Bernhard Bolzano

Abstract The distinguished Czech writer whose name stands above bears, from the point of view of this book, a certain resemblance to Blaise Pascal. Both were deeply interested in religion and philosophy, both were involved in controversy and suffered for the faith that was in them. Both did such brilliant mathematical work that they might well be classed as professionals. But I have included Pascal with the amateurs because he was more famous as a philosopher and a writer of beautiful French prose than as a mathematician, and I take up Bolzano because t seems to me interesting that a man who was a remarkable pulpit orator, only removed from his chair for his political opinions, should have thought so far into the deepest problems of a science which he never taught in a professional capacity.