Descartes, Rene. Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason and Seeking for Truth in the Sciences. Part 2.
Read Entire Discourse on Method from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
I was then in Germany, to which country I had been attracted by the wars
which are not yet at an end. And as I was returning from the coronation of the
Emperor to join the army, the setting in of winter detained me in a quarter
where, since I found no society to divert me, while fortunately I had also no
cares or passions to trouble me, I remained the whole day shut up alone in a
stove-heated room, where I had complete leisure to occupy myself with my own
thoughts. One of the first of the considerations that occurred to me was that
there is very often less perfection in works composed of several portions, and
carried out by the hands of various masters, than in those on which one
individual alone has worked. Thus we see that buildings planned and carried out
by one architect alone are usually more beautiful and better proportioned than
those which many have tried to put in order and improve, making use of old walls
which were built with other ends in view. In the game way also, those ancient
cities which, originally mere villages, have become in the process of time great
towns, are usually {88} badly constructed in comparison with those which are
regularly laid out on a plain by a surveyor who is free to follow his own ideas.
Even though, considering their buildings each one apart, there is often as much
or more display of skill in the one case than in the other, the former have
large buildings and small buildings indiscriminately placed together, thus
rendering the streets crooked and irregular, so that it might be said that it
was chance rather than the will of men guided by reason that led to such an
arrangement. And if we consider that this happens despite the fact that from all
time there have been certain officials who have had the special duty of looking
after the buildings of private individuals in order that they may be public
ornaments, we shall understand how difficult it is to bring about much that is
satisfactory in operating only upon the works of others. Thus I imagined that
those people who were once half-ravage, and who have become civilized only by
slow degrees, merely forming their laws as the disagreeable necessities of their
crimes and quarrels constrained them, could not succeed in establishing so good
a system of government as those who, from the time they first came together as
communities, carried into effect the constitution laid down by some prudent
legislator. Thus it is quite certain that the constitution of the true Religion
whose ordinances are of God alone is incomparably better regulated than any
other. And, to come down to human affairs, I believe that if Sparta was very
flourishing in former times, this was not because of the excellence of each and
every one of its laws, seeing that many were very strange and even contrary to
good morals, but because, being drawn up by one individual, they all tended
towards the same end. And similarly I thought that the sciences found in
books-in those at least whose reasonings are only probable and which have no
demonstrations, composed as they are of the gradually accumulated opinions of
many different individuals-do not approach so near to the truth as the simple
reasoning which a man of common sense can quite naturally carry out respecting
the things which come immediately before him. Again I thought that since we have
all been children before being men, and since it has for long fallen to us to be
governed by our appetites and by our teachers (who often enough contradicted one
another, and none of whom perhaps counseled us always for the best), it is
almost impossible that our judgments should be so excellent or solid as they
should have been had we had complete use of our reason since our birth, and had
we been guided by its means alone. {89}
It is true that we do not find that all the houses in a town are razed to the
ground for the sole reason that the town is to be rebuilt in another fashion,
with streets made more beautiful; but at the same time we see that many people
cause their own houses to be knocked down in order to rebuild them, and that
sometimes they are forced so to do where there is danger of the houses falling
of themselves, and when the foundations are not secure. From such examples I
argued to myself that there was no plausibility in the claim of any private
individual to reform a state by altering everything, and by overturning it
throughout, in order to set it right again. Nor is it likewise probable that the
whole body of the Sciences, or the order of teaching established by the Schools,
should be reformed. But as regards all the opinions which up to this time I had
embraced, I thought I could not do better than endeavor once for all to sweep
them completely away, so that they might later on be replaced, either by others
which were better, or by the same, when I had made them conform to the
uniformity of a rational scheme. And I firmly believed that by this means I
should succeed in directing my life much better than if I had only built on old
foundations, and relied on principles of which I allowed myself to be in youth
persuaded without having inquired into their truth. For although in so doing I
recognized various difficulties, these were at the same time not insurmountable,
nor comparable to those which are found in reformation of the most insignificant
kind in matters which concern the public. In the case of great bodies it is too
difficult a task to raise them again when they are once thrown down, or even to
keep them in their places when once thoroughly shaken; and their fall cannot be
otherwise than very violent. Then as to any imperfections that they may possess
(and the very diversity that is found between them is sufficient to tell us that
these in many cases exist) custom has doubtless greatly mitigated them, while it
has also helped us to avoid, or insensibly corrected a number against which mere
foresight would have found it difficult to guard. And finally the imperfections
are almost always more supportable than would be the process of removing them,
just as the great roads which wind about amongst the mountains become, because
of being frequented, little by little so well-beaten and easy that it is much
better to follow them than to try to go more directly by climbing over rocks and
descending to the foot of precipices.
