Meditations on First Philosophy — Descartes — John Shaqi
Meditations on First Philosophy
Descartes · Latin
my senses I freely venture to state that I have never observed any
which I could not satisfactorily explain by the principles had
discovered. But it is necessary also to confess that the power of
nature is so ample and vast, and these principles so simple and
general, that I have hardly observed a single particular effect which I
cannot at once recognize as capable of being deduced in man different
modes from the principles, and that my greatest difficulty usually is
to discover in which of these modes the effect is dependent upon them;
for out of this difficulty cannot otherwise extricate myself than by
again seeking certain experiments, which may be such that their result
is not the same, if it is in the one of these modes at we must explain
it, as it would be if it were to be explained in the other. As to what
remains, I am now in a position to discern, as I think, with sufficient
clearness what course must be taken to make the majority those
experiments which may conduce to this end: but I perceive likewise that
they are such and so numerous, that neither my hands nor my income,
though it were a thousand times larger than it is, would be sufficient
for them all; so that according as henceforward I shall have the means
of making more or fewer experiments, I shall in the same proportion
make greater or less progress in the knowledge of nature. This was what
I had hoped to make known by the treatise I had written, and so clearly
to exhibit the advantage that would thence accrue to the public, as to
induce all who have the common good of man at heart, that is, all who
are virtuous in truth, and not merely in appearance, or according to
opinion, as well to communicate to me the experiments they had already
made, as to assist me in those that remain to be made.