Descartes’ Reason Discourse(笛卡尔的推理)

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DISCOURSE ON THE METHOD OF RIGHTLY CONDUCTING THE REASON, AND

SEEKING TRUTH IN THE SCIENCES

DISCOURSE ON THE

METHOD OF RIGHTLY

CONDUCTING THE

REASON, AND SEEKING

TRUTH IN THE

SCIENCES

by Rene Descartes

DISCOURSE ON THE METHOD OF RIGHTLY CONDUCTING THE REASON, AND

SEEKING TRUTH IN THE SCIENCES

PREFATORY NOTE BY THE AUTHOR

If this Discourse appear too long to be read at once, it may be divided

into six Parts: and, in the first, will be found various considerations

touching the Sciences; in the second, the principal rules of the Method

which the Author has discovered, in the third, certain of the rules of

Morals which he has deduced from this Method; in the fourth, the

reasonings by which he establishes the existence of God and of the Human

Soul, which are the foundations of his Metaphysic; in the fifth, the order

of the Physical questions which he has investigated, and, in particular, the

explication of the motion of the heart and of some other difficulties

pertaining to Medicine, as also the difference between the soul of man and

that of the brutes; and, in the last, what the Author believes to be required

in order to greater advancement in the investigation of Nature than has yet

been made, with the reasons that have induced him to write.

PART 1

Good sense is, of all things among men, the most equally distributed;

for every one thinks himself so abundantly provided with it, that those

even who are the most difficult to satisfy in everything else, do not usually

desire a larger measure of this quality than they already possess. And in

this it is not likely that all are mistaken the conviction is rather to be held

as testifying that the power of judging aright and of distinguishing truth

from error, which is properly what is called good sense or reason, is by

nature equal in all men; and that the diversity of our opinions,

consequently, does not arise from some being endowed with a larger share

of reason than others, but solely from this, that we conduct our thoughts

along different ways, and do not fix our attention on the same objects. For

to be possessed of a vigorous mind is not enough; the prime requisite is

rightly to apply it. The greatest minds, as they are capable of the highest

DISCOURSE ON THE METHOD OF RIGHTLY CONDUCTING THE REASON, AND

SEEKING TRUTH IN THE SCIENCES

excellences, are open likewise to the greatest aberrations; and those who

travel very slowly may yet make far greater progress, provided they keep

always to the straight road, than those who, while they run, forsake it.

For myself, I have never fancied my mind to be in any respect more

perfect than those of the generality; on the contrary, I have often wished

that I were equal to some others in promptitude of thought, or in clearness

and distinctness of imagination, or in fullness and readiness of memory.

And besides these, I know of no other qualities that contribute to the

perfection of the mind; for as to the reason or sense, inasmuch as it is that

alone which constitutes us men, and distinguishes us from the brutes, I am

disposed to believe that it is to be found complete in each individual; and

on this point to adopt the common opinion of philosophers, who say that

the difference of greater and less holds only among the accidents, and not

among the forms or natures of individuals of the same species.

I will not hesitate, however, to avow my belief that it has been my

singular good fortune to have very early in life fallen in with certain

tracks which have conducted me to considerations and maxims, of which I

have formed a method that gives me the means, as I think, of gradually

augmenting my knowledge, and of raising it by little and little to the

highest point which the mediocrity of my talents and the brief duration of

my life will permit me to reach. For I have already reaped from it such

fruits that, although I have been accustomed to think lowly enough of

myself, and although when I look with the eye of a philosopher at the

varied courses and pursuits of mankind at large, I find scarcely one which

does not appear in vain and useless, I nevertheless derive the highest

satisfaction from the progress I conceive myself to have already made in

the search after truth, and cannot help entertaining such expectations of the

future as to believe that if, among the occupations of men as men, there is

any one really excellent and important, it is that which I have chosen.

After all, it is possible I may be mistaken; and it is but a little copper

and glass, perhaps, that I take for gold and diamonds. I know how very

liable we are to delusion in what relates to ourselves, and also how much

the judgments of our friends are to be suspected when given in our favor.

But I shall endeavor in this discourse to describe the paths I have followed,

DISCOURSE ON THE METHOD OF RIGHTLY CONDUCTING THE REASON, AND

SEEKING TRUTH IN THE SCIENCES

and to delineate my life as in a picture, in order that each one may also be

able to judge of them for himself, and that in the general opinion

entertained of them, as gathered from current report, I myself may have a

new help towards instruction to be added to those I have been in the habit

of employing.

My present design, then, is not to teach the method which each ought

to follow for the right conduct of his reason, but solely to describe the way

in which I have endeavored to conduct my own. They who set

themselves to give precepts must of course regard themselves as possessed

of greater skill than those to whom they prescribe; and if they err in the

slightest particular, they subject themselves to censure. But as this tract

is put forth merely as a history, or, if you will, as a tale, in which, amid

some examples worthy of imitation, there will be found, perhaps, as many

more which it were advisable not to follow, I hope it will prove useful to

some without being hurtful to any, and that my openness will find some

favor with all.

