..."I can characterize its standing most clearly perhaps, by the somewhat paradoxical remark that anyone who tolerates only pure logic in investigations in pure mathematics must, to be consistent, look upon the second part of the problem of the foundations of arithmetic, and hence upon arithmetic itself, as belonging to applied mathematics."
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"With the construction of the calculating machine Leibniz certainly did not wish to minimize the value of mathematical thinking, and yet it is just such conclusions which are now sometimes drawn from the existence of the calculating machine. If the activity of a science can be supplied by a machine, that science cannot amount to much, so it is said; and hence it deserves a subordinate place. The answer to such arguments, however, is that the mathematician, even when he is himself operating with numbers and formulas, is by no means an inferior counter-part of the error-less machine, "thoughtless thinker" of Thomae; but rather, he sets for himself his problems with definite, interesting, and valuable ends in view, and carries them to solution in appropriate and original manner, He turns over to the machine only certain operations which recur frequently in the same way, and it is precisely the mathematician - one must not forget this - who invented the machine for his own relief, and who, for his own intelligent ends, designates the tasks which it shall perform.
Let me close this chapter with the wish that the calculating machine, in view of its great importance, may become known in wider circles than is now the case. Above all, every teacher of mathematics should become familiar with it, and it ought to be possible to have it demonstrated in secondary instruction."
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