John Herschel Quote

A clever man, shut up alone and allowed unlimited time, might reason out for himself all the truths of mathematics, by proceeding from those simple notions of space and number of which he cannot divest himself without ceasing to think.

A Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy, Part II, Chapter I (p. 76), Longman, Rees, Orman, Brown & Green. 1830