Towards A Biography of Georg Cantor (Grattan-Guinness)

Annals of Science
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Towards a biography of Georg Cantor

I. Grattan-Guinness M.A. M.Sc. Ph.D.
To cite this article: I. Grattan-Guinness M.A. M.Sc. Ph.D. (1971) Towards a biography of Georg
Cantor, Annals of Science, 27:4, 345-391, DOI: 10.1080/00033797100203837
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Towards a Biography of Georg Cantor
TOWARDS A BIOGRAPHY
345
OF GEORG CANTOR
B y I. G~ATTAN-GursNESS, M.A., M.Sc., P h . D . *

[PLATES XXV-XXVIII]
SUMMARY
The great influence of Georg Cantor's theory of sets and transfinite
arithmetic has led to a considerable interest in his life. I t is well known t h a t
he had a remarkable and unusual personality, and t h a t he suffered from attacks
of mental illness; but the ' p o p u l a r ' account of his life is richer in falsehood
and distortion t h a n in factual content. This paper attempts to correct these
misrepresentations b y drawing on a wide variety of manuscript sources
concerning Cantor's life and career, including the texts of some important
documents. An appendix describes the most important collection of missing
manuscripts, whose location would help further the preparation of a biographical
study of Cantor.
CONTENTS
Page
List of manuscript sources used in this study
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Introduction
Cantor's family background and early career
The episode of Heine's replacement
Cantor's first attack of mental illness
Caator's middle years at Hallo
' One of the greatest geniuses of Christianity '
Cantor's crisis of 1899
Cantor's mental illness
Cantor's final years at Halle
Texts of cited documents

Appendix: the principal missing collections of documents concerning
Cantor
346
349
351
354
355
358
363
365
368
369
374
386
* Enfield College of Technology, Enfield, Middlesex, England.
Ann. of Sci.--Vol. 27, No. 4.
2b
34:6
I. G r a t t a n - G u i n n e s s
LIST OF iYIANUSCRIPTSOURCES USED IN THIS STUDY
We list here, in alphabetical order of our reference titles, the location of

documents OHwhich we have drawn; and we also describe the method of classification and foliation that we use for each source in our footnotes. We have
drawn only on parts of all these sources, and so the information below is not
to be taken as a complete catalogue reference: any information or enquiry
concerning them should be made to the appropriate address given below.
1.
Berlin/ Darmstaedter.
These documents were collected by L. Darmstaedter: they are known as

the Sammlung Darmstaedter, and are now kept at the Staatsbibliothek der
Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz--Handschriftenabteilung, 1 Berlin 33 (Dahlem),
Archivstrasse 12-14. I n our references we have used the call-mark of each
group of documents, and thus have, for example:
' Berlin/Darmstaedter, [call-mark] H ]683.'
2.
Berlin/Schwarz.
They are kept in the Akademie-Archiv,

Deutsche Alcademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, 108 Berlin 8, Otto-NusehkeThe papers of K. H. A. Schwarz.
Strasse 22/23. As the collection is not yet catalogued and in fact its collection
of letters is a little disorganised, we have not in general given any further
classification of documents. An exception, however, is the four Copiebi~cher
in which Schwarz made carbon copies of his letters. In these cases, we have,
say:
' Berlin/Schwarz, [Copiebuch] 3, [page] 31.'
The next three sources are all kept at the Nieders~ichsische Staats- und
Universit~itsbibliothelc G6ttingen--Handschriftenabteilung, 34 GSttiugen, Prinzenstrasse 1, W. Germany.
3.
GSttingen / Dedekind.
The papers of 1%. Dedekind given by his nephews to G5ttingen University.

They are divided into sections and subsections, with a short hand-written
catalogue. We have cited only sections X I I I and XIV, which are, respectively,
the letters from and to Dedekind. Thus we have:
' G6ttingen/Dedekind, [section] X I I I . '
The letters are in fact numbered within each section.
4.
G6ttingen / H ilbert.
The papers of D. Hilbert. A full catalogue of these manuscripts has

recently been prepared, and we have followed its numeration of items. Thus
we have:
' G6ttingen/Hilbert, [item] 313.'
The letters are not available for general examination until 1973, the thirtieth
anniversary of Hilbert's death.

5.
347
q6ttingen/Klein.
The papers of F. Klein, of which there exists a full catalogue dividing them
into sections and subsections. We have cited here the letters from Cantor,
which are kept among the thousands of letters stored in five box-files and
designated as sections V I I I to X I I . Thus we have:
' G6ttingen/Klein, [section] V I I I , [letter] 435.'
There are also a number of letters in other p a r t s of this collection, which
deal with specific matters and events, and we also call attention to the tens o f
thousands of sheets of lecture notes.
The next three sources are kept a t the Martin-Luther-Universit(it HalleWittenburg.Universit(itsarchiv, 401 Halle/Saale, Weidenplan 12, E. Germany
D.D.R.
6.
Halle~Cantor.
The University file on Cantor, entitled Halle Universitdt. Philosophische

Fakultdt I f . Acta betreffend G. Cantor. I t s documents date from 1891 to
1951, and is only partly fo]iated, and so we have:
' Halle~Cantor, [folio] 7 '; or
' Halle~Cantor, 23 October 1905 '
7.
Halle~Circulate.
The administrative documents of the philosophical Faculty of Halle University, entitled Halle Universitdt. Philosophische ~akultiit I I . Reportorium 21.
I I I . Circulare. The series on which we have drawn starts in 1884 with volume
24, and is not foliated: thus we have:
' Halle~Circulate, [volume] 26, 3 April 1903.'
8.
Halle~Phil. Fac.
Before 1884 all the documents of the philosophical Faculty were kept in
one series of volumes, each of which covered a semester and was bound in parts
when the total collection o f documents was very substantial. The series is
entitled Halle Universit(it. Philosaphische Fal~ult(it II. Reportorium 21, and
is only incompletely foliate& Thus we have:
'Halle~Phil. Fac., [volume] 135, [perhaps part] I I , [folio] 17; or
' Halle~Phil. Fac., [volume] 135, [perhaps part] I I , 11 December 1881 '
9.
London/Young.
The papers of W. H. and G. C. Young, in the possession of their daughter,

Dr. R. C. I-I. Tanner, 13 Boundary Road, Wallington, Surrey, England. As
this collection is being catalogued, we have not used any further classification
of the documents.
2b2
I. Grattan-Guinness
348
The next two sources are kept at the Deutsches Zentralarchiv--Itistorische

Abteilung//, 42 Merseberg, ~Veisse Mauer 48, E. Germany D.D.R.
Merseburg/Althoff.
The papers of F. Althoff, listed as Reportorium 92. Nachlass F. Althoff.
Under the magnificent catalogue that has recently been prepared this collection
is divided into several main sections (Abteilungen) and then into numbers and
sometimes volumes, with a full foliation. Thus we have:
'Merseburg/Althoff, [section] B, [number] 59, [perhaps volume] 1,
[folio] 241.'
10.
Merseburg/HaUe Univ.
The State documents for Halle University. We have drawn on two series:
(1) t~eportorium 76. Kultusministerium. Va. Sekt. 8. Tit. 4. Nr. 34.
Die Anstellung und Besoldung der ausserordentlichen und ordentlichen Professoren
der philosophischen _Facult~it der Universit~it Halle.
This is a fully foliated series of 25 volumes ending in 1912, bound in roughly
three-year sections. Thus we have:
' Merseburg/Halle Univ., [above series, including mention of number] 34,
[volume] XI, [folio] 77.'
(2) The continuation of the above series from 1912 onwards, entitled
Rerortorium 76. Kultusministerium. Va. Sekt. 8. Tit. 4. Nr. 48. Fortsetzung. This series is also fully foliated, aud so we have:
'Merseburg/Halle Univ., [number] 48, [volume] II, [folio] 49/
11.
Nachlass Cantor.
The surviving fragments of the personal papers of Georg Cantor collected
together in the manner described in the first part of our appendix. The future
of this collection is not yet decided, but it is quite likely that it will be placed in a
public archive. For the purpose of our own research, we have prepared the
following provisional classification:
12.
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
IX.
X.
Xl.
Xll.
Papers concerning G. W. Cantor.

Letters between Georg and Vally Cantor.
Letters between Georg Cantor and other members of his family.
Other family letters, and photographs.
Assorted letters and drafts between Cantor and correspondents
outside the family.
Letter-book used by Cantor between 1884 and 1888.
Documents and lecture notes from Cantor's student days.
Papers concerning Cantor's Halle career, and honours.
Mathematical manuscripts.
Miscellaneous unordered mathematical notes.
XIII.
XIV.
XV.
XVI.
XVII.
349
Religious and philosophical manuscripts.

Offprints of Cantor's published papers.
Manuscripts and offprints of other papers.
Papers concerning Else Cantor.
Death notices, obituaries and reminiscences on Cantor.
We have not used further classifications of these categories except for the
paginated letter-books VI-VIII, where we have:
' Nachlass Cantor, [section] VII, [page] 1597
13.
Paris/Cavaill~s.
The papers of J. Cavaill~s, iu the possession of his sister and brother-in-law,

M. et Mine. Marcel Ferri~res, 91 rue Boileau, Paris 16, France. We have not
used any further classification of these documents.
The last two sources are kept at the Institut Mittag-Leffier, Auravgen 17,
S-182 62 Djursholm, Stockholm, Sweden.*
14.
Stockholm/Jourdain.
The papers of P. Jourdain. They are kept in a box, and consist mainly of
two notebooks in which he both drafted some of his own letters and pasted in
letters that he had received. We have used only these parts of the collection,
and so we have:
'Stockholm/Jourdain, [note-book] 1, [page] 129.'
15.
Stockholm/Mittag-Zeffler.
The papers and estate of G. Mittag-Lefiter, comprising thousands of letters

to him, b o t h drafts and copies of his own letters, documents of some of his
colleagues that he had collected (such as the papers of Jourdain), the files of
Acta Mathematica, and a wonderful and growing library of books, journals and
offprints: one of the great mathematical archives of the world. We have not
used further classification of these sources except for the letters to and from
Cantor, which are kept in eleven envelopes in a special box and for these we
have:
'Stockholm/Mittag-Leffler, [envelope] H.'
1.
INTRODI~OTION
THE influence of Georg Cantor's theories of sets a n d transfinite arithmetic

on m o d e r n m a t h e m a t i c s is as widespread as it is deep: the repercussions
include n o t only the i n t r o d u c t i o n of these two new and interrelated
subjects, b u t Mso involve foundational questions in the most basic parts
* On the important but unknown collections of manuscripts held here, see I. GrattanGuinness, 'Materials for the history of mathematics in the Institut Mittag-Leffler'
(fort~hcoming in Isis).
350
I. Grattan-Guinness
of mathematics, and the development of axiomatic studies. The famous

' Continuum H y p o t h e s i s ' of transfinite arithmetic was one of the great
unsolved problems of its time, while through the use of completed
infinities Cantor brought new ideas into a host of old problems that have
influenced mathematics and philosophy alike. From the importance of
Cantor's work has developed an interest in his life; b u t this interest has
suffered from serious misunderstandings and distortions. I t is true that
he had a remarkable and forceful personality, that at times he behaved
eccentrically, and that he suffered attacks of mental illness that forced
him to spend periods of his later life in various sanatoria; b u t the nature,
cause and even chronology of these events are often misrepresented.
I t is generally believed that he turned away from mathematics to religion
and philosophy because of the opposition to his mathematical achievements b y certain of his contemporaries, and that his (alleged) madness
was caused b y his failure to solve the Continuum Hypothesis. This view
is not wholly false, b u t it is more misleading than accurate: it appears
to have spread mostly b y word of mouth among his contemporaries and
successors, and also b y rather inadequate historical studies of his life and
work. In 1927 A. SchSnflies published a well-known account of Cantor's
development during the mid-1880s, based on his correspondence with
G. Mittag-Leffier and followed b y a few remarks from Mittag-Leffier
himself; 1 and in 1930 a more substantial biography was published b y
A. Fraenkel, who had himself not known Cantor personally. 2 These
were the two principal writings of the time, and their inadequate use of
existing materials failed to prevent the spread of the myths and half-truths,
which themselves passed to a wider audience through the popular but
unscholarly works of E. T. Bell. 2 Recent work b y H. Meschkowski has
provided a limited amount of new information on Cantor's life and work,
without resolving questions concerning his illness or personality; 4, ~ thus
the present paper is intended as a first step towards an evaluation of
these important problems.
We describe below the general history of Cantor's family background
and career, his philosophical and religious interests, his personal relations
1 A. Seh6nities, ' Die K r i s i s in C a n t o r ' s m a t h e m a t i s c h e m Schaffen,' Acta Math., 1927,
5{}, 1-23; a n d G. Mittag-Leffler, ' Zus~tzliehe B e m e r k u n g e n ', ibid., 25-26.
2 A. F r a e n k e l , ' Georg C a n t o r ', Jsbr. dtsch. Math.-Ver., 1930, 89, 189-266. ( R e p r i n t e d
Leipzig, 1930.)
a See especially h i s M e n of Mathematics, N o w Y o r k , 1937, oh. 29, p e r h a p s t h e m o s t
widely r e a d m o d e r n b o o k on t h e h i s t o r y o f m a t h e m a t i c s . A s it is also one of t h e worst,
it c a n be said to h a v e d o n e considerable disservice to t h e profession.
* H . Meschkowski, ' A u s d e n B r i e f b f i e h e r n Georg C a n t o r s ', Arch. Hist. Exact Sci.,
1962-66, ~, 503-519.
5 I=L M e s c h k o w s k i , Probleme des Unendlichen. Werk und Leben Georg Cantors,
B r a u n s c h w e i g , 1967.
351
with prominent colleagues, and the chronology and apparent nature of

his mental illness. We have drawn on a variety of manuscript sources
for our information--the surviving papers of both Cantor and of certain
of his colleagues, as well as pertinent University and State documents-and publish here a selection of documents most closely relevant to our
story. We cannot claim to have discovered all relevant material,
however, because so many documentary sources are missing: for example,
the great majority of Cantor's own personal papers have been lost for
25 years. Thus in addition to describing in detail the location of documents
t h a t we have used, we have given also a list of the principle missing
sources of which we are aware, and we would greatly welcome any information on their whereabouts.
2.
C A N T O R ' S F A M I L Y BACKGROUNDAN]) EARLY C A R E E R
Georg Ferdinand Ludwig Philipp Cantor was born in St. Petersburg
on 3 March 1845 (new style), the first child of Georg Woldemar and Maria
Cantor. G. W. Cantor's background is obscure, but it was given a
detailed investigation in 1937 by a Danish genealogist, from which most
of the following details have been drawn. He was born sometime
between 1809 and 1814, probably in Copenhagen, into a family which
m a y have come to Denmark from Portugal or Spain: the fact that he was
given Christian names implies t h a t the Cantors were not Jewish, a classification which in those days was characterised by religious conviction
rather t h a n racial inheritance. His mother's family name was Meyer,
and her relatives held important positions in Russia--in particular, one
of her nephews was to become a professor of law at Kazan University
(during the time of N. Lobachewsky) and to teach the novelist L. Tolstoy.
Thus, in view of the strong anti-semitism practised in Russia at t h a t
time, is is most unlikely t h a t the Meyers were Jewish either. He married
Maria Anna BShm on 21 April 1842 in the German Evangelical Lutheran
church in St. Petersburg, and t h e y had four children: Georg (born in
1845), Ludwig (1846), Sophie (1848) and Constantin (1849). His wife
came from a Roman Catholic family of t h a t city, but she aligned her
religious position to t h a t of her husband's evangelism; and having been
a Roman Catholic she was by definition non-Jewish. Thus it follows
t h a t Georg Cantor was not Jewish, contrary to the view which has
prevailed in print and in general opinion for m a n y years, s The surname
T h e i n v e s t i g a t i o n o f G. W . C a n t o r ' s b a c k g r o u n d w a s p r e p a r e d b y T h . / t a u c h - T a u s b S t l
of t h e D a n i s h Genealogical I n s t i t u t e , C o p e n h a g e n : a G e r m a n t r a n s l a t i o n e x i s t s in Nachlass
Cantor, I, a l o n g w i t h a few d o c u m e n t s c o n c e r n i n g h i s life a n d work.
I n our f o o t n o t e s we u s e only s h o r t titles s u c h a s Nachlass Cantor or London/Young to
d e n o t e t h e m a n u s c r i p t source cited: t h e full details o f its location, t o g e t h e r w i t h i t s m a n n e r
o f classification a n d foliation (if a n y ) , h a v e b e e n g i v e n in t h e Iist o f souroes a t t h e b e g i n n i n g
of t h e paper.
352
I. Grattan-Guinness
' Cantor ', from the Latin for a singer or poet, had been used since the
fifteenth century by families of both Jewish and non-Jewish convictions:
thus, for example, Georg's contemporary, the historian of mathematics
Moritz Cantor, came from an unrelated Jewish line. 7
G. W. Cantor was a very successful business man, firstly as a wholesaling agent in St. Petersburg, and later as a broker on the city's Stock
Exchange. His health was not good, and the family moved from St.
Petersburg to the warmer climate of Germany in 1856. Georg Cantor
remembered his early years in Russia with great nostalgia s and never felt
at ease in Germany, although he lived there for the rest of his life and
seemingly never wrote in the l~ussian language, which he must have
known. He was greatly influenced by his father, a man of great cultural
and philosophical interests, and when he was at school and university
he received much well-meaning advice on his life and his career: 9 but on
6 June 1863 his father died in Heidelberg, leaving half a million Marks.
He ended his studies at Ztirich to go to Berlin, where he made friends
especially with K. H. A. Sehwarz, who was to feature prominently in his
later life. At Berlin they both attended the lectures of K. Weierstrass,
E. Kummer and L. Kronecker, and under the influence of the latter two
Cantor took both his Dissertation in 1867 and his Habilitation in 1869 on
7 Georg h i m s e f f a s s e r t e d t h a t h e a n d Moritz were u n r e l a t e d : see, for e x a m p l e , lVachlaa8

