BRACERS Record Detail for 53533
To access the original letter, email the Russell Archives.
On the "best 100 books", BR can see the case for Euclid and Newton.
BR has been elected to a Trinity Fellowship—"a special offer, owing to my being above the age-limit."
A photocopy is in the Hook papers, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and a copy in RA Rec. Acq. 1161B.
BR TO SIDNEY HOOK, 26 JAN. 1944
BRACERS 53533. ALS. McMaster. B&R Hh44.01
Proofread by K. Blackwell
<letterhead>
PEACOCK INN
TWENTY BAYARD LANE
PRINCETON, N.J.
Jan. 26, 1944
Dear Hook
The subject on which you write is one about which I feel strongly. I think the “Best 100 Books” people are utterly absurd on the scientific side. I was myself brought up on Euclid and Newton, and I can see the case for them. But on the whole Euclid is much too slow-moving. Boole is not comparable to his successors. Descartes’ geometry is surpassed by every modern text-book of analytical geometry. The broad rule is: historical approach where truth unattainable, but not in a subject like mathematics or anatomy. (They read Harvey.)
To change the subject: I have been elected to a Fellowship at Trinity College Cambridge and expect to take up residence there this coming autumn. They invited me back in 1921, but at that time I couldn’t accept. This, however, is a special offer, owing to my being above the age-limit.
Yours sincerely
Bertrand Russell.
