=z)
(iv) 3x(x is President) (v) 3xV y(x loves y).
(2) Examine carefully the meaning of the two statements
(i) Vy3x(x<y) (ii) 3xVy(x<y)
and explain why they are not the same.
(3) Introduce the abbreviations V and 3 into the following sentence:
'For any number x, we can find a number z such
that for every number y, xy = z'.
(4) If the universal set U is the set of all natural numbers, find the elements
 Logic (If) 17

of the sets
(i) {x: li y(xy= y)} (ii) {x: 3y(xy=12)}.

3.6 Manipulations with quantifiers

The contradictory of the statement 'li x(x > 3)' is simply 'not
li x(x > 3)'. In the previous chapter we noted that it is desirable to get the
'not' as far inside the expression as possible. How does one go about this
when quantifiers are involved?
In the example given above, the variable x ranges over an infinite set,
namely the set of all real numbers. It is instructive to consider first a case
where the variable ranges over only a finite set.

3.7 Example Let the universal set be the set of all human beings and
consider the statement
li x(God loves x).

This means the same as

'(God loves Romeo) and (God loves Juliet) and .. .'
where dots indicate that we continue until we have listed all human beings.
From chapter 2 (exercise 2.9(4)) we know how to write down the con-
tradictory of this statement. It is
'(God does not love Romeo) or (God does not love Juliet)
or .. .'.
That is to say, 'There exists at least one person whom God does not love'-
I.e.

3x{not (God loves x)}.

This mode of reasoning leads us to the rules embodied in the table below.

Statement Contradictory
Vx P(x) 3x(not P(x))
3x P(x) V x(not P(x))

As we have seen above, these rules only have something new to say in the
case when x ranges over an infinite set.
18 Logic (11)

3.8 Example

Statement Contradictory
Vx(x>3) 3x(x;;:23)
3x(2x=x 2 ) Vx(2x#x 2 )
:Jx V y(x loves y) Vx 3y(x does not love y)
\fx \fz 3y(x+y=z) :Jx :Jz lfy(x+y#z)

The third of these may be obtained in two stages. First one notes that 'not
:Jx Vy(x loves y)' is equivalent to 'V x {not Vy(x loves y)}' which is in turn
equivalent to 'Vx :Jy {not (x loves y)}'.

3.9 Exercise
(1) Write down the contradictories of the following statements in a useful
form.
(i) Vy :Jx(x<y) (ii) :Jx Vy(x<y)
(iii) :Jx(x>3 and x=4)
(iv) Everybody can find someone to love them.
(2) Apart from the rules for forming contradictories discussed above there
are some other rules for use with quantifiers. The table below contains a
list of equivalent statements.

Q and (V x P(x)) Vx(Q and P(x))

Q or (V x P(x)) Vx(Q or P(x))
Q and (:Jx P(x)) :Jx(Q and P(x))
Q or (:Jx P(x)) :Jx(Q or P(x))

Justify the third of these equivalences in the case when x ranges over a
finite set.

3.10 More on contradictories

We often have to form the contradictory of a statement like
'For any x>O, x 2 +x-2>0'.
This tells us that, for the purposes of this statement, the range of the
variable x is the set of positive real numbers instead of the set of all real
numbers. This makes no difference to the way in which we form the
contradictory, except that we must remember to keep the range of the
variable the same in the contradictory as it is in the statement.
 Logic (JJ) 19

Thus the contradictory of the statement above is

'There exists an x > 0 such that x 2 + x- 2 ~ 0'.

3.11 Examples
(i) The contradictory of the statement 'There exists an x < 1 such that
x 2 =1' is 'For any x<1, x 2 #1'.
(ii) The contradictory of the statement 'For any x<4 there exists a y>2
such that x + y = 3' is 'There exists an x < 4 such that for any y > 2, x + y # 3'.

3.12 Exercise
(1) Write down in a useful form the contradictories of the following
statements:
(i) There exists an x < 3 such that x > 2.
(ii) For any x satisfying 0 < x < 1, x 2 < x.
(iii) For any s > 0 there exists a c5 > 0 such that for any x satis-
fying 0 <x < c5, x 2 <s (i.e. x 2 ~0 as x~o + ).
(iv) Some Montague is hated by every Capulet.

3.13 Examples and counter-examples

To prove a statement of the type 'V x(P(x))' can be quite demand-
ing. One has to give an argument which demonstrates the truth of P(x)
whatever the value of x. It is certainly not enough to give some examples of
values of x for which it can be seen that P(x) is true.
To disprove a statement of the type 'V x(P(x))' is much easier. This is the
same as proving ':lx(not P(x))' and to do this one need only find a single y
for which P(y) is false. We say that such a y provides a counter-example to
the statement Vx(P(x)).

3.14 Example Show that the statement

'For any x>O, x 2 -3x+2~0'
is false. A single counter-example will suffice and an appropriate value of x
is l We have that

3.15 Example Show that it is false that rxP is irrational for all positive
irrational real numbers rx and p.
20 Logic (11)

Either cx 1 = {3 1 = J2 provides a counter-example, or else

C(2 = (j2)J2
is irrational. In the latter case, take {3 2 = )2. Then
cx/2 = { (j2)v' 2 }J2 = (j2) 2 = 2
and hence cx 2 and {3 2 provide a counter-example.
This example is somewhat unusual in being non-constructive, i.e. we
demonstrate that a counter-example exists without being able to say which
of (ex~> /3d and (cx 2, /3 2) it is.
4 SET OPERATIONS

4.1 Subsets
If S and T are sets, we say that S is a subset of T and write
SeT
if every element of S is also an element of T - i.e. xE S implies xE T.

4.2 Example Let A= {1, 2, 3, 4} and let B= {2, 4}. Then Be A. Notice
that this is not the same thing as writing BE A (i.e. B is an element of A). The
elements of A are simply 1, 2, 3 and 4 and B is not one of these.

It is often convenient to illustrate the relations which hold between sets

by means of a diagram (a Venn diagram). The diagram drawn illustrates the

relation SeT. The universal set is represented by the square and the sets S
and T by the shaded regions within the square.

4.3 Exercise
(1) Arrange the sets given in exercise 3.3(1) in a list, each item of which is a
subset of the item which follows it.

21
22 Set operations

(2) Draw a Venn diagram to illustrate the relation 'S is not a subset of T'.
(3) Justify the following
(i) S c U (ii) (/) c S (iii) S c S.
[Hint: Recall that(/) denotes the empty set. Thus, for any x, xE0 is false
and therefore implies anything!]
(4) Prove that S= T if and only if SeT and TcS. [Hint: S= T means
'xES~xET'.]

4.4 Complements
Ifs is a set, its complement es is defined by
S={x:x~S}.

In the accompanying diagram, es is represented by the shaded region.

When using the above notation for the complement of a set, it is

obviously important to be very clear about what universal set U is being
used.

4.5 Example Let the universal set U be the set of all real numbers
and let S={x:x>O}. Then
e S={x:x~O}.

4.6 Exercise
(1) Let U = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6}. Write down the complements of the sets {1, 2}
and {1, 3, 5}.
(2) Prove the following.
(i) e (e S)=S (ii) eu=(/) (iii) e(/)=U.
 Set operations 23

4.7 Unions and intersections

Suppose that S and T are sets. Their union Su T and their
intersection Sn T are defined by
SuT={x:xES or xET}
Sn T= {x: xES and xE T}.

~SUT

4.8 Examples
(i) {1, 2}u{1, 3, 5} = {1, 2, 3, 5}
(ii) {1, 2}n{1, 3, 5} = {1}.

4.9 Exercise
( 1) We use the notation A \ B to denote the set of all elements of A which
do not belong to B - i.e. A\ B =An e B. Indicate the set A\ B on a
Venn diagram.
(2) Two sets A and Bare called disjoint if they have no elements in common
- i.e. A nB = (j). Illustrate this situation on a Venn diagram.
(3) Use exercise 2.9(2) to obtain the following identities.

(i) An(BnC)=(AnB)nC
(ii) Au(BuC)=(AuB)uC
(iii) Au(BnC)=(AuB)n(AuC)
(iv) An(BuC)=(AnB)u(AnC)
(v) e (AnB)= eAu eB
(vi) e (AuB)= eAn eB.

Results like those of exercise 4.9(3) are conveniently illustrated by means

of Venn diagrams. For example, problem (vi) may be illustrated as below.
24 Set operations

/
~ e(A UB) :sCAn CB

4.10 Exercise
(1) Illustrate each of the identities of exercise 4.9(3) by means of a pair of
Venn diagrams.

So far we have considered unions and intersections of pairs of sets. We

can equally well take the union or intersection of a whole collection of sets.
Suppose that W denotes a collection of subsets of a universal set U. Then
we define

U S = {x: there exists an SE Wsuch that xES]

SEU'

(\ S={x:for any SEW, xES}.

SEU'

4.11 Examples
(i) Suppose that W contains only three sets, P, Q and R - i.e.
W={P, Q, R}. Then

U S=PuQuR (\ S=PnQnR.
SE"U' SEW

The appropriate Venn diagrams are

~/ s.w
us ~ ns
'-
" s,U'
 Set operations 25

(ii) Let W be any collection of subsets of a universal set U. Prove that

e(u s)=n es.

SEW SEW

(See exercise 4.9(3vi).)

