43

Logic 43

conqured with which as Mill correctly says the history of science teems. Euclid some twenty two centuries ago laid it down and a "common notion" or axion evident to all men that "a whole is greater than its part." For two millennia and more this axiom was held to fulfill the ideal of an axiom better than any other and when men wanted an example of an indubitable axiom they commonly chose this.
It is plain therefore that they could not realize in thought truth of the contrary try as they might.
This is curious for since Euclid's time and earlier it had never ceased to be a familiar truth that a finite magnitude added to an infitnite one did not increase the latter.
So if during near 2000 years among millions of men who were continually declaring it inconceivable that a part should never be as great as a whole it had ever occurred to a single one to think how it would be if the part were