B u t in his Storia efilosofia dell' analisi i/afinitesimale, T u r i n , 1947, p. 186,
L. G e y m o n a t c l a i m e d (withou~ reference) t h a t b o t h Georg a n d Moritz's families h a d c o m m o n
origins in a P o r t u g u e s e f a m i l y w h i c h e m i g r a t e d to D e n m a r k . Moritz w a s b o r n o f a b r a n c h
w h i c h t h e n m o v e d to H o l l a n d a n d G e r m a n y , while Georg w a s a m e m b e r of a n o t h e r b r a n c h
w h i c h m o v e d to R u s s i a . W e record b u t c a n n o t verify t h i s a s s e r t i o n b y G e y m o n a t , w h i c h
i n principle could be t r u e : it m a y h a v e its origins in a c l a i m of t h e r e l a t e d n e s s of t h e t w o
C a n t o r s in P. T a n n e r y , ' C a n t o r (Moritz) ', La grande encyelopddie, Paris, 1890(?), re1. ix,
p p . 127-128.
T h e e x t e n t to w h i c h n o n s e n s i c a l stories h a v e circulated a b o u t C a n t o r ' s b i r t h a n d b a c k g r o u n d c a n be j u d g e d f r o m t h e one w h i c h alleges t h a t h e w a s b o r n a n d f o u n d on a s h i p
b o u n d for St. P e t e r s b u r g a n d that~ h i s p a r e n t s were u n k n o w n . T h i s tale a p p e a r e d in p r i n t
( p r o b a b l y n o t for t h e first t i m e ) in H . B r a n d t , ' O b o r s i c h t tiber die M a t h e m a t i k e r in H a l l e ',
250 Jahre Universit~t Halle. Streifzi~ge durch ihre Gesehiel~te i n t~orschung und Zehre,
Halle/Saale, 1944, pp. 274-277 (p. 276): it w a s definitely n o t B r a n d t ' s i n v e n t i o n , for h e
h e a r d it f r o m a H a l l e colleague a n d t h e y b o t h h a s t e n e d to p u b l i s h a correction slip for t h e
u n s o l d copies of t h e b o o k a f t e r h a v i n g b e e n a l e r t e d to its f a l s i t y b y one o f C a n t o r ' s sons-inlaw. M u c h of t h e i n s p i r a t i o n for t h e s e stories s t e m m e d of course f r o m t h e tireless N a z i
s c h o l a r s h i p exercised d u r i n g t h e i r r e g i m e o n t h e p r o b l e m of J e w i s h d e s c e n t .
s See, for e x a m p l e , a d r a f t letter o f 1894 in Nachlass Cantor, V I I , 131.
9 T y p e d copies o f e x t r a c t s f r o m m a n y o f t h e l e t t e r s e x i s t in Naehlass Cantor, I. F o r
q u o t a t i o n s f r o m t h e m , see A. F r a e n k e l , lov. eit. (foot-note 2), pp. 191-192; a n d H . Mesehkowski, op. clt. (foot-note 5), pp. 1-4.
Cantor, V I I I , 82.
Towards a Biography of (Teor9 Cantor
353
problems in theory of numbers3 By then he had moved to Halle

University as a Privatdozent, replacing Schwarz (who went to Zurich)
and working under E. Heine, the professor of mathematics there. Under
Heine's influence both young men became especially interested in foundational problems in analysis as treated b y Weierstrassian principles, and
many letters passed between them on these questions in 1870. n In 1872
Cantor was promoted to ausserordentlicher Professor at Halle, and he also
met in Switzerland another mathematician interested in the foundations
of analysis---R. Dedekind, the professor of mathematics at the Technische
Hochschule at Brunswick. In the spring of 1874 he became engaged to
Vally Guttmann, a friend of his sister Sophie, who came from a Jewish
Berlin family, 12 the marriage taking place on 9 August. The first of
their six children, Else, was born in the following June, Gertrud in 1877,
Erich in 1879, Anna-Marie in 1881, Margrete in 1885 and Rudolf in 1886.
During this period Cantor achieved his main results in theory of sets and
transfinite arithmetic, starting from inspiration in Heine's work on the
uniqueness of the representation of a function b y a trigonometric series
to develop his own theorems on the problem and then the discipline of
theory of sets as a study in its own right: he was also fulfilling his teaching
requirements, and on Heine's recommendation was promoted in 1879 to
be a second ordentlicher Professor in mathematics, la B u t the promotion
to a more important centre for which he was hoping did not materialize:
the opposition to his work was forming, especially for its use of completed
infinities. A paper of 1877 was accepted b y Kronecker for publication
in the Journal f~r die reins und angewandte Mathematik only with
considerable reservation and after the intervention of Dedekind: 14 the
10 G. Cantor, De aequationlbus secundi gradus indeterminatis (Berlin, 1867); a n d D e

transformatlone formarum ternaziarum quadra$1carum (Halle/SaUe, 1869). B o t h w o r k s were
re-issued in Georg Cantor gesammeZte Abhandlungen.
Mathematischen und philosophischen
Inhalt8 (ed. E. Zermelo), Berlin, 1932, r e p r i n t e d H i l d e s h e i m , 1962, pp. 1-31 a n d 51-62
respectively. W e refer to t h i s e d i t i o n in l a t e r f o o t - n o t e s a s Abhandlungen; o n pp. 452-481
it c o n t a i n s a c o n d e n s e d v e r s i o n of A. F r a e n k e l (foot-note 2).
n S o m e of t h e l e t t e r s f r o m S e h w a r z a r e i n Nachlass Can~or, V; S c h w a r z ' s o w n copies a n d
t h e letters f r o m C a n t o r a r e in Berlin/Schwarz.
12 Georg a n d Vally w r o t e to e a c h o t h e r daily, in l e t t e r s n o w i n Nachlass Cantor, L[:
c o n g r a t u l a t o r y l e t t e r s to t h e m are in I V a n d V. F o r a p h o t o g r a p h o f t h e pair t a k e n in
a b o u t 1880, see P l a t e X X V .
is F o r d o c u m e n t s o n t h i s a p p o i n t m e n t , see especially Halle[PhiL Fat., vol. 127, ft. 81-41
passim: vol. 130, p a r t I, ft. 29 a n d 35; a n d Merseburg/Halle Univ., no. 34, vol. X I I ,
ff. 171-176 a n d 213-218.
it G. Cantor, ' E i n B e i t r a g z u r M a n n i g f a l t i g k e i t s l e h r e ', Journ. rei. aug..Math., 1878, 84,
242-258 (Abhandlungen, pp. 119-133). F o r c o m m e n t a r y , see A. F r a e n k e l (foot-note 2),
p p . 197-198.
P1,AT E X X V
Annals of Science.
})LATE XXV. Georg and Vally Cantor, in about 1880.

(In the possession of E. Schneider.)
I. Grattan-Guinness
354
correspondence with Schwarz stopped in 1880:15 there was apparently also

opposition from K u m m e r (who was Schwarz's father-in-law). Only
Weierstrass of the leading German mathematicians came to accept
Cantor's work, and he was always greatly revered by Cantor. 16 Then
there came the first major personal upset of his life, involving his friend
Dedekind with whom he was in frequent correspondence. Heine died
in October 1881, and the University had to choose a successor.
3.
T H E E P I S O D E OF H E I N E ' S R E P L A C E M E N T
The normal procedure at t h a t time for the appointment of an
ordentlicher Professor was as follows. The Faculty in which the chair

was to be held would write to the head of the University and thence to
the Kultusministerium, suggesting in order its preferred choice of candidates. The Minister could in principle change the list, and often did
consult leading figures in the subject involved; but when the list was
put in its final form, he would write to the first name on it and offer him
the post. The recipient of the offer was at liberty to decline it; if he did,
then the next name was invited, and so on. I f all the proposees declined
the post then a new list was prepared and the process repeated once more.
For the replacement of Heine, Cantor drew up the proposal of the
philosophical Faculty in a letter which was approved by his colleagues
and sent on to the Ministry in Berlin. His choice was: (1) Dedekind;
(2) H. Weber; and (3) F. Mertens. 17 With Cantor and Dedekind together
at Halle it would rapidly have ceased to be an unimportant centre for
mathematics. But this state of affairs was not to be, for early in 1882
Dedekind declined the offer. He gave his reasons as largely financial,
but his letter is somewhat apologetic in tone and surely reflects his fear
of the clash of personalities with his impulsive friend t h a t would certainly
have taken place. TM Cantor, lonely and frustrated in Halle, must have
been very disappointed; and it may be t h a t the almost total lack of
correspondence between them from late in 1882 until 1899 was a consequence of t h a t disappointment. The establishment or refutation of this
15 According to the collection of letters f r o m Cantor to Schwarz in Berlin]~qchwarz:

Sehwarz left a v o l u m i n o u s collection of p a p e r s a n d would quite likely h a v e k e p t a n y f u r t h e r
letter.
I n H. Meschkowski (foot-note 5), p. 269, t h e r e is published a letter from C a n t o r to
Schwarz w r i t t e n on 22 J a n u a r y 1913. T h i s letter comes f r o m a pencil d r a f t in Nachlass]
Gantor, V a n d is n o t in Berl~n/Schwarz; a n d it m a y v e r y well be t h a t C a n t o r did n o t in t h e
e n d send a copy to Sehwarz.
1~ On C a n t e r ' s relations w i t h Weierstrass, see our D o c u m e n t I X below.
x7 See o u r D o c u m e n t I below.
is See our D o c u m e n t I I below.
355
view is hampered b y the fact that of the surviving letters (which were
found among Dedekind's papers) only the mathematical parts were
published, 19 and the original documents are now missing; but from the
correspondence which passed between the editors of the published sections
(Miss E. Noether and J. Cavaillbs) it is clear that the call to Halle had
been much discussed, e9
Meanwhile, Dedekind was not the only one to reject the Halle post.
Weber and Mertens also turned it down, m and so a fresh list was prepared
after consultation with the University and with Weierstrass, and A.
Wangerin was appointed in March, 1882. 22 Cantor never developed close
relations with his new colleague, b u t he did make intimate contact at the
time with the correspondent by whom he replaced Dedekind--MittagLeffier.
4.
C A N T O R ' S F I R S T A T T A C K OF M E N T A L I L L N E S S
Like Cantor, Mittag-Leffier was influenced b y Weierstrass's teaching in

analysis, and his importance as a mathematician was enhanced when he
married a millionairess and used their money to found in 1882 a new
mathematical journal, Acta Mathematica. In the late 1880s he built himself a large magnificent house in the suburbs of Stockholm, which
was turned into a mathematical institute in the late 1920s under the
terms of his will and continues to be the editorial office of the journal.
In the early years Mittag-Leffier wanted it to make a substantial impact
on the mathematical world b y the publication of significant work, and
so he approached Cantor over the possibility of issuing French translations
of the most important papers on analysis and theory of sets that Cantor
had so far published (mainly in the friendly Mathematische Annalen).
The two had first met sometime previously, b u t this project brought them
into close contact and much correspondence passed between them over
the next few years. The translations were supervised b y the pupils of
C. Hermite, including H. Poineard; t h e y were read and corrected b y
Cantor, and after a great deal of correspondence with Mittag-Leffler
19 T h e letters s e n t b e t w e e n 1872 a n d 1882 were p u b l i s h e d as E . N o e t h e r and J-.Cavafll6s
(ed.), Briefwechsel Cantor-Dedekind, Paris, 1937: t h e l e t t e r s of 1899 h a d a l r e a d y a p p e a r e d
in G. Cantor, Abhandlungen, pp. 442-451. F o r a T r e n c h t r a n s l a t l o n o f all of t h e m , s e e
t h e collection: J. Cavaill6s, Philosophic mathdmatique, P a r i s , 1962, pp. 177-251.
20 Paris/Cavaill$s, E. N o e t h e r to Cavaill6s, 9 N o v e m b e r 1932 a n d 12 M a r c h 1933. W e
d i s c u s s t h e C a n t o r - D e d e k i n d letters in o u r a p p e n d i x below:
21 W e b e r ' s letter does n o t a p p e a r to h a v e s u r v i v e d , b u t M e r t e n s ' s is i n Bertin]Dar~staed$er, H 1870, w i t h a t y p e d c o p y in Merseburg/Halle Univ., no. 34, vol. X I I I , f. 169.
22 F o r W e i e r s t r a s s ' s c o r r e s p o n d e n c e , see Mersebnrg/Halle Univ., no. 34, vol. X I I I ,
ft. 170 a n d 182; a n d a t y p e d c o p y o f W a n g e r i n ' s letter o f a c c e p t a n c e in ibid., ft. 183-184.
T h e original of t h i s l a t t e r d o c u m e n t is in Berlin/Darmstaedter, H 1889.
356
I. Grattan-Guinness
during the first half of 1883 they appeared later in the year together with
an original paper from Cantor, which was written in French and subtitled
'first communication' (premigre communication), ea Cantor published
another original paper in French in a volume for the following year, 24 and
yet another in 1885, this time written in German with the subtitle ' second
communication ' (Zweite Mitteilung) and a foot-note indication t h a t it was
the successor to the ' first communication ' of 1883. 2s But this was not
true: it succeeded a paper which was never published.
This incident marked one of the turning-points of his life, and to describe
it we return to the summer of 1884, when Cantor suffered his first attack
of depression. Very little is known about it, but according to his eldest
daughter Else (who was nine years old at the time) it was very sudden and
greatly upset the whole family, ss I t appears to have lasted during May
and June, for in his first letter to Mittag-Leffier for seven weeks, written
on 21 June Cantor mentioned his illness and doubted the progress of his
mathematical research. ~7 In August he took a holiday in his favourite
ttarz mountains and for some reason decided to t r y to reconcile himself
with Kronecker. Kronecker accepted the gesture, but it must have been
difficult for both of them to forget their enmities and the philosophical
disagreements between them remained unaffected. Cantor reported the
whole episode to Mittag-Leffler,2s and he also described another matter of
anxiety, which came in the a u t u m n and concerned his great unsolved
problem in theory of sets and transfinite arithmetic, the Continuum
Hypothesis. Firstly, he thought t h a t he had found a proof t h a t it was
~a T h e t r a n s l a t i o n s a p p e a r e d in Aeta Math., 1883, 2, 305-408; C a n t o r ' s o w n p a p e r w a s

' S u r divers t h 6 o r ~ m e s de la th~orie des e n s e m b l e s de p o i n t s situ6s d a n s u n espaee e o n t i n u
n dimensions. Premiere communication.
E x t r ~ i t d ' u n e lottre adress6e ~ l ' d d i t e u r ',
ibid., 409-414 (Abhandlungen, 247-251).
24 G. Cantor, ' D e la p u i s s a n c e des e n s e m b l e s p a r f a i t s de p o i n t s . E x t r a i t d ' u n e lettro
adress~e ~ l'6diteur ', Acta Math., 1884, 4, 381-392 (Abhandlungen, 252-260).
,5 G. Cantor, ' U b e r v e r s e h i e d e n e T h e o r e m e tier P u n c t m e n g e n in e i n e m n - f a e h ausged e h n t e n stotigen ~ a u m e G n. Zweite M i t t e i l u n g ', Acta Math., 1885, 7, 105-124 (Abhandlungen, 261-277).
~6 See M. P e t e r s , Lied eines Lebens 1875-1954, Haale]Saale, 1961 [privately printed],
p. 27; a n d also p. 15.
T h e l a s t t w o copies o f ~his b o o k h a v e b e e n p l a c e d in public libraries for t h e benefit o f
scholars; one is in t h e :British M u s e u m , L o n d o n , a n d t h e o t h e r in t h e Universitdts-Bibllothek,
Halle]Saale (full a d d r e s s i n f o o t - n o t e 85).
*~ Se~ o u r :Document I I I below.
38 See A. Soh5nflies (foot-note 1), p p . 9 - 1 2 ; a n d p. 13 o n CanCer's belief t h a t K r o n e e k e r
n e v e r a b a n d o n e d his opposition to h i s work.
357
true: the next day he had a proof of its falsehood: then he found a new
proof of its truth: finally, he must have seen t h a t all his proofs were
invalid. ~
I t was during this period t h a t Cantor was preparing his paper on
theory of sets t h a t was never published. We have ourselves published the
paper and other relevant documents elsewhere, a and so here we shall deal
only with the specifically personal aspects of the affair. The paper
survives among the remaining fragments of Cantor's personal papers,
partly in proof-pages and otherwise in manuscript, while another copy
of the proof-pages and the rest of the manuscript lie in the files of Acta
Mathematica; and in addition there survives the draft of the paper in
one of the surviving three of the m a n y letter-books in which he used to
plan his letters before writing out a clean and unaltered version for
posting, al Its inspiration came from a long letter to Mittag-Leffler
commenced on 20 October, in which he commented on the opposition to
his work in Berlin, announced his intention of applying to the Ministry
to teach philosophy rather t h a n mathematics in the next semester (an
application which he did not in fact make32), and then presented in a clear
and precise form a whole new range of ideas in theory of sets which he
claimed to have devised during the previous winter and which he now
promised to extend in new papers, a3 The first two were written between
November and the following February: one of them was the zweite
Mitteilung published in 1885 in Acta .Mathematica, which applied the new
ideas to general sets of an arbitrary number of dimensions, but it succeeded
not the 1883 premiere communication but an erste Mitteilung which
demonstrated some of the ideas in the context of ordered sets. That
paper was intended for the same volume of Acta Mathematica as the
Zweite Mitteilung b u t in March, while it was early in the proof stage,
Cantor accepted Mittag-Leffier's advice to withdraw it.
a9 See A. SehSnflies, Ioo. cir. (foot-note I), p p . 16-19; a n d I t . Meschkowski, oio. cat.
(foot-note 5), pp. 237-243. T h e s e references i n c l u d e d also a n A u g u s t letter f r o m C a n t o r
on t h e C o n t i n u u m H y p o t h e s i s .
so See I. G r a t t a n - G u i n n e s s , ' A n u n p u b l i s h e d p a p e r b y Georg C a n t o r : Prineipien einer
Theori~ der Ordnungstypen. Erste MiZtheilung ', Acta Math., 1970, 124, 65-107.
3x See Nachlass Gantor, V I , pp. 10-23 a n d 28-30: t h e m a n u s c r i p t a n d corrected p r o o f s
a r e i n ibid., X I . T h e files o f Ac~a Matheraa$ica a r e l o c a t e d a t Stockholm/Mittag-T~cffler.
a~ T h e r e s e e m s to be no s u c h letter in Merseburg/Halle Univ., no. 34, vol. X I V .
sa T h i s s e c t i o n o f t h e letter is q u o t e d in I. G r a t t a n - G u i n n e s s , loc. cir. (foot-note 30),
p p . 74-79: t h e first s e v e n sides a r e q u o t e d in I-L M e s c h k o w s k i (foot-note 5), pp. 244-246.
T h e l e t t e r is k e p t a t ~toekholm/Mittag-Leffler, G, while its d r a f t is in Naehlass Oantor, Y I ,
pp. 1-10.
I. Grattan-Guinness
358
Mittag-Leffier's suggestion had been well-meant: he had written to