Proof e(u s)={x:not (xEU s)}

SEW SEW

= {x: not (there exists an SEW such that xE S)}

={x:for any SEW, not (xES/}
={x:for any SEW, xEe S}

4.12 Exercise
(1) Let W be the collection {A, B, C, D} where A={l, 3, 4}, B={l, 2, 4},
C={2, 3, 4}, D={l, 4}. What are the elements of the sets

(i) u s (ii) n s?
SEW SEW

(2) Let W be any collection of subsets of a universal set U. Let A E W and

let B be any other set in U. Prove the following.
(i) AcU S (ii) A::Jr1 S
SEW SEW

(iii) Bu{~, s}=~, {BuS} (iv) Bn{~, s}=~. {BnS}

(v) e(~, s)= ~~s
t(3) Explain why

(i) U S=0 (ii) ( l S=U

SEI!J SEI!J

4.I3t Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory

In Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory the idea is to express all of mathematics
in the language of set theory. The price one has to pay for this is that all
mathematical objects have to be defined as sets. The reward is that all mathematical
assertions can be expressed in terms of a single predicate

XEY

and all proofs referred to a single set of axioms - i.e. the axioms of set theory.
 26 Set operations

We do not attempt a systematic account of the Zermelo-Fraenkel programme in

this book. An attempt to do so would leave room for very little else. In later
chapters, however, we have been careful to indicate at each stage how the ma-
thematical objects being introduced can be defined as special kinds of sets (although
we shall certainly not insist on such an interpretation). Those seeking a more formal
account of the theory will find A. Abian's Theory of Sets and Transfinite Arithmetic
(Saunders, 1965) a useful reference.
In this section, we propose to make some remarks about the basic set-theoretic
assumptions on which the Zermelo-Fraenkel programme is based. The nature of
these assumptions is such that it is natural to take them completely for granted
without a second thought and this will be our attitude to the assumptions in the
main body of the text. This section is therefore one which can be skipped without
remorse if its content seems dull or difficult.
The basic assumption of the Zermelo-Fraenkel theory is that 'every property
defines a set'. One has to be a little careful over the formalisation of this idea
because of Russell's paradox. Suppose that we assume the existence of the set y
consisting of all sets x which do not belong to themselves - i.e.
y={x:xlfx}.
If yey, then y must satisfy the defining property of y- i.e. yify. On the other hand, if
yif y, then y satisfies the defining property of y and hence ye y. In either case, a
contradiction is obtained. The popular version of this paradox concerns a certain
barber who shaves everyone in his town who does not shave himself. The question is
then: who shaves the barber? All possible answers lead to contradictions and one
concludes that there is no such barber. Similarly, in Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory
one concludes that it is meaningless to speak of 'the set of all sets which do not
belong to themselves'. It is also meaningless to speak of 'the sets of all sets'. There is
no such set.
The assumption that asserts that 'properties define sets' is called the axiom of
replacement. For our purposes, the following version is adequate. Suppose that u is a
set and that P(x) is a predicate. Then
{x:xEu and P(x)}
is a set. Here, of course, u plays the role of the universal set U introduced in the
previous chapter and the fact that there is no 'set of all sets' explains our insistence
that U will depend on the context.
Next one needs an assumption that asserts that, if x is a set, then the union and
intersection of all sets in xis also a set. This assumption is called the axiom of unions.
One also needs an assumption that asserts the existence of the set of all subsets of a
given set s. The set of all subsets of s is called the power set of s and denoted by fl' (s).
(The reason for this nomenclature is that, ifs contains n elements, then fl' (s) contains
2" elements.) The axiom which asserts the existence of f1' (s) is therefore called the
power set axiom.
In Zermelo-Fraenkel theory, even the idea of 'equals' is not taken for granted.
Since all mathematical objects are to be regarded as sets, we only need a definition
of what it means to say that two sets are equal. The obvious thing to do is to define
two sets to be equal if and only if they have the same elements- i.e. x = y=V z(zex=
zey). Another way of saying this is that two sets are equal if and only if each is a
 Set operations 27

subset of the other. To make the definition useful, another assumption is required.
This is called the axiom of extensionality. Essentially, it asserts that, if x = y, then y
can be substituted for x in any statement without altering the truth value of the
statement.
Zermelo-Fraenkel theory requires two further assumptions which it is convenient
to postpone to later chapters. These are called the axiom of infinity and the axiom of
choice. It is a remarkable fact that the whole of traditional mathematics can be
based on the principles of logic and these six simple assumptions about the
properties of sets.
5 RELATIONS

5.1 Ordered pairs

The use of an ordered pair (a, b) of real numbers to label a point
in the plane will be familiar from co-ordinate geometry.
y

b - - - - - - - - - -, (a, b)

(0, 0) a X

We say that (a, b) is an ordered pair because the order in which a and b
appear is relevant. For example, (3, 4) does not represent the same point in
the plane as (4, 3).
How can we define an ordered pair in general? We certainly do not wish
to identify (a, b) with the set {a, b}. Both {3, 4} and {4, 3}, for example,
denote the same set. For this reason, the set {a, b} is often called an
unordered pair.
A viable alternative is to define
(a, b)= {a, {a, b}}
- i.e. (a, b) is defined to be the set whose elements are a and the set {a, b},
However, the precise form of the definition is irrelevant for our purposes.
Any definition which ensures that (a, b)= (c, d) if and only if a= c and b = d
will do just as well.

5.2 Cartesian products

The Cartesian product of two sets A and B is defined by
A xB={(a, b):aEA and bEB}.

28
 Relations 29

The notation A x B is used because, for example, if A has two elements

and B has three elements, then A x B has 6 = 2 x 3 elements.
When A and B are sets of real numbers, we can represent A x B as a set of
points in the plane.

AXB

We use the abbreviation A x A= A 2 • Thus IR1 x IR1 =IR1 2 represents the

whole plane.
In a similar way, one can introduce ordered n-tuples (a 1 , a 2 , ••• , a") and
consider the Cartesian product of n sets. In particular,

5.3 Relations
Any subset R of A x B defines a relation between A and B. If
(a, b)E R, we say that the relation R holds between a and b and write

a R b.

A XB

B
30 Relations

Obviously a relation R is determined if and only if, for each aE A and

bEB, it is known whether or not it is true that a R b.

5.4 Examples
(i) Let A and B both be the set of all human beings and write a R b if and
only if 'a loves b'. In accordance with the remarks above we may identify
the relation R with the set
R={(a, b):a loves b}.
(ii) Let A be the set N of natural numbers and let B be the set 71. of
integers. We write alb if and only if 'a divides b', i.e. b = ma for some integer
m. Some ordered pairs in the set
R={(a, b):alb}
are (2, 6), (3, -21), (1, 7).

5.5 Equivalence relations

The idea of equivalence is important not only in mathematics but
in life in general. Indeed, all abstractions are based on this idea. A Slovenian
peasant, for example, who considers that the only relevant criterion in
choosing a wife is that she be sturdily built is splitting the set of available
women into two 'equivalence classes'. He has invented an equivalence
relation with respect to which all sturdy women are equivalent, regardless of
their personal appearance or domestic skills. We have met the same idea in
logic. Two statements were said to be equivalent if they had the same truth
value, regardless of the subject matter with which they were concerned.
In mathematics, an equivalence relation R on a set A is defined to be a
relation between the set A and itself which satisfies the following require-
ments for each a, b and c in A:
(i) a R a (reflexivity) (ii) a R b<=>b R a (symmetry)
(iii) a R b and b R c=a R c (transitivity).
The most important example of an equivalence relation in mathematics is
the relation 'equals'. When we write x = y we mean that y may be sub-
stituted for x in any statement without altering the truth value of the
statement. (See §4.13.)

5.6 Examples
(i) An example of an equivalence relation on the set A of all human
beings is the relation R defined by a R b if and only if 'a and b have the
same mother'.
 Relations 31

(ii) An equivalence relation on the set 7L of integers may be obtained by

writing a R b if and only if a and b have the same remainder when divided
by 3.

Let R be an equivalence relation on A. If a 1 EA write

A 1 ={a:a R ad.
Then A 1 is the set of all aEA which are equivalent to a 1 • We call A 1 an
equivalence class of R.
As an example, consider logical equivalence on the set of all statements.
There are two equivalence classes: the class of true statements and the class
of false statements.

5.7 Theorem Two distinct equivalence classes are disjoint (i.e. have no
points in common).

Proof Let R be an equivalence relation on a set A. If a 1 EA and

a 2 EA, write A 1 ={a:aRad and A 2 ={a:aRa 2 }.
Suppose that A 1 and A 2 are not disjoint. Then they have an element bin
common. We shall show that this implies that A 1 =A 2 - i.e. A 1 and A 2 are
not distinct.
Since bE A 1 and bE A 2 , b R a 1 and b R a 2 • By the symmetric and transitive
properties for R it follows that a 1 R a 2 •

Now suppose that cEA 1 • Then c R a 1 • Hence c R a 2 by the transitive

property. Thus cE A 2 • It follows that A 1 c A 2 •
A similar argument shows that A 2 c A 1 and so we conclude that A 1 = A 2 •

5.8 Orderings
An ordering ~ on a set A is a relation between A and itself which
satisfies the following properties for each a, b and c in A:
(i) a~b or b~a (totality)
32 Relations

(ii) a~b and b~a=>a =b (antisymmetry)

(iii) a~b and b~c =>a~c (transitivity).

If the totality condition is replaced by reflexivity (i.e. a~a), we call ~ a

partial ordering. With a partial ordering, certain pairs of elements in A may
not be comparable. When discussing both partial orderings and orderings,
we sometimes stress the difference by calling an ordering a total ordering.

5.9 Examples
(i) The set ~ of all real numbers is ordered by the relation ~ of
increasing magnitude. This is the ordering with which we shall be chiefly
concerned in this book.
(ii) If A is a set, its power set S' (A) is the set whose elements are the
subsets of A. For example, if A={l, 2}, then 9'(A)={<P, {1}, {2), {1, 2)}.
Observe that the relation c is a partial ordering on S' (A).

5.10 Exercise
(1) Let A= { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5}. Let R be the relation between A and itself defined
by a R b if and only if a and b have the same remainder when divided by
2. Prove that R is an equivalence relation on A and determine the
equivalence classes it induces on A.
(2) Write aib if a and b are natural numbers and a divides b exactly. Show
that the relation so defined is a partial ordering on N.
(3) Explain why <=> is an equivalence relation on the set of all statements.
t(4) What is wrong with the following argument which purports to show that the
reflexive property for an equivalence relation may be deduced from the other
two properties? By the symmetry property, a Rh and bRa. Taking c =a in the
transitivity property then yields a R a.
Show, however, that the reflexivity property for an ordering may be deduced
from the totality condition.
t(5) LetS' (A) denote the set of all subsets of a set A.
(i) Prove that c is a partial ordering on S' (A).
(ii) Show that the relation R defined on S' (A) by
a R h=lfx(xEA<=>.YEB)
is an equivalence relation on S' (A).
t(6) Let ~ be a total ordering on a set A. Define the associated 'strict ordering'
relation <l by
a<:Jh=(a:;::Jh and a"# b).
Prove that <l is a transitive relation. Is <l a total relation? Is <l antisymmetric?
6 FUNCTIONS

6.1 Formal definition

A function f: A--> B is usually said in elementary texts to be a rule
which assigns a unique element yE B to each element XE A. But this is not a
very satisfactory definition because it leaves unanswered the question: what
is a rule? An answer to this question which is adequate for most elementary
applications is that a rule is an algebraic formula. Thus, for example, the
formula
y=g(x)=x 2 +1

defines a function g: IR: --.IR:. Any value XE IR: substituted in the right-hand
side will yield a unique corresponding value of yEIR: on the left-hand side.
But we shall wish to define functions in more complicated ways than this.
The expressions h(1)= 1 and

h(n + 1) =!{ h(n) + h~n) }'

for example, define a function h: 1\J --.IR; but one does not calculate h(n)
simply by substituting n in an algebraic formula. This is an example of a
recursive or inductive definition of a function.
In order to accommodate this and other even more complicated ways of

AXB

(x, y)

33
34 Functions

defining a function, we use the following formal definition. If A and B are

sets, we say that a function f: A-> B is a relation between A and B with the
property that, given any xE A, there exists a unique yE B such that (x, y)Ef
This definition amounts to identifying a function with its graph.
The importance of the idea of a function is attested to by the large
number of synonyms for the word 'function'. The words 'mapping', 'operator'
and 'transformation' are just three of the many alternatives. Which word is
used depends on the context. For example, it is sometimes useful to
interpret a function f: A-> B as a 'black box' into which an element xE A is
inserted as an input. The 'black box' then does something to x, the result of
which is the output f(x).

