Alfred North Whitehead

Alfred North Whitehead was, for the majority of Harvard students, no more than a name uttered reverently in the comparative sanctity of seminar or professorial conference. His work in the field of mathematics made little impression on the majority of the men who passed through Cambridge during his twelve years as an active faculty member. His recent service as a Senior Fellow of the Society of Fellows touched only a few brilliant graduate workers.

The actual lines of Whitehead's thought are so involved that a surface glance cannot do them justice. One thing, however, marks him as more than the usual scientist or philosopher: his tremendous drive to synthesize and apply philosophy, mathematics, and logic to the world in one thesis which could reach beyond the limits of each pigeon-holed science to envelop the universe.

Whitehead hated and feared the "bifurcation of nature" by which many philosophers separated their thought from the physical world; and his realization of their basic fallacy is all the more remarkable in a man who was embued with the training of mathematics and physical science. His early works in algebra and his great "Principia Mathematica," both of which brought combination and simplification to logic and mathematics, were the beginnings of his campaign, which reached fruition in 1929 with the publication of "Process and Reality," where he set forth a dynamic philosophy of the world which boldly embraced physical science and biology as well as mathematics and logic.

For his pains in this vital work, Whitehead was christened a "mystic" by many; but in the light of today his early searching and compelling conclusions stand as heartening indications of the latent capacity of mankind to understand itself.