Last rites declaration of Ioannes Paulus PP. II (Karol Wojtyla)
2nd April 2005
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are unused.
The reason, therefore, that some intuitive minds are not mathematical is
that they cannot at all turn their attention to the principles of
mathematics. But the reason that mathematicians are not intuitive is that
they do not see what is before them, and that, accustomed to the exact and
plain principles of mathematics, and not reasoning till they have well
inspected and arranged their principles, they are lost in matters of
intuition where the principles do not allow of such arrangement. They are
scarcely seen; they are felt rather than seen; there is the greatest
difficulty in making them felt by those who do not of themselves perceive
them. These principles are so fine and so numerous that a very delicate and
very clear sense is needed to perceive them, and to judge rightly and justly
when they are perceived, without for the most part being able to demonstrate
them in order as in mathematics, because the principles are not known to us
in the same way, and because it would be an endless matter to undertake it.
We must see the matter at once, at one glance, and not by a process of
reasoning, at least to a certain degree. And thus it is rare that
mathematicians are intuitive and that men of intuition are mathematicians,
because mathematicians wish to treat matters of intuition mathematically and
make themselves ridiculous, wishing to begin with definitions and then with
axioms, which is not the way to proceed in this kind of reasoning. Not that
the mind does not do so, but it does it tacitly, naturally, and without
technical rules; for the expression of it is beyond all men, and only a few
can feel it.
Intuitive minds, on the contrary, being thus accustomed to judge at a sin