Cantor that, since the paper did not contain the proof of any important
result (such as the Continuum Hypothesis) then it would be better to
withdraw it and to allow posterity to discover the quality of Cantor's
ideas. Prophetic words; but they reveal only Mittag-Leffier's own failure
to appreciate Cantor's new work. Indeed he m a y have later regretted
the affair.3~ Cantor himself certainly regretted it, for his correspondence
with Mittag-Leffier fell away rapidly after 1886, and in surviving drafts
of letters of 1896 to Poincar6 and F. Gerbaldi he reminisced rather bitterly
on the matter, although he still asserted the value of his friendship with
Mittag-Leffier.s5 But in 1885 he had accepted Mittag-Leflier's advice
warmly and received back t h a t part of his manuscript which had not been
set in proofs. 36
Cantor never recovered from the impact of this series of events in
1884 and 1885. He published no more papers on the development of
his new ideas and indeed seems to have found only a very few results
at all in theory of sets in his later years. But he was far from exhausted
by his experiences, for from this time onwards he began to devote
much of his energy to other m a t t e r s - - a n d so to begin to sow the seeds of
mis-understanding among his contemporaries.
5.
C A N T O R ' S M I D D L E Y E A R S AT H A L L E
In the a u t u m n of 1886 Cantor purchased a magnificent new house at

H~ndelstrasse 13 in Halle to accommodate his wife and five children,
whose number was increased to six by the birth of Rudolf in December.
He was a loving father to his children, and wrote to them as well as to his
wife when he was away from home. He made no effort to dominate the
household: indeed, at mealtimes he would sit silently and allow his children
to lead the conversation, and then rise and t h a n k his wife for the meal
with: 'Are you content with me and do you then also love me? ,aT He
84 W h e n Sch6nflies d r e w on Mittag-Loffier's collection o f letters for his 1927 p a p e r

(foot-note 1), h e q u o t e d o n p. 15 p a r t o f a letter f r o m C a n t o r to Mittag-Leffier w h i c h a p p e a r s
in full on p. 103 o f I . G r a t t a n - G u i n n e s s , loc. cir. (foot-note 30), a n d in w h i c h C a n t o r r e q u e s t e d
t h e r e t u r n of h i s m a n u s c r i p t . SchSnflies t o o k it to refer to p a r t of a p a p e r p u b l i s h e d b y
C a n t o r a few y e a r s l a t e r w h i c h we h a v e listed a s t h e first reference of f o o t - n o t e 43 below;
a n d Mittag-Loflter d i d n o t e n l i g h t e n h i m .
s5 See I. G r a t t a n - G u i n n e s s , loc. cir. (foot-note 30), p p . 104-105.
s6 See I. G r a t t a n - G u i n n e s s , / o c . cir., ibid., p. 103.
s7 T h i s is a w e l l - r e m e m b e r e d recollection of t h e f a m i l y a n d is also n o t e d in M. P e t e r s ,
op. cir. (foot-note 26), p. 65.
359
used a large room on the ground floor of his house as both his study and
his library, and its walls were stacked from floor to ceiling with books;
and there he would work quietly for long periods of the d a y and night.
The mathematicians at Halle and at nearby Leipzig met quite frequently,
sometimes in the large double-room next to Cantor's study; and then,
as was often the case with his colleagues but in complete contrast to his
behaviour with his family, he would t r y to lead the conversation with
outspoken pronouncements on a wide variety of matters, as
During the early 1880s one of the mathematicians who attended these
meetings was F. Klein, then at Leipzig, who came to know Cantor well.
However, their relations seem to have become strained in 1885 when the
appointment to a professorship at GSttingen was to be made. Cantor
had not given up hope of moving from Halle, blaming the influence of
Kronecker and Sehwarz on his failure to make t h a t move; a9 and when
the GSttingen post became available he hoped very much to get it. B u t
Schwarz was still there, and Cantor was not even considered, being passed
over in favour not only of Klein but also of his undoubted inferiors
A. Voss, G. Hettner and A. Enneper. The proposal of these four men
was made, and Klein was appointed in November. a Cantor was undoubtedly upset: after 1886 very few more letters passed between him
and Klein41 and in 1888 Schwarz, now firmly opposed to Cantor's work
and even personally against his old friend, described in sarcastic tones to a
colleague Cantor's behaviour at a recent gathering arranged by Weierstrass. 42 With this disappointment Cantor seems to have abandoned
hope of a move: the purchase of the house in late 1886 was doubtless his
recognition of the fact t h a t he was going to spend his whole career in
Halle.
At this time Cantor's mathematical work began to attract the attention
not only of certain mathematicians but also of philosophers and theologians, who were especially interested in his transfinite arithmetic and
8s F o r m e m o r i e s of later m e e t i n g s of t h i s t y p e a n d C a n t o r ' s b e h a v i o u r a t t h e m , see
G. K o w a l e w s k i , Bestand und Wandel, M u n i c h , 1950, pp. 106-109.
a0 See t h e letter o f 1 J a n u a r y 1884 f r o m C a n t o r to Mittag-Leffler in Stockholm]MittagLeffler, H : t h e r e l e v a n t s e c t i o n is q u o t e d in A. SchSnflies, loc. cir. (foot-note 1), pp. 3-4.
40 T h i s i n f o r m a t i o n h a s c o m e f r o m t h e Deutsches Zentratarchiv a t Merseberg, w h e r e a r e
k e p t t h e Acta of G 6 t t i n g e n U n i v e r s i t y ; a n d also t h e Universit~$s-Archlv, G6~tingen,
W i l h e l m p l a t z 2, W . G e r m a n y , w h o hold t h e U n i v e r s i t y file on K l e i n . E r m e p e r died in
M a r c h 1885, while t h e a p p o i n t m e n t w a s still u n d e r consideration.
4~ A c c o r d i n g to t h e collection o f C a n t o r ' s l e t t e r s to K l e i n in G6ttingen/Klein, V I I I ,
l e t t e r s 394-455.
Like S c h w a r z (see a b o v e , f o o t - n o t e 15), K l e i n also left a v o l u m i n o u s
collection o f p a p e r s especially rich i n letters.
4s See o u r D o c u m e n t I V below. W e i e r s t r a s s did n o t m e n t i o n t h i s episode w h e n
describing t h e m e e t i n g in a letter o f 1888 to P. d u B o i s R e y m o n d : see ' Briefe y o n K .
W e i e r s t r a s s a n P. d u Bois R e y m o n d ', Ac~a Math., 1923, 39, 199-225 (p. 222).
360
I. Grattan-Guinness
its use of complete infinities. He corresponded widely with them at this

time, publishing a selection of his letters in 1888. 4a His other main
interest was in the founding of a mathematical association in Germany;
and his motives seem to have included the formation of a society t h a t
would not only bring mathematicians closer together but also provide
an institution to protect its younger members from the kind of treatment
t h a t he himself had received. Very few of his letters on its founding have
survived, but he organlsed the first three of its meetings and it is clear
t h a t he wrote to m a n y of his colleagues to encourage them to form and
join it; and it was in Halle, in September 1891, t h a t the Deutsche
Mathematiker-Verei~igung held its first meeting, with Cantor as chairman.
He was also one of the editors of its Jahresbericht for the first three years,
a journal which was distinguished from the start not only by its important
papers but also by its long historical articles and reports on various
branches of mathematics.~ He published only one short paper in it
himself, but it was an important one, for in it he gave a form of the
' diagonal a r g u m e n t ' for the non-denumerability of the real numbers. 45
Cantor was not able to attend the September 1893 meeting in Munich
because of illness: it was the last of its meetings t h a t he organized, a6
I t may be t h a t he suffered another attack of mental illness, for his next
publication, in 1894, was a somewhat eccentric piece of work for a
mathematician of his abilities. We recall t h a t his first mathematical
interests had been in the field of theory of numbers, and he worked
occasionally on some of its problems throughout his life: his 1894 contribution was an empirical verification up to the number 1000 of Goldbach's
48 O. Cantor, ' Mitteilungen zur Lehre vom Transfiniten ', Zeitschr. Phil. philos. Krlt.,
1887, 91, 81-125 a n d 252-270; and 1888, 92, 240-265 (Abhandlungen, pp. 378-439). Corn,
pare the earlier' L~ber die verschiodone Standpunkte in Bezug auf das aotuale Unendlicho ',
ibid., pp. 224-233 (Abhandlungen, pp. 370-377): the draft of this paper follows the draft
of the unpublished paper of 1884-85 in Nachlass Cantor, VI, pp. 31-34. The two papers
were published together as a booklet: Z u r Lehre veto Transfiniten, Hallo/Saale, 1890.
44 On the history of the Deutsche Mathematiker-Vereinlgung, see A. Gutzmer, ' Gesohieh~
dor deutschen Mathematiker-Vereinigung von ihrer Begriindung bis zur Gegenwart
dargestellt ', Leipzig, 1904 (Jsbr. dtsch. Math.-Ver., 1909, 10, pt. 1, 1-49); and H. Gericke,
'Aus der Chronik der Deutschen M[athematiker-Vereinigung ', ibid., 1966, 68, 46-74. The
latter article includes a photograph of the participants (including Cantor) of a foundation
meeting a t Bremen in September 1890. For a recollection of Cantor's tireless efforts to
encourage its founding, see A. SchSnflies, ' Zur Erinnerung an Georg Cantor ', Jsbr. dtsch.
Math.-Ver., 1922, 81, 97-106 (p. 105).
45 G. Cantor, ' ~ b e r sine elemontare Frage der Mannigfaltigkeitslehre ', Jsbr. dtach.
Math.-Ver., 1891-92, 1, 75-78 (Abhandlungen, pp. 278-281).
46 See Jsbr. dtsvh. Math.-Ver., 1892-93, 3, 3. The 1892 meeting in Niirnberg had been
postponed for a year because of an epidemic of cholera.
361
conjecture t h a t e v e r y e v e n integer can b e w r i t t e n as the s u m o f two

primes, a n d so it consisted m e r e l y o f a list o f t h e smaller m e m b e r o f each
p r i m e - p a i r for e v e r y e v e n n u m b e r f r o m 2 to 1000. B u t its i n t r o d u c t o r y
p a r a g r a p h was m o s t significant, for t h e r e C a n t o r s t a t e d t h a t h e h a d done
this w o r k ' a b o u t t e n y e a r s ago '. N o w t h e p a p e r w a s p r e s e n t e d t o the
Caen congress of t h e Association Fran~aise pour l'Avancement des Sciences
in A u g u s t 1894: t h u s t h e w o r k h a d b e e n done during t h e fateful s u m m e r of
1884Y I n addition, his f o r m e r pupil P. St~ckel p o i n t e d o u t in 1896
t h a t the verification itself h a d b e e n done u p to 10,000 f o r t y y e a r s
previously; as b u t C a n t o r did use his w o r k t o f o r m u l a t e a new conjecture,
concerning the b e h a v i o u r of t h e f u n c t i o n which d e n o t e d t h e n u m b e r of
different p r i m e - p a i r s for a g i v e n e v e n integer. 49
I n the following y e a r (1895) C a n t o r p u b l i s h e d t h e first p a r t of his last
m a j o r m a t h e m a t i c a l w o r k - - a s u r v e y p a p e r on transfinite a r i t h m e t i c a n d
its l a w s - - t h e second p a r t a p p e a r i n g in 1897. 50 While he did n o t a t t e m p t
a p r o o f of t h e C o n t i n u u m H y p o t h e s i s he did give a v e r y clear p r e s e n t a t i o n
of his ideas which m u s t h a v e helped t o widen t h e interest in t h e m a m o n g
m a t h e m a t i c i a n s ; for during t h e last y e a r s o f the c e n t u r y his a c h i e v e m e n t s
b e g a n a t last to receive a m e a s u r e o f recognition a n d i m p o r t a n c e in the
m a t h e m a t i c a l world. T h e s u r v e y p a p e r a p p e a r e d in Mathematische
Annalen, w i t h whose editorship K l e i n w a s still concerned, a n d their
correspondence o v e r its p u b l i c a t i o n r e s t o r e d s o m e t h i n g of t h e i r f o r m e r
friendship. 51 A l t h o u g h K l e i n did n o t use t h e o r y o f sets in his own research
he was e x t r e m e l y interested in it, a n d m u s t h a v e b e e n i n s t r u m e n t a l in
t h e p u b l i c a t i o n of C a n t o r ' s m a i n series o f p a p e r s on t h e t h e o r y in t h e
e a r l y 1880s in t h a t journal: c e r t a i n l y the letters to h i m f r o m C a n t o r a t
t h a t t i m e h a d included m a n y discussions of t h e n e w t h e o r e m s a n d
47G. Cantor, ' Vdrifieation jusqu'k 10O0du th6or~me empirique de Goldbach ', C.R. Ass.
'ranp. l'Avanc. Sci., 1894 (publ. 1895), pt. 2, 117-134.
4s See P. St~ekel, Ober Goldbaeh's empirisches Theorem: Jede gerade Zahl kann Ms
Summe yon zwei Primzahlen dargestellt werden ', 1Vachr. K6nigl. Gesell. Wiss. G6ttingen,
math.-phys. KI., 1896, 292-299 (p. 292). The verification of the theorem up to 10,000 w a s
claimed by H. A. Desboves, in' Sur un th6or&mede Legendre et son application &la recherche
de limites qui eomprennent entre elles des hombres premiers ', l~ouv. Ann. Math., 1855,
14, (1) 281-295 (p. 293).
49 Cantor never published this work, but discussed it in a letter of November 1895 to
ttermite, drafted in Nachtass Cantor,VIII, pp. 45-50: it is partly quoted in H. Mesehkowski,
op. cir. (foot-note 5), pp. 262-263 and discussed on pp. 168-172.
50 G. Cantor, ':Beitrage zur :Begriindung der transfiniten Mengenlehre ', Math. Ann.,
1895, 46, 481-512; and 1897, 49, 207-246 (Abhandlungen, pp. 282-356).
sl See G6tti~gen]Klein, sect. VIII, letters 448-454.
A n n . of S c i . - - V o l . 27, No. 4.
2c
362
I. Grattan-Guinness
properties. 52 He never lost his interest during the period of their

estrangement, and as the moving spirit behind the Encyclopaedie der
mathematischen Wissenschaften in the 1890s he advised that an article
on theory of sets (written b y Schonflies) be set as part of the first article
in the volumes for arithmetic and algebra. 53 He also encouraged W. H.
and G. C. Young to take an interest in the subject, and thus inspired
their important work on theory of measure and especially, in 1906, the
first comprehensive text-book on theory of sets and its applications. 54
The theory of measure itself began to make real progress in the I890s,
when C. Jordan produced results which were greatly developed b y his
French compatriots E. Borel and H. Lebesgue. ~5 Jordan also brought
out the second edition of his important Cours d'Analyse during the decade,
and not only extended the treatment of theory of sets that he had given
in the first edition in the 1880s but also moved it from the appendix
of the final volume of the work to the opening chapters of the first one, 56
where it has remained ever since in textbooks on mathematical analysis.
In August 1897 Cantor took his daughters Else and Gertrud to the first
International Congress of Mathematicians, and heard both A. Hurwitz
and J. Hadamard explicitly discuss the application and significance of
theory of sets, 5~ while at the next conference at Paris in August, 1900
53 Cantor's m a i n p a p e r s were the series: ' O b e r unencUiche, lineare P u n k t m a n n i c h faltigkeiten ', Math. Ann., 1879, 15, 1-7; 1880, 17, 355-358; 1882, 20, 113-121; 1883, 21,
51-58 a n d 545-591; a n d 1884, 23, 453-488 (Abhandlungen, pp. 139-246). F o r his letters
w i t h K l e i n a t t h a t time, see G6ttingen/Klein, sect. V I I I , letters 395-439: this eellec~ion
includes 37 letters sent in 1882 alone.
5a A. SehSnflies, ' Mengenleba.e ', Enc. der Math. Wiss., vol. 1, pt. 1 (Leipzig, 1898-1904),
p p . 185-207.
54 W . H. a n d G. C. Young, The theory of sets of points, Cambridge, 1906. A r e p r i n t of
this work is planned, to w h i c h t h e p r e s e n t a u t h o r has contributecl a n article on t h e Y o u n g ' s
i n t e n d e d revisions for a n a b o r t i v e second edition, b a s e d on their copy n o w in London] Young.
F r o m o t h e r d o c u m e n t s in this source comes t h e i n f o r m a t i o n on K l e i n ' s e n c o u r a g e m e n t of
t h e Youngs a n d o f A. SehSnfiies (foot-note 53).
F o r a similar work, w h i c h was also published in 1906, see G. Hessenberg, ' Grundbegriffe
der Mengenlehre ', Abh. der Fries'schen Schule, 1906, 1 (2), 479-706. (Reprinted, G5ttingen,
1906.)
55 The best available a c c o u n t of t h e s e d e v e l o p m e n t s is T. Hawkins, I~ebesgue's theory
of integration. Its origins and development, Madison, 1970.
See also I. 1~. Pesin, Pa3B~Wne
rIOH~TH~ HHTerpana, Moscow, 1966, recently issued in a n English t r a n s l a t i o n as Classical
and modern integration theories, N e w York, 1970.
55 G. J o r d a n , Cou/rsd'Analyse, 2nd ed., 3 vols., Paris, 1893-96, see esp. vol. i, pp. 1-31.
5~ A. H u r w i t z , ' O b e r die E n t w i c k l u n g der allgemeinen Theorie der a n a l y t i s c h e n
F u n c t i o n e n in neuerer Zeit ', Verhandlungen des I. Internationalen Mathematiker-Kongresses
(ed. F. Rudio), Leipzig, 1898, pp. 91-112 (Mathematlsehe Werke, vol. i, pp. 461-489).
J . H a d a m a r d , ' S u r eertaines applications possibles de la th6orie des ensembles ', ibid.,
pp. 201-202 (Oeuvres, vol. i, pp. 311-312). See also t h e r e m a r k s on H a d a m a r d ' s p a p e r b y
S. Pincherle a n d E. Borel in ibid., pp. 203-205.
363
(which Cantor did not attend), D. ttilbert delivered a famous address on