In this context one often calls the function an operator or transformation.

Thus one would think of the function g: IR ->IR given above as transforming
x into y by squaring it and adding one.
Alternatively, one may think of a function f: A-> B as describing the
efforts of a mapmaker who seeks to draw a map of country A on a piece of
paper B. It is in this context that one refers to a function as a mapping. A
point xE A is said to be mapped onto the point f(x)E B. Sometimes f(x) is
said to be the image of x under the function f

When thinking in these terms, it is necessary to bear in mind that the

mapmaker may not use up all of the piece of paper B in drawing the map of
A - i.e. there may be points of B which are the images of no points of A. It
may also be that several points of A are all mapped onto the same point of
B. For example, on a large scale map all of the points in the city of Paris
might be represented by a single point on the map.
What is not admissible is for a single point in A to be mapped onto
 Functions 35

several points of B. Each point xEA has a unique image yEB. One
sometimes reads of 'one-many functions' but this is an abuse of language
which we shall rigorously avoid.

6.2 Terminology
If f: A--> B is a function from A to B, we call the set A the domain
off and the set B the codomain off If S c A, we call the set
f(S) = {f(x): XE S}
the image of the set S under the function f In particular, f(A) is called the
range off Note that the range of a function need not be the whole of the
codomain - i.e. it need not be true that f(A) =B.

If Tc B, we call the set

f -I(T)= {X :f(.~)E T}
the pre-image of the set T under the function f

The notationf- 1(T) is in some ways an unfortunate one since it seems to

imply the existence of an inverse function to f Note, however, that it makes
36 Functions

perfectly good sense to talk about the pre-image of a subset T of B even

though an inverse function does not exist.
Let f: A--+ B be a function from A to B. It need not be true that B = f(A).
However, if it is true that B =f(A) we say that f is a function from A onto B
or that f is a surjective function. Thus, f is surjective if and only if each
element y of the codomain B is the image of an element x of the domain.
Again letf: A-+B. Suppose that, for each yEj(A), there is a unique xEA
such that y=f(x). Then we say thatfis a 1:1 function from A to B or thatf
is an injective function. Thus, f is injective if and only if f(x d =
f(xz)~xl =Xz.
If f: A--+ B is a 1: 1 function from A onto B (i.e. f is both surjective and
injective), then we call f a bijection. The requirement that f: A-+B is a
bijection can be rephrased as the assertion that the equation
y=f(x)

has a unique solution xE A for each yE B. But this is precisely what is

required in order that the equation y =f(x) define x as a function of y - i.e.
that there exists a function f- 1 : B--+ A such that
x =f- 1(y)=-y =f(x)
for each xE A and yE B.
We call f- 1 : B--+ A the inverse function of the function f: A--+ B. Note that
an inverse function to f exists if and only if f is a bijection.

6.3 Examples
(i) A sequence is simply a function whose domain is the set N of all
natural numbers. The nth term of a sequence f: N -+IR is defined to be
x" = f(n). We use the notation <x") to denote the sequence whose nth term is
x .. Thus the sequence <n 2 + 1) is to be identified with the function g: N -+IR
defined by
g(n)=n 2 + 1 (n= 1, 2, 3, ... ).
The first few terms of this sequence are
2, 5, 10, 17, 26, 37, 50, ....
(ii) The equations
2
u=x +
V=X2- y2
i}
define a function f: IR 2 -+IR 2 • The image of (x, y) under f is
(u, v)=(x 2 + y 2 , x 2 - yZ).
 Functions 37

Observe that f IS not surjective. If u and v are given by the above

equations, then
u+v=2x ~0}
2

u-v=2y ~0. 2

and hence, for example, the point (u, v) = ( -1, - l) is not the image of
anything under this function. In fact
f(IR 2 )={(u, v):u~v and u~-v}.
Nor is f injective. The equations
2
5=x +
3=xz- Yz
l}
have four solutions for (x, y)- namely (2, 1), (2, -l), ( -2, 1) and ( -2, -1).

y V u=v

I
xz + yz = 5\
f

(iii) Let A= {x: x ~0} and B= {y: y~ 1}. The function[: A --->B defined by
f(x)=x 2 +1 (x~O)

is a bijection and hence has an inverse functionf- 1 : B--->A. Since, for each
x~O and y~ 1,

x =f - 1(y)=-y =f(x),
a formula for f - 1 can be obtained by solving the equation y = x 2 + 1 to
obtain x in terms of y. Because y~ 1, the equation has a solution. Moreover,
as x~O, the solution is unique and is given by x=J(y-1). (Remember
J
that, if z ~ 0, then z denotes the non-negative number whose square is z.)
Thus
38 Functions

f X

X
A B

Note that either graph can be obtained from the other by a rotation about
the line x = y.

6.4 Exercise
(1) Consider the function/: ~ 2 -+~ 2 defined by f(x, y)=(u, v) where

u=x+y}
v=x-y.
Prove that f is a bijection and obtain a formula for its inverse
function. Findf(S) and/- 1 (T) in the case S=T={(x, y):O~x~1 and
O~y~1}.
(2) Let A={O: O<O~tn} and B={<P: -n<<P~n}. A function
g: A x B-+~ 2 is defined by (x, y)=g(8, <P) where

X=a sin 8 COS <P}

y=b sine sin <P.
Prove that the range of g is the set
x2 y2 }
F = { (x, y) I 0 < a 2 + b2 ~ 1

and show that g is injective.

(3) Let/: A-+B. If S 1 cS 2 eA, show that /(S 1 )cf(S 2 )cB. If T1 c T2 cB,
show that f- 1 (Tt)cf- 1 (T2 )cA.
(4) Let X denote a collection of subsets of A and Ya collection of subsets of
B. Iff: A-+ B, prove that

(i) 1(u s)=u

SeX SeX
f(S) (ii) 1(n s)cn
SeX SeX
f(S)
 Functions 39

(iii) ~-~(u r)=u f- 1(T)

TeY TeY

Give an example to show that equality need not hold in (ii).

(5) Let f: A--+ B.
(i) Prove that, for each S c A,
J- 1
(/(S))~s.

Show that f is injective if and only if f - 1(/(S)) = S for each S c A.

(ii) Prove that, for each T c B,
f(f- 1 (T))c T.
Show that, for each Tcf(A),f(f - 1 (T)) = T. Deduce that f is surjective if
and only if/(/- 1 (T))=T for each TcB.
(6) Suppose that A 1 c A 2 and consider two functions / 1 : A 1 --+ B and
/ 2 : A 2 -+B which satisfy

for each xE A 1 . We say that / 1 is the restriction of / 2 to A 1 and that / 2 is

an extension of / 1 to A 2 •
Define f IR -+IR by f(x) = lxl. Let g be the restriction off to (0, oo ).
Find an extension of g to IR which is differentiable at every point of IR.

6.5 Composition
Suppose that f: B--+ C and g: A--+ B. Then their composition
fog:A-+C is defined by
fog(x)=f(g(x)) (xEA).

Suppose that f: A--+ B is a bijection. Then it has an inverse function

f- 1 : B-+A. The composite functionsfof- 1 : B-+B and f- 1 of: A-+A are then
both identity functions - i.e. they map each point onto itself. To see this,
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
stands to reason there's one flier amongst 'em." To Alec I fancy he had
another tale, for the publican is above party, with a foot planted securely in
each camp. But the dark horse did not appear. Our misfortunes began in the
first over, and continued with remarkable regularity during the succeeding
overs. If anyone looked like making a stand the venerable umpire, pursuing
his sovereign rule with inflexible impartiality, held up his hand. Fifteen for
nine, and as the last man went in smacking his leg with his bat, we
wondered how we were to steal from the stricken field unobserved by the
village folk, who were sitting in the shade under the hedge.

But what was this? Purple Cap, who had gone in last because he was so
confident that he "wasn't worth a run," had cracked the first ball to the ditch
for four and snicked the next for one. Twenty! Well, well, this was not
disgraceful. He had the bowling again. The first ball went over the hedge—
six; the second bounded down the hill towards the valley—four-thirty.
"Well, he is a one-er," said the scorer, changing his straw to the other side of
his mouth. Panic seized the bowlers; the fielders went farther and farther
out into the landscape. But Purple Cap was insatiable. He seemed not a man
but a hurricane. He leapt at everything with a devouring fury and the ball
flew here, there, and everywhere. Once the stumper appealed, but he had
the wrong umpire for judge. My bat was smashed, but I didn't care. "Send
him more bats," I shouted. The score rose like magic. "A regular pelthoria
of runs," said the publican. Forty—fifty (the match was won)—sixty—
seventy——eighty—eighty-five—then a well-directed throw-in from the
long-field knocked the wicket down. "How's that?" Up went the venerable
umpire's arm like a semaphore at the familiar sound. And Purple Cap came
back to the tussock in triumph.

"It was just as I said," remarked the publican when I saw him standing
before the inn later in the evening. "'Mark my words,' I said, 'there's a dark
horse in that lot somewhere,' and a dark horse there was. I ain't seen
anything like it since my soldiering days in India. Killed a python we did—
dead as a door-nail down to the last two-foot of his tail. I put my arm on his
tail and he closed round it that tight you couldn't pull him away until his tail
was dead too. I ain't seen such a lively tail since until I set eyes on that chap
in the purple cap this evening. He's stirred this place up and no mistake.
They won't forget him in a hurry."
 Of course, the bat must remain. It was not a bat, but a living memorial, a
thing that talked to me a joyous private language and seemed to secrete by
some magic the very essence of myself. To destroy it would be a sort of
suicide. As well might Nelson have broken up the timbers of the old Victory
to heat the kitchen fire. I rubbed the dust from its battered face and put it
honourably in the corner.

