Mathematicalness

For there being no Specifical Difference (at leaſt ſo far as I can apprehend) among the Souls that are allotted tor the actuating Humane Bodies, it is very probable that all the Diverſity, either of the Theorical or Mechanical Parts of one Man from another, is Primarily to be reſolv’d into the various Organizations and Textures of our Bodies; and particularly into the different Temperament of the Brain, Blood, and Animal Spirits, and ſecondarily into Education, Converſe, Aſſiduity in Study, and moſt eſpecially in the Art and Mathematicalneſs of Thinking; […]

Even Mr. Mill, whose general remarks on probability are clear and sensible, and not tainted in an extraordinary degree with mathematicalness (to coin a new word), cannot quite keep clear of such illustrations. […] The great vice of the doctrine of probability is what we have previously called its mathematicalness.

It should be understood from the first that no such thing exists as a right method of performing any operation in elementary mathematics; because all lightness, and I may add all mathematicalness, depends essentially on getting each operation performed by two methods; the first, a roundabout one, which represents and registers the conscious action of the mind during the process of discovery; the second, a short method which condenses the roundabout one, assists in stowing its results away in the memory, and facilitates the using of them sub-consciously.