[91] The assertion of the finitude of a man's mind appears to be nonsense; both because, if we say that the mind of man is limited we tacitly postulate an "unknowable," and because, even if the human mind were finite, there is no more reason against its conceiving the infinite than there is for a mind to be blue in order to conceive a pair of blue eyes (cf. De Morgan, _loc. cit._). [92] Russell, _R. M. M._, vol. xiv., September 1906, pp. 632-3, 640-4. [93] _The Greek Anthology_, by Lord Neaves (Ancient Classics for English Readers), Edinburgh and London, 1897, p. 194. CHAPTER XXXV MR. SPENCER, THE ATHANASIAN CREED AND THE ARTICLES When, in what I believe is misleadingly known as "The Athanasian Creed," people say "The Father incomprehensible," and so on, they are not falling into the same error as Mr. Spencer, for the Latin equivalent for "incomprehensible" is merely "_immensus_," and Bishop Hilsey translated it more correctly as "immeasurable."[94] It is a regrettable fact that Dr. Blunt,[95] in his mistaken modesty, has added a note to this passage that: "Yet it is true that a meaning not intended in the Creed has developed itself through this change of language, for the Nature of God is as far beyond the grasp of the mind as it is beyond the possibility of being contained within local bounds." Mr. Spencer seems no happier when we compare his statements with those in the Anglican Articles of Religion. There God is never referred to as infinite. It is true that His power and goodness are so referred to; but this deficiency was presumably brought about intentionally, so that faith might gain in meaning as time went on. FOOTNOTES: [94] _A. C. P._, p. 217. [95] _Ibid._, p. 218. CHAPTER XXXVI THE HUMOUR OF MATHEMATICIANS Brahmagupta's problem[96] appears to be the earliest instance of a kind of joke which has been much used by mathematicians. For the sake of giving a certain picturesqueness to the data of problems, and so to excite that sort of interest which is partly expressed by a smile, mathematicians have got into the habit of talking, for example, of monkeys in the form of geometrical points climbing up massless ropes. Professor P. Stäckel[97] truly remarked that physiological mechanics--the mechanics of bones, muscles, and so on--is wholly different from this. There was once a lecturer on mathematics at Cambridge who used yearly to propound to his pupils a problem in rigid dynamics which related to the motion of a garden roller supposed to be without mass or friction, when a heavy and perfectly rough insect walked round the interior of it in the direction of normal rolling.