What Mathematics can reveal to us about Human Excellence

If we are to understand beauty as that which is pleasing to the mind – that which exhibits inherent aesthetic qualities that can awaken our intellectual admiration – then certainly, mathematics can be very beautiful. But the study of mathematics can also reveal to us many a mysterious truths about the design of human life; of human excellence.

We can learn through mathematics that there exists an admirable structure, pattern and design – woven into the very fabric of the universe – which establishes and nurtures creation. As such, things come to be, and thereby, reaches its end, by way of its movement through a particular system: a unique rule or formula. For example, a mathematical formula will always produce an answer (or yields fruit, if you will) when numbers move through it.

Once we grasp this mysterious truth, we can understand that all things come into existence, or can be produced, as it were, if it is inserted into or moves through a unique system of laws. As such, I am convinced that by discerning a fruitful rule of life – a unique system of routines and habits consisting of profound patterns of thinking and human behaviour – we can hope to employ such to bring into existence our personal potential; our perfection.

Human excellence can therefore be produced if a person is able to derive and enter into a fruitful rule of life – one that would render them capable of pursuing all that is good, true, and beautiful. This is what I would consider to be the mission of education: to help us achieve this end, namely, our perfection in love and excellence.