A new proof of the possibility of a

well-ordering
The present paper consists of two parts. In the first, Zermelo offers a new proof

of the well-ordering theorem. Like the original (1904), the new proof makes use of the

axiom of choice, and with the same strength: the choice set contains an element of every

nonempty subset of any given set. The difference between the two proofs lies in the

remaining set-theoretic assumptions. The second proof assumes much less, especially

with respect to well-ordering and ordinals, and what is needed for the proof is derived

anew, through the use of -chains, which are a generalization of Dedekinds chains.

The second part of the paper is a discussion of the objections raised against the

first proof. These objections had been numerous, and they sprang from three main

sources: the old mistrust, still lingering, of Cantors set theory; a wariness of the new

device, the principle of choice; and a suspicion of any argument reminiscent of those

leading to the paradoxes. Zermelos answer to the objections is lively and on the whole

cogent, and it has been upheld by subsequent developments. After Zermelos second

proof the discussion subsided, and his result, at least in the sense that the principle of

choice implies the well-ordering theorem, was generally accepted by the mathematical

world.

The translation is by Stefan Bauer-Mengelberg, and it is printed here with the kind

permission of Springer Verlag.

 Although I still fully uphold my Proof that every set can be well-ordered,

published in 1904, in the face of the various objections that will be thoroughly discussed in

2, the new proof that I give below of the same theorem may yet be of interest, since, on

the one hand, it presupposes no specific theorems of set theory and, on the other, it

brings out, more clearly than the first proof did, the purely formal character of the well-

ordering, which has nothing at all to do with spatiotemporal arrangement.

1. THE NEW PROOF

The assumptions and forms of inference that I use in the proof of the theorem

below can be reduced to the following postulates.

. All elements of a set M that have a property well-defined for every single

element are the elements of another set, , a subset of .

Thus to every subset 1 , of there corresponds a complementary subset"

1 , that contains all elements not occurring in 1 and, when 1 = , to the (empty)

null set.

. All subsets of a set , that is, all sets 1 whose elements are also elements of

, are the elements of a set () determined by .

Postulate easily yields the following proposition:

. All elements that are common to all of the sets , , , . .., these being elements

of a higher set , are the elements of a set = (), which will be called the

intersection or the common component of the sets , , . ...

 THEOREM.

If with every nonempty subset of a set an element of that subset is associated

by some law as "distinguished element, then (), the set of all subsets of , possesses

one and only one subset such that to every arbitrary subset of there always

corresponds one and only one element 0 of that includes as a subset and contains

an element of as its distinguished element. The set is well-ordered by .

Proof. If is any nonempty subset of and hence an element of (), and if

= () is its distinguished element, let = {} be the part of that results

when the distinguished element is removed. Now (), the set of all subsets of ,

possesses the following three properties:

(1) It contains the element ;

(2) Along with each of its elements it also contains the corresponding ;

(3) Along with each of its subsets = {, , , . . . } it also contains the

corresponding intersection = ( )as an element.

If now a subset of () that also has these three properties is called a -chain,

it immediately follows that the intersection of several -chains is itself always a -chain,

and the intersection of all existing -chains, which according to and are the

elements of a well-defined subset of (), is therefore the smallest possible -chain;

therefore no proper subset of can be a -chain any longer.

 Now let be an element of such that all other elements of fall into two

classes with respect to (1) elements that are parts of , and (2) elements that

include the set as a part, as for instance itself does. Then, as we shall now show,

every always has the property of being a ; that is to say, it is a subset of =

{()}. In fact, every since it cannot be a and yet must be an element of , is

either itself or a , and every intersection of several is again a or . On the other

hand, , as well as every , is again a ; and likewise every intersection of several ,

as well as the intersection of some , and some or , is again a . Thus the

together with the and already form a -chain; they therefore exhaust the smallest -

chain , and every is actually a , that is, a subset of . But from this it immediately

follows that , too, has the same property as , namely, that all other elements of are

either parts of or include as a part. If, finally, is the intersection of several

, , , . .. that have the property just assumed of A and if is any other element of ,

then only two cases are possible: either includes one of the sets , , , . .., and

therewith also , as a part, or is included in all of the sets , , , . .., and therewith also

in , as a subset, that is, too possesses the above-mentioned property of . Since,

finally, includes all elements of as subsets and therefore is itself an , the elements

of that are constituted like again form a. -chain, namely, itself, and for two

arbitrary [distinct] elements and of the alternative holds that either must be a

subset of or a subset of .

