Impartial witnesses on all hands perceived that science was rapidly undermining ecclesiasticism.
MATHEMATICS.

Mathematics had thus become the great instrument of scientific research, it had become the instrument of scientific reasoning.

In one respect it may be said that it reduced the operations of the mind to a mechanical process, for its symbols often saved the labor of thinking.

The habit of mental exactness it encouraged extended to other branches of thought, and produced an intellectual revolution.
No longer was it possible to be satisfied with miracle-proof, or the logic that had been relied upon throughout the middle ages.

Not only did it thus influence the manner of thinking, it also changed the direction of thought.