the most important unsolved problems of mathematics and gave his
Continuum Hypothesis as the first of them. ~s
B u t this success came too late to inspire him to renewed efforts: he
was by now a tired man on whom the shadows of depression were beginning
to fall. They had begun to manifest themselves in an unexpected but
erratic w a y - - i n Elizabethan scholarship, and especially in a belief t h a t
Bacon wrote Shakespeare's works.
6.
' O N E OF T H E G R E A T E S T G E N I U S E S O F C t I R I S T I A N I T Y '
Eccentricity is not a necessary condition for believing t h a t Shakespeare

did not write his own plays, 59 which was in fact a belief quite often put
forward in Germany at t h a t time; but the way in which Cantor treated
the problem does reflect some instability of mind. P a r t of the legend
concerning Cantor is t h a t this work was just distractive fancy on his part
to take his mind off other things; b u t in fact he worked intensely over
m a n y years on Elizabethan scholarship, and through wide reading and
correspondence built up an extremely detailed knowledge of the whole
period as well as a valuable collection of first editions in his library. But,
according to his cbildren's recollections, the work was done mostly during
his periods of depression; and again it was an activity which he had begun
in 1884. 60 His beliefs were shared by his sister Sophie, who lived nearby
at Naunhof, ~1 and perhaps with her encouragement in 1896 and 1897 he
published at his own expense three pamphlets on the question. The
first was an edition of 'A Confession of Faith of Mr. Francis Bacon ',
together with the Latin translation by Bacon's secretary W. Rawley and
a short introduction by Cantor himself which drew almost entirely on the
58 D. t t i l b e r t , ' M a t h e m a t i s e h e P r o b l e m e ', Nachr. K6nigl. Geselt. Wiss. GSttingen,

n ~ t h . - p h y s . Kl., 1900, 253-297. ( R e p u b l i s h e d w i t h a d d i t i o n s i n Arch. Math. Phys.,
1901, 1 (3), 44-63 a n d 213-237; also in Gesammelte Abhandlungen, vol. iii, pp. 290-329.)
T h e p a p e r a p p e a r e d in a F r e n c h t r a n s l a t i o n in t h e Comptes Renc~us du deuxi~me Congrhs
International des Mathdmaticien~ (ed. E. D u p a r c q ) , P a r i s , 1902, pp. 58-114, a n d i n (English
in t h e Bull. Amer. Math. Soe., 1902, 8 (2), 437-479.
50 F o r a s u r v e y of t h e v a r i o u s theories of t h i s t y p e t h a t h a v e b e e n p u t f o r w a r d a t o n e
t i m e or a n o t h e r see R . C. Churchill, Shakespeare and his betters, L o n d o n , 1959. C a n t o r is
n o t d i s c u s s e d in t h i s s t u d y .
~o C a n t o r m e n t i o n e d t h i s in s e v e r a l places; see, for e x a m p l e , folio 142 v e r s o of D o c u m e n t
V I below.
~1 C a n t o r m e n t i o n e d h e r i n t e r e s t in a l e t t e r to a fellow-:Baeonian d r a f t e d in Vavhlass
Cantor, V I I I , p. 14. T h e l e t t e r - b o o k s in V ] I a n d V I I I c o n t a i n d r a f t s o f m a n y letters o n
t h e B a c o n - S h a k e s p e a r e q u e s t i o n a n d on E l i z a b e t h a n s c h o l a r s h i p i n general.
2c2
364
I. Grattan-Guinness
preface to the essay in the recent edition of Bacon's works. 62 The

pamphlet was ready in March 1896: in the following month he completed
another one, the introduction to which (in English) contained his statement of faith on the question:
' For many years I have in the hours of leisure granted me, given
much study to the Life and Works of Francis Bacon, who in my eyes is
one of the greatest geniuses of Christianity. By this I have become
persuaded, that the opinion so ridiculed by most scholars, of Francis
Bacon being the writer of the Shakespearian Dramas, is founded on
truth; . . . . . .
The proofs, I believe I have found, are purely historical,
and I propose gradually to publish all the material in question I have
at command. '6a
The main text itself consisted of two parts. Firstly there was the
last of thirty-two elegies to Bacon as edited by Rawley, written by
T. Randolph and followed here by a translation into English. The
significance of this poem was t h a t it contained the only documentary
' p r o o f ' of Baconian authorship of Shakespeare's writings t h a t Cantor
ever offered, namely t h a t in the seventeenth distich:
' Crescere Pegaseas docuit, velut Hasta Quirini
Crevit, et exiguo tempore Lauras erat ',
the phrase ' Hasta Quirini ', which literally means ' the spear of Quirinus
[that is, l~omuhs] ' was an allusion to the 'Spear-swinger' or 'Spearshaker ', and thus to Shakespeare. 6a That the phrase could have this
etymological connotation is, according to the majority of scholars,
doubtful, and t h a t it would have been so understood in its own day
apparently even more so; but Cantor asserted in his introduction t h a t
Bacon
'is addressed as Shakespeare; for Quirinus . . . . . denotes clearly in
English > >Spear-swinger< < or > >-Shaker< < ?85
The second part of the pamphlet contained Rawley's brief life of
Bacon, which Cantor found to be
~ G. Cantor, Gonfessio t~idei l~rancisci B a c o n i . . . . . . Halle/Saale, 1896. Compare the

edition of ~ho essay in Bacon's W o r k s (ed. J. Spedding, R. L. Ellis and D. D. Heath),
London, 1859, vol. vii, pp. 217-226.
63 G. Cantor, Resurrectio D~vi Q u i r i n i Francisvl B a c o n i . . . . H~lle/Sa~le, 1896, p. iii.
ea Ibld., pp. 2, 5.
~5 Ibid., p. iv.
T o w a r d s a B i o g r a p h y of Georg Cantor
365
' . . . . . the most authentic, weighty and significant of all biographies

that have ever been ventured on this unparalleled man. '~
T h e last of these t r a c t s was published in 1897, a n d consisted of an
edition of all the B a c o n elegies preceded b y C e n t e r ' s own i n t r o d u c t i o n
(in German) which include a G e r m a n t r a n s l a t i o n o f R a n d o l p h ' s poem a n d
polemics against fellow-members of t h e Deutsche Shakespeare Gesellschaft. 67
The three p a m p h l e t s t o g e t h e r m a k e no c o n t r i b u t i o n a t all to Shakespearean
criticism a n d scholarship despite their a u t h o r ' s deep knowledge of the
subject, and it is p r o b a b l y f o r t u n a t e t h a t he never did publish his ' purely
historical p r o o f ' o f B a e o n i a n a u t h o r s h i p from ' all the material in quest i o n ' t h a t he h a d to hand. The reason w h y he did n o t fulfil his intention
is doubtless to be f o u n d in the c a t a s t r o p h e t h a t o v e r c a m e him in the
a u t u m n of 1899.
7.
CA~TOR'S CRISIS OF 1899
D u r i n g his p r e p a r a t i o n of t h e 1895-97 p a p e r on transfinite arithmetic

C a n t o r h a d discovered t h e first of t h e paradoxes of t h e t h e o r y of sets,
a n d he h a d c o m m u n i c a t e d it to Hilbert in a letter o f 1896. ~8 H e did n o t
publish it in his paper, b u t it was discovered i n d e p e n d e n t l y and published
in 1897 b y C. Burali-Forti, after w h o m it is n o w known. 69 I t concerned
a n alleged p r o p e r t y of ordinal numbers, a n d C a n t o r himself f o u n d a similar
p r o p e r t y in cardinal arithmetic a r o u n d the same time. These surprising
a n d disturbing results b r o u g h t h i m to a new effort in researches into t h e
t h e o r y o f sets: h a v i n g r e s u m e d cordial relations with D e d e k i n d at the
1897 Zurich Congress, he corresponded with him in the late s u m m e r of
1899 on the restoration of m a t h e m a t i c a l consistency to the t h e o r y of sets
b y m e a n s of a distinction between ' c o n s i s t e n t ' a n d ' i n c o n s i s t e n t '
~ Ibid.
G~G. Cantor, Die Rawley'sche Sammlung yon zweiunddrelssig Trauergedichten auf t~ra~eis
Bacon, Halle/Saale, 1897.
6aAccording to F. Bernstein, ' l~bcr die Reihe tier transfmiten Ordnungszahlen ', Math.
ANN., 1905, 60, 187-193 (p. 187). The letter was not 4rafted in Nachlass Cantor, VIII, one
of his lett~er-books for that year, and neither is it in G~ttingen]Hilbert; but, like Cantor's
papers, Hilbert's are also incomplete and there is no reason to doubt the report of Bernstein,
who studied the theory of sets for his Habilitation under Cantor at Halle during the
early years of the century. Comparealso P. E. B. Jourdain, ' On the transfinite cardinal
numbers of well-ordered aggregates ', Phil. Mag., 1904, 7 (6), 61-75 (p. 70).
~9 C. Burali-Forti, ' Una ques~ione sui numerl transfiniti ', Rend. Circ. Mat. Palmero,
1897, 11, 154-164; and ' Sulle classi ben ordinate ', ibid., p. 260.
366
I. Grattan-Guinness
multitudes (Vielheiten)/ The correspondence soon ended (apparently

for ever), but Cantor was obviously worried and uncertain about the
problem in much the same way as he had been disconcerted by his proofs
and disproofs of the Continuum Hypothesis in the autumn of 1884. In
October he applied for and was granted leave from his duties at Halle
University for the winter semester/1 but he still attended there and indeed
during December and January he wrote some agitated protests against
Faculty procedures in the administrative Circulate which passed among
the professors/~ The University had been troubled for a number of
years by controversies of various kinds, especially in the rapidly expanding
philosophical Faculty: the increase in staff had been caused largely by new
appointments at various levels of scientists and mathematicians, who
formed a 'progressive' group opposed by the conservative circle of
classicists. Some of the issues were wider still, involving social and
political questions of the freedom of the universities and the power of the
State which were beginning to rise in importance in German thought. ~3
Cantor appears to have been an important figure for the liberal cause,
but his efforts can only have contributed to his personal mental stress.
In November he brought the matter to the attention of the Government
in Berlin, in a letter which reveals persecution complexes of various
kinds. He sought some other kind of employment (at his current salary!),
70 See G. C a n t o r , Abhandlungen, pp. 443-447, for t h e e x t r a c t o f t h e letter to D e d e k i n d

d a t e d 28 J u l y 1899. I n Nachlass Cantor, V s u r v i v e s t h e s e e m i n g l y c o m p l e t e d r a f t of a
s u c c e e d i n g letter s e n t to D e d e k i n d a n d d a t e d 3 A u g u s t 1899: it refers to t h e p r e v i o u s letter,
b u t its t e x t is a l m o s t i d e n t i c a l w i t h t h e p u b l i s h e d e x t r a c t cited above. I t begins on a s h e e t
of paper a l r e a d y u s e d for t h e e n d o f a n unintelligible essay, w r i t t e n in E n g l i s h , o n m a t h e m a t i c s as a subject.
A w e l l - k n o w n a n d a m u s i n g i n c i d e n t occurred a t t h i s t i m e . O n 4 S e p t e m b e r 1899
D e d e k i n d h a d C a n t o r as a g u e s t for l u n c h ; b u t in T e u b n e r ' s M a t h e m a t i c a l C a l e n d a r for 1904
it w a s r e p o r t e d t h a t D e d e k i n d h a d died o n t h a t d a y . D e d e k i n d wrote to t h e editor of t h e
C a l e n d a r to a s s u r e h i m of h i s good h e a l t h o n t h a t day! [See E. L a n d a u , ' R i c h a r d D e d e k i n d ',
Naehr. Kgnlgl. Gesett. Wiss. GSttingen, geschSflt. ~11tt., 1917, pp. 5 0 - 7 0 (pp. 53-54).]
~1 See Halle/Cantor, p p . 12-14.
v~ See Halle[Cantor, vol. 26, especially 17 D e c e m b e r 1899, a n d 4 a n d 7 J a n u a r y 1900.
W e h a v e n o t q u o t e d t h e s e d o c u m e n t s a s t h e y are difficult to a p p r e c i a t e o u t of c o n t e x t , b u t
i n o u r D o c u m e n t V I I I below we q u o t e s o m e s i m i l a r protests of 1902 from t h e s a m e source,
w h i c h s h o w m o r e i m m e d i a t e l y t h e k i n d o f s i t u a t i o n t h a t a p p l i e d in t h e F a c u l t y a t t h e t i m e
- - o r , a t least, a s C a n t o r s a w it!
va A f o r t h c o m i n g s t u d y b y Dr. I t . Schwabe, H e a d of Halle Universit~tsarchiv, will
explain the development of the philosophical Faculty at that time. For a history of the
U n i v e r s i t y , w r i t t e n b y i t s K u r a t o r to celebrate t h e b i c e n t e n a r y of its f o u n d a t i o n , see
W . Schrader, Geschiehte der _~riedxichs.Universitdt zu Halle, Berlin, 1894, 2 vols., esp. vol. ii,
pp. 269-290. A photograph of C a n t o r w a s t a k e n for t h e U n i v e r s i t y ' s jubilee c e l e b r a t i o n s
of t h a t y e a r , a n d is r e p r o d u c e d a s o u r P l a t e X X V I .
PLATE
XXVI
Annals of Science.
PLATE X X V I . Cantor at Halle University, 1894.

(In the possession of the Universit~itsarchiv, Halle/Saale, E. Germany D.D.R.)
367
perhaps in a library, where he could serve the Kaiser: he felt the pressure
on him, a foreigner, of the ' G e r m a n professors ', and added that he
had been working on the Bacon-Shakespeare question/4 He sent in
copies of his three pamphlets, and also a set of nine of his visiting cards
upon which he had described his family history and given both a fresh
plea against the German professors and also a reference to his 'old
beloved' ruler, Czar Nicholas 11 of Russia/5
The Kultusministerium appears to have treated this episode with
great tact and diplomacy. Although there were certainly difficulties in
the situation at Halle, there would seem little reason to believe the general
antagonism against his person t h a t Cantor believed was taking place.
Indeed, the Director of Education in the Ministry at this time was F.
Althoff, a truly remarkable man who worked ceaselessly for liberal causes
himself at t h a t difficult time and who discharged his responsibilities by
means of an extraordinarily detailed correspondence which make the mass
of his surviving papers a source of the first importance for the history of
German science and education during this period/6 Unfortunately,
almost all the letters he received from Cantor are missing; but other
sources, such as Cantor's personal file in Halle University, show t h a t in
fact both the Ministry and the University authorities were as sympathetic
as possible to Cantor's requests for extra payment, travel grants, and leave
from teaching duties. 7v We must see in these communications to the
Ministry evidence of Cantor's state of mind rather t h a n of Halle's state of
affairs--and indeed the autobiographical passage gives evidence of
another source of stress: the deaths of his relatives. His mother had
died in October 1896, and his younger brother Constantin in J a n u a r y 1899;
and then on 16 December came perhaps the final blow--his youngest
child, l~udolf, died in his thirteenth year.
The boy had been weak from birth, b u t Cantor had always hoped
t h a t his strength would grow as he got older, and he saw in his talents a
continuation of the family's considerable artistic gifts. But it was not
to be. Cantor described the circumstances of the child's death in
movingly restrained terms in a letter sent at the end of the year to Klein:
he had been to a lecture on the Bacon-Shakespeare question in Leipzig,
74 See our Documen?~ V below.

