"Fascinated by its symmetry the geometer may at times have been too exclusively engrossed with his science, forgetful of its applications; he may have exalted it into his idol and worshipped it; he may have degraded it into the toy– when he should have been hard at work with it, using it mankind and the glory of his creator....But ascend with me above the dust, above the cloud, to the realms of the higher geometry, where the heavens are never clouded, where there is no impure vapour and no delusive or imperfect observation, where the new truths are already arisen, while they are yet dimly dawning on the world below, where the earth is a little planet; where the sun has dwindled to a star; where all the stars are lost in the Milky Way to which they belong ; where the Milky Way is seen floating through space, like any other nebula; where the whole great girdle of the nebulae has diminished to an atom and has become as readily and completely submissive to the pen of geometer, and the slave of his formula, as the single drop, which falls from the clouds instinct with all forces of the material world. Try with me the precision of measure with which the universe has been meted out; observe how exactly all the parts are fitted to the whole and to each other, and then declare who was present in the council-chamber when the Lord laid the foundations of the earth."