 In his Hamburg lecture in 1921 (1922), Hilbert first presented the idea of using such an operation to deal with the principle of the excluded middle in a formal system for arithmetic. These ideas were developed into the epsilon calculus and the epsilon substitution method in a series of lecture courses between 1921 and 1923, and in Hilbert’s (1923). The final presentation of the epsilon-calculus can be found in Wilhelm Ackermann’s dissertation (1924).