Descartes:00016

I came to see that the exclusive concern of mathematics is with questions of order or method, and that it is irrelevant whether the measure in question involves numbers, shapes, stars, sounds, or any other object whatsoever. This made me realize that there must be a general science which explains all the points that can be raised concerning order and measure irrespective of subject matter. (AT X 377: CSM 119) The conception leads straight on to the famous Cartesian idea of science as the unfolding of abstract mathematical relations, an idea that remains to this day central to what we think of as the scientific enterprise.