Page:Philosophy and Fun of Algebra.djvu/16

PHILOSOPHY AND FUN OF ALGEBRA. Each person, of course, thought his own guess was nearest to the truth. Probably they quarrelled, and got nervous and overstrained and miserable, and said things which hurt the feelings of their friends, and which they saw afterwards they had better not have said—things which threw no light on the problem, and only upset everybody's mind more than ever. I was not there, so I cannot tell you exactly what happened; but quarrelling and disagreeing and nerve-strain always do go on in such cases.

At last (at least I should suppose this is what happened) some man, or perhaps some woman, suddenly said: "How stupid we've all been! We have been dealing logically with all the facts we knew about this problem, except the most important fact of all, the fact of our own ignorance. Let us include that among the facts we have to be logical about, and see where we get to then. In this problem, besides the numbers which we do know, there is one which we do not know, and which we want to know. Instead of guessing whether we are to call it nine, or seven, or a hundred and 12