This is the reason why I cannot in any way approve of those turbulent and
unrestful spirits who, being called neither by birth {90} nor fortune to the
management of public affairs, never fail to have always iii their minds some new
reforms. And if I thought that in this treatise there was contained the smallest
justification for this folly, I should be very sorry to allow it to be
published. My design has never extended beyond trying to reform my own opinion
and to build on a foundation which is entirely my own. If my work has given me a
certain satisfaction, so that I here present to you a draft of it, I do not so
do because I wish to advise anybody to imitate it. Those to whom God has been
most beneficent in the bestowal of His graces will perhaps form designs which
are more elevated; but I fear much that this particular one will seem too
venturesome for many. The simple resolve to strip oneself of all opinions and
beliefs formerly received is not to be regarded as an example that each man
should follow, and the world may be said to be mainly composed of two classes of
minds neither of which could prudently adopt it. There are those who, believing
themselves to be cleverer than they are, cannot restrain themselves from being
precipitate in judgment and have not sufficient patience to arrange their
thoughts in proper order; hence, once a man of this description had taken the
liberty of doubting the principles he formerly accepted, and had deviated from
the beaten track, he would never be able to maintain the path which must be
followed to reach the appointed end more quickly, and he would hence remain
wandering astray all through his life. Secondly, there are those who having
reason or modesty enough to judge that they are less capable of distinguishing
truth from falsehood than some others from whom instruction might be obtained,
are right in contenting themselves with following the opinions of these others
rather than in searching better ones for themselves.
For myself I should doubtless have been of these last if I had never had more
than a single master, or had I never known the diversities which have from all
time existed between the opinions of men of the greatest learning. But I had
been taught, even in my College days, that there is nothing imaginable so
strange or so little credible that it has not been maintained by one philosopher
or other, and I further recognized in the course of my travels that all those
whose sentiments are very contrary to ours are yet not necessarily barbarians or
savages, but may be possessed of reason in as great or even a greater degree
than ourselves. I also considered how very different the self-same man,
identical in mind and spirit, may become, according as he is brought up from
childhood amongst the French or Germans, or has passed his whole life amongst
Chinese or {91} cannibals. I likewise noticed how even in the fashions of one's
clothing the same thing that pleased us ten years ago, and which will perhaps
please us once again before ten years are passed, seems at the present time
extravagant and ridiculous. I thus concluded that it is much more custom and
example that persuade us than any certain knowledge, and yet in spite of this
the voice of the majority does not afford a proof of any value in truths a
little difficult to discover, because such truths are much more likely to have
been discovered by one man than by a nation. I could not, however, put my finger
on a single person whose opinions seemed preferable to those of others, and I
found that I was, so to speak, constrained myself to undertake the direction of
my procedure.
But like one who walks alone and in the twilight I resolved to go so slowly,
and to use so much circumspection in all things, that if my advance was but very
small, at least I guarded myself well from falling. I did not wish to set about
the final rejection of any single opinion which might formerly have crept into
my beliefs without having been introduced there by means of Reason, until I had
first of all employed sufficient time in planning out the task which I had
undertaken, and in seeking the true Method of arriving at a knowledge of all the
things of which my mind was capable.
Among the different branches of Philosophy, I had in my younger days to a
certain extent studied Logic; and in those of Mathematics, Geometrical Analysis
and Algebra-three arts or sciences which seemed as though they ought to
contribute something to the design I had in view. But in examining them I
observed in respect to Logic that the syllogisms and the greater part of the
other teaching served better in explaining to others those things that one knows
(or like the art of Lully, in enabling one to speak without judgment of those
things of which one is ignorant) than in learning what is new. And although in
reality Logic contains many precepts which are very true and very good, there
are at the same time mingled with them so many others which are hurtful or
superfluous, that it is almost as difficult to separate the two as to draw a
Diana or a Minerva out of a block of marble which is not yet roughly hewn. And
as to the Analysis of the ancients and the Algebra of the moderns, besides the
fact that they embrace only matters the most abstract, such as appear to have no
actual use, the former is always so restricted to the consideration of symbols
that it cannot exercise the Understanding without greatly fatiguing the
imagination; and in the latter one is so subjected to certain rules and formulas
that {92} the result is the construction of an art which is confused and
obscure, and which embarrasses the mind, instead of a science which contributes
to its cultivation. This made me feel that some other Method must be found,
which, comprising the advantages of the three, is yet exempt from their faults.
