The Idea Does Not Belong

Kepler's Discovery Would Not Have Been Possible Without The Doctrine Of Conics. Now Contemporaries Of Kepler-such Penetrating Minds As Descartes And Pascal-were Abandoning The Study Of Geometry ... Because They Said It Was So Utterly Useless. There Was The Future Of The Human Race Almost Trembling In The Balance; For Had Not The Geometry Of Conic Sections Already Been Worked Out In Large Measure, And Had Their Opinion That Only Sciences Apparently Useful Ought To Be Pursued, The Nineteenth Century Would Have Had None Of Those Characters Which Distinguish It From The Ancien Régime.

The Woof And Warp Of All Thought And All Research Is Symbols, And The Life Of Thought And Science Is The Life Inherent In Symbols; So That It Is Wrong To Say That A Good Language Is Important To Good Thought, Merely; For It Is The Essence Of It.

Upon This First, And In One Sense This Sole, Rule Of Reason, That In Order To Learn You Must Desire To Learn, And In So Desiring Not Be Satisfied With What You Already Incline To Think, There Follows One Corollary Which Itself Deserves To Be Inscribed Upon Every Wall Of The City Of Philosophy: Do Not Block The Way Of Inquiry.

Fate Then Is That Necessity By Which A Certain Result Will Surely Be Brought To Pass According To The Natural Course Of Events However We May Vary The Particular Circumstances Which Precede The Event.

All The Followers Of Science Are Fully Persuaded That The Processes Of Investigation, If Only Pushed Far Enough, Will Give One Certain Solution To Each Question To Which They Can Be Applied.... This Great Law Is Embodied In The Conception Of Truth And Reality. The Opinion Which Is Fated To Be Ultimately Agreed To By All Who Investigate Is What We Mean By The Truth, And The Object Represented In This Opinion Is The Real.