The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table

I WAS JUST going to say, when I was interrupted, that one of the many ways of classifying minds is under the heads of arithmetical and algebraical intellects. All economical and practical wisdom is an extension or variation of the following arithmetical formula: 2 2=4. Every philosophical proposition has the more general character of the expression A B=C. We are mere operatives, empirics, and egotists, until we learn to think in letters instead of figures