Rational Thoughts on the Powers of Human Understanding (German Logic)

Preface ###

to say to my face The text continues from the previous page: "no one should dare to [say to my] face..." that I speak, much less write, out of a self-interested mind self-interested; in the 18th century, "interest" often referred to personal financial gain or biased motives that clouded objective truth. Rather, I often refrain from speaking the truth and would rather forgo the profit I might rightfully have, whenever I see it could give cause to consider me self-interested. Therefore, I would also rather cite the testimony of others here than appeal to my own experience.

In our parts, Locke's work on the human understanding original: Lockens Werck vom Verstande des Menschen; referring to John Locke’s "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding" (1689) is generally held to be exceedingly ingenious, so that even those who contemptuously despise all his countrymen nevertheless exalt him. But, dear reader, to what does Locke attribute the ability of his understanding, and what does he recommend as a means to become sharp-witted?

One should look among the works that were published in London in 1706 after his death, in the treatise Of the Conduct of the Understanding original: Leitung des menschlichen Verstandes, p. 32 and following original: & seqq.; Latin abbreviation for et sequentes, meaning "and the following pages"; there one will find that he attributes his sharpness of mind to mathematics, and makes even more of a boast of mathematics, especially algebra, as a means to right

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