[729]. The development of abstract methods during the past few years has given mathematics a new and vital principle which furnishes the most powerful instrument for exhibiting the essential unity of all its branches.—Young, J. W.
Fundamental Concepts of Algebra and [Geometry] (New York, 1911), p. 225.
[730]. Everybody praises the incomparable power of the mathematical method, but so is everybody aware of its incomparable unpopularity.—Rosanes, J.
Jahresbericht der Deutschen Mathematiker Vereinigung, Bd. 13, p. 17.
[731]. Indeed the modern developments of mathematics constitute not only one of the most impressive, but one of the most characteristic, phenomena of our age. It is a phenomenon, however, of which the boasted intelligence of a “universalized” daily press seems strangely unaware; and there is no other great human interest, whether of science or of art, regarding which the mind of the educated public is permitted to hold so many fallacious opinions and inferior estimates.—Keyser, C. J.
Lectures on Science, Philosophy and Arts (New York, 1908), p. 8.
[732]. It may be asserted without exaggeration that the domain of mathematical knowledge is the only one of which our otherwise omniscient journalism has not yet possessed itself.—Pringsheim, Alfred.
Ueber Wert und angeblichen Unwert der Mathematik; Jahresbericht der Deutschen Mathematiker Vereinigung, (1904) p. 357.
[733]. [The] inaccessibility of special fields of mathematics, except by the regular way of logically antecedent acquirements, renders the study discouraging or hateful to weak or indolent minds.—Lefevre, Arthur.