Frege

In apprehending a scientific truth we pass, as a rule, through various degrees of certitude. Perhaps first conjectured on the basis of an insufficient number of particular cases, a general proposition comes to be more and more securely established by being connected with other truths through chains of inferences. . . . Hence we can inquire, on the one hand, how we have gradually arrived at a given proposition and, on the other, how we can finally provide it with the most secure foundation. The first question may have to be answered differently for different persons; the second is more definite, and the answer to it is connected with the inner nature of the proposition considered. The most reliable way of carrying out a proof, obviously, is to follow pure logic, a way that, disregarding the particular characteristics of objects, depends solely on those laws upon which all knowledge rests. . . . In attempting to comply with this requirement in the strictest possible way I found the inadequacy of language to be an obstacle; no matter how unwieldy the expressions I was ready to accept, I was less and less able, as the relations became more and more complex, to attain the precision that my purpose required. This deficiency led me to the idea of the present ideography. Its first purpose, therefore, is to provide us with the most reliable test of the validity of a chain of inferences and to point out every presupposition that tries to sneak in unnoticed, so that its origin can be investigated.