The most absurd of all their delusions commonly called the , or to speak more accurately, the inexhaustible source of power—is, in various forms, the… - William John Macquorn Rankine

In the original discovery of a proposition of practical utility, by deduction from general principles and from experimental data, a complex algebraical investigation is often not merely useful, but indispensable; but in expounding such a proposition as a part of practical science, and applying it to practical purposes, simplicity is of the importance:—and... the more thoroughly a scientific man has studied higher mathematics, the more fully does he become aware of this truth—and... the better qualified does he become to free the exposition and application of principles from mathematical intricacy.

[T]he symbols of algebra, when employed in abstruse and complex theoretical investigations, constitute a sort of thought-saving machine, by whose aid a person skilled in its use can solve problems respecting quantities, and dispense with the mental labour of thinking of the quantities denoted by the symbols, except at the beginning and the end of the operation.

The ascertainment and illustration of truth are the objects; and structures and machines are looked upon merely as natural bodies are; namely, as furnishing experimental data for the ascertaining of principles and examples for their application.