O quan bueno fuera, si los Autores que escriuieron en las sciencias Mathematicas, nos dexaran escriptos los sus inuentos por la misma via, y con los mismos disccursos q hizieron, hasta que pararon en ellos. Y no como Aristoteles dize en la Mechanica de los artifices, q nos muestran de la machina que tienen hecha lo de fuera, y esconden el artificio, por parescer admirables. Es la inuencion muy differente de la tradicion en qualquier arte, ny penseis q aquellas tantas proposiciones de Euclides, y de Archimedes, fueran todas halladas por la misma via que nos las han traido.

Pedro Nunes, Libro de Algebra en Artithmetica y Geometria, 1567, p. 114 r.

Oh, how good it would be if the Authors who have written on Mathematics, had left us descriptions of their inventions using the same ways and the same arguments that they have used for their findings. And not, as Aristotle says of artificers in Mechanics who show us the engine they have made, but conceal the artifice, to make them more admirable. In any art, invention is very different from tradition; do not think that all those propositions of Euclid and Archimedes were all found the same way they were delivered to us.