The unique method of reflection indulged in by the Pythagoreans and followers of Plato (and pursued in modern… — Santiago Ramon Y Cajal

This history of civilization proves beyond doubt just how sterile the repeated attempts of metaphysics to guess at nature' s laws have been. Instead, there is every reason to believe that when the human intellect ignores reality and concentrates within, it can no longer explain the simplest inner workings of life' s machinery or of the world around us ( p. 2).

It is important to note that the most brilliant discoveries have not relied on a formal knowledge of logic. Instead, their discoverers have had an acute inner logic that generates ideas with the same unstudied unconsciousness that allowed Jourdain to create prose.

Any man could, if he were so inclined, be the sculptor of his own brain ( p. xv).