Complete Works, Volume I

he knew to be of no use, but indeed of great expense—that is, of a quite long time spent in the acquiring. Surely, observing the brevity of human life and measuring the narrow limits of our mind, he deemed it sufficient to procure only the necessities, and those things without which he could not equip himself for philosophizing; not envying others, who were intent upon the whole of Geometry or Algebra, the glory of the most subtle discoveries. He always held before his eyes the ultimate goal of philosophizing, Happiness, which consists entirely in the good health of the body and the tranquility of the mind. He considered that the knowledge of natural things aimed directly toward both of these parts: Therefore, from the whole circle of the Sciences, he collected only those things which seemed chiefly to serve his purpose; not imitating the imprudent traveler who turns aside to every pleasant place, unmindful of his homeland or the goal set for his journeys. Indeed, most of the learned conduct themselves thus when they have entered the Ocean of doctrines and are, as it were, putting in at various shores. Nor yet are those men worse or more foolish who, establishing their "course of studies" (as they call it) while not yet of an adult age and unrolling books of every kind, surrender themselves to some discipline by whose sweetness they have been captured beyond their own intention, or contrary to their purpose of proceeding to another that was a little further off. I would by no means wish to condemn these more than I would blame a Dutch Merchant if, being about to sail to the East Indies to bring back merchandise by which, having become richer, he might eventually spend his old age in leisure at Amsterdam, he should nevertheless wish to remain in the Fortunate Isles or elsewhere in the world, and adopt the pleasing customs of the inhabitants. How many excellent men does Eloquence detain? How many others the Poetic Art? How many the individual parts of Mathematics? How many the science of Law, of History, of Politics, of Medicine? There is none of the disciplines that does not have its lovers, and his own Minerva pleases each one so much that others are held in contempt; and the Geometer would be ashamed to attend to the elegance and "flowers" of a speech, while the Orator might pity the "infancy" and awkwardness of the Geometric style; let the Lawyer laugh at the Poet, and let him who has bathed his lips in the horse’s spring shrink from the unpleasant occupation of the Lawyer.

Whatever the case may be regarding that mutual mockery, it is true that that most abstruse Mathematics does not contribute much—to say nothing more severe—to the attainment of right reasoning and to the illustration of natural things: since there is no one who does not know that distinguished...