Sometimes I am very impressed by the littlest things that Dedekind did, like the now-famous Section 66 of Was sind und was sollen die Zahlen, where he half-jokingly claimed that “my world of thoughts is infinite” (which I feel is simply a way of saying “you can regard the existence of an infinite set as an axiom”), or the letter he wrote to his sister Julie that says “a rainy day = a gray day = a nice day”… Well, probably because on a rainy day he could just stay at his room reading math books, which is of course great?

As another example, which is also quite famous by now, he wrote to the editors of a calendar book which wrongly stated that he had died on some day in 1899, “The date may be right; the year is certainly wrong.”

Considering these, I hope I would be forgiven to call Dedekind cute sometimes!

Dedekind was definitely a person who cared about tiniest details. I recently had a little discovery considering his correspondence with Mrs. Elise Riemann, which was carried out in order to compose a biography of Bernhard Riemann (i.e. Bernhard Riemanns Lebenslauf). This little finding will probably give you an idea of how considerate Dedekind was.

As you may know, although most of the biography was written by Dedekind, the last paragraphs were borrowed from Elise Riemann’s letter. (Apparently, Elise approved such copying!!) Therefore, it is meaningful to compare what Elise wrote with what appears in the final published biography. I will just put the original German text here, but the important parts will be explained later.

Elise Riemann:

Rs Ende war ein sehr sanftes, ich möchte sagen ein Heimgehen ohne Kampf und Todesschauer, es schien mir als ob er mit Interesse dem Scheiden der Seele vom Körper folge, ich mußte ihm Brod u. Wein reichen, er trug mir Grüße auf an die Lieben daheim, sagte mir küsse unser Kind, ich betete das Vater Unser mit ihm, er konnte nicht mehr sprechen, bei den Worten, Vergieb uns unsere Schuld richtete er gläubig das Auge nach Oben, ich fühlte seine Hand kälter werden in der meinen, noch einige Athemzüge, und er war aufgegangen in Gott, wo er schauen wird was hier seinem Forschen versagt war.

In the published biography:

Sein Ende war ein sehr sanftes, ohne Kampf und Todesschauer; es schien, als ob er mit Interesse dem Scheiden der Seele vom Körper folgte; seine Gattin musste ihm Brod und Wein reichen, er trug ihr Grüsse an die Leben daheim auf und sagte ihr: küsse unser Kind. Sie betete das Vater Unser mit ihm, er konnte nicht mehr sprechen; bei den Worten “Vergieb uns unsere Schuld” richtete er gläubig das Auge nach oben; sie fühlte seine Hand in der ihrigen kälter werden, und nach einigen Athemzügen hatte sein reines, edles Herz zu schlagen aufgehört.

So there are only two significant changes to Elise Riemann’s account made by Dedekind. The Christian expressions for passing away “Heimgehen” (going home) and “aufgegangen in Gott” (going up in God) were removed, and changed to neutral expressions like “sein reines, edles Herz hatte zu schlagen aufgehört” (his pure, noble heart stopped to beat), which are unrelated to religion.

Dedekind himself was a devoted Lutheran (although not as devoted as Riemann). This is most evident when we consider the inscription on his grave: “2 Timothy 4. 7-8”.

These are of course verses out of the Bible. Here they are.

⁷ I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. ⁸ Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.

I am 95% percent confident that these verses were chosen by Dedekind himself, judging from the first-person perspective.

Also, any novel by Julie Dedekind suggests that the family was religious. Dedekind should, therefore, have shared the same faith as Elise Riemann.

So these modifications to Elise Riemann’s writings were made solely because Dedekind cared about readers who had other faiths than Lutheran Christianity! That is, he wanted the published Riemann biography to be neutral and to appeal equally to people with all beliefs.

I believe that I don’t need to emphasize how precious such active thoughts of secularism (i.e. separation between region and science) and religious harmony were in the 1870s Germany, especially for a person who was deeply religious himself. I have to say that I was greatly surprised, and even touched, when I discovered these little modifications. After all, even today we hear from US presidents “God bless the United States of America!”

But perhaps we shouldn’t be too surprised, as Dirichlet, Dedekind’s collegue and close friend, was reported to be non-religious.

However, we can still see Dedekind’s open-mindedness and considerations for all readers, which are what I really like about him.