THE ORGANISATION OF THOUGHT THE ORGANISATION OF THOUGHT EDUCATIONAL AND SCIENTIFIC BY A. N. WHITEHEAD, Sc.D., F.R.S. FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, AND PROFESSOR OF APPLIED MATHEMATICS AT THE IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY LONDON WILLIAMS AND NORGATE 14 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C.2 1917 _The rights of translation are reserved_ PREFACE THE discourses included in this volume have been delivered as addresses on various occasions which are duly noted; the only exception is _The Anatomy of Some Scientific Ideas_, which is now published for the first time. These discourses fall into two sections, the first five chapters deal with education, and the remaining three embody discussions on certain points arising in the philosophy of science. But a common line of reflection extends through the whole, and the two sections influence each other. I have left in each chapter the reference to the particular occasion of its first production, and I have not sought for a verbal consistency covering perplexity. But the various parts of the book were in fact composed with express reference to each other, so as to form one whole. I have to thank the Syndics of the Cambridge University Press for permission to republish the contents of Chapter V. _Imperial College of Science and Technology,_ _April 1917._ TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE PREFACE v I. THE AIMS OF EDUCATION--A PLEA FOR REFORM 1 (Presidential Address to the Mathematical Association, January, 1916.) II. TECHNICAL EDUCATION AND ITS RELATION TO SCIENCE AND LITERATURE 29 (Presidential Address to the Mathematical Association, January, 1917.) III. A POLYTECHNIC IN WAR-TIME 58 (Address at the Prize Distribution, Borough Polytechnic Institute, Southwark, February, 1917.) IV. THE MATHEMATICAL CURRICULUM 69 (Presidential Address to the London Branch of the Mathematical Association, 1912.) V. THE PRINCIPLES OF MATHEMATICS IN RELATION TO ELEMENTARY TEACHING 92 (Paper read in the Educational Section of the International Congress of Mathematicians, Cambridge, 1912.) VI. THE ORGANISATION OF THOUGHT 105 (Presidential Address to Section A, British Association, Newcastle, 1916; also read subsequently before the Aristotelian Society.)