s = 2aD π sin rπ 2D .
The right line thus has this property in common with the Euclidean right line that two such lines intersect only in a single point. It may be that the number of points in which two such lines can intersect admit of being determined from the laws of curvature, but not being able so to determine it, I assume as a postulate the fundamental property of the Euclidean right line."
It is plain that in the absence of the determination spoken of, the possibility of elliptic space is not established. It may be possible, for example, to prove that, in a space where there is a maximum to distance, there must be an infinite number of straight lines joining two points of maximum distance. In this event, elliptic space would become impossible.
[58] For an elucidation of this term, see Klein, Nicht-Euklid, I. p. 99 ff.
[59] Cf. p. 9 of Report: "My own view is that Euclid's twelfth axiom, in Playfair's form of it, does not need demonstration, but is part of our notion of space, of the physical space of our experience, but which is the representation lying at the bottom of all external experience."
[60] The exception to this axiom, in spherical space, presupposes metrical Geometry, and does not destroy the validity of the axiom for projective Geometry. See [Chap. III. Sec. B, § 171.]
[61] Mathematicians of Lie's school have a habit, at first somewhat confusing, of speaking of motions of space instead of motions of bodies, as though space as a whole could move. All that is meant is, of course, the equivalent motion of the coordinate axes, i.e. a change of axes in the usual elementary sense.
[62] "Ueber die Grundlagen der Geometrie," Leipziger Berichte, 1890. The problem of these two papers is really metrical, since it is concerned, not with collineations in general, but with motions. The problem, however, is dealt with by the projective method, motions being regarded as collineations which leave the Absolute unchanged. It seemed impossible, therefore, to discuss Lie's work, until some account had been given of the projective method.
[63] Lie's premisses, to be accurate, are the following:
Let