And as a multiplicity of laws often furnishes excuses for evil-doing, and as a
State is hence much better ruled when, having but very few laws, these are most
strictly observed; so, instead of the great number of precepts of which Logic is
composed, I believed that I should find the four which I shall state quite
sufficient, provided that I adhered to a firm and constant resolve never on any
single occasion to fail in their observance.
Those long chains of reasoning, simple and easy as they are, of which
geometricians make use in order to arrive at the most difficult demonstrations,
had caused me to imagine that all those things which fall under the cognizance
of man might very likely be mutually related in the same fashion; and that,
provided only that we abstain from receiving anything a8 true which is not so,
and always retain the order which is necessary in order to deduce the one
conclusion from the other, there can be nothing so remote that we cannot reach
to it, nor so recondite that we cannot discover it. And I had not much trouble
in discovering which objects it was necessary to begin with, for I already knew
that it was with the most simple and those most easy to apprehend. Considering
also that, of all those who have hitherto sought for the truth in the {93}
Sciences, it has been the mathematicians alone who have been able to succeed in
making any demonstrations, that is to say producing reasons which are evident
and certain, I did not doubt that it had been by means of a similar kind that
they carried on their investigations. I did not at the same time hope for any
practical result in so doing, except that my mind would become accustomed to the
nourishment of truth and would not content itself with false reasoning. But for
all that I had no intention of trying to master all those particular sciences
that receive in common the name of Mathematics; but observing that, although
their objects are different, they do not fail to agree in this, that they take
nothing under consideration but the various relationships or proportions which
are present in these objects, I thought that it would be better if I only
examined these proportions in their general aspect, and without viewing them
otherwise than in the objects which would serve most to facilitate a knowledge
of them. Not that I should in any way restrict them to these objects, for I
might later on all the more easily apply them to all other objects to which they
were applicable. Then, having carefully noted that in order to comprehend the
proportions I should sometimes require to consider each one in particular, and
sometimes merely keep them in mind, or take them in groups, I thought that, in
order the better to consider them in detail, I should picture them in the form
of lines, because I could find no method more simple nor more capable of being
distinctly represented to my imagination and senses. I considered, however, that
in order to keep them in my memory or to embrace several at once, it would be
essential that I should explain them by means of certain formulas, the shorter
the better. And for this purpose it was requisite that I should borrow all that
is best in Geometrical Analysis and Algebra, and correct the errors of the one
by the other.
As a matter of fact, I can venture to say that the exact observation of the
few precepts which I had chosen gave me so much facility in sifting out all the
questions embraced in these two sciences, that in the two or three months which
I employed in examining them -- commencing with the most simple and general, and
making each truth that I discovered a rule for helping me to find others -- not
only did I arrive at the solution of many questions which I had hitherto
regarded as most difficult, but, towards the end, it seemed to me that I was
able to determine in the case of those of which I was still ignorant, by what
means, and in how far, it was possible to {94} solve them. In this I might
perhaps appear to you to be very vain if you did not remember that having but
one truth to discover in respect to each matter, whoever succeeds in finding it
knows in its regard as much as can be known. It is the same as with a child, for
instance, who has been instructed in Arithmetic and has made an addition
according to the rule prescribed; he may be sure of having found as regards the
sum of figures given to him all that the human mind can know. For, in
conclusion, the Method which teaches us to follow the true order and enumerate
exactly every term in the matter under investigation contains everything which
gives certainty to the rules of Arithmetic.
But what pleased me most in this Method was that I was certain by its means of exercising my reason in all things, if not perfectly, at least as well as was in my power. And besides this, I felt in making use of it that my mind gradually accustomed itself to conceive of its objects more accurately and distinctly; and not having restricted this Method to any particular matter, I promised myself to apply it as usefully to the difficulties of other sciences as I had done to those of Algebra. Not that on this account I dared undertake to examine just at once all those that might present themselves; for that would itself have been contrary to the order which the Method prescribes. But having noticed that the knowledge of these difficulties must be dependent on principles derived from Philosophy in which I yet found nothing to be certain, I thought that it was requisite above all to try to establish certainty in it. I considered also that since this endeavor is the most important in all the world, and that in which precipitation and prejudice were most to be feared, I should not try to grapple with it till I had attained to a much riper age than that of three and twenty, which was the age I had reached. I thought, too, that I should first of all employ much time in preparing myself for the work by eradicating from my mind all the wrong opinions which I had up to this time accepted, and accumulating a variety of experiences fitted later on to afford matter for my reasonings, and by ever exercising myself in the Method which I had prescribed, in order more and more to fortify myself in the power of using it. {95}