A Discourse of a Method for the Well Guiding of Reason: and the Discovery of Truth in the SciencesDescartes, René
PhilosophyPhilosophy
A Discourse of a Method for the Well Guiding of Reason: and the Discovery of Truth in the Sciences
Descartes, René
Methodology; Science -- Methodology
I should be glad to pursue this Discourse, and shew you the whole Series
of the following Truths, which I have drawn from the former: But because
for this purpose, it were now necessary for me to treat of severall
questions, which are controverted by the learned, with whom I have no
desire to imbroil my self, I beleeve it better for me to abstain from
it; and so in generall onely to discover what they are, that I may leave
the wisest to judge whether it were profitable to inform the publick
more particularly of them. I alwayes remained constant to my resolution,
to suppose no other Principle but that which I now made use of, for the
demonstration of the Existence of God, and of the Soul; and to receive
nothing for true, which did not seem to me more clear and more certain
then the demonstrations of Geometry had formerly done. And yet I dare
say, that I have not onely found out the means to satisfie my self, in a
short time, concerning all the principall difficulties which are usually
treated in Philosophy. But that also _I_ have observed certain Laws
which God hath so established in Nature, and of which he hath imprinted
such notions in our Souls, that when we shall have made sufficient
reflections upon them we cannot doubt but that they are exactly observed
in whatsoever either is, or is done in the World. Then considering the
connexion of these Laws, me thinks, I have discovercd divers Truths,
more usefull and important then whatever _I_ learn'd before, or ever
hop'd to learn.
But because _I_ have endeavoured to lay open the principall of them in a
Treatise, which some considerations hinder me from publishing; _I_ can
no way better make them known, then by relating summarily what it
contains.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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