If the object of all human investigation were but to produce in cognition a reflection of the world as it exists, of what value would be all its labor and pains, which could result only in vain repetition, in an imitation within the soul of that which exists without it?

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "If the object of all human investigation were but to produce in cognition a reflection of the world as it exists, of what value would be all its labor and pains, which could result only in vain repetition, in an imitation within the soul of that which exists without it?" in the context of "As quoted in Carl Friedrich Gauss: Titan of Science (1955) by Guy Waldo Dunnington. p. 365" to mean that wisdom is timeless.