On Von Staudt’s Geometrie der Lage

It is far too much the custom now to rely on the analogy of algebra to justify the introduction of imaginaries into geometry. Analogy, however, is no justification unless we first prove the exact correspondence of the fields of investigation. In analytical geometry the identification of the two fields is permissible, and is easily explained; but in pure geometry any reference to algebra, expressed or implied, is irrelevant and misleading. The elements of pure geometry have no dependence on calculation.