75 See our D o c u m e n t V I below.
7~ This source is denoted as Merseburg/Althoff, a n d would greatly benefit f r o m a detailed
s t u d y ; the m i s s i n g letters f r o m Cantor are discussed in our a p p e n d i x below. F o r a biog r a p h y of Althoff which m a k e s only slight use of ~ho papers, see A. Sachse, Friedrieh A lthoff
und sein Werk, :Berlin, 1928.
77 Halle/Cantor: the d o c u m e n t s date only f r o m 1891 onw&rds.
I. Grattan-Guinness
368
and returned home in

afternoon. 7s I t was a
and it seems to have
from which he was to
the evening to find t h a t the child had died in the

deep disappointment to Cantor as well as a shock,
been the decisive stimulus of the mental attacks
suffer from time to time until the end of his life.
8.
CANTOR'SMENTAL ILLNESS
From the popular view of Cantor's mental history, it would be deduced

t h a t he spent the whole of his last twenty years in seclusion and inactivity
in mental institutions; but the true picture is quite different. He overcame the immediate pressure of all these events of 1899 to spend some time
in Berlin at the end of J a n u a r y 1900, working on both mathematics and
the Bacon-Shakespeare question; ~9but in the spring and early summer he
must have shown signs of distress, for he was relieved of his teaching responsibilities for the summer semester, s Thereafter he was regularly
allowed leave from his work: for the winter semesters of 1902-03, 1904-5
and 1907-08, for much of 1909 and then from early in 1911 until his
application for retirement in April 1913 was approved, sl He spent some
of the time on leave in sanatoria, especially at the Nervenlclinilc in Halle:
their (incomplete) records show t h a t he stayed at some other institution in
1899, 1902 and 1904, and then at the NervenIclinik itself from 22 October
1907 until 15 June 1908, from 28 September 1911 to 18 June 1912 (and
thence to another sanatorium), and finally from 11 May 1917 until his
death on 6 J a n u a r y 1918. s~
The lack of documentary evidence combined with the rudimentary
nature of psychological treatment at t h a t time precludes the possibility
of a definitive professional evaluation of his mental illness; but certain
significant features can be mentioned. The attacks all began suddenly,
usually in an autumn season, and exhibited phases of excitement and
~s See our D o c u m e n t V I I below: it is t h e l a s t l e t t e r f r o m Can%or in G6ttlngen/Klein,

sect.VIII. The connection between Cantor and Klein has not been discussed by biographers
o f either: K l e i n h i m s e l f d i d n o t m e n t i o n it i n h i s a u t o b i o g r a p h y ' G 6 t t i n g e r Professoren.
L e b e n s b i l d e r y o n eigener H a n d . 4. F e l i x K l e i n ', Univ.bund GStti~gen Mitt., 1923, 5,
(pt. 1), 11-36.
~9 A c c o r d i n g to letters to h i s s o n E r i c h in Nachlass Cantor, I I I .
80 See Halle]Cantor, ft. 16-17; a n d Merseberg/Halle Univ., no. 34, vol. X X , ft. 230-232.
sx C a n t o r ' s leave is d e a l t w i t h i n v a r i o u s d o c u m e n t s in Halle]Cantor; Merseburg[Halle
Univ., no. 34, vols. X X - X X I I ; a n d t h e Verzeivhnis der auf der k6nigllchen vereinigten
Friedriehs.Unlversit~t Halle- Wittenbergira . . . . . .
zu haltenden Vorlesungen . . . p u b l i s h e d
a t Halle for e a c h s e m e s t e r . G a n t o r ' s a p p l i c a t i o n for r e s i g n a t i o n a n d its a c c e p t a n c e are in
Merseberg/Halle Univ., no. 48, vol. I I , ft. 34-35; a n d also in Halle]Cantor, 23 a n d 29 April
1913.
s2 C o m m u n i c a t i o n f r o m t h e Klinik und Poliklinik fur Psyehlatrie und Neurologie, 40l
I-Ialle]Saale, J u l i u s - K i i h n - S t r a s s e 7, E. G e r m a n y D . D . R .
369
exaltation: they ended suddenly in the following spring or summer, and

were sometimes followed b y what we now understand to be the depressive
phase. In Cantor's day it was seen as a cure, and he would be sent home
to sit silent and motionless for hours on end; b u t then this phase would end
suddenly and he would resume his work and duties. The documents
that belong to these periods, some of which we have given here at the end
of our narrative, reveal both excitements and depressions, and also
persecution complexes of various kinds--against mathematical colleagues,
against ' German professors ', and also against some of his fellow scholars
on the Bacon-Shakespeare problem. The first attack of 1884 did not
fully follow the pattern of its successors, being of much shorter duration;
b u t it doubtless led to the rather strange work on theory of numbers and
the beginning of the Bacon-Shakespeare obsession, both of which began
in that year. All these features suggest to the modern professional viewpoint that Cantor's illness was basically endogenous, and probably showed
some form of manic depression: exogenous factors, such as the difficulties
of his researches and the controversies in Halle University, are likely to
have played only a small part in the genesis of his attacks, little more than
the clap that starts the avalanche. Thus he would have suffered his
attacks ff he had pursued only an ordinary mundane career. Today he
would have been treated with drugs, and probably successfully; but his
own doctors were almost entirely lacking in any k i n d of effective treatment. An example of the attitudes of t h a t time is given b y his wife:
although one of her brothers was the director of a hospital in Berlin and
so familiar with medical problems, she herself always attributed her
husband's illness simply to overwork, sa B u t if his contemporaries were
uncomprehending of his illness, at least t h e y were unusually liberal in
granting him as they did the periods of release that he would not have
secured in many another country.
9. CANTOR'SFINAL YEARS AT H ~ E
Our final task is to describe these last twenty years of Cantor's life.
We have seen that they were only punctuated, rather than dominated,
b y periods of illness; b u t the activities to which he devoted himself during
his periods of clarity were sometimes related both intellectually and
chronologically to his depressions. During his correspondence with
Dedekind in 1899 he claimed to have abandoned work on the BaconShakespeare question, sa b u t in 1902, when he was on leave from the
83 According to family reminiscence. Cantor's brother-in-law, Paul Guttmann, died
in 1893, before Cantor's illness assumed serious proportions. ~Iany letters to him from
Cantor survive in 2aohlass Cantor, III.
84 See the introduction to E. ~ e e t h e r and J. Cavaillbs, op. cit. (foot-note 19).
370
I. Grattan-Guinness
University, he secured the co-operation of his colleague at Halle, G.

Wissowa; the professor of classics, in the preparation of the second edition
of his 1897 pamphlet on the Rawley collection of elegies to Bacon. This
time the Latin texts would appear opposite a German translation: the
translations were prepared with Wissowa's help, b u t he must have become
understandably sceptical about the project and it was abandoned at the
page-proof stage, presumably when Cantor had an attack during the
summer which manifested itself in further protests in the Faculty
Circulate. s5 B y September 1903, he had recovered sufficiently to address
the Kassel meeting of the Deutsche Mathematiker-Vereinigung on the
paradoxes of the theory of sets and express his suspicions of the ' French
philosophers' (presumably Poincar~'s) methods of solving them. s6 In
August 1904, he attended the third International Congress of Mathematicians at Heidelberg with his daughters Else and Anna-Marie.
Although he did not read a paper, some controversial results were
announced concerning well-ordered sets which in part implied that his
Continuum Hypothesis was false; and he was long remembered for his
exhortations to the fellow participants to find the mistake in the new
results, s7 He was suffering the beginnings of another attack, and a month
later was in hospital once more.
Shortly after his release in the following spring he stayed with his
sister Sophie at Nauuhof near Leipzig and was inspired on 29 March to
write a religious tract. On the same day he wrote to P. Jourdain, a
young English mathematician who wrote both on theory of sets and its
application to analysis and also on the historical development of the
85 See o u r D o c u m e n t V I I I . T h e proofs of t h e second e d i t i o n o f C a n t o r ' s Die ttawley'sche
Sammlung (foot-note 67), a l o n g w i t h copies of Confessio Fidei (foot-note 62) a n d Resurrectlo
Divi Quz~ini (foot-note 63), a r e i n a b o u n d v o l u m e e n t i t l e d Georg Cantors Baconiana in t h e
Universitgits. und Landesbibtlothek, 401 Hallc/Saale, A u g u s t - B e b e l - S t r a s s o 13, E. G e r m a n y
D . D . R . T h i s l i b r a r y also possesses a few l e t t e r s f r o m C a n t o r to h i s colleagues, i n c l u d i n g
one to F . L e e r s o f 24 F e b r u a r y 1900, w h i c h a p p e a r e d in p h o t o g r a p h i c r e p r o d u c t i o n in
I t . Meschkowski, op. cit. (foot-note 5), b e t w e e n pp. 272 a n d 273. T h i s letter belongs to t h e
period o f C a n t o r ' s 1899 b r e a k d o w n a n d is c o n c e r n e d w i t h t h e U n i v e r s i t y c o n t r o v e r s i e s of
t h e t i m e : it is s i n g u l a r l y u n f o r t u n a t e t h a t it w a s p u b l i s h e d w i t h o u t a n y e x p l a n a t i o n o f its
c o n t e n t s or t h e r e a s o n s for its e x t r e m e l y forceful c h a r a c t e r .
86 F o r a notice of t h e lecture, e n t i t l e d ' B e m e r k u n g e n z u r M e n g e n l e h r o ', see Jsbr. dtsch.
Math.-Ver., 1903, 12, 519. I t w a s n o t p u b l i s h e d , a n d o u r i n f o r m a t i o n o n it c o m e s f r o m A.
SohTnflios, ' ~)ber die S t e l l u n g d e r Definition in der A x i o m a t i k ', ibid., 1911, 20, 222-255
(p. 251).
sT T h e c o n t r o v e r s i a l p a p e r w a s J. K T n i g , ' Z u m K o n t i n u u m - P r o b l e m ', Ycrhandlungcn
des dritten internationalen Mathematiker.Kongresses (ed. A. K r a z e r ) , Leipzig, 1905, p p . 1 4 4 147, w h i c h c l a i m e d to p r o v e t h a t t h e c o n t i n u u m w a s n o t well-ordered, in c o n t r a s t to C a n t o r ' s
belief t h a t e v e r y set h a d t h i s p r o p e r t y . O n G a n t o r ' s b e h a v i o u r a t t h e Congress, see A.
SchSnflies (foot-note 44), 100-101 (also in h i s ' Gcorg C a n t o r ', Mitteld. JSebcnsb., 1928, 3,
548-563, pp. 560-563); a n d G. K o w a l e w s k i (foot-note 38), pp. 198-205.
371
subject, and who had recently been in correspondence with Cantor on his
work. Cantor did not say in his letter at which hospital he had been
staying, but he gave the dates as from 17 September 1904 to 1 March 1905
and described the writing of his new tract, ss He also enclosed the manuscript and requested an English translation, which Jourdain apparently
prepared and sent to him but which is now lost. I n early April, while a
copy of the manuscript made by one of his sister's children was in the
press, he wrote about it to Mrs. Young; s9 and later in the month he sent
her a copy of the published version, a small twelve-page pamphlet entitled
Ex Oriente Lux.gO This was the first of an intended series of conversations
between a master and his student on ' essential points of documentary
Christianity '. Although Cantor described himself on the title page as
the student, he was clearly speaking in forthright style as the master in
the main text, chiefly on the theme t h a t Christ was the natural son of
Joseph of Arimathea. I t is not clear why he should have taken this
thesis into his collection of obsessions: the fragments of religious writings
t h a t survive in his personal papers deal with other questions. Perhaps
it was an aspect of his individual religious position: he had been baptised
as an evangelist 91 and thus followed the religion of most of his family, but
he claimed to belong to no organised Christian church as such. 92
Cantor had one other publication in 1905--the text of a letter on the
three-body problem t h a t he had received from Weierstrass in 189123
B u t he still hoped to write further on theory of sets, and in 1908 promised
to Young to send his next paper to the Journal of the Zondon Mathematical
Society, in a letter in which he rejected some recent unpleasant remarks
ss See o u r D o c u m e n t I X below. The m a n u s c r i p t is n o w in Stockholm/Jou~dain, noteb o o k 2, p. 119.

s9 See our D o c u m e n t X below.
~0 G. Cantor, E x Oriente Lux. Gespr~che ei/~es Meisters mit seinem Schi1er i~ber wesent-
liehe Punkte des urkundlichen Chrgstenthums.

Beriehtet vom Schiller selbst Georg Jacob Aaron,
Cand. Saer. Theol. Erstes Gespraeh, Halle/Saale, 1905. I n a d d i t i o n to t h e c o p y in London[
Young, there is one is W i s s o w a ' s b o u n d v o l u m e described in foot-note 85.
91 See, for example, folio 141 of our D o c u m e n t V I I below.
92 F o r e x t r a c t s f r o m letters b y C a n t o r on religious m a t t e r s , see H. Meschkowski, loc. cir.,
(foot-note 4), pp. 514-518; a n d op. cir. (foot-note 5), pp. 122-129.
9a G. Cantor, ' Brief y o n Carl W e i e r s t r a s s tiber d a s D r e i k t r p e r p r o b l e m ', Rend. G~rv.
Mat. Palermo, 1905, 19, 305-308. See C a n t o r ' s reference to this p u b l i c a t i o n in our Docum e n t I X below: his covering letter to the p a p e r w a s d a t e d 17 J a n u a r y 1905, while he w a s
still confined in hospital. H e h a d b e e n requested to p u b l i s h t h e letter b y colleagues a t the
I n t e r n a t i o n a l Congress of 1904 a t Heidelberg.
F o r a p h o t o g r a p h of Cantor t a k e n in 1906, see P l a t e X X V I I .
t~LATE X X I I
An~als of Science
[PLATE X X V I I .
Cantor on holiday at Strobahai in the Harz mountains, 1906.

372
I. Grattan-Guinness
by Poincard against the theory and also against his friend, Hermite24
The paper t h a t he had promised was never written, but during his periods
of good health he fulfilled all his University duties; and in September 1911
he at last achieved his long-held ambition to visit Britain, the home of
Bacon and Shakespeare. B u t the stay was terminated by an illness of
his son Erich in Germany, and, more importantly, the onset of another
attack of mental illness.
The main reason for the visit was the celebration of the 500th anniversary of the foundation of St. Andrews University in Scotland from the
12-15 September. Cantor had been invited as a distinguished foreign
scholar: 9~ it seems most likely t h a t the suggestion for his invitation
would have come from A. E. Taylor, the professor of moral philosophy,
who had a deep interest in symbolic logic and all branches of mathematics
(such as theory of sets) t h a t were of philosophical interest and importance.
During the visit he apparently began to behave eccentrically, talking at
great length on the Bacon-Shakespeare question; and then he travelled
down to stay in London for a few days. On the 16 and 19 September he
wrote to the then Hon. B. Russell, who had just finished with A. N.
Whitehead their Principia Mathematica, a work in which the whole
treatment of arithmetic and real numbers was based on Cantor's ideas and
part of whose purpose was to formulate a mathematical system t h a t
would avoid the known paradoxes of the theory of sets26 Cantor was
naturally interested in Russell's work, and wrote in order to arrange a
meeting which in the end never took place. I t is a matter of singular
misfortune t h a t in his recent Autobiography Lord Russell chose to publish
these letters in the way t h a t he did, with an introduction in which he
stated his admiration for Cantor but then thoughtlessly, as well as
inaccurately, remarked on his mental illness as follows:
~4 See W. H. Young, ' The progress of mathematical analysis in the twentieth century ',
Proe. Lond. Math. Sot., 1926, 24 (2), 421-434 (pp. 422-423): the letter in question was
written by Cantor in German, an4 is in London/Young. Poinear6's remarks m a y be seen
in the section ' le Cantorisme ' of his address ' L'avenir des math6matiques ' to the 1908
International Congress of Mathematicians in Rome, in the Atti de/ I V Congresso Internazionale dei Matematiei (3 vols., ed. G. Castelnuovo), Rome, 1909, vol. i, pp. 167-182.
(Also publishec[ in Bey. g ~ . sci. par. appl., 1908, 19, 930-939; Seientia, 1908, 4, 1-23;
Bend. Circ. Mat. Paler~no, 1908, 26, 152-168; Bull. sei. math., 1908, 32 (2), pt. 1, 168-190;
and ~cience et m~thode, Paris, 1908, book 1, ch. 2.)
95 See University of St. Andrews. Celebration of the five hundredth anniversary of the
foundation. Jhist of guests and hosts and list of hosts and guests, Dundee, 1911, pp. 7 and 38.
~GA. N. Whitehead and :B. A. W. Russell, Prlnclpia Mathematica, 1st ed., 3 vols.,
Cambridge, 1910-13.
T o w a r d s a B i o g r a p h y o f Georg Cantor
373
'George Cantor, the subject of the following letter, 97 was in m y

opinion, one of the greatest intellects of the nineteenth century . . . . . .
After reading the following letter, no one will be surprised to learn t h a t
he spent a large part of his life in a lunatic asylum . . . . . . ,gs
The two letters from C a n t o r are u n d e n i a b l y erratic: in fact, t h e
m a n u s c r i p t s are even more revealing, for t h e y show several of his h a b i t s
w h e n he was in a state o f agitation. The h a n d w r i t i n g is v e r y flowery
a n d tends to rise up the page; a n d not only does it continue in t h e margins
of the page (a practice t h a t he often followed) b u t on one page of t h e
second letter he cross-writes from t o p t o b o t t o m over lines a l r e a d y w r i t t e n
from left to right: there is even a p a r a g r a p h on the b a c k of the envelope.
Quite clearly t h e letters should h a v e been published only with t h e m o s t
careful a n d s y m p a t h e t i c a n n o t a t i o n ; t h e f a c t t h a t t h e y h a v e a p p e a r e d
w i t h such a careless i n t r o d u c t i o n can only h a v e a d d e d to t h e difficulties o f
d e s t r o y i n g t h e C a n t o r legend. 1
A f t e r his r e t i r e m e n t in April 1913, C a n t o r lived quietly at home. H e
h a d been at Halle U n i v e r s i t y for 44 years, 34 of t h e m as ordentlicher
P r o f e s s o r ; a n d a l t h o u g h he h a d suffered his share of c o n t r o v e r s y in
U n i v e r s i t y affairs during a difficult period a n d never e n j o y e d either t h e
a d m i n i s t r a t i v e or teaching responsibilities of his post, he always discharged
t h e m conscientiously a n d was r e m e m b e r e d as a clear and indeed inspiring
teacher. TM D u r i n g his last years he received various honours a n d
h o n o r a r y degrees, including a D o c t o r a t e o f Laws from St. A n d r e w ' s
U n i v e r s i t y in 1912 which he was too ill to receive personally; 1~ in 1915
his 70th b i r t h d a y was celebrated with a c e r e m o n y a t his h o m e and t h e
commission o f a b u s t b y his friends which was completed in the following
9~From an acquaintance of Russell's, who had just met Cantor after his visit to St.
Andrews.
88See The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, 3 vols., London,1967-69, vol. i, p. 217;
Cantor's letters are on pp. 218-220. Cantor could not attend the next International
Congress, at Cambridge, in the following August. For Russell's tributary remarks to him,
s e e lel]th International Congress of Mathematicians Proceedi/ngs, (2 vols., ed. E. W. Hobson
and A. E. H. Love), Cambridge, 1913, vol. i, p. 53.
09The manuscripts are now kept in the :Bertrand Russell Archives, Mills Memorial
Library, l~oMast~r University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. General information on this
voluminous collection of papers may be gathered from A detailed catalogue of the archives of
Bertrand l~ussell, London, 1967.
100It is perhaps worth remarking that this paragraph was written shortly before the
recent death of Lord Russell.
101 See, for example, M. Krause, 'Enno giirgens ', Jsbr. dtseh. Ma$h-Ver., 1908, 17,
1 6 3 - 1 7 0 (p. 165).
10s The correspondence dealing
with this degree is in Naehlass Cantor, X. According

to it and the present Secretary of the University of St. Andrews, College Gate, St. Andrews,
honorary degrees were awarded by a decision of the Senatus Academicus following recommendations from its members. It is plausible that again A. E. Taylor was the inspiration
behind Cantor's nomination.
374
I. Grattan-Guinness
year. 13 B u t he was gradually slipping away. The war conditions led to

difficulties in obtaining food, and he became thin and hungry as well as
tired and ill.TM He was taken to the Ncrvenklinik in Halle for the last
time in June 1917: he did not want to go, and constantly wrote to his
wife asking her to come and take him home. I n December he received
m a n y congratulations for the fiftieth anniversary of his Dissertation 15
and hoped to answer all the letters, but there was not to be time. In the
New Year he sent to his wife the leaves of a calendar for the last forty
days of the Old Year, to show t h a t he had lived through it; TM but on the
6 J a n u a r y he died suddenly and painlessly after a heart attack, and was
buried in Halle next to his son Rudolf. 17
T E X T S OF ~ I T E D D O C U i K E N T S
We present these ten documents in chronological order, with brief

