"The arithmetization of mathematics... which began with Weierstrass... had for its object the separation of purely mathematical concepts, such as number and correspondence and aggregate, from intuitional ideas, which mathematics had acquired from long association with geometry and mechanics. These latter, in the opinion of the formalists, are so firmly entrenched in mathematical thought that in spite of the most careful circumspection in the choice of words, the meaning concealed behind these words, may influence our reasoning. For the trouble with human words is that they possess content, whereas the purpose of mathematics is to construct pure thought. But how can we avoid the use of human language? The... symbol. Only by using a symbolic language not yet usurped by those vague ideas of space, time, continuity which have their origin in intuition and tend to obscure pure reason—only thus may we hope to build mathematics on the solid foundation of logic."
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Tobias Dantzig, Number: The Language of Science (1930).
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Karl_Weierstrass
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Karl Weierstrass
Karl Theodor Wilhelm Weierstrass (October 31, 1815 – February 19, 1897) was a German mathematician who is often cited as the "father of modern analysis".
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