Now let be an arbitrary subset of , and let be the intersection of all

elements of that include as a subset and to which at least the element belongs.
Then also is an element of , and the distinguished element of must be an

element of , since otherwise = { } also would contain all elements of and

would still only be a part of . Every other element 1 of that includes as a subset

must then include as a part; that is, , according to what has just been proved, is a

subset of 1 , and the distinguished element 1 of 1 cannot be an element of , since it

does not occur in 1 and hence not in either. So there really exists only a single

element of that includes as a subset and contains an element of as its

distinguished element.

If we here choose for a set of the form {}, where is any element of , it

follows in particular that to every element of there corresponds a single element of

in which is the distinguished element; let this element be denoted by (). If

and are any two distinct elements of , then either () or () is the element of

corresponding to the set = {, }, that is, either ()contains the element or

() the element , but never both. If, finally, , , and are any three [distinct]

elements of and if, say, is an element of () and an element of (), then only

()can be the element corresponding to the set = {, , }, that is, also is an

element of (). Therefore, if we write < when is an element of ()and

(we then say that the element precedes the element ") the trichotomy

< , = , or <

obtains for any two elements and , and from

< and < it always follows that < .

 The set , therefore, is simply ordered by means of the set , and, moreover, it

is well-ordered in the sense of Cantor; for to every subset of there corresponds a

first element, namely, the distinguished element of = ( ), which precedes all

other elements of , since all these p are elements of .

If, conversely, the set is well-ordered in any way, then to every element of

there corresponds a certain subset () of that contains, besides , all elements

following ; let us call it the remainder associated with . If from such a

remainder () we remove the first element , what is left is the remainder of the

next element . Likewise, the common component, or intersection, of several

remainders is always again a remainder, and, finally, the entire set is the

remainder ()) of its first element. Thus the totality of all remainders, in the sense

specified above, forms a -chain, in which for every remainder the first element is the

distinguished element. If now () were to include, besides , a second subset 1

constituted as required by the theorem, then 1 also would determine a well-ordering of

with the same distinguished elements and would therefore, as a -chain, include the

intersection of all -chains as a component. If then denotes the distinguished

element of an element of 1 , would be the distinguished element of two

elements of 1 - namely of as well as of the ( )determined by -and this would

contradict the property assumed of M1. Therefore, the well-ordering M is indeed uniquely

determined by the choice of distinguished elements, and the theorem asserted is proved

in its entirety.
 Now in order to apply our theorem to arbitrary sets, we require only [l]] the

additional assumption that a simultaneous choice of distinguished elements is in principle

always possible for an arbitrary set of sets, or, to be more precise, that the same

consequences always hold as if such a choice were possible. In this formulation, to be

sure, the principle taken as fundamental still appears to be somewhat tainted with

subjectivity and liable to misinterpretation. But since, as I shall show in more detail

elsewhere [below p. 209]], we can, by means of elementary and indispensable set-

theoretic principles, always replace an arbitrary set T of sets A, B, C, . . . by a set T of

mutually disjoint sets A, B, 0, . .. that are equivalent to the sets A, B, 0",. . ., respectively,

the general principle of choice can be reduced to the following axiom, whose purely

objective character is immediately evident.

IV. Axiom. A set S that can be decomposed into a set of disjoint parts A, B, C', . . .,

each containing at least one element, possesses at least one subset S, having exactly one

element in common with each of the parts A, B, 0, . . . considered.

Then the application of this axiom, just as in my note of 1904, yields the general

theorem that every set can be well-ordered.

The definition of well-ordering that has already appeared in the formulation of the

Theorem and forms the basis of our new proof has the advantage that it rests exclusively

upon the elementary notions of set theory, whereas experience shows that, with the

usual presentation, the uninformed are only too prone to look for some mystical meaning
behind Cantors relation a < b, which is suddenly introduced. Let us now once more

formulate our definition explicitly, as follows.

