> [...] This is what makes the popularity of books such as those
> by Mrs. Robinson's sister: that they provide anecdotes, e.g. about
> the evil little dwarf at Berlin who persecuted poor Cantor, about
> his "God made the natural numbers ... " or about somebody else's
> "this proof is not mathematics but theology" - without ever
> attempting to analyze what this 'theology' consisted of. The
> persons to counteract this deplorable superficiality would be the
> professionals of HM .
A few weeks ago (Wed, 4 Aug 1999) WF wrote (in FOM Mailing List):
| Mr. Davis is quite right to observe that Gordan is well remembered
| for his dictum "This is not mathematics, this is theology"
| referring to Hilbert's first proof of his finite basis theorem
| (Math. Ann. 36 (1890) 473 ff ). I do not have a source for this
| dictum; it does not seem to appear in Gordan's writings, and so
| it has the status of hearsay. [...]
Question: Does anyone know the source of this dictum, namely:
"Das ist nicht Mathematik, das ist Theologie!"
Antreas