How about this law? It speaks of a body, corpusquod a viribus impressis non cogitur, a body which is left to itself. Where do we find it? There is no such body. There is also no experiment which could ever bring such a body to direct perception. But modern science, in contrast to the mere dialectical poetic conception of medieval Scholasticism and science, is supposed to be based upon experience. Instead, it has such a law at its apex. This law speaks of a thing that does not exist. It demands a fundamental representation of things which contradict the ordinary.
The mathematical is based on such a claim, i.e., the application of a determination of the thing, which is not experientally created out of the thing and yet lies at the base of every deteremination of the things, making them possible and making for room for them. Such a fundamental conception of things is neither arbitrary nor self-evident. Therefore, it required a long controversy to bring it into