Definition. A set M is said to be well-ordered if to any element 1a of M there

corresponds a unique subset W.) of M, the reminder of a, and every nonempty subset P of

M contains one and only one first element, that is, an element p0 such that its remainder

W170) includes the set P as a subset.

2. DISCUSSION OF THE OBJECTIONS TO THE EARLIER PROOF

Since 1904, the date of my Proof that every set can be well-ordered, a number of

objections have been made to it and various critiques of it have been published. Let me

take this opportunity to discuss them together.

a. Objections to the principle of choice.

In first place we here consider the objections that are directed against the

postulate of choice formulated above and. therefore strike at both of my proofs in the

same way. I concede that they are to some extent justified, since I just cannot prove this

postulate, as I expressly emphasized at the end of my note1, and therefore cannot compel

anyone to accept it apodictically. Hence if Borel (1905, but see also 1905a) and Peano

(1906a, pp. 145-148) in their critiques note the lack of a proof, they have merely adopted

my own point of view. They would even have put me in their debt had they now for their

1
This logical principle cannot, to be sure, be reduced to a still simpler one. . ." (1904. P516 [[above,

p. 1413).
part established the unprovability I asserted namely, that this postulate is logically

independent of the others-thereby corroborating my conviction.

Now even in mathematics unprovability, as is well known, is in no way equivalent

to nonvalidity, since, after all, not everything can be proved, but every proof in turn

presupposes unproved principles. Thus, in order to reject such a fundamental principle,

one would have had to ascertain that in some particular case it did not hold or to derive

contradictory consequences from it; but none of my opponents has made any attempt to

do this.

Even Peanos Formulaire (1897), which is an attempt to reduce all of mathematics

to syllogisms (in the Aristotelian-Scholastic sense)2, rests upon quite a number of

unprovable principles; one of these is equivalent to the principle of choice for a single set

and can then be extended syllogistically to an arbitrary finite number of sets3. But the

general axiom that, following other researchers, I permitted myself to apply to arbitrary

sets in this new case just is not to be found among Peanos principles, and Peano himself

assures us that he could not derive it from them either. He is content to note this fact, and

2
See Peano 1906a, p. 147.

3
See Peano 1906a, pp. 145-147. This proof, incidentally, can be carried out only by mathematical induction;

hence it type. If on the other hand we take as a basis Dedekinds definition of a finite set as one that is not

equivalent to any of its parts, no proof is possible even for finite sets, since the reduction of the two

definitions to each other, as we shall show below (example 4) again requires the principle of choice. In this

sense, therefore, Poincar's remark in 1906, p. 313 [[see below, p. 190, footnote 6]], is justified.
that finishes the principle for him. The idea that possibly his Formulaire might be

incomplete in precisely this point does, after all, suggest itself, and, since there are no

infallible authorities in mathematics, we must also take that possibility into account and

not reject it without objective examination.

First, how does Peano arrive at his own fundamental principles and how does he

justify their inclusion in the Formulaire, since, after all, he cannot prove them either?

Evidently by analyzing the modes of inference that in the course of history have come to

be recognized as valid and by pointing out that the principles are intuitively evident and

necessary for science-considerations that can all be urged equally well in favor of the

disputed principle. That this axiom, even though it was never formulated in textbook style,

has frequently been used, and successfully at that, in the most diverse fields of

mathematics, especially in set theory, by Dedekind, Cantor, F. Bernstein, Schoenfiies, J.

Konig, and others is an indisputable fact, which is only corroborated by the opposition

that, at one time or another, some Logical purists directed against it. Such an extensive

use of a principle can be explained only by its self-evidence, which, of course, must not be

confused with its provability. No matter if this self-evidence is to a certain degree

subjective-it is surely a necessary source of mathematical principles, even if it is not a tool

of mathematical proofs, and Peanos assertion (1906a, p. 147) that it has nothing to do

with mathematics fails to do justice to manifest facts. But the question that can be

objectively decided, whether the principle is necessary for science, I should now like to

submit to judgment by presenting