Рене Декарт: A Discourse of a Method for the Well Guiding of Reason and the Discovery of Truth in the Sciences

And for my part, I had undoubtedly been of the number of those latter, had I never had but one Master, or had I not known the disputes which have alwayes hapned amongst the most learned. For having learnt from the very School, That one can imagin nothing so strange or incredible, which had not been said by some one of the Philosophers; And having since observ’d in my travails, That all those whose opinions are contrary to ours, are not therefore barbarous or savage, but that many use as much or more reason then we; and having consider’d how much one Man with his own understanding, bred up from his childhood among the French or the Dutch, becomes different from what he would be, had he alwayes liv’d amongst the Chineses , or the Cannibals : And how even in the fashion of our Clothes, the same thing which pleas’d ten years since, and which perhaps wil please ten years hence, seems now to us ridiculous and extravagant. So that it’s much more Custome and Example which perswades us, then any assured knowledg; and notwithstanding that plurality of voices is a proof of no validity, in those truths which are hard to be discovered; for that it’s much more likely for one man alone to have met with them, then a whole Nation; I could choose no Man whose opinion was to be preferr’d before anothers: And I found my self even constrain’d to undertake the conduct of my self.

But as a man that walks alone, and in the dark, I resolv’d to goe so softly, and use so much circumspection in all things, that though I advanc’d little, I would yet save my self from falling. Neither would I begin quite to reject, some opinions, which formerly had crept into my belief, without the consent of my reason, before I had employed time enough to form the project of the work I undertook, and to seek the true Method to bring me to the knowledg of all those things, of which my understanding was capable.

I had a little studyed, being young, of the parts of Philosophy, Logick, and of the Mathematicks, the Analysis of the Geometricians, and Algebra : Three arts or sciences which seem’d to contribute somewhat conducing to my designe: But examining them, I observ’d, That as for Logick, its Sylogisms, and the greatest part of its other Rules, serve rather to expound to another the things they know, or even as Lullies art, to speak with judgment of the things we are ignorant of, then to learn them. And although in effect it contain divers most true and good precepts, yet there are so many others mixed amongst them, either hurtfull or superfluous, That it’s even as difficult to extract them, as ’tis to draw a Diana or a Mercury out of a lump of Marble, which is not yet rough-hewn; as for the Analysis of the Ancients, and the Algebra of the Moderns; besides that, they extend only to matters very abstract, and which seem to be of no use; The first being alwayes so tyed to the consideration of figures, That it cannot exercise the understanding, without very much tiring the imagination. And in the latter they have so subjected themselves to certain Rules and cyphers, that they have made a confus’d and obscure art which perplexeth the minde, in stead of a Science to instruct it. For this reason, I thought I ought to seek some other Method, which comprehending the advantages of these, they might be exempt from their defects. And as the multitude of Laws often furnisheth excuses for vice; so a State is fair better polic’d, when having but a few, they are very strictly observ’d therein: So, instead of the great many precepts whereof Logick is compos’d, I thought these four following would be sufficient for me, if I took but a firm and constant resolution not once to fail in the observation of them.

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