I began to feel as though I had been caught desecrating a cemetery. The

vision of that additional bedroom, with windows, fresh air and electric light,
was fading. I bent a little doubtfully and seized a large tome. It was an old
album, one of those huge and ugly volumes that no household was without
a generation ago, but no household visibly possesses to-day. And I began to
turn over its leaves.... What is there more poignant than an old, forgotten
album? Here are "the children" again, miraculously resurrected from the
past, playing on the sands at Dawlish, swimming in the sea, standing
against the sky-line of the cliffs at Sheringham with the sunshine upon their
laughing faces and their hair streaming in the wind. How long I spent over
that old album I do not know, for it stirred many thoughts that made me
forgetful—thoughts that do not easily find words to clothe them. But I put
the album aside for dusting. Really this lumber-room might be kept more
tidily and reverently.

And what is this vast cover, sticking out, dog-eared, from the lumber?
My old portfolio, given me forty-six years ago as a tribute from admiring
parents to my artistic achievements. How I gloried in its ample blue covers.
Why, Landseer himself, the incomparable Landseer, must have such a
portfolio as that. And I laboured with my pencil to fill it with things worthy
of its dignity, and here they were to-day, old portraits of grandmothers and
aunts and copies of Landseer's dogs and horses and Peter Paul in his big hat,
and the serene Dürer, with his long flaxen curls, and, on each one, in large,
bold, boyish writing, "Drawn by ——" and the date carefully put in lest
posterity should not know that these miracles were done by one so young.
Ay de mi, as old Carlyle used to say. Ay de mi....

I have changed my mind about the lumber-room. We have plenty of

bedrooms, and if we haven't we must go short. That lumber-room is the
abode of finer things than bedsteads. It is a chamber of the spirits. But it
must certainly be kept more tidy.

OUR NEIGHBOUR THE MOON

Jane observed just now that she was sure the days were drawing out. We
laughed, as we were expected to, at the immemorial remark, but we
cheerfully agreed that there was truth in it. We looked at our watches. It was
past four and the landscape of half a dozen counties still lay, darkening but
visible from the hillside, while in the garden the thrushes were singing as
though it were a summer evening. The moon, which had been faintly visible
long before the sun had set, was beginning to take up "the wondrous tale." It
was that bewitching moment of the day when the two luminaries are about
equally matched and the light of the moon filters through the light of the
day and a new scheme of shadows begins to take shape about you as you
walk.

If I were asked to name the chief difference between living in town (as I
used to do) and living in the country (as I now chiefly do), I think I should
say that it consisted in the place which the moon fills in our everyday life,
especially of course in the dark season of the year. It might almost be said
that we do not discover the moon until we live in the country. In town it is
only another and a rather larger lamp hung aloft the street. We do not need
it to light us on our way and are indifferent to its coming and going. If it
shines, well; if it does not shine, no matter. We go about our business in
either case, and do not consult the calendar to know whether such-and-such
a night will be light enough to go to the theatre or to dinner with Aunt Anne
at Kensington, as the case may be. Nothing but fog can interfere with these
amenities and the calendar is uninformed as to the vagaries of the fog.

But in the country the moon is not an unconsidered and casual visitor
whose movements are of such little account that we do not trouble to study
them. It is, on the contrary, the most important and most discussed
neighbour we have. In town we do not think of the moon in neighbourly
terms. It is something remote and foreign, that does not come within the
scope of our system. We should miss the lamp across the road that sends a
friendly ray through our window-curtains all night, and if we went down to
Piccadilly Circus one evening and did not see the coloured signs twinkling
on the shop-fronts we should feel lonely and bereaved. But if the moon did
not turn up one evening according to plan, hardly one Londoner in a
thousand would notice the fact. He would read about it in the newspapers
next day and talk about it coming up to the City in the tube, but he would
not have discovered the fact himself or have been sensible of any loss.

It is otherwise with us country bumpkins. The neighbourliness of the

moon and of the stars is one of the alleviations of our solitude. We have no
street lamps or pretty coloured sky-signs to look at, and so we look at the
Great Bear and Orion, the Sickle and the Pleiades, trace out Cassiopeia's
chair and watch to see Sirius come up over the hilltop like a messenger
bearing thrilling tidings. We know they are far off, but there is nothing
between us, and intimacy seems to make them curiously near and friendly.
A cloudy night that blots out the stars is as gloomy an experience for us as
an accident at the electric power-house that puts out the street lights and
plunges the house in darkness is to the dweller in Hampstead or Clapham.

But it is the moon that is our most precious neighbour. Its phases are as
much a part of the practical mechanism of life as the winding-up of the
clock, and the hour of its rising and setting regulates our comings and
goings. If it failed to turn up one night all the countryside would know
about it. There would be a universal hue-and-cry and no one would sleep in
his bed for watching. When the sickle of the new moon appears in the
sunset sky the cheerful nights set in. There is no need to light the lantern if
we want to go to the wood-shed or to the chicken-run at the end of the
garden to investigate some unfamiliar sound that proceeds from thence. If
there is anything contemplated at the village schoolroom down in the valley
it is fixed for an evening when the moon is high to light us by road or field-
path; and when the moon is near the full we reach the high festival of our
country nights. Then, no matter how busy the day has been or how
comfortable the fireside is, the call of our neighbour the moon to come out
and see the magic he can throw over the landscape is irresistible.
 It is irresistible now. While I have been writing, the moon has been
gathering power. The night is clear and full of stars. There is the glisten of
frost on the grass. The wind has fallen and the plain that glimmers below in
the moonlight is soundless. It would be a sin not to be abroad on such a
night. Moreover Ben and Jeff need a run before settling down for sleep.
They love the moonlight too, not for its poetry but for its aid in the
ceaseless, but ever unrewarded, task of exploring rabbit-holes and other
futile hints of sport. "Come, Ben! Come, Jeff! ... Walk."

ON SMILES

If I were to be born into this world again and had the choice of my
endowments I should arrange very carefully about my smile. There is
nothing so irresistible as the right sort of smile. It is better than the silver
spoon in the mouth. It will carry you anywhere and win you anything,
including the silver spoon. It disarms your enemies and makes them forget
that they have a grudge against you. "I have a great many reasons for
disliking you," said a well-known public man to a friend of mine the other
day, "but when I am with you I can never remember what they are." It was
the flash of sunshine that did for him. He could not preserve his hostility in
the presence of the other's disarming smile and gay good-humour. He just
yielded up his sword and sunned himself in the pleasant weather that the
other carried with him like an atmosphere.

At the Bar, of course, a pleasant address is worth a fortune. I suppose

there has been no more successful figure in the law courts in our time than
Rufus Isaacs, but I fancy he won as many of his victories by the debonair
smile with which he irradiated the courts as by his law. You could see the
judge on the bench and the jury in the box basking in the warmth that he
shed around them. The weather might be as harsh as it liked outside; but
here the sky was clear and the sun was shining genially. It was a fine day
and the only blot on the landscape was the unhappy counsel for the other
side, who thumped the table and got red in the face as he saw his client's
case melting away like snow before a south wind.

And among politicians it is notorious that a popular smile is the shortest

cut to the great heart of democracy. In an estimate of the qualities that have
contributed to Mr. Lloyd George's amazing success a high place would have
to be given to the twinkling smile, so merry and mischievous, so engagingly
frank and so essentially secret and calculating, with which, by the help of
the photographer, he has irradiated his generation. If Mr. Asquith had
learned how to smile for public consumption, the history of English politics,
and even of the world, would have been vastly different; but Mr. Asquith's
smile is private and intellectual and has no pictorial value, and I doubt
whether anyone ever heard him laugh outright. He was born without the
chief equipment of the politician in a democratic age. No one knew the
value of that equipment more than Theodore Roosevelt. He was the most
idolised public man America has produced for half a century, and he owed
his popularity more to his enormous smile than to any other quality. It was
like a baron of beef. You could cut and come again. There was no end to it.
It seemed to stretch across the Continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific,
and when it burst into laughter it shook the land like a merry earthquake.
There was not much behind the smile, but it was the genuine article, the
expression of a companionable spirit and a healthy enjoyment of life, and it
knocked the Americans "all of a heap." Woodrow Wilson's smile was
almost as spacious as Roosevelt's, but it was less infectious, for it was
thoughtful and reflective; came from the mind rather than the feelings, and
never burst into laughter. It was the smile of the schoolmaster, while
Roosevelt's was the smile of the uproarious schoolboy who was having no
end of "a bully time."

Really first-rate smiles are rare. For the most part our smiles add little to
our self-expression. If we are dull, they are dull. If we are sinister, they are
only a little more sinister. If we are smug, they only emphasise our
smugness. If, like the Lord High Everything Else, we were born sneering,
our smile is apt to be a sneer, too. If we are terrible, like Swift, we shall
have his "terrible smile." Only rarely do we light upon the smile that is a
revelation. Harry Lauder's smile is like a national institution or a natural
element. It is plentiful enough to fill the world. It is a continual and
abundant feast that requires neither words nor chorus, and when he laughs
you can no more help feeling happy than he can. Lord Balfour's smile is
famous in another way. It has the untroubled sweetness of a child's, and
there are few who can resist its charm; but it is elusive and seems too much
like a mask that has little to do with the real man. You feel that he would
send you to the scaffold with the same seraphic sweetness with which he
would pass you the sugar. It is not an emanation of the man like that
abundant smile, at once good-humoured and sardonic, with which Mr.
Birrell sets the company aglow.

The most memorable smiles are those which have the quality of the
unexpected. A smile that is habitual rarely pleases, for it suggests policy,
and the essence of a smile is its spontaneity and lack of deliberation.
Archbishop Temple said he hated people who were always smiling, and
then, looking across the luncheon table at the vicar who had been doing his
best to ingratiate himself with the terrible prelate, added: "Look at the vicar
there—he's always smiling." It was a cruel affront, but the smile that has the
quality of an artifice is hard to bear. It was so in the case of Mrs. Barbauld,
of whom it was said that she wore such an habitual smile that it made your
face ache to look at her. One would almost prefer the other melancholy
extreme, illustrated by that gloomy fanatic, Philip II., who is said to have
laughed only once in his life, and that on receiving the merry news of the
massacre of St. Bartholomew. The smiles that dwell in the mind most are
those that break suddenly like sunshine from unexpected places. That was
the quality of the curiously wistful smile that played over the ascetic
features of Lord Morley in conversation. You could forgive all his asperities
when he smiled. But the most delightful example of the unexpected smile
that I know is that of the pianist, Frederic Lamond. The intensity of his
countenance forbids the suggestion of a smile, and at the piano he seems to
descend into unfathomable depths of gravity and spiritual remoteness. But
when the piece is over and the house breaks out into thunders of applause,
he emerges from the depths with a smile that suggests that the Land of
Beulah has broken on his sight. It is so sudden a transition that you almost
seem to catch a glimpse of the Land of Beulah yourself.