introductory remarks where necessary and occasional foot-notes giving
clarification to the text or the details of cited publications. We indicate
the foliation by a double line [] in the text and the folio number in the
margin; and we preserve contemporary spellings and the occasional
grammatical mistake.
DOCt~IE:~T I. Extracts of a letter from Cantor to the Kultusminister,
20 November 1881: the proposal for Dedekind to succeed Heine. ls
We omit the sections of this letter proposing Weber and Mertens after
Dedekind as Heine's replacement.
fol. 126
]l Halle a/S d. 20ten Nov. 1881.
Excellenz:
Dureh das beklagenswerthe friihzeitige Ableben unseres verewigten
Collegen Eduard S.~~ Heine, der sowohl eine hohe Zierde seiner
Wissenshaft, als aueh ein naeh allen Beziehungen hochverehrter
1 0 s See W. Lorey, ' D e r
70. G e b u r t s t a g des M a t h e m a t i k e r s G e e r g C a n t o r ', Zeitsehx.
Math. na~urw. Un~err., 1915, 46, 259-274. H i l b c r t g a v e a s p e e c h w h o s e m a n u s c r i p t
s u r v i v e s in (75t~ingen/Hilbert, i t e m 574. T h e b u s t n o w s t a n d s i n t h e Aula o f H a l l e U n i v e r s i t y : for a p h o t o g r a p h of it see H . M e s c h k o w s k i , op. egG. (foot-note 5), frontispiece.
104 See M. Peters, op. cir. (foot-note 26), p. 65.
For a photograph of Cantor at this
t i m e see P l a t e X X V I I I .
106 T h o s e letters s u r v i v e in Naohlaes Gantor, X .
10~ T h e l e t t e r s to h i s wife s u r v i v e in Nachlass Can~or, I I .
10~ T h e f a m i l y g r a v e is in a c o m e t a r y n o w celled t h e Neuer Friedho], H a l l o / S a a l e a n d
c o n t a i n s in a d d i t i o n to Georg a n d R u d o l f h i s wife Vally, h i s d a u g h t e r s A n n a - M a r i a a n d Else,
a n d his d a u g h t e r G e r t r u d a n d h e r h u s b a n d a n d d a u g h t e r .
10s Halle/Phil. Fat., vol. 135, p a r t H , ft. 126-127. T h e letter w a s copied o u t a n d s e n t
to t h e Kultusministeriu,ra in t h e n a m e o f t h e U n i v e r s i t y . A t y p e d c o p y o f t h a t v e r s i o n
e x i s t s in Merseburg/Halle U n i v , no. 34, re1. X I H , ft. 166-167, w i t h a r e m a r k tha~ t h e
original is in Berli/~/Darmstaedter; b u t is is n o t to be f o u n d in t h a t source. F o r d i s c u s s i o n
o f t h i s d o c u m e n t i n o u r n a r r a t i v e , see f o o t - n o t e 17 a n d t e x t lo9 Sic: H e i n e ' s second n a m e w a s Heinrieh.
PLAT3~
Annals of Science.
PLATE X X V I I I . Can~or in 1917, a few months before his death.

XXVII
fol. 126
verso
fol. 127
375
Mitglied unserer Fakulti~t und unserer Universit/~t war, sind wir in

der Lage, die Neubesetzung der yon ihm zuriickgelassenen Stelle der
Mathematik yon Ew. Excellenz Gewogenheit zu erbitten.
Indem wir uns die Ehre geben, Ew. Excellenz hierauf bezfigliche
Vorschli~ge, in 4er Hoffnung auf ihre Erffillung, zu machen, geben
wir yon dem Grundsatze aus, 4as Andenken unseres seligen Collegen
am meiston dadurch zu ehren, dass wir auf einen mSgliehst tilchtigen
und bedeutenden Nachfolger den grSssten Werth legen.
An erster Stelle bezeichnen wit den H e r r n D r. Richard Dedekind,
Professor an der technischen Hochschule in Braunschweig als
derjenigen, dessen hervorragende wissenschaftliche Leistungen
verbunden m i t reicher Erfahrung in hoheren mathematischen
Unterriehtsfache ihn ganz besonders geeignet erscheinen lassen, die
eingetretetene Lficke in allen Richtungen aufs Beste aufzuffillen.
Als Schiller Lejeune-Dirichlets in alle Hdiejenigen Gebiete vollkommen
eingeweiht, welche vorzugsweise der Lehrti~tigkeit des verstorbenen
H e r r n Heine zu Grunde lagen, h a t Herr Dedekind sich nicht allein
grosse Verdienste durch Herausgabe der Werke Lejeune-Dirichlets
und B. Riemann's erwerben, sondern er hat auch als selbst/indiger
Forseher durch fundamentale Untersuchungem fiber die algebraischen
Zahlen und die elliptischen Modu]functionen sich die Anerkennung
aller Fachgenossen verschafft.
Der Umstand, dass H e r r Dedekind in den letzten achtzehn J a h r e n
keiner Universit/~t angehSrt, kann nicht gegen seine Berufung
angeffihrt werden, sondern sogleich eher ffir dieselbe da es nicht um
in unsern, sondern auch yon allgemeinem Interesse sein dilrfte,
einen so ausgezeichneten Mann ffir den akademischen Unterricht
endlich wieder zurfickzugewirmen . . . . . Sollten aber, ganz gegen
unser Erwarten, unfiberwindliche Schwierigkeiten die Berufung bei
allen diesen yon uns Genannten zur UnmSglichkeit machen, so
ersuchen wir ffir diesen Fall Ew. Exeellenz, ganz gehSrsamst und
inst/indigst, uns yon Neuem Gelegenheit zu geben, Personen zu
nennen die uns alsdarm die geeignesten scheinen werden.
Cantor. n0
DOCUMENT I I . Letter from Dedelcind to the K u l t u s m i n i s t e r , 6 January

1882: the rejection of the Halle professorship, m
1
11Ew. Hochwohlgeboren
Werden mein Schreiben veto 2 d. M. erhalten haben, in welchem ich
mir erlaubte, fiir die ehrenwollen Anerbietungen der KSnigl.
Preussischen Regierung vorlailfig meinen ergebensten Dank auzusprechen. Nachdem ich yon meiner Reise zurfickgekehrt bin und
noch die beiden letzten Tage dazu benutzt habe, fiber die mir
erSffneten Aussichten reichlich und in vSlliger Ruhe nachzuclenken,
verfehle ieh nicht, nunmehr Ew. Hochwohlgeboren mitzutheilen,
110 The s i g n a t u r e s of a g r e e m e n t of the obher professors of the F a c u l t y follow here.

in A t y p e d c o p y of this letter is in Merseburg/Halle Univ., no 34, vol. X I I I , ft. 168-169 :
the original is in Berlln/Darmstaedter, H* 1863, a n d we indicate the foliation of this version.
F o r the discussion of this d o c u m e n t in our n a r r a t i v e see foot-note 18 a n d text.
376
dass ich zu meinem lebhaften Bedauern mich II ausser Stande sehe,
die Berufung naeh Hallo in die Stelle des verewigten Prof. Heine
anzunehmen. Die grosse Ehre, welehe darin liegt, der Nachfolger
eines so hochangesehenen 1VIannes zu werden, verkenne ieh keineswegs, und ich fiige hinzu, dass der Gedanke, an der Soite yon
hoehgesch~tzten Kollegen racine Wissensehaft in grSsserer Ausdehhung und tieferer Auffassung lehren zu kSnnen, Ms es mir nach der
N a t u r meines gegenw/irtigen Amtes m6glieh ist einen Reiz auf mich
ausiibt, dora zu widerstehen mir sehr schwer wird. Auch bestehen
die besonderen Verh/~ltnisse sehoa lange nieht mehr, welehe im J a h r e
1874 reich bewegen mussteD, auf die Annahme der yon Ew. Hoehwohlgeboren mir angetragenen Professor an der Universit/~t Greifswald zu verzichten. Andererseits brauche ich k a u m zu erw/ihnen,
dass es mir nicht leicht wird, naeh einer bald zwanzigj/~hrigen
Wirksamkeit aus meiner hiesigen Stellung zu scheiden und damit J]
zugleieh den gemeinschaftliehen Haushalt mit meiner Mutter und
Sehwester aufzu16sen, donen ieh eine Uobersiedelung nach einem
fremden Orte nicht zumuthen kann. Aber auch wenn dem nieht
so w/~re, so miissten doch schon die yon Ew. Hochwohlgeboren mir
mitgetheilten Gehaltsbedingungen mieh bestimmen, meine hiesige
Stellung nicht aufzugeben; ioh beziehe j/~hrlieh als Professor an tier
technischen Hochschule 6000M, als Mitglied tier Obersehulcommission
900M und als Mitglied versehiedener Prtifungskommissionen 530M,
in Ganzen also 7430M; da ieh nieht reich bin, so kann ich auf eine
Sehm/ilerung dieses festen Einkommens durehaus nicht eingehen,
und ich wiirde deshalb auoh die Professur in Hallo ohne Zusicherung
eines festen gahrgehalts von mindestens 7500M nicht annehmen
k6nnen.
I n d e m ich Ew. I-Iochwohlgeboren noehmals meinen ehrerbietigen
Dank fiir die ]l mir gemachten Anerbietungen ausdriieke, die ieh
lebhaft bedaure unter den gegenw/~rtigen Verh/~ltnissen ablehnen zu
miissen, verbleibe ieh mit ausgezeichneter Hoehachtung,
Ew. ttoehwohlgeboren
ganz ergebenster
Braunsohweig,
6 J a n u a r 1882.
R. Dedekind.
DOCUMENT I I I .
Letter from Cantor to Mittag-Leffler, 21 J u n e

a return to work after illness, n2
1884:
T h e h a n d w r i t i n g o f this letter is n o t p a r t i c u l a r l y excited or depressed,

b u t its t o n e is s o m e w h a t self-deprecating.
1
II Halle 4.21 Juni 1884.

Mein lieber Freund,
~iir ihren lieben Brief v. 15 Mai sage ieh Ihnen herzlichen Dank, ich
wiirde ilm friiher schon beantwortet haben, doeh fiihle ieh reich seit
n~Stockholm/Mittag-Leffler, H: partly quoted in/k. Sch6nflies, foot-note 1, p. 9. For

discussion of this document in our narrative, see foot-note 27 and text.
377
einige Zeit nicht so frisch, wie es sein soIlte, in Folge dessert weiss
ich auch nicht, wann ich zur Fortsetzung meiner wissensohaftlichen
Arbeiten kommen werde; momentan kann ich darin gar nichts thun
und beschrtinke mich auf nothwendigsgo Vorlesungsth~tig ]] keit; um
wie viel lieber wiirde ich wissenschaftlich thStig soin, wenn ieh dazu
mir die nSthige geistige Frische hgtte!
Ihre grosse Abhandlung zur Functionenlehreala erhalte ich heute und
danke Ihnen tausondmal fiir die Ueborsendung. Hoffentlich komme
ich bMd dazu, sic griindJich zu studiren. Ich freue reich herzlich,
dass Sic damit endlich fertig geworden sind und danke Ihnen auch
fiir die vielen freundliehen Erinnerungon an meine Kleinigkeiton.
Sollten Sic wirklich die grosso Roise nach Algier angotreten haben so
hoffe ich, class Sic dieselbe gliicldich zuriicklegen werden.
I] Meine Frau und Kinder befinden sich wohl.
Leben Sie herzlich wohl und, wenn Sie Zeit finden, erfreuen Sie
gelegontlieh mit Nachriehton.
Ihrem
treu ergobenen Freund
G. Cantor.
Bitte reich aueh Ihrer Fr~u Gemahlin bestens zu empfehlen.
DOCUMenT IV. Extract of letter from Schwarz to E. R. Noevius, 13 October
1888: Cantor's reaction to the professorship at G6ttingen. TM
As opposed to Cantor, who d r a f t e d o u t his letters in a Briefbuch,
Schwarz m a d e copies o f his final versions in a Copiebuch b y some s y s t e m
o f carbon copying: t h u s we r e a d h e r e the t e x t as received b y Noevius.
W e q u o t e only t h e p a r a g r a p h o f t h e letter dealing with Cantor.
Ir GSttingen, Weender Chausseo 17A,
den 13tn October 1888.
67
Mein Lieber Freund!

.........
W~hrend des Endes des l~Ionats September war ich einer
dringenden Einladung der Herrn Professor Weierstrass gefolgt und
nach Wernigerode gereist. Dort t r a f ich ausser Herrn Weierstrass
Herrn Mittag-Leffier, Frau yon Kowa]ewski und die Herren Cantor
und Hettner. Herr Cantor hat mir einen Auftritt veranlasst, der
die unangenehmstern Folgen zu haben schien; er wurde yon Horrn
W. auf das entscheidenste verurtheilt, mir gegeniiber. N~heres
entzieht sich einer schriftlichen Mitteilung, denn scripts littera manet.
ns G. Mittag-Lofller, ' Sur la repr6sentation analy~ique des fonctions monog~nes uni.

formes d'une variable ind6pendante ', Acta Math., 1884, 4, 1-79.
n~ Berli/~]~chwarz, Gop/eSuch 4, pp. 67-70. For disoussion of t~his document in our
narrative, see foot-note 42 and text.
Ann. of Sci.--Vol. 27, No. 4.
2d
378
Wenn Sie mieh wieder einmal besuchen, k6nnen wir vielleicht tiber
die Sache reden. Die Ursaehe, weshalb H e r r C. auf mieh so erbosst
ist, ist ganz einfaeh, class er nicht den t~uf nach G6ttingen bekommen
hat und sein Benehmen war ganz unqualifizirbar. Als die Explosion
erfolgte, hatte er sich wohlweislich gedriickt und ist dann bald
abgereis~; er hat es seiner bekannten Gemuthsverfassung zuzuschreiben, dass er nicht eine ausgesprochene Zurechtweisung erhielt;
aber ich breche hiervon ab, da er zu unerfreulich ist. Nach der
Abreise des Herrn Cantor blieb ich noch einige Tage in Wernigerode
und hatte unter Anderem mit H e r r n Prof. Weierstrass, Herrn M.
Leffier und Frau yon Kowalewski noch einige sehr interessante
wissenschaftliche Unterhaltungen . . . . . . . . . . . .
DOCUM]~T V. Letter f r o m Cantor to Dr. Graf von Posadowslcy-Wehner,
10 November 1899: the request for a new appointment, n5
T h e C o u n t A. A. y o n P o s a d o w s k y - W e h n e r was a s t a t e s e c r e t a r y in the
Ministry of t h e I n t e r i o r a n d also r e p r e s e n t a t i v e of t h e C h a n c e l r y a n d the
Ministry of State. C a n t o r ' s writing is v e r y flowery a n d excited, especially
on the last p a g e w h e r e he also filled t h e m a r g i n s with his final sentences.
H e w r o t e f r o m Berlin, a n d f r o m his letter it is clear t h a t he h a d
m e e t i n g s w i t h officials o v e r his request.
fol. 146
[I C. Berlin
10 Nov. 1899.
An der Nicolaikirohe N 4-5 II
ttochwohlgeborener H e r r Graf,
I n der Ew. Exeellenz H~indo habe ich mein Gesuch um geeignete
Verwendung im diplomatisehen Dienst Sr. Majest~t des K6nigs yon
Prellssen,
Kaiser Wilhelm I I
yon
Deutschland
fol. 147
foI. 148
]] gelegt und danke Ew. Exeellenz dafiir, dass Hoehdieselben es nicht

abgelehnt haben, racine Bitte Sr. Durchlaueht den Herrn Reiehkanzler
Fiirsten yon Hohenlohe
vorzutragem
Ew. Exeellenz erlaube mir noeh die private Erkli~rung, class ich keine
aeusseren Ehren oder Belohnungen zu erstreben habe; eine schlichte
Bibliothekarstelle ohne hervortretenden I{ Titel wiirde mir am meisten
zusagen. Aueh das GehaR brauchte nieht erheblich hSher, als mein
jetztiges zu sein. Nur um meinen aus eigener Machtvollkommenheit
lxa Merseburg/Halle Univ., no. 34, vol. XX, iT. 146-149. For discussion of this document
in our narrative, see foot-note 74 and text.
fol. 149
379
gethanen Schritt vor meiner theuren Gattin gerechtfertigt erscheinen zu

lassen (die naturgem~ss die G e b u r t s s t ~ t ihrer liebliehen Kinder nur
hSchst ungern verlassen wiirde und yon meinen unab~inderlichen
Entschlusse, den deutschen Profess II orenstand unter allen Umsti~nden aufzugeben, noeh nichts weiss) wiirde es sich, im Falle Gew~hrung
meines Gesuehs, vielleieht empfehlen, mit der Verwendung oder
Anstellung einen einfachen Geheimrathstitel zu verfinden. Zu Ew.
Excellenz Information mSchte ich noch hinzufiigen, dass ich in den
letzten ffinfzehn Jahren die Frage der Autorshaft der Shalcespearedichtungen bis auf dem innersten Grund gel6st babe, und zwar zu
Gi~nsten yon Baron yon Verulam, Vicegrafen von St. Alban (Francis
Bacon) und dass ich gleiehzeitig historisehen Erkenntnissen fiber
die ersten K6nige yon Grossbritannien gelangt bin, welehe die
englische Regierung in einen heilsamen Schreclcen unfehlbar setzen
werden, sobald die Sache publicirt sein wird.
Genehmigen Sic, ttochgeborener H e r r Graf, den Ausdruck ehrerbietigster I-Iochseh~tzung.
Ihres ergebensten Dieners
Georg Cantor.
DOCUMENT V I .
Visiting cards from Cantor to the Ministry, November,

