The Scientist Does Not Study

. . . By Natural Selection Our Mind Has Adapted Itself To The Conditions Of The External World. It Has Adopted The Geometry Most Advantageous To The Species Or, In Other Words, The Most Convenient. Geometry Is Not True, It Is Advantageous.

But For Harmony Beautiful To Contemplate, Science Would Not Be Worth Following.

Mathematics Is The Art Of Giving The Same Name To Different Things. [as Opposed To The Quotation: Poetry Is The Art Of Giving Different Names To The Same Thing].

This Harmony That Human Intelligence Believes It Discovers In Nature - Does It Exist Apart From That Intelligence? No, Without Doubt, A Reality Completely Independent Of The Spirit Which Conceives It, Sees It Or Feels It, Is An Impossibility. A World So Exterior As That, Even If It Existed, Would Be Forever Inaccessible To Us. But What We Call Objective Reality Is, In The Last Analysis, That Which Is Common To Several Thinking Beings, And Could Be Common To All; This Common Part, We Will See, Can Be Nothing But The Harmony Expressed By Mathematical Laws.

Mathematics Has A Threefold Purpose. It Must Provide An Instrument For The Study Of Nature. But This Is Not All: It Has A Philosophical Purpose, And, I Daresay, An Aesthetic Purpose.