But it is no use for those of us who have only humdrum smiles to

attempt to set up a smile that is an incantation. Smiles, like poets, are born,
not made. If they are made, they are not smiles, but grimaces, and convict
us on the spot. They are simply an attempt to circulate false news. There is
no remedy for us of the negligible smile, but to be born again and to be born
different, not outside but within, for the smile is only the publication of the
inward spirit.

WHEN IN ROME...

I have not seen any reply from a certain distinguished Englishman who
has recently been in America to the resolution passed by an American
women's society, and published in the Press, denouncing certain alleged
proceedings of his as a moral affront to public opinion in America. The
allegations were to the effect that he had invited people to drink from his
private store of alcoholic liquor in the ante-rooms of some chapel where he
had been speaking, and that his daughter had smoked cigarettes in public.
Whether the statements were well-founded or an invention of the Press I do
not know, nor for the purpose I have in view does it matter. The incident
interests me, not as a question of morals but of manners. Morals are largely
a local thing, a question of latitude and climate, of custom and time. They
vary with the conditions of life and the habit of thought.

When we eat our morning rasher we are conscious of no moral offence,

but to the Jew it would be not merely a moral offence, but an irreligious act.
The difference is probably traceable to nothing more than climatic
conditions. With us a pig is a perfectly safe article of diet, but in the East it
is a perilous food; and being also a tempting food it needed the inhibitions
both of morality and religion to prevent its consumption. I have no doubt
that if the Jewish religion had originated in the Western world, there would
have been no ordinance against pork in it. But while we may regard that
ordinance as irrelevant in this country, we should be wanting in good
manners if, on inviting a Jew to dinner, we offered him nothing but a varied
choice of pig's meat. We may consider his morality absurd, but we have no
right to flout it because we do not approve of it.
 And the same thing, I think, applies to those who visit foreign countries.
It is their business to respect the morals and conventions of those countries
even if they do not share them or like them. It is, for example, one thing for
an American citizen who loves wine and liberty to denounce Prohibition in
his own country, and quite another thing for a stranger on a visit to show
disrespect to the law of the land, however mistaken he may regard it. It
seems silly to us to try to get morally indignant at women smoking
cigarettes. It has become a commonplace which we accept without
comment. But it is not long since such a thing would have been undreamed
of in our world, and when a visitor from abroad who did it deliberately
would have given great and very proper offence. The axiom "When in
Rome do as Rome does" is a counsel of civility. It does not mean that it is
our duty to kiss the Pope's toe or adopt the moral code of Rome ourselves;
but it does mean that we should not scoff at Roman ways or publicly, or
semi-publicly, indicate that we dislike them.

When I go to a foreign country I do my best to be inconspicuous, and to

pass myself off as one of the people. I do not succeed, for I happen to be an
insular person, who carries the marks of his origin on him in every gesture,
accent and movement. If I dislike a law in my own country and think it
should be altered, I have no hesitation in holding it up to opprobrium, and
even breaking it, if only in that way can it be successfully fought. But it
would be an impertinence on my part to go to France and defy the liquor
laws of that country because I did not think they were stringent enough, or
denounce the inspection of women because I think it is a loathsome
practice, liable to the vilest insults and misuse. French morality accepts
these things, and I have no right of interference if I go there.

I am not sure that I even like moral missionaries from one country to
another. The offence, if it is an offence, is in a different category from that
of the man who publicly flouts the laws and customs of another land in
which he happens to be a visitor; but it certainly borders on bad manners. I
express no opinion about "Pussyfoot" Johnson's gospel, but I confess I
always feel an irritation at his intrusions here. However much I wanted the
country to be converted to his point of view, I should still wish that he
would stay at home and cultivate his own garden, and leave us to look after
our own morals and practices. And by the same token I should resent the
idea of a person going from this country to America and openly flouting its
public morality, or taking sides in a domestic controversy that happened to
be raging there. In short, it is a question not of morals, but of manners.

I do not think the idea I have in my mind could be better illustrated than
by a famous story of Spurgeon. I daresay it is familiar to some of my
readers, but it is so apposite and so good that they will not object to renew
its acquaintance. In the days of his unparalleled popularity, when the great
preacher filled the Tabernacle from floor to ceiling, it was the custom of the
young bucks sometimes to show by their ill-manners their contempt for
something they did not understand. One night three of them went into the
gallery with their hats on, and refused to remove them when the attendant
requested them to do so. Spurgeon watched the incident, and when the
preliminaries of the service had been concluded and the time came for the
sermon, he prefaced his remarks with something like these words: "In all
the occasions of life it is our duty and should be our pleasure to respect the
feelings of others and the customs of others, even if we do not share them.
The other day I went into a Jewish synagogue and, according to my practice
when entering a place of worship, I removed my hat. But, having done so,
an attendant came to me and reminded me that in the Jewish synagogue it
was necessary that the head should be covered. I thanked him and, of
course, obeyed the reminder. Now" (looking up to the gallery and raising
his voice) "will those three young Jews in the gallery show that respect to
the customs of this place of worship which I showed to theirs?"

THE JESTS OF CHANCE

There is one story in Field-Marshal Sir William Robertson's

autobiography that is sure of a place among the legends of celebrated men.
It is that in which he tells by what a lucky accident he was saved, when "a
raw recruit," from deserting from the Army, of which he was destined to
become one of the most illustrious ornaments. Another young private who
occupied a bed in the room in which he slept stole the civilian clothes in
which Robertson contemplated making his escape, and vanished. I daresay
Robertson said some harsh things at the time about the thief, who had put
temptation out of his way; but he must have thanked him almost every day
of his life since. For in taking away Robertson's clothes the thief had put a
field-marshal's baton in his knapsack.

Not many of us have the luck to become field-marshals through the

purloining of our trousers, but few of us are without experience of the part
which trifles that seem of small moment at the time play in our careers.
"Character," says Victor Hugo, "is destiny," and a greater than Hugo has
observed that it is not in our stars but in ourselves that we are thus and thus.
This is no doubt true, though the doctrine may be carried too far. For
example, I think that Hazlitt is a little unjust to Charles James Fox when he
says that the history of his failure is written in his fluctuating chin. I doubt
whether, if the parts had been reversed, Pitt would have done any better. But
no one can compare the easy, good-natured profile of Fox with the haughty
masterfulness of Pitt's without knowing which of the two would win in an
encounter of will-power where the circumstances were even.

I remember Lord Fisher once describing to me with great admiration a

wonderful feat of navigation by which that famous sailor, Admiral Wilson,
had brought the fleet through great perils in a fog, fighting all the way with
his obstinate chief officer over charts and calculations. "But Wilson had his
way," said Fisher. "You see, his jaw stuck out half an inch farther than the
other fellow's." There is much virtue in a jaw that will stand no nonsense.
You can read the whole history of the most wonderful one-man
achievement in the annals of trade in the stubborn chin of Lord Leverhulme,
just as you can read the tale of Mr. Balfour's political purposelessness in his
amiable but indecisive countenance. "I can see him now," wrote a friend
quoted in Mrs. Drew's Some Hawarden Letters. "I can see him now,
standing at the top of the great double staircase, torn with doubts which way
to go down. 'The worst of this staircase,' he would say, 'is that there is
absolutely no reason why one should go down one side rather than the
other. What am I to do?'"

But though destiny is much a matter of chins, the Imp of Chance who
comes in and steals our trousers has no small part in determining our lives
and shaping events. I have read that Wallenstein in his youth had a crack on
the head which he, no doubt, felt was a misfortune, but it gave him just the
surgical treatment that converted him from a dullard into a great general.
Loyola got wounded in battle, and, thanks to that circumstance, found his
true vocation and became the creator of the greatest religious order in
history, and, with Luther, perhaps the greatest maker of history for six
centuries. Newton, according to the legend, sees an apple fall and starts a
train of thought that reveals one of the profoundest secrets of the universe. I
suppose no one who has advanced far in life can fail to recall trifles that
shaped the whole course of his career—a broken engagement, a misdirected
letter, a chance meeting. At the time it seemed nothing, and now, in the
retrospect, it is seen to have meant everything. The chin may dictate events
within limits, but the Imp of Chance has as often as not the final word.

There is an interesting speculation on the theme of what might have

happened in Mr. Asquith's book on the origin of the war. Referring to the
appointment of Baron Marschall von Bieberstein as German Ambassador to
London in 1912 and his death a few months later, he says that he is
confident, so far as one can be confident in a matter of conjecture, that if
Marschall had lived there would have been no European War in 1914. I
fancy that is a common view in informed quarters. Marschall stood
intellectually, as well as physically, head and shoulders above the petty men
with whom the Kaiser had surrounded himself, and it is inconceivable that
he would have allowed his country to drift into war under an entire
misapprehension as to the mind and power of this country.

It is in this way that the chapter of accidents plays havoc with the affairs
of men. All the woes of Ilium sprang from an elopement, and it is a
commonplace that if Cleopatra's nose had been a shade longer—or shorter,
for that matter—the whole story of the ancient world would have been
altered. I suppose the most momentous political event in the history of the
last thousand years was the rupture between England and America, which is
said to have happened as the result of a shower of rain. But for that rupture,
the British Commonwealth to-day would include the whole North American
Continent, and its word would be sovereign over the earth. Perhaps the seat
of authority would have been in Washington, instead of London, but
wherever it was it would have stabilised this reeling world and given its
people a security that now seems unattainable. The speculation which
attributes the enormous calamity of the loss of America to a shower of rain
is more fanciful, but hardly less reasonable, than that which Mr. Asquith
advances in regard to the European War. The Earl of Bute was the evil
genius of George III., and the inspiration of his disastrous policy. And the
origin of his sinister power was a storm at Epsom which kept the royal
party from going home. The Prince of Wales needed someone to make up a
hand at cards to pass the time while the shower lasted, and Bute, then a
young man, being handy, was selected, and from that incident ingratiated
himself with the Prince and still more with the Prince's wife. She
established his influence over her son whom later, as George III., he led into
the ruinous part of personal government which culminated in the Boston
Tea Party, the War of Independence, and the Republic of the Stars and
Stripes.

Chance does not, of course, always play a malevolent part like this. It
sometimes works as if with a superb and beneficent design. Lincoln, on the
threshold of fifty, regarded himself as having failed in life and he died at
fifty-six, one of the world's immortals. It was the quite unimportant incident
of his debate with Douglas that threw him into prominence on the eve of the
crisis which, but for his wisdom and magnanimity, would have left America
like Europe, a group of warring States. But in the end chance betrayed him.
On the night he was murdered the faithful guardian who had shadowed and
protected him throughout the war was sick, and his place was taken by a
substitute who became absorbed in the play, and allowed Booth to slip
unseen into the President's box and fire the fatal shot. But it might be
argued that even in this felon betrayal, chance only completed the splendour
of its design, for Lincoln's work was done, and it was the circumstances of
his death that threw the nobility of the man into relief for all time.

