The philosophy of mathematics · Auguste Comte
GENERAL VIEW OF MATHEMATICAL ANALYSIS.
In the historical development of mathematical science since the time of Descartes, the advances of its abstract portion have always been determined by those of its concrete portion; but it is none the less necessary, in order to conceive the science in a manner truly logical, to consider the Calculus in all its principal branches before proceeding to the philosophical study of Geometry and Mechanics. Its analytical theories, more simple and more general than those of concrete mathematics, are in themselves essentially independent of the latter; while these, on the contrary, have, by their nature, a continual need of the former, without the aid of which they could make scarcely any progress. Although the principal conceptions of analysis retain at present some very perceptible traces of their geometrical or mechanical origin, they are now, however, mainly freed from that primitive character, which no longer manifests itself except in some secondary points; so that it is possible (especially since the labours of Lagrange) to present them in a dogmatic exposition, by a purely abstract method, in a single and continuous system. It is this which will be undertaken in the present and the five following chapters, limiting our investigations to the most general considerations upon each principal branch of the science of the calculus.
The definite object of our researches in concrete mathematics being the discovery of the _equations_ which express the mathematical laws of the phenomenon under consideration, and these equations constituting the true starting point of the calculus, which has for its object to obtain from them the determination of certain quantities by means of others, I think it indispensable, before proceeding any farther, to go more deeply than has been customary into that fundamental idea of _equation_, the continual subject, either as end or as beginning, of all mathematical labours. Besides the advantage of circumscribing more definitely the true field of analysis, there will result from it the important consequence of tracing in a more exact manner the real line of demarcation between the concrete and the abstract part of mathematics, which will complete the general exposition of the fundamental division established in the introductory chapter.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.