1899: biographical details, n6
I t is n o t a b s o l u t e l y certain t o w h o m these cards were addressed or

w h e n t h e y were written, b u t , as t h e y are c a t a l o g u e d i m m e d i a t e l y p r i o r
t o D o c u m e n t V above, it is quite likely t h a t t h e y a c c o m p a n i e d t h a t l e t t e r
to C o u n t y o n P o s a d o w s k y - W e h n e r . On folio 142 C a n t o r i n c o r p o r a t e s
his p r i n t e d n a m e on t h e c a r d into his t e x t , a n d we h a v e set it c e n t r a l l y in
o u r rendition: otherwise he w r o t e w i t h vigour on either t h e reverse or
on b o t h faces o f e a c h card, a n d s o m e t i m e s in t h e margins. S o m e of t h e
cards give his n a m e , address a n d a p p o i n t m e n t , b u t t h e card m e n t i o n e d
a b o v e is one of those which carries o n l y his n a m e .
fol. 136
fo]. 137
It Personale
des
Dr. Georg Cantor.
Ordentl. Professor d. Mathematik
a. d. Univ.
Halle-Wittenberg
]J geb. 19 Febr. alten Styls 1845 in St. Petersburg.
Mein Vater ein geborener D~ne aus Kopenhagen k a m als Kind naeh
St. Petersburg, war Mtlutherisch und siedelte aus Gesundheitsriicksiehten 1856 nach Sfiddeutschland, zuletzt Frankfurt a/Main. E r
starb, im J a h r e 1863 in Heidelberg, wo er begraben ist. Meine sel.
116Merseburg/Halle Univ., no. 34, voL XX, ft. 137-145 verso. For discussion of this
document in our narrative, see foot-note 75 and text.
2d2
380
fol. 138
fol. 139
fol. 140
fol. 141
fol. 142
fol. 142
verso
fol. 143
fol. 143
verso
fol. 144
fol. 144
verso
I. Grattan-Guinness
Mutter Maria gob. BShm, eine in St. Petersburg geborene
Ungar.Deutsche I[ (N. B. Torts. I) war rSm. Katholisch, lebta seit
Herbst 1863 mit ihren Kindern in Berlin (zuletzt in der Schellingstr.),
we sic im Herbst 1896 gestorben ist; sic ruht auf dem St. Hedwigskirchhofe bier. Ihr Vater Louis B6hm war Violinvirtuose, ebenso
ihre Mutter Maria gob. Marowek Violinvirtuosin an der Kais.
Hofoper in St. Petersburg unter Czar l~ikolaus I. H (N. B. Torts. II)
Ihre Stiefmutter Frau Sophie B6hm, gob. Marowek, ebenso Ihre
Tante Frau Justine yon Czerwena gob. Marowek waren beide in
langj~ihrigen Diensten der Kaiserl. Russischen Dynastic als treu
Kammerfrauen Ihrer Kais. Hoheit, der Grossffirstin Maria Nikolajewna, die in ersC~r Ehe mit einem Fiirsten yon Lauchtenberg in
zweiter mit einem Grafen Stroganoff verheiratet war. II (N. B.
Forts. III) Mein jiingerer Briider Constantin Cantor, der in Januar
dieses Jahres in Capri gestorben ist, war Offieier in einem Grossen
Hesslichen Dragonerregiment, hat im Kriege yon 1870-71 mit
Auszeichnung gek/impft. E r zog nach seiner Verheirathung mit
einer Baronesse yon der Capellen sich als Rittermeister in's Privatleben zurfick, verlor frfih [I (N. B. Forts. IV) seine Frau, blieb dann
in Italien und heirathete spi~ter eine junge Capreserin, nach dem er
sic in einem Kloster hatte erziehen lassen, die als Wittwe mit dem
einzigen T6chterchen Assunta Maria in Capri lebt. Ich bin ebenso
wie racine Frau Vally gob. Guttmann (aus Ratibor) und unsere sechs
Kinder: Else, Gertrud, Erich, Anna-Marie, Margarethe, Rudolf,
evangelisch/ Unsere Ehe ist am 9 Aug. 1874 geschlossen worden.
In Halle lobe ich als Univ. Lehrer seit 1869. Mein Gehalt als Prof. :
6000Mk. J[ z. Z. Adresse C. Berlin, An der Nikolaikirche 4-5 n.
10 Novemb. 1899.
F. Ph. L. Georg Cantor
giebt sich die Ehre dem KSnigl Preuss. Ministerium der Auswart.
Angelegenheiten seine Dienste als Historiker, auf [[ Grund funfzehnj~hriger Studien der Geheimgeschichte des 16ten, 17ten und 18ten
Jahrhunderts anzubieten. Ich bin jederzeit bereit, der Prfifung
moiner Qualification reich zu unterziehen.
F. Ph. L. Georg Cantor.
lI (N. B. Ite Fortsetzung.) Die Ursache meines Entschlusses, dem
doutschen Professorenstande definitiv zu entsagen, habe ich vor einer
Woehe ausfi~hrlich dem Director dem Gob. Kanzler des Cultusministeriums Herrn Geh. Rechnungsrath Hess ausein- H ander
gesetzt, durch den S. Excel]enz der Kgl. Preuss. Kultusminister
Herr yon Studt orientirt ist. Die yon mir nachgesuchte Audienz
bei Sr. Excellenz wird nach dessen Ri~ckkehr erfolgen.
Ich bitte darum baldigst Herrn Geh. Rechnungsrath Hess zu vernehmen I[
(N. B. 2 te Forts.) GehSrsamte Bitte wenn m6glieh heute odor morgen
fiber mein Gesuch zu entseheiden, da ich event, die Anwesenheit der
Kais. Russ. Diplomatic in Potsdam-Berlin Hbenutzen wfirde, um als
geborener Russe nach dreiundvierzigj~ihriger Abwesenheit yon meiner
alton geliebten Heimrath S r Majest~t dem
Czaar Nicolaus I I
meine diplomat.schen Dienste anzubieten.
381
fol. 145
II der Geh. Rechnungsrath Hess, vielmehr der Geh. Reehnungsrath

Schulze, Director des Central Bureaus im Cultusministerium ist meine
fol. 145
verso
Vertrauensp erson.17~ It I n dem yon mir eingereiohten Gesuch finder

sioh eine irrthumliche Angabo nieht.
DOCUMENT V I I .
Letter from Cantor to Klein, 31 December 1899: the death
of Rudolf.liB
The h a n d w r i t i n g o f this letter is v e r y spiky a n d shows t h e characteristic
of C a n t o r ' s elated states o f m i n d t h a t it tends to rise up t h e page as t h e
line progresses.
II Halle a.d. Saale 31 t~n Dee. 1899.
Lieber Freund und College,
Zugleich im Namen meiner Frau sende ich Ihnen, Ihrer Frau Gemahlin und dem juugen Brautpaar unsere herzliehen Gluckwiinsche zum
grossen Ereig~is in Ihrer Familie. Ieh freute mieh fiber die vorhin
eingetroffene Naehrieht yon der Verlobung Ihrer ~ltesten Tochter
umsomehr, als ich ja erst vor einigen Monaten Gelegenheit hatte, Sie
im Kreise Ihrer blfihenden Kiader nach l~ngerer Zeit wiederzusehen.
Wir sind vor vierzehn Tagen plStzlich, in tiefste Trauer versetzt
worden. Unser jiingster Kind Rudolf ist uns vier Tage vor seinem
dreizehnten Geburtstage, auf dem Wege in einen Handarbeitsunterrieht, dem er seit einiger Zeit besuchte, am 16ten Dee. dureh Herzschlag genommen worden. Ich war an jenen Tage zwecks II einer
5ffentliehen Vorlesung fiber die Bacon-Shakespearefrage im HStel
zum Palmbaum in Leipzig, kehre am 9 Uhr Abends naeh Hause
zuriick und erfahre, was uns um 3 Uhr Nachmittags widerfahren war.
Der Junge war zwar in seinen ersten Jahren zart und schw~chlich in
Folge dessen unser Sorgenkind; allein seit seehs Jahren entwickelte
er sich kSrperlich und geistig aufs Beste und war so liebevoll und
liebenswiirdig, dass er der ganzen Familie Liebling geworden ist.
Er war ausserordentlieh mnsikaliseh begabt, daher ieh reich der
Hoffnung hingab, dass er in die Tradition meiner miitterliehen
Familie B6hm, die aus Ungarn stammt, dereinst eintreten wiirde.
Meiu Grossvater Eranz B6hm war ein grossartiger Violinvirtuose an
der Kaiserl. Operncapelle in St. Petersburg und dessen Briider
Joseph B6hm, mein Grossonkel ist der Begrfinder der modernen
117Of the three officials named by Cantor in this letter, K. yon Studt had newly been
appointed Kultusmin~ster (officiallyknown as the Minister der geistlichen, Un~errichts.und
Medizinalangelegenhelten), F. Hesse was the Director of the Chancelry, and A. Sehulze was
the Director of the Central :Bureau.
ns G6ttingen[Klein, sect. VIII, letter 455. For discussion of this document in our
narrative, see foot-note 78 and text.
382
Wiener Geigersehule und z~hlte Ernst, Hauser, Auer, Ed. Singer,
G. ttellmesberger, Joachim, Rappoldi zu seinen Schtilern. I n Folge
dessen habe ich selbst schon mit sechs Jahren angefangen Geige 1] zu
spielen, braehte es darin auch ziemlich weit; nur der sonderbare
Einfall, der mir in meinem seehszehnten Lebensjahre erkommen ist,
ich weiss selbst nich~ mehr wie, die Mathematik zu meinem Brotstudium zn machcn, lenkte mich yon diesem heitern Kiinstlerberuf
ab und meine Violir~ liegt nun seit dreissig Jahren verlassen und
verkiimmert in ihrem staubigen Kasten, nur noch dazu da, um
gelegentlich in mir den fliichtigen Zweifel zu wecken, ob ich nieht
gliioklicher geblieben w~re, wenn ich ihr die angestammte Treue
bewahrt h~tte. So cntstand in mir der Wunsch, das nun Rudolf
sich ganz der Musik widmen sollte, in der er schon in seiner Jugend
das hSchste Gliick gefunden h a t t e - - u n d nun ist such diese Hoffnung
hin!
I n diesen Tagen schicke ich Hilbert, der mich seit lunge dahin dr~ngt,
eine kurze Mitteilung fiir die ,, Naehrichten der GSttinger Ges. d.
Wiss. ''n9 Es handelt sich um eine Sache, die ich schon lunge habe, II
eine Fortbildung, Kl~rung und in gewissem Sinne sogar Vollendung
meines bisherigen Arbeit.
Den Grund meines ZSgerns kennt Hilbert. Es waren Riicksichten
auf einen sehr hochgeschgtzten Collegen, mit dessen arithmetischen
Grundanschauungen ich in diametralen Gegensatze stehe; dass wird
durch diese Publication offenbar fiir jedermann werden.
Nun habe ich riicksiohtsvoll diese Sache vor fiinf Monaten demselben
Collegen zuerst vorgelegt, in der tIoffnung, seine Einw~nde zu hSren;
er versprach mir auch, die Priifung vorzunehmeu und mir zu schreiben. Allein ich habe nicht yon ihm zu hSren bekommen.
Jedenfalls ist er durch mein offenes Handeln griindlichst auf die
Publication des Gegensatzes vorbereitet und ich werde natiirlieh
nicht verfehlen, formel so zuvorkommend zubliebeu wie es einem um
die Algebra und Arithmetik so verdienten Manne gegeniiber, meine
Pflicht ist.
Mit ergebenstem Gruss,
I h r Georg Cantor.
Selected contributions by Cantor to circular notices of

the Philosophical Faculty of Halle University, for its sittings of 30 May and
16 July 1902: protests against Faculty procedures.12
DOCUMENT V I I I .
These t w o p a r a g r a p h s f r o m C a n t o r ' s contributions to F a c u l t y adminis t r a t i v e d o c u m e n t s shows e x t r e m e l y well t h e doubtless e x a g g e r a t e d

feelings of persecution which he felt u p o n himself f r o m his colleagues.
T h e h a n d w r i t i n g is e x c e p t i o n a l l y vigorous, a n d words p r i n t e d in h e a v y
119 There is no evidence t h a t t h i s p a p e r w a s sent to Hilbert; b u t if it was, t h e n it w a s
certainly n o t published.
12o Halle/Circulate, vol. 26. F o r discussion of d o c u m e n t s of this t y p e in our n a r r a t i v e ,
s e e foot-notes 72 a n d 85, a n d texts.
383
t y p e here were underlined b y C a n t o r t h r e e times. W e n o t e t h e reference

a t t h e end of t h e second q u o t a t i o n to Wissowa, who at this t i m e was
helping C a n t o r w i t h t h e a b o r t i v e second edition of his collection of t h e
R a w l e y elegies. 1~1
Dicses Protokoll crkl/~re ich heirmit fiir eine dreiste F~ilschung des
Thatbestandes, insofern als ein wesentlicher Theft unserer Facult~tsverhandlung, n/~mlich mein gestellter Gegenantrag und alle Thatsachen
und Handlungen welche mit ihm zusammenhingen, offenbar absichtlich
unterschlagen werden, unterschlagen unter stillsehweigender Billigung
aller Facul~ittscollegen, die vor mir dieses Protokoll zu sehen bekommen
habcn.
Cantor.
Ich erkl~re hiermit, dass ich die (ich weiss nicht yon wem, vielleicht
vom Ministerialdir. Althoff gestattete oder dekretirte) Abhaltung
yon Vorlesungen in diesen Sommersemester seitens Nichtmitglieder
der Univcrsit/~t (n/~chstens werden sich vielleicht Socialdemolcraten
oder, was noch schlimmer wi~re Bismarksche Oddfellows, oder Heringsche
Simsas dazu melden resp. Mitglieder der weiblich-m~innlichen
,, G e m e i n s c h a f t s b e w e g u n g " die doch durch Collegen ,, Uphues ",
Collegen ,, t t e r i n g " ctc . . . . . . . 12~ hinreichend an unserer Univ.
vertreten ist) principiell nicht einverstanden bin, weft sie entschieden
ein Vergehen gegen die Kgl. V e r o r d n u n g unserer Statuten ist. Ich
behalte mir vor, geeigneten Orts gegen diese Illegaliti~t meinen
Protest einzureichen.
Cantor.
P.S. Nach dieser Erkl/~rung halte ich es nicht flit nothig, mich an
der vom verehrten College Wissowa verlangten Discussion d.
Angelegenheit in d. Facult~t zu betheiligen.
DOCUMENT I X .
Letter from Cantor to Jourdain, 29 March 1905: the

writing of E x Oriente L u x . 128
C a n t o r w r o t e this letter in English,

I n 1915 J o u r d a i n p u b l i s h e d his t r a n s l a t i o n
o f 1895-97 on transfinite a r i t h m e t i c , a n d
t h e sentence of the second p a r a g r a p h
which we r e p r o d u c e exactly.
into English of C a n t o r ' s p a p e r
in his i n t r o d u c t i o n he q u o t e d
concerning t h e m e e t i n g w i t h
121 See foot-note 85 a n d text.

122 G. U p h u e s w a s a n ausserordentlleher P r o f e s s o r of p h i l o s o p h y (with especial reference
to psychology) in the Philosophical F a c u l t y , while H . H e r i n g w a s a n ordentlicher P~vfessor
of practical theology in the Theological F a c u l t y .
x28 S t o c k h o l m / J o u r d a i n , n o t e - b o o k 1, p. 82. F o r discussion of this 4oeumenb in our
narrative, see foot-note 88 a n d text. I t a p p e a r s also in I. G r a t t a n - G u i n n e s s , ' The correspondence b e t w e e n Georg Cantor a n d Philip J o u r d a i n ' (forthcoming in J s b r . dtsch. M a t h . V er. ) .
384
I. Grattan-Guinness
Weierstrass in 1873. TM
relaxed.
T h e h a n d w r i t i n g in this l e t t e r is r e a s o n a b l y
It Naunhof bei Leipzig, 29. Marz, 1905.