And while the accidents of life so often seem to take control of events, it
is no less true that our most deeply calculated schemes sometimes turn
round and smite us. When Queen Victoria's eldest daughter married the
King of Prussia's eldest son, it was universally agreed that a grand thing had
been done for the peace of the world, and when later a child was born, the
rejoicings in London, as you may read in the contemporary records, were
like those that welcome a great victory. That child was the ex-Kaiser
William, now an exile in Holland. In the light of to-day those rejoicings of
sixty odd years ago read like a grim comment on this queer and inexplicable
world.

It is one of the agreeable features of the diverting adventure of life that

our triumphs so often come clothed in misfortune and that the really big
things that happen to us take the shape of trifles. Whenever we are tempted
to inveigh against things that go wrong, we might do worse than remember
the Field-Marshal's trousers.

IN DEFENCE OF "SKIPPING"

A few days ago Mr. Chesterton expressed a doubt whether he had ever
read Boswell "through." Knowing Mr. Chesterton, and having a life-long
acquaintance with Boswell, I share his doubt. G.K.C. has an amazing gift
for seizing the spirit and purport of a book by turning over the pages in
handfuls and sampling a sentence here and there. He treats books as the
expert wine-taster treats wines, not drinking them in great coarse gulps, but
moistening his lips and catching the bouquet on his palate. The parallel is
no doubt as misleading as most parallels are apt to be. Good wines have to
be "tasted" in this way, but the better the book the deeper should be the
draught or the more deliberate and patient the mastication. "Chewed and
digested" is Bacon's phrase.

But I am far too much addicted to "skipping" myself to treat the practice
as a crime in others. When I was young and industrious and enthusiastic I
read as solemnly and slavishly as anyone. I was like a dog with a bone. The
tougher the theme the more I exercised my intellectual molars on it. Stout
fellows like Zimmermann On Solitude, and Burke on The Sublime and
Beautiful, and Mill On Liberty were the sort of men for my youthful ardour.
I cannot honestly say I enjoyed them, but I can honestly say that I read
them, and I can also honestly say that I shall never read them or their like
again. I finished my drudgery long ago, and have become a mere idler
among books, a person who has served his apprenticeship and can go about
enjoying himself, taking a sip here and a longish "pull" there, passing over
this vintage, and returning to that and generally behaving like a freeman
wandering over the estates of the mind, without a duty to anything but his
own fancy.

I, too, doubt whether I have read Boswell through. Why should I read it
through? I have read the conversations a hundred times and I hope to read
them a hundred times more; but I will make no affidavit about the letters. I
suspect that I have been "skipping" the letters unconsciously all my life.
And Paradise Regained? My conscience is clear about Paradise Lost, and I
can still mouth the speeches of the first author of our misfortunes whom the
judgment of time had converted into the hero of that immortal poem. But
can I put my hand on my heart and say I have read the Regained right
through? I cannot. I am not even sure that I have read Shakespeare through.
I have a vague notion that in the lusty youth of which I have spoken I did
read Titus Andronicus and Pericles with the rest, but I am quite prepared to
believe that I only like to believe I did.

There is high precedent for those of us who "skip." Johnson himself was
a famous "skipper," and confessed that he seldom finished a book. It is true
that he performed the amazing feat of rising two hours before his usual time
to read Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy. He was a truthful man, or I should
find difficulty in believing him. Of course the achievement was not so great
as it seems, for though Johnson believed in early rising on principle and
recommended all young men to practise it, he did not himself rise until
noon. But the idea of getting up, if only at ten in the morning, with a
feverish desire to read Burton tries my faith even in Johnson's veracity. It is
pleasant to dip occasionally into that astonishing rag-box of learning, but
most of us are as likely to read Bradshaw's Time Table through as Burton's
Anatomy through. It is not a book; it is a curiosity.

It is a common experience to find that the habit of "skipping" grows on

us as we grow older. It is not merely that we are more tired or more lazy: it
is that we are more discreet and more delicate in our intellectual feeding. It
is with reading as with eating. When we are young we can eat anything. If
we are offered a bun before dinner we express no astonishment, but
consume it recklessly. But, grown older and wiser, as Holmes remarks, we
receive the offer of a bun before dinner with polite surprise. And so with
books. When the magic of Shelley seizes us at seventeen we can devour The
Revolt of Islam as we devoured that large boggy bun, but later we learn to
discriminate even with Shelley, and to take great spaces of him as read. And
even the most fervent Wordsworthian would admit that his reading of
Wordsworth is patchy, and that if the poet had not written a line after he left
Grasmere for Rydal Water, his indebtedness to him would not have been
sensibly diminished. Who, for example, can honestly say that he has
traversed the Sahara of the Ecclesiastical Sonnets?

This is not a plea for skimpy reading. It is good for the young to worry
their bone even if there is little meat on it. I would have them serve an
arduous apprenticeship in the great world of books, cleaving their own way
laboriously through the wilderness. The anthology business for the young is
a little over-done. The youthful digestion ought not to be weakened by an
exclusive diet of "elegant extracts," and spoon-feeding robs us of the joys of
discovery and adventure. What delight is there like encountering in the
wilderness some great unknown of whom we have never heard? It is like
coming into a fortune, or rather it is better than coming into a fortune, for
these are "riches fineless" that grow with compound interest and are not
subject to the vicissitudes of things. I found a young maiden of my
acquaintance the other day in a mood of unusual exaltation. She had fallen
in love and was hot with the first rapture of passion. She had encountered
Emma and was aflame with ardour for more adventures in the serene world
that Jane Austen had opened out before her. That is the way, casual and
unsought, that the realms of gold should be invaded. Youth should be
encouraged to fashion its own taste and discriminate for itself between the
good, the better and the best. When that is done we can "skip" as we like,
with an easy mind and a good conscience. We have learned our path
through the wilderness. We know where the hyacinths grow and where we
can catch the smell of the wild thyme, and the copse where the nightingale
sings to the moon. And if with this liberty of knowledge we "skip" some of
the high-brows, and are found more often in the company of Borrow than of
Bacon—well, we have done our task-work and are out to enjoy the sun and
the wind on the heath.
 AN OLD ENGLISH TOWN

It was a wish of Seneca's that the wise and virtuous when they slept
could lend their thoughts and their feelings out to less wise and less virtuous
people. It would be equally admirable if we could occasionally let our
spiritual selves take wing and go on holiday, leaving the body at home to
carry on the routine business, receive callers, answer the telephone, pay the
bills, and so on. If it were possible for me to take such a holiday I should go
to Tewkesbury, where the eighth centenary of the famous Norman church of
that town is being celebrated. There was a time when I had no desire to go
to Tewkesbury. It was one of the places I did not want to go to because I
feared that seeing it would destroy the Tewkesbury of my fancy. No one
would hesitate to go to a place like Birmingham or Glasgow, for their
names awaken no emotions in the mind, and experience of them can shatter
no pleasant images.

But Tewkesbury is a name to conjure with. It belongs to the poetry of

things. It is entangled in history and comes with the pomp of trumpets and
the echoes of far-off deeds. It has the tang of Shakespeare about it. Was it
not with its name that that great star swam into our ken with the earliest of
our remembered lines?—

... false, fleeting, perjured Clarence

That stabbed me on the field by Tewkesbury.

Observe, not "the field at Tewkesbury" or "of Tewkesbury," but "the field
by Tewkesbury." A subtle difference, but enough to convince anyone who
has been to that field that Shakespeare wandered there in his young days,
perhaps boating thither from Stratford some summer day with Ann
Hathaway. Was it not Tewkesbury's mustard that Falstaff hurled at Poins—
or was it Pistol? "His wits are as thick as Tewkesbury mustard," he said. I
like to think that Falstaff stayed at the "Hop Pole" at Tewkesbury on that
famous recruiting journey into Gloucestershire, when he ate a pippin in
Squire Shallow's orchard, and that it was the mustard he got there that made
his eyes water and stuck in his memory. It was certainly at the "Hop Pole"
that Mr. Pickwick stopped for dinner on his journey from Bath. That is the
last time, I think, that anything important happened at Tewkesbury. Since
then it has slept, and one liked to think it was sleeping in a beautiful
mediæval dream, undisturbed by anything more modern than an occasional
stage-coach or the horn of the red-coated huntsman clattering through the
street.

That was how I liked to think of Tewkesbury, and I stayed away from it,
lest I should find it was all cinemas, fried-fish shops and tin tabernacles.
But one day last summer I was journeying by road from Wales and found
Tewkesbury in my path, and that it was convenient to stay like Mr.
Pickwick at the "Hop Pole." And now I know that Tewkesbury is as good as
its name, and that I can go there and see as perfect a bit of old England as
can be seen from the Tamar to the Tweed. Of course, a city like York will
give you infinitely more, layer on layer of history written on its stones,
telling of the England of the Britons, of the Romans, the Saxons, the
Normans, and so onward.

But these are remains—the splendid litter of the centuries. The

wonderful thing about Tewkesbury is that it is a living whole, a single town
of Tudor England left apparently almost untouched—certainly unspoiled.
Fifteenth- and sixteenth-century timbered houses, with their upper floors
overhanging the pavements, line the three broad compact streets, and
between these reverend buildings little doorways admit to multitudinous
courts where the poor live. I daresay it oughtn't to be so. I daresay the courts
ought to be swept away and the people housed with gardens far afield. But
at this moment I am not a social enthusiast, but a lover of the picturesque,
and no doubt it is this compact structure of the place that has kept it so
perfect a survival of the past. By the gardens and the courts flows
Shakespeare's Avon, and just beyond the town it joins the broad flood of the
Severn near the Bloody Field where the Wars of the Roses ended—a place
of rank grass, left, I was told, untouched since that day of slaughter, nearly
half a thousand years ago. "They're afeard o' what they might find," said the
old man who directed me. And over all is the great Abbey Church, next to
Durham Cathedral perhaps the finest piece of Norman ecclesiastical
architecture in England. Thither from the Bloody Field on that day of battle
long ago were borne the corpses of the two rivals, and there their bones lie
side by side, preaching, for those who care to hear, more potent sermons on
the fitful fever of life than ever came from the pulpit.

