Summary

A doctor creates an algorithm for that can create a library of all possible combination of letters. The conclusion is that while the end result would be colossal in size, it would still be finite. However, the doctor explains that the capacity to understand it is beyond out comprehension. As it says “Reason is infinitely larger than understanding” and "The logical is infinitely more powerful than the sensible.”

What is remarkable about this story is that it comes decades before Borges' famous Library of Babel which functions on the same premise. While it would be possible to produce all possible combinations of letters so as to have all past, present, and future statements, the ability to search and find correct texts would be an impossible task. Such access is confounded by the lack of an evaluative metric to assess truth and falsity. But, the reader of this library is not a typical reader (just as it is not a typical library). As the professor says, let us assume that the reader is who does not care for reading. This comments speaks to a type of reader who only combines symbols, but not meaning. §

The Universal Library

[The English translation is available from Erik Born, and while the original German appears to be in the public domain, it is unclear about the status of the copyright of his translation — which is why it is not reproduced here.]