Memorabilia Mathematica; or, the Philomath's Quotation-Book — Story, Setting & Ideas

A Decade of Gathering

The preface reveals that Moritz devoted ten years to this collection, a span he describes as 'pleasurably employed.' He originally planned to include foreign quotations in both original and translation, but abandoned that as the material grew. The final work presents translations only, serving 'the best interest of the greater number of English readers.' This editorial decision shapes the book's accessibility: readers encounter a uniform language, though the original sources span multiple tongues.

Thematic Groupings and Cross-Indexing

Moritz groups quotations under twenty heads, though the excerpts show only two chapter titles: 'Mathematics and Philosophy' (Chapter XIV) and a section on logic. The cross-index under 'nearly seven hundred topics' allows a reader to trace a concept—say, 'logic'—across authors. For instance, entries 1324–1326 link John Fiske, Auguste Comte, and C. J. Keyser on mathematics as logical training. This structure rewards browsing: a single topic can reveal contrasting views from different eras.

Voices from the Turn of the Century

The excerpts sample authors active around 1900: E. Schröder (1898), John Fiske (1893), Auguste Comte (1875 translation), C. J. Keyser (1912), J. F. Herbart (1890), and Kant. Moritz includes both mathematicians and non-mathematicians, as promised in the preface. Keyser's praise of Whitehead and Russell's Principia Mathematica as 'by far the greatest logic that our planet has produced' shows the compiler's willingness to include contemporary judgments. The quotations range from technical definitions to broad cultural claims.

What the Excerpts Do Not Reveal

The provided excerpts cover only the preface and a handful of entries from later chapters. The full book's 129,959 words span 17 text sections, but we cannot see the distribution of quotations across the twenty heads, nor the proportion of mathematicians versus poets. Moritz claims the book is accessible to 'the layman' because no technical processes are required, yet the excerpts include references to 'symbolic conceptions' and 'abstract relations.' A first-time reader should expect a dense reference work, not a narrative, and may need to sample multiple headings to gauge its range.

Approach Memorabilia Mathematica as a quarry, not a monograph. The preface is essential for understanding Moritz's aims and limitations—especially his decision to omit original-language quotations. When reading a section, note the date and source of each quotation; the book's value lies in its precise references, which allow you to verify and contextualize each passage. The cross-index is your best entry point for tracing a specific idea across centuries of thought.

That rainy afternoon, I kept returning to the Philomath’s quotation-book, savoring how Euler’s words brushed against Hardy’s quiet doubt. Eventually, the margins led me elsewhere, to numbers that hum beneath constants so familiar yet unnameable—a gentler, stranger country. Miscellaneous Mathematical Constants — Themes and Context felt less like a next step, more like a footpath already worn in part by my own pausing.