And this beautiful town is set in a landscape as gracious as "a melody

that's sweetly played in tune"—a wide, rich vale, the most fertile part of
England. The sun comes up over the Cotswolds in the morning, and sets
over the great range of the Malverns in the evening. Between these two
sheltering ramparts Tewkesbury lies, dreaming of the Middle Ages. I
daresay it has its worries like any other place. But I refuse to be a realist
about Tewkesbury. I will indulge my love of romance. I will remember only
that as I came away from the "Hop Pole" a vehicle with four jolly-looking
fellows inside came up tooting a horn that played old-fashioned airs, and
bringing in its train a swarm of boys. And as the boys gathered round the
car one of the jolly-looking fellows put his hand in his pocket and drew out
a heap of coins that he scattered among them. It was in the true spirit of the
place. I fancy Mr. Pickwick did the same thing when he left the "Hop Pole,"
and I am sure that Falstaff did—in spite of the mustard. I would have done
the same thing myself, if I had had the courage and the coppers. The next
time I go to Tewkesbury I will fill my pockets with coppers.

ON PEOPLE WITH ONE IDEA

I was travelling down to Devonshire the other day when I met a man in
the train with whom I fell into conversation. It was a wonderful day. We had
left the fog behind us in London and the countryside glowed, rich and
warm, under the sunshine of a cloudless November day. It seemed an
occasion on which one could have found a thousand agreeable things to talk
about, but I noticed that wherever the conversation with the stranger started
it always got round to the taxation of land values. Now I happen to be in
favour of the taxation of land values. It is a question about which my mind
is as clear as it is about anything in this perplexing world. I am prepared to
vote in favour of it in due season and to speak in favour of it when I think
any useful purpose can be served. But I confess I got painfully bored by this
well-meaning man and that I hailed the opportunity of going to the
restaurant car to lunch with secret thanksgiving. I don't think I shall ever be
caught tête-à-tête with that missionary of the One Idea again. I have got
him on the list of People I Can Do Without.

It is a list made up largely of those who wear a bee in their bonnet.

There is no surer prescription for the Complete Bore than the tyranny of an
idea. We flee instinctively from the man who is always telling us the same
thing, who comes into the circle with one ceaseless theme, to which he
hitches the heavens above and the earth beneath, and the waters under the
earth. There is that excellent publicist, Vernon Pizzey, for example. You
have but to say "Good day" to him in the street, and he will buttonhole you,
and, with the abstracted air of one who has seen a vision, will open the
flood-gates of Birth Control upon you.

When I first knew him he was the passionate pilgrim of Prohibition.

Banish alcohol from the face of the earth, and all the problems of life would
be solved, and sorrow and sighing would flee away. He has passed out of
that phase. It is no longer the abolition of Drink that lights the fires of
fanatical faith in his eyes: it is the Abolition of Children. The New
Jerusalem which he will build in England's green and pleasant land will
have no children playing in its streets. When he hears of a childless home, a
ghost of a smile flits over his features, and when he hears of a family of six
he looks as though he has heard of some unmentionable sin. He dreams of a
golden age when the propagation of children among the poor will be a
punishable offence, and when the people of whom he does not approve will
be sterilised by order of the court. His prophet is Dean Inge.

I am not concerned here with the merits of his obsession. I refer to him
only as an example of those who are ridden by an idea. An idea may be
good or bad, but no idea is good enough to claim one's whole waking
thoughts. We like people who have many facets to their minds, who hold
strong opinions on a variety of subjects and know how to keep them under
control, airing them when they are in season and putting them in cold
storage when they are not of season. We like them to think in many
quantities, to let their thought range over the whole landscape of things, to
have plenty of windows to their mind and to open them in turn to all the
winds that blow. We ought not to be the slave of one idea, but the master of
legions which we should exercise and discipline and from which we should
extract a working philosophy of life. However good the text we ought not
always to be preaching a sermon from it. I remember when I was a boy a
most excellent man, a lawyer, who, every evening in the week, would take
his stand on the plinth of a Sebastopol cannon in front of the Shire Hall that
faced down the High Street of the country town in which I lived, and from
thence would exhort the passers-by to repentance. No one ever heeded him,
no one ever even paused to listen to him, and he lives in my memory a
solitary figure weighed down with the wickedness of men, giving his life
unselfishly to the delivery of his unregarded message, a man whose very
agony had become a town jest.

Life is a multitudinous affair, and we suspect the sanity of a mind which

is chained to one idea about it. I remember leaving the House of Commons
on that tremendous day, the 3rd of August, 1914, when Sir Edward Grey
had just made a speech that announced the most world-shaking event in
history. In a few hours we should be involved in the greatest war the world
had ever seen. An acquaintance of mine left the House with me, and as we
seated ourselves in a cab he turned to me and said, "Did you see that
outrageous vivisection case down at Wigan?"—or some such place. I forget
what I answered, but I remember the strange feeling that came over me that
I was cooped up with Mr. Dick. Here was the old, kindly world we had
known for a lifetime plunging down into the gulf of unimaginable things.
And beside me, indifferent to all the enormous happening, was Mr. Dick,
his mind tortured with the wicked doings down at Wigan, or wherever it
was.

There is of course another side to the shield of the man with One Idea.
He could make out a good case for himself and I think I could make out a
good case for him. The mere fact that his passion is disinterested is alone
enough to command respect in a world where disinterested enthusiasm is a
rare commodity. He is of the stuff of martyrs. He is prepared to die for his
idea, or what is harder, to take the whips and scorns of men who are often,
spiritually, not fit to black his boots. It is his uncalculating passion that
keeps the flame of ideas burning in a dark world. Without him our moral
currency would be sadly depreciated and the quality of the general life
would lose its salt and savour. I often admire his singleness of purpose. I
sometimes even envy a disinterestedness which leaves me ashamed by
comparison. But I do not want to spend a week-end with him and I will not
travel down to Devonshire with him if I can find a seat in the luggage-van
or standing room in the corridor.

TO AN UNKNOWN ARTIST

It is certainly an unequal world. As I was crossing Piccadilly Circus

yesterday my eye fell on a man at work on the building that is being pulled
down at the corner of Regent Street, next to the "Criterion."[1] He was
standing on a fragment of wall of the disembowelled building that still
jutted out a few yards from the side of the "Criterion," which rose like a
vertical precipice beside him, without foothold or handhold that a squirrel
could cling to. He was perhaps fifty feet from the ground. The width of the
wall was, I suppose, a foot—just space enough for heel and toe to find
standing-room. He was armed with a pick-axe, and with it he was cutting
away the fragile buttress from underneath his feet. His body rose and fell
with the strokes of the pick-axe. When he had loosened some portion of the
wall, he would stand on one foot and scrape away the debris with the other.
As it fell rattling to the ground a cloud of dust boiled up, smothering him
and partially hiding him from view. Then he would turn to with the pick
again, loosen another portion, and repeat the operation.

[1] The vacant site is now covered by a new block of buildings.

 I stood and watched him with respect bordering on admiration. I could
not help reflecting what a helpless figure I should have cut in his place and
what a short time I should be there. I have been proud of my modest
achievements on the rocks, but here was a man who made those
achievements seem silly, and he did it as unconcernedly as if he were
hoeing potatoes in his garden. Presently he straightened his back, loosened
his shoulders, paused, threw a glance up at the vertical cliff above him, and
another down the vertical cliff below him, and then resumed.

So I saw him cut away row after row of the brickwork on which he
stood. There was a drop of fifty feet, "straight as a beggar can spit," back
and front of him—not an inch of room for the play of his feet. Every
movement had to be true to the fraction of an inch. Every piece of
brickwork he removed involved a new problem within the same inexorable
limits. The slightest mistake, and he would plunge down to the rubbish
below, and a coroner's jury would say "Accidental death," and that would be
the end of his story. Perhaps there would be two lines about him at the
bottom of a newspaper column, but nobody would read it, for everybody
would be so busy reading how Mr. Kid Lewis put Mr. Frankie Burns to
sleep, and how Abe Mitchell did the fourth hole in two, and why Hobbs or
somebody else was not caught in the second over.

And this man, rising and falling with the blows of his pick-axe up there
on the fragment of wall, is not doing this perilous job occasionally. He is
doing it every day. All his working life is spent on some such giddy task as
this, swaying to and fro with his axe between a drop of fifty feet on one side
and fifty feet on the other. He must never forget—for a moment. He must
never be dizzy—for a moment. He must be prepared for any sudden gust of
wind that blows. As I watched him he seemed to assume the proportions of
a great artist. He seemed to become heroic—a figure carrying his life lightly
on that frail ledge of the vertical cliff. I daresay it had never occurred to him
to think of himself in either rôle. Yet the mere skill of the man was more
delicate than the skill of the rather dull cricketers I saw at Lord's on
Saturday. There were 12,000 people standing round hour by hour to watch
Lee and Haig pile up the stupendous total of fifty runs inside two hours. I
do not blame the spectators. I was one of them myself, and very dull I found
it. But nobody bothered to give a glance at the figure swaying to and fro on
the crumbling wall. Yet as a mere exhibition of skill it was not inferior to
the pedestrian play at Lord's or to a skipping match between Carpentier and
Dempsey at £1000 a minute. And remember, he was not engaged in a sham
fight. He had a drop of fifty feet back and front. Instant death on either side
all the time.

But then he was only doing useful work. I wondered what he got for
risking his life every hour of every day. Perhaps as much in a week or a
month as the Star will pay me for writing this article about him. Perhaps as
much in a year as an eminent counsel will pocket for a day's "refresher."
Perhaps as much in a lifetime as Monsieur Carpentier will take for ten
minutes' running exercise with Dempsey in the ring, winding up with a tap
in the stomach, a count-out, a handshake (and a wink). No; on second
thoughts, not half that, not quarter that.

When I passed through Piccadilly Circus in the evening the man had
gone. So had the fragment of wall on which he stood. You may see the mark
of the place where the wall rose on the side of the "Criterion." It is the mark
of an unknown artist to whom I offer this tribute of my admiration.

ON LIVING FOR EVER

For some time past I have noticed on the hoardings of London a placard
illustrated with the picture of an American gentleman named Rutherford,
who is represented lifting a prophetic fist in the manner of the
advertisements of Horatio Bottomley before that prophet of the war had the
misfortune to be found out, and declaring that there are "thousands in this
city who will never die." I have not had the curiosity to attend his meetings
or to inquire into the character of his revelation. I do not know, therefore,
whether I am likely to be one of the people whom Mr. Rutherford has his
eye upon. But the threat which he holds over my head has led me to look
the possibility in the face. I suppose Mr. Rutherford is satisfied that it is an
agreeable possibility. He would not have come all the way from America to
tell us about it if he had not thought it was good news that he was bringing.

I think he is mistaken. Judging from my own reactions, as the

Americans would say, to his prophecy, I fancy the general feeling would not
be one of joy but of terror. If anything could reconcile us to the thought of
death it would be the assurance that we should never die. For the pleasure
as well as the pathos of life springs from the knowledge of its transitoriness.