My dear Mr. Jourdain,
I t appears more probable to me, t h a t the fatherly friend of m y
father, Mr. Charles Moberly, of whom I have a lively remembrance
from m y early youth, has been the great grandfather of your sister's
friend Miss Moberly; but I know, t h a t m y father had most friendly
and intimate relations also to the sons of old Ch. M. About the early
developments of all m y mathematical and metaphysical conceptions
I will tell you all in detail, when we will meet together in England.
[] With Mr. Weierstrass I had good relations and I possess a most
interesting correspondence with him, which I will show to you. Of
the conception of enumerability of which he heared from me at
Berlin on Christmas holydays 1873 he became at first quite amazed,
but one or two days passed over, it became his own and helped him
to an unexpected development of his wonderful theory of functions.
I n the captivity and solitude of the last winter (from 17 Sept. 1904
to the 1. March 1905) I have had an inspiration from above, which
suggested to me a renewed study of our Bible with opened H eyes
and with banishment of all previous preconceptions. So I received
an unexpected enlightenment, which I p u t in the form of discourses
between a Master and his disciple. The first of them I send you and
hope to hear of your criticism about it. You can take this original
into your possession, as your own because t h a t I have a copy of it,
made b y one of m y nieces.
With m a n y kind regards
Yours sincerely
George Cantor.
I would be thankful, if you would translate the religious opusculum

into Englisch and send me a copy of this translation.
I n this spring I publish in the ,, Rendiconti Jf di Circolo matematico
di Palermo " a letter of Mr. Weierstrass to me, written the 26. Sept.
1891, of high scientific interest about the solubility of the problem
of three material points moving after the Ncwtonian law in the form
of analytical functions of the timequantity for the coordinates of
the three points and you will hear from W., t h a t he has send to Mr.
Hermite and Mr Mittag-Leflter copies of his demonstration for the
p o s s i b i l i t y of such a solution of the problem, which had hitherto not
succeeded to the pains of Mr. Poinear~. 125
l~a G. Cantor (trans. P. E. B. ffourdain), Contributions to the founding of the theory of

tranfinite numbers, Chicago, 1915, r e p r i n t e d N e w York, 1955, p. 48.
1~5 T h a t is, G. Cantor (foot-note 93).
385
I t is to be hoped, t h a t Mr. MittagLeffier now wiU give to the public

this remarkable performance of Weierstrass, hitherto unknown to all,
except himself. TM
DOOUM~.~T X .
Letter from Cantor to Mrs. Young, 5 April 1905: E x

Oriente L u x and a visit to England. 127
L i k e t h e previous letter to J o u r d a i n , this one w a s also w r i t t e n in

English, b u t its h a n d w r i t i n g is m a r k e d l y m o r e agitated.
1
I[ Naunhof, bei Leipzig, GStzestrasse,

5 d April 1905.
Dear Madam,
I am delighted to hear from you and yours. Has the book on
Mengenlehro you had spoken of, from your husband yet appeared? 1~8
As you know, I had been hermeticly secluded 5 months (from 17
Sept to 1. March) from the world, except few visites from m y family.
But I can not say, t h a t I a m b y this long fire-baptism embittered
because I do know the great pressure, t h a t has been practiced by the
,, Ministerium " and the ,, amiable " german I] colleagues upon m y
wife and m y children! Farther I had a great interest to study the
quite unreasonable puerile treatment and soitdisant cure of the
lamentable patients.
The Muse 129 afforded to me I employed to a renewed study of our
Bible with opened eyes and postponing all prejudices. The result
has been highly remarkable, as you will see b y a little pamphlet
(anonymous) of half a sheet, t h a t I will ]] send you perhaps in a week;
it is now in the printing office.
The title is:
,, E x Orient~ Lux,
Gespr/~che eines Meisters mit seinem Schiiler iiber
wesentliche Punete des urkund]iehen Christenthums.
Berichtet vom Schiller selbst."
Erstes Gespr/~ch.
I am longing for England and hope, t h a t it will become possible to
go then for several months in this spring, because, t h a t I have no
want to recommence m y mathematical lectures in Halle in the next
Sommersemesf~r.
II With m a n y kind regards to you and all yours
Sincerely
yours
George Cantor.
1~61VIittag-Leffler published several letters f r o m Weierstrass of the y e a r s 1883-89, a s

well as some m a n u s c r i p t s , o n this p r o b l e m in his ' Zur Biographic y o n Weierstrass ', Acta
Math., 1912, 35, 29-65; a n d a n o t h e r note in ' E i n e ~ u s s e r u n g y o n Weierstrass a n MittagLoftier fiber des D r e i k S r p e r p r o b l e m ', ibid., 1923, 89, 257-258.
12v London]Young. F o r discussion of t h i s d o c u m e n t in our n a r r a t i v e , see foot-note 89
a n d text.
12s The b o o k did n o t a p p e a r u n t i l 1906: the reference is given in foot-note 54 above.
1~ C a n t o r m a y be t h i n k i n g here of the G e r m a n w o r d Musse =leisure.
I. Grattan-Guinness
386
AI~I'ENDIX. The princal
missing collections of documents concerning

Cantor.
We list below the most important sources of material concerning

Cantor's life and work which we have so far been unable to trace. We
describe their history as far as we can, and we would be most grateful for
any information on their present location.
1. Cantor's personal papers.

Cantor kept all his personal documents, down even to the most fragmentary notes; and after his death in 1918 they were all retained by the
family in his house, although the rapidly deteriorating economic situation
in Germany caused his children to negotiate the sale of his magnificent
library in 1921 for the paltry sum of 90,000 Marks. His descendants
have continued to live in his house until the present day, but his papers
remained there only until 1945, when during the circumstances at the
end of the war almost all of them vanished) a The fragments t h a t were
saved were augmented by donations of documents by various members of
the family into the collection on which we h a v e drawn for this study.
I f the rest of the papers were not burnt in 1945, it is possible t h a t they
were taken away and are now kept in an archive.
2.
The Cantor-Dedekind correspondence.
The letters t h a t were published were from a collection made by

Dedekind, consisting of Cantor's letters to him and copies of some of his
replies; and it was presumably he who put them in the library of the
Technische Hochschule at Brunswick. They were first noticed by Fraenkel,
who drew on them for his 1930 biography of Cantor: extracts from the
letters of 1899 were published in the 1932 edition of Cantor's papers
prepared by E.. Zermelo, TM while extracts from those of the remainder
t h a t were written between 1872 and 1882 appeared in 1937 under the
editorship of E. Noether and J. Cavaill~s.13~ According to letters from
Miss Noether to Cavaillbs, it was she who obtained the correspondence
from Brunswick and with assistance copied out the mathematical parts
t h a t were eventually published. 13a She sent these copies to Cavaill~s in
Paris in March 1933, and apparently he prepared them for publication,
inserted the foot-note references and obtained permission for the publication to take place; but at no time did he use the letters themselves.
Meanwhile Miss Noether had left Germany for the U.S.A. and died there
la0 See M. Peters, op. cir. (foot-note 26), p. 11.
lal G. Cantor, Abhandlungen, p p . 443-451.
132 The reference is given in foot-note 19.
1an ParislGavaiU~s, E. N o e t h e r to Cavaillbs, 4 October 1932.
Towards a Biography o f Georg Cantor
387
in 1935, a n d a n y papers t h a t she m a y h a v e left have been completely

lost; b u t in a n y case it is h a r d l y likely t h a t she did o t h e r t h a n r e t u r n the
letters to Brunswick. Their fate since then, however, is unknown.
Dedekind's main papers were given to GSttingen U n i v e r s i t y in 1931 b y
two o f his nephews, TM b u t the correspondence with Cantor was n e v e r p u t
among them.
raenkel described t h e collection at B r u n s w i c k as consisting o f 36
' items ' (Staeke); la~ b u t the size of an ' item ' is not clear, as Zermelo
included e x t r a c t s from five letters in his edition of Cantor's papers, and
Miss N o e t h e r a n d Cavaill~s q u o t e d f r o m 37 others as well as f r o m a series
o f a n n o t a t i o n s of 1873 b y D e d e k i n d t o Cantor's letters. I n addition, it is
clear f r o m the letters t o CavailI~s from Miss N o e t h e r and from one o f
Dedekind's nephews t h a t t h e r e existed a few letters and cards f r o m the
years 1877, 1880-82, 1887, 1889 and 1891 which h a v e n o t been published
at all, a n d t h a t in all the unpublished sections t h e r e were n o t only
discussions of D e d e k i n d ' s possible call to Halle a n d his help in overcoming
K r o n e c k e r ' s delay of t h e 1877 p a p e r on t h e o r y o f sets, which we described
in our narrative, b u t also some m a t t e r s concerning Felix Klein; a n d in
the first letter from C a n t o r in 1899 a p p a r e n t l y he m e n t i o n e d the long
b r e a k in their correspondence, la~ T h u s it is clear t h a t this collection of
d o c u m e n t s is of especial i m p o r t a n c e to t h e s t o r y of Cantor's life. I t
seems possible t h a t , in view o f their use b y Zermelo and Miss N o e t h e r
a p a r t from a n y o n e else, t h e y m a y n o w be in several s e p a r a t e d sections.
Although Zermelo possessed the 1899 letters for some t i m e after the
p r e p a r a t i o n of his edition of Cantor's works, ~3~ t h e y are n o t now to be
f o u n d in his own collection o f papers, lss
3.
Stdc]cel's notes of a lecture by Cantor in 1897.
After Cantor had r e s u m e d cordial relations with D e d e k i n d a t the

Zurich Congress of 1897, he gave a lecture at Brunswick on 24 S e p t e m b e r
1897, of which P. St~ckel t o o k a set of lecture notes. F r a e n k e l
borrowed these notes from St~ckel's widow w h e n he p r e p a r e d his 1930
b i o g r a p h y and from t h e references to t h e m he m a d e in his t e x t it is clear
t h a t Cantor gave his own history of the t h e o r y of sets, including his
18~GSttlngen/Dedekind.
la~ A. Fraenkel, loc. cir. (foot-note 2), p. 265.
1anParis/Cavaill$s, E. Noether to Cavaill~s, 4 October 1933, 9 November 1932 and 12
March 1933: H. Dedekind to Cavaill~s, 3 August 1932.
la7According to Paris/Cavaill$s, E. Zermelo to Cava.i]l~s, 23 June 1932.
la8 Communication from the Universitdts-Bibliothek, 78 Freiburg im Breisgau, W. Germany, where thoy aro now kept.
388
I. Grattan-Guinness
personal relations and the affair of the manuscript of 1884 t h a t was never
published. 139 When Cavaill~s was studying Cantor's work he wrote to
Fraenkel in 1931 asking where he could find these notes: 14 unfortunately
Fraenkel's reply has not been preserved, but in any case Cavafll~s did
not refer to the notes in his own writings and so presumably did not use
them. We ourselves are hoping for greater fortune, but our enquiries
to find manuscripts of St~ckel have so far been unsuccessful. Fraenkel
referred neither to the notes nor to the Cantor-Dedekind letters in his
autobiography, m
4.
The Cantor-Althoff correspondence.
Among the few missing documents in the voluminous papers of

F. Althoff are the letters he received from Cantor. 142 These would be
especially valuable for an assessment of Cantor's role in educational and
university developments around the turn of the century and of his relations
with the Ministry.
5.
Other collections of letters.
We refer here in general to collections of letters t h a t may have been

preserved by some of m a n y correspondents: his letters to fellow mathematicians are especially important. We have already drawn on some
such collections for this study and have noted other smaller collections
in the same archives; but there m a y well survive important sources in
other locations. We have not yet found any, and their detection is
hampered by the fact t h a t the papers of many of his contemporaries were
either n o t kept or else lost or destroyed: thus there appears to be few
papers for Hermite, Kronecker, Kummer, Poincar6 or Weierstrass, while
SchSnflies's were destroyed by bombing during the last war. B u t
further information on these sources, both positive and negative, would
be welcome.
la~ A. Fraonkel, loc. cir. (foot-note 2): see h i s reference to the d o c u m e n t s on pp. 265-266,
a n d his allusion to the m a n u s c r i p t on p. 213. The m a n u s c r i p t is also referred to in his
Abstract Set Theory, 3rd odn., A m s t e r d a m 1966, pp. 1-2 a n d 249; b u t in b o t h eases F r a e n k e l
assorted t h a t the rejected p a p e r w a s the first p a r t of the 1895-97 p a p e r t h a t we cited in
foot-not~ 50 above. T h u s either F r a e n k e l m i s u n d e r s t o o d St~ckel's notes, or St~ekel
m i s u n d e r s t o o d C a n t o r ' s lecture, or C a n t o r h i m s e l f w a s obscure on the p o i n t .
140 T h e letter is published in G. 1%rri~res, Jean Oavaill$s, philosophs et combatant, Paris,
1950, p. 75.
14~A. Fraenkel, Lebenskrelse.
Aus den Erinnerungen eines ji2dischen Mathematlkers,
S t u t t g a r t , 1967.
tan T h e y should be in Merseburg/Althoff, sect. B, no. 21: one letter f r o m C a n t o r does
survive in sect. B, no. 198, vol. 1, ft. 116-117, a n d d r a f t s of two others i n Naehlass Cantor,
V I I I , pp. 40 a n d 131-133.
389
INDEX OF ~A~I~8
We give here the names and dates of those persons given more than
incidental mention in the main text. We also indicate the relationships
to Cantor.
Althoff, Friedrich Theodor (1839-1908)
Bacon, Francis (1561-1626)
Bell, Eric Temple (1883-1960)
BShm, Franz Louis (1798-1846) (Grandfather)
Joseph (1795-1876) (Great Uncle)
Maria (1798-1866) (Grandmother)
Borel, Emile Felix Edouard Justin (1871-1956)
Burali-Forti, Cesare (1861-1931)
Cantor, Anna-Marie (1881-1920) (Daughter)
Constantin Carl (1849-1899) (Brother)
Else (1875-1954) (Daughter)
Erich (1879-1962) (Son)
Georg Ferdinand Ludwig Philipp (1845-1918)
Georg Woldemar (1814-1863) (Father)
Gertrud (1877-1956) (Daughter)
Louis (1846-1870) (Brother)
Margrete Friederike (1885-1956) (Daughter)
Maria Anna (1819-1896) (Mother)
Moritz Benedikt (1829-1920)
Rudolf (1886-1899) (Son)
Sophie (1848-1931) (Sister)
VaUy Maria Sophie (1849-1923) (Wife)
Cavaill~s, Jean (1903-1944)
Darmstaedter, Ludwig (1846-1927)
Dedekind, Julius Wilhelm Richard (1831-1916)
Enneper, Alfred (1830-1885)
Fraenkel, Abraham Adolf Halevi (1891-1965)
Gerbaldi, Franceseo (1858-1935)
Hadamard, Jacques Salomon (1865-1963)
Heine, Eduard Heinrich (1821-1881)
Hering, Hermann (1838-1920)
Hermite, Charles (1822-1901)
Hesse, Franz Traugott (1845-1907)
Hettner, Georg (1854-1914)
Hilbert, David (1862-1943)
Hurwitz, Adoff (1859-1919)
Jordan, Marie Ennemond Camille (1838-1922)
Jourdain, Philip Edward Bertrand (1879-1919)
390
I. Grattan-Guinness
Klein, Christian Felix (1849-1925)

Kowalewski, Sonja yon (1850-1891)
Kronecker, Leopold (1823-1891)
Kummer, Ernst Eduard (1810-1893)
Lebesgue, Henri Leon (1875-1941)
Lejeune-Dirichlet, Peter Gustav (1805-1859)
Lobachewsky, Nicolai Ivanovieh (1793-1856)
Mertens, Franz Carl Joseph (1840-1927)
~ieschkowski, Herbert (1909)
Mittag-Lemer, Magnus Gustav (1846-1927)
Noether, Emmy (1882-1935)
Noevius, Eduard Rudolf (1851-?)
Poincard, Jules Henri (1854-1912)
Posadowsky-Wehner, Count Arthur Adolf yon (1845-1932)
Randolph, Thomas (1605-1635)
Rawley, William (15887-1667)
Riemann, Georg Friedrich Bernhard (1826-1866)
Russell, Hon. Bertrand Arthur William, Later Lord (1872-1970)
SchSnflies, Arthur Moritz (1853-1928)
Schulze, William Martin August (1853-1911)
Sehwarz, Karl Hermann Amandus (1843-1921)
Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)
St~ckel, Paul Gustav (1862-1919)
Studt, Konrad yon (1838-1929)
Taylor, Alfred Edward (1869-1945)
Tolstoy, Leo (1828-1910)
Uphues, Goswin Karl (1841-1916)
Voss, Aurel (1845-1931)
Wangerin, Albert (1844-1933)
Weber, Ernst Heinrich (1842-1913)
Weierstrass, Karl Theodor Wilhelm (1815-1897)
Whitehead, Alfred North (1861-1947)
Wissowa, Georg (1859-1931)
Young, Grace Chisholm (1868-1944)
Young, William Henry (1863-1942)
Zermelo, Ernst (1871-1953)
391
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I wish firstly to acknowledge the help given to me b y the officials and
curators of the above sources, as well as of various other institutions that
I have cited in particular footnotes to the narrative: 14a their assistance
has often far exceeded the bounds of professional responsibility. In
particular, I thank Cantor's descendants for the information they have
given me and their readiness to allow me to consult their collections of
Cantor's papers: l~rau S. Lange, rau A. Loesehke, Frau H. Schneider,
E. Schneider, U. Schneider, R. Vahlen and W. Stahl, who is responsible
for the administration of most of Cantor's papers. I acknowledge with
gratitude the receipt of a research grant from the Royal Society of London
which allowed me to visit and work on the sources in Germany listed above.
I also would like to thank the following for professional assistance and
information of various kinds: Professor K.-R. Biermann, Professor C. D.
Broad, Sir Edward Collingwood, F.R.S., Mrs. M. H. Fraenkel, Professor
H. Gericke, Professor J. E. Hofmann, Dr. J. L. Hotson, Professor It.
Meschkowski, Frau M. Peters, Professor M. Roth and Professor B. L.
van der Waerden. Lastly and b y no means least, I must mention that
the burden of this research has been shared in various ways by m y wife.
14s See fooL-notes 40, 82, 85, 99, 102 a n d 138.

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Towards a Biography of Georg Cantor

B y I. G~ATTAN-GursNESS, M.A., M.Sc., P h . D . *

Texts of cited documents

* Enfield College of Technology, Enfield, Middlesex, England.

Ann. of Sci.--Vol. 27, No. 4.

LIST OF iYIANUSCRIPTSOURCES USED IN THIS STUDY

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We list here, in alphabetical order of our reference titles, the location of

These documents were collected by L. Darmstaedter: they are known as

They are kept in the Akademie-Archiv,

The papers of 1%. Dedekind given by his nephews to G5ttingen University.

The papers of D. Hilbert. A full catalogue of these manuscripts has

Towards a Biography of Georg Cantor

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The University file on Cantor, entitled Halle Universitdt. Philosophische

The papers of W. H. and G. C. Young, in the possession of their daughter,

The next two sources are kept at the Deutsches Zentralarchiv--Itistorische

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Papers concerning G. W. Cantor.

Towards a Biography of Georg Cantor

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Religious and philosophical manuscripts.

The papers of J. Cavaill~s, iu the possession of his sister and brother-in-law,

The papers and estate of G. Mittag-Lefiter, comprising thousands of letters

THE influence of Georg Cantor's theories of sets a n d transfinite arithmetic

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of mathematics, and the development of axiomatic studies. The famous

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Towards a Biography of Georg Cantor

with prominent colleagues, and the chronology and apparent nature of

Downloaded by [UGR-BTCA Gral Universitaria] at 09:00 29 October 2015

7 Georg h i m s e f f a s s e r t e d t h a t h e a n d Moritz were u n r e l a t e d : see, for e x a m p l e , lVachlaa8

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Towards a Biography of (Teor9 Cantor

problems in theory of numbers3 By then he had moved to Halle

10 G. Cantor, De aequationlbus secundi gradus indeterminatis (Berlin, 1867); a n d D e

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})LATE XXV. Georg and Vally Cantor, in about 1880.

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correspondence with Schwarz stopped in 1880:15 there was apparently also

The normal procedure at t h a t time for the appointment of an

ordentlicher Professor was as follows. The Faculty in which the chair

15 According to the collection of letters f r o m Cantor to Schwarz in Berlin]~qchwarz:

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Towards a Biography of Georg Cantor

Like Cantor, Mittag-Leffier was influenced b y Weierstrass's teaching in

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~a T h e t r a n s l a t i o n s a p p e a r e d in Aeta Math., 1883, 2, 305-408; C a n t o r ' s o w n p a p e r w a s

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Towards a Biography of Georg Cantor

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Mittag-Leffier's suggestion had been well-meant: he had written to