Page:Philosophy and Fun of Algebra.djvu/62

PHILOSOPHY AND FUN OF ALGEBRA nothing about; and whoever said so would have been perfectly right. I should have been cheating myself and getting into bad slipshod habits. What I did was to post up inside my brain as a working hypothesis: "Suppose Israël means rhythm, what would be the consequence of that hypothesis?" Then I read through old books of the Hebrews, putting in my mind the word "rhythm" wherever I found the word "Israël," and "the people of rhythm" instead of "the people of Israël."

In the stories that are told about Jacob and his grandfather Abraham the angels are represented as telling the two men that if they would obey the angels, not only they themselves would be blessed, but all their descendants would be blessed too, and be made, at last, the means of conferring a great blessing on all the world; Moses warned them that, if they did not obey their own special angels, some special trouble would come to them.

My imagination suggested to me that perhaps getting into the swing of rhythmic beats is good for all people, but more good for the people of 58