All beauteous things for which we live

By laws of time and space decay.
But oh, the very reason why
I clasp them is because they die.

All our goings and comings are enriched with the sense of mortality. All our
experiences are coloured by the thought that they may return no more. Rob
us of the significance of the last words of Hamlet and the realm of poetry
would become a desert, treeless and songless. It is because "the rest is
silence" that the smallest details of our passage through life have in them
the power of kindling thoughts such as these:

Sweet Chance, that led my steps abroad.

Beyond the town, where wild flowers grow—
A rainbow and a cuckoo, Lord,
How rich and great the times are now!
Know, all ye sheep
And cows, that keep
On staring that I stand so long
In grass that's wet from heavy rain—
A rainbow and a cuckoo's song
May never come together again;
May never come
This side the tomb.

It is not alone the beauty of the sunset that touches us with such
poignant emotion: it is because in the passing of the day we see the image
of another passing to which we move as unfalteringly as the sun moves into
the shadow of the night. When in these autumn days we walk in the
woodlands amid the patter of the falling leaves, it is the same subtle
suggestion that attunes the note of beauty to a minor key. Through the
stillness of the forest there echo the strokes of a distant axe felling some
kingly beech. For seventy, perhaps a hundred years it has weathered the
storms of life, and now its hour has come and in its falling there is the
allegory of ourselves. I think it is that allegory that makes my neighbour so
passionately conservative about his trees. They stand too thick about his
grounds, but he will not have the axe laid to one of them.

We cannot go an unusual journey without a dim sense of another

journey from which we shall not return, nor say a prolonged "good-bye"
without the faint echo in our minds of ultimate farewells. And who ever left
the old house that has sheltered him so long and grown so familiar to sight
and touch without feeling some shadow pass across the spirit that is more
than the shadow cast by bricks and mortar? Life is crowded with these
premonitions and forebodings that make our pleasures richer by reminding
us that they are terminable.

And such is the perversity of human nature that if Mr. Rutherford

should turn out to be well-informed, those of us who are marked down for
deathlessness would find that the pleasure of life had vanished with its
pathos. We should be panic-stricken at the idea of never coming to an end,
of never being able to escape from what Chesterfield called "this silly
world," and Salisbury "this miserable life." We should yearn for death as the
condemned prisoner yearns for life or the icebound whaler for the spring.
We do not want to die now, but to be comfortable we want to know that we
shall die some day. Being under sentence of death we cling to life like
limpets to a rock, but if we were sentenced to life we should shriek for the
promise of death. We should hate the sunset that we were doomed to see for
ever and ever, and loathe the autumn that mocked us with its falling leaves.

I remember that in one of her letters Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

remarks that she is so happy that she regrets that she cannot live three
hundred years. We all have moments like that, moments when life seems so
good that we envy the patriarchs and would be glad if we could abide here
longer than Nature permits. But in our gayest moments we could not
contemplate the prospect of seeing in the New Year of, let us say, 10024
A.D., with the certainty that we were destined to wait on for the New Year
of 100024 A.D., and so on to the crack of doom. The mind would reel
before such an enormous vista. We should stagger and faint at the prospect
of a journey that had no end and of a future as limitless and unthinkable as
space. We should look into the darkness and be afraid. There may be an
infinite destiny for us to which this life is only a preparatory school. It is not
unreasonable to think it is so—that when this fitful fever is over we may
pass out into realms and into a state of being in which the muddle of this
strange episode will be resolved. But here we are finite. Here we have no
abiding city and all our feelings are conditioned by finite terms. We are
rather like the batsman at the wicket. He does not want to get out. When he
has made his 50 he strives to make his 100, and when he has made his 100,
he is just as anxious to make 200. But it is the knowledge that the innings
will end, that every ball may be his last, that gives zest to the game. If he
knew that he never could get out, that by an inexorable decree he was to be
at the wicket for the rest of his days, he would turn round and knock the
stumps down in desperation.

No, Mr. Rutherford, you have mistaken us. We do not want your
revelation. The play is worth seeing, though I wish it were more good-
humoured and the players a little more friendly; but we do not wish to
watch it for ever. We like to know that the curtain will fall and that, a little
weary and sleepy, we shall be permitted to go home. We are in no hurry, sir,
but we like to know that the curtain is there.

ON INITIALS

A letter came to me the other day from a gentleman of the name of

Blodgett, residing in Chicago. I do not, I regret to say, know Mr. Blodgett,
but he has heard about me and even read my books, and he has a desire—
which I find it difficult to resent—to possess my autograph. He wants to
place it "in the literary shrine in his library" beside the autographs of "G. K.
Chesterton, J. M. Barrie, A. A. Milne, E. V. Lucas, Lord Northcliffe," and
other deities that he apparently worships in far-away Chicago. I yielded to
Mr. Blodgett's request, for I am not made of the stern stuff that can turn a
deaf ear to flattery. I endeavour to mortify the pride that Mr. Blodgett's
compliment arouses by reflecting that for one person who wants my
autograph there are one million who would wade through blood and tears
for Charlie Chaplin's, or Georges Carpentier's, or Mary Pickford's, or the
late Monsieur Landru's, or the eminent Mr. Horatio Bottomley's. I recalled
the scene I saw at Lord's a few days ago when at the end of an innings as
the teams left the field an enormous crowd rushed forward and enveloped
them like a plague of locusts, each with an open book in one hand and a pen
in the other, and a prayer on the lips for the autograph of some illustrious
player. I reflected that no mob ever pursued me with these flattering
attentions.

But in vain. The agreeable incense goes to my head. A request for my

autograph makes me swell with pomp. However hard I try to be humble, I
can't do it. The vision of Mr. Blodgett (of Chicago) rises before me. I see
him carrying my illustrious autograph about in his breast-pocket and
stopping his friends on Michigan Avenue to flaunt my flourishes before
their eyes. I see him arriving home in the evening and shouting the glad
tidings that my autograph has come to Mrs. Blodgett and the young
Blodgetts up the staircase. And I sink to sleep at night with the agreeable
vision of my humble signature resting in the "literary shrine" of Mr.
Blodgett beside the august name of "Northcliffe."

But I refer to Mr. Blodgett's letter not because of his request, but
because of his manner of addressing me. He writes to me as "Reginald S.
Thomson, Esq." I cannot deny that my name (for the purpose of this article)
is Reginald. I wish I could. What possessed my revered parents—peace to
their ashes—to call me Reginald I do not know. Perhaps it was out of
respect for the memory of the saintly Heber, whose precocious piety was set
before me, with not much success, for my youthful imitation. But whatever
its origin, I cannot recall the time when I did not loathe the name of
Reginald. I took the earliest opportunity of disowning it, and for fifty years
I have passed through the world under the sign of R. S. Thomson. Our
English habit of using initials only for our Christian names was a source of
solace to me. It enabled me to forget all about Reginald, and to leave the
world in darkness about my disgraceful secret. I left it to suppose, if it
supposed at all, that behind the R. there lurked nothing more offensive than
Robert, or Richard, or, at the worst, Rufus.

A visit to America, however, betrayed the wretched truth to the world.

The Americans are as particular about flourishing their front names as we
often are about concealing ours. Mr. Herodotus P. Champ would be cut to
the quick if you addressed him as Mr. H. P. Champ. He would regard it as a
studied affront. And, being a polite people, the Americans take as much
pains to unearth the Christian names of their visitors as their visitors take to
hide them. Nothing will convince them that we wear initials because we
like them. I had no sooner stepped ashore at New York than I was
confronted with Mr. Reginald S. Thomson. Wherever I went I was haunted
by that objectionable person. He went with me into parlours and on to
platforms. He gibed at me in headlines. He mocked at me with his Portland
slip and his white spats and his eye-glass. It was not until I had placed the
Atlantic between myself and America that I ceased to be shadowed by
Reginald. He is still over there, holding me up to ridicule with his
insufferable elegances.

No doubt others have suffered in the same way. It would not surprise me
to learn that Mr. H. G. Wells is known from Boston to Los Angeles as Mr.
Hannibal G. Wells. Nobody in England knows what lurks behind "H. G."
Mr. Wells keeps the secret from his closest friends, but I daresay it is
babbled all over America, and that there is not an intelligent schoolboy who
does not discuss the latest book of Hector G. Wells or H. Gascoigne Wells,
or Horatio Gordon Wells, as the case may be. No doubt Mr. Wells has
excellent reasons for not publishing his front names to the world. He may
dislike them as much as I dislike Reginald. Parents who give us our names
immediately we appear in the world are naturally liable to do us an injury.
They have, let us say, been stirred by some royal wedding, and call their
poor infant "Lascelles" in a fervour of loyalty. And perhaps Lascelles grows
up into a fierce Communist who would prefer the L. to stand for Lenin.
What is he to do but to take refuge in initials? And since he alone is
concerned, why should we pry into the secrets which those initials conceal?
 It would be a simple way of relief if our baptismal names were
temporary, and each of us chose the names by which he desired to be
known on coming of age. Then they would fit us more happily than
Reginald fits me or Hannibal—if it is Hannibal—fits Mr. Wells.

PLANTING A SPINNEY

The idea of planting a spinney arose out of the necessity of finding a

name for the cottage. It is difficult to find a name for anything, from a baby
to a book, but it is most difficult of all to find a name for a house. At least
so we found it. Jane wanted "The Knoll," and somebody else, with a taste
for Hardy, wanted "The Knap," and someone else, as a tribute to Meredith
(and in view of the fact that the upland we had built on was a famous place
for skylarks), wanted "Lark Uprising" (what would the postman have
thought?), and another wanted "Windy Gap," and so on, and amid the
multitude of suggestions the cottage seemed as though it would lose its
youth and grow old without any name at all.

Then one day someone said "The Spinney," and in sheer desperation
everyone else said, "Why, of course, 'The Spinney.' Perfect. The very
thing." The only objection that was made was that there was no spinney.
But a good name could not be sacrificed to so negligible a consideration.
Moreover, what had we been about to forget to plant so desirable a thing as
a spinney? There, below the house, just out of the line of view so as not to
blot out the landscape of four counties, was the very spot, and in the garden
there were plenty of trees, pine, spruce, chestnut, beech, and lime of twelve
or fifteen years' growth ready to hand. It would have been safer and simpler
to have set young saplings, but that would not have satisfied the elders. It
would have been starting a spinney for another generation to enjoy, and we
wanted a spinney that we could sit under ourselves.

If you plant saplings, I think you ought to do it in your youth so that you
and the trees can grow to maturity and age together. I often regret that I did