Full Idea
What I value most in geometry, considered as a contemplative study, is its letting us glimpse the true source of eternal truths and of the way in which we can come to grasp their necessity, which is something confused sensory images cannot reveal.
Gist of Idea
Geometry, unlike sensation, lets us glimpse eternal truths and their necessity
Source
Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 4.12)
Book Reference
Leibniz,Gottfried: 'New Essays on Human Understanding', ed/tr. Remnant/Bennett [CUP 1996], p.452
A Reaction
This is strikingly straight out of Plato. We should not underestimate this idea, though nowadays it is with us, but with geometry replaced by mathematical logic.