One Can Measure The Importance Of A

Some People Have Got A Mental Horizon Of Radius Zero And Call It Their Point Of View.

How Thoroughly It Is Ingrained In Mathematical Science That Every Real Advance Goes Hand In Hand With The Invention Of Sharper Tools And Simpler Methods Which, At The Same Time, Assist In Understanding Earlier Theories And In Casting Aside Some More Complicated Developments.

Every Mathematical Discipline Goes Through Three Periods Of Development: The Naive, The Formal, And The Critical.

I Do Not Want To Presuppose Anything As Known. I See In My Explanation In Section 1 The Definition Of The Concepts Point, Straight Line And Plane, If One Adds To These All The Axioms Of Groups I-v As Characteristics. If One Is Looking For Other Definitions Of Point, Perhaps By Means Of Paraphrase In Terms Of Extensionless, Etc., Then, Of Course, I Would Most Decidedly Have To Oppose Such An Enterprise. One Is Then Looking For Something That Can Never Be Found, For There Is Nothing There, And Everything Gets Lost, Becomes Confused And Vague, And Degenerates Into A Game Of Hide And Seek.

Besides It Is An Error To Believe That Rigour Is The Enemy Of Simplicity. On The Contrary We Find It Confirmed By Numerous Examples That The Rigorous Method Is At The Same Time The Simpler And The More Easily Comprehended. The Very Effort For Rigor Forces Us To Find Out Simpler Methods Of Proof.