To Ask The Proper Question Is Half

[i]f In Other Sciences We Should Arrive At Certainty Without Doubt And Truth Without Error, It Behooves Us To Place The Foundations Of Knowledge In Mathematics, In So Far As Disposed Through It We Are Able To Reach Certainty In Other Sciences And Truth By The Exclusion Of Error.

First, By The Figurations Of Art There Be Made Instruments Of Navigation Without Men To Row Them, As Great Ships To Brooke The Sea, Only With One Man To Steer Them, And They Shall Sail Far More Swiftly Than If They Were Full Of Men; Also Chariots That Shall Move With Unspeakable Force Without Any Living Creature To Stir Them. Likewise An Instrument May Be Made To Fly Withall If One Sits In The Midst Of The Instrument, And Do Turn An Engine, By Which The Wings, Being Artificially Composed, May Beat The Air After The Manner Of A Flying Bird.

There Are In Fact Four Very Significant Stumbling Blocks In The Way Of Grasping The Truth, Which Hinder Every Man However Learned, And Scarcely Allow Anyone To Win A Clear Title To Wisdom, Namely, The Example Of Weak And Unworthy Authority, Longstanding Custom, The Feeling Of The Ignorant Crowd, And The Hiding Of Our Own Ignorance While Making A Display Of Our Apparent Knowledge.

... Mathematics Is Absolutely Necessary And Useful To The Other Sciences.

Knowledge Of Languages Is The Doorway To Wisdom.