But, in the further development of a branch of mathematics, the human mind, encouraged by the success of its solutions, becomes conscious of its independence. It evolves from itself alone, often without appreciable in?uence from without, by means of logical combination, generalization, specialization, by separating and collecting ideas in fortunate new ways, new and fruitful problems, and appears then itself as the real questioner. David Hilbert, Mathematical Problems Thestudyoflocallynipotentderivationsand G -actionshasrecentlyemerged a from the long shadows of other branches of mathematics,...

Invariant Theory and Algebraic Transformation Groups VII