From my childhood, I have been familiar with letters; and as I was

given to believe that by their help a clear and certain knowledge of all that

is useful in life might be acquired, I was ardently desirous of instruction.

But as soon as I had finished the entire course of study, at the close of

which it is customary to be admitted into the order of the learned, I

completely changed my opinion. For I found myself involved in so

many doubts and errors, that I was convinced I had advanced no farther in

all my attempts at learning, than the discovery at every turn of my own

ignorance. And yet I was studying in one of the most celebrated schools

in Europe, in which I thought there must be learned men, if such were

anywhere to be found. I had been taught all that others learned there; and

not contented with the sciences actually taught us, I had, in addition, read

all the books that had fallen into my hands, treating of such branches as

are esteemed the most curious and rare. I knew the judgment which

others had formed of me; and I did not find that I was considered inferior

to my fellows, although there were among them some who were already

marked out to fill the places of our instructors. And, in fine, our age

appeared to me as flourishing, and as fertile in powerful minds as any

DISCOURSE ON THE METHOD OF RIGHTLY CONDUCTING THE REASON, AND

SEEKING TRUTH IN THE SCIENCES

preceding one. I was thus led to take the liberty of judging of all other

men by myself, and of concluding that there was no science in existence

that was of such a nature as I had previously been given to believe.

I still continued, however, to hold in esteem the studies of the schools.

I was aware that the languages taught in them are necessary to the

understanding of the writings of the ancients; that the grace of fable stirs

the mind; that the memorable deeds of history elevate it; and, if read with

discretion, aid in forming the judgment; that the perusal of all excellent

books is, as it were, to interview with the noblest men of past ages, who

have written them, and even a studied interview, in which are discovered

to us only their choicest thoughts; that eloquence has incomparable force

and beauty; that poesy has its ravishing graces and delights; that in the

mathematics there are many refined discoveries eminently suited to gratify

the inquisitive, as well as further all the arts an lessen the labour of man;

that numerous highly useful precepts and exhortations to virtue are

contained in treatises on morals; that theology points out the path to

heaven; that philosophy affords the means of discoursing with an

appearance of truth on all matters, and commands the admiration of the

more simple; that jurisprudence, medicine, and the other sciences, secure

for their cultivators honors and riches; and, in fine, that it is useful to

bestow some attention upon all, even upon those abounding the most in

superstition and error, that we may be in a position to determine their real

value, and guard against being deceived.

But I believed that I had already given sufficient time to languages,

and likewise to the reading of the writings of the ancients, to their histories

and fables. For to hold converse with those of other ages and to travel,

are almost the same thing. It is useful to know something of the manners

of different nations, that we may be enabled to form a more correct

judgment regarding our own, and be prevented from thinking that

everything contrary to our customs is ridiculous and irrational, a

conclusion usually come to by those whose experience has been limited to

their own country. On the other hand, when too much time is occupied in

traveling, we become strangers to our native country; and the over curious

in the customs of the past are generally ignorant of those of the present.

DISCOURSE ON THE METHOD OF RIGHTLY CONDUCTING THE REASON, AND

SEEKING TRUTH IN THE SCIENCES

Besides, fictitious narratives lead us to imagine the possibility of many

events that are impossible; and even the most faithful histories, if they do

not wholly misrepresent matters, or exaggerate their importance to render

the account of them more worthy of perusal, omit, at least, almost always

the meanest and least striking of the attendant circumstances; hence it

happens that the remainder does not represent the truth, and that such as

regulate their conduct by examples drawn from this source, are apt to fall

into the extravagances of the knight-errants of romance, and to entertain

projects that exceed their powers.

I esteemed eloquence highly, and was in raptures with poesy; but I

thought that both were gifts of nature rather than fruits of study. Those in

whom the faculty of reason is predominant, and who most skillfully

dispose their thoughts with a view to render them clear and intelligible, are

always the best able to persuade others of the truth of what they lay down,

though they should speak only in the language of Lower Brittany, and be

wholly ignorant of the rules of rhetoric; and those whose minds are stored

with the most agreeable fancies, and who can give expression to them with

the greatest embellishment and harmony, are still the best poets, though

unacquainted with the art of poetry.

I was especially delighted with the mathematics, on account of the

certitude and evidence of their reasonings; but I had not as yet a precise

knowledge of their true use; and thinking that they but contributed to the

advancement of the mechanical arts, I was astonished that foundations, so

strong and solid, should have had no loftier superstructure reared on them.

On the other hand, I compared the disquisitions of the ancient moralists to

very towering and magnificent palaces with no better foundation than sand

and mud: they laud the virtues very highly, and exhibit them as

estimable far above anything on earth; but they give us no adequate

criterion of virtue, and frequently that which they designate with so fine a

name is but apathy, or pride, or despair, or parricide.

I revered our theology, and aspired as much as any one to reach heaven:

but being given assuredly to understand that the way is not less open to the

most ignorant than to the most learned, and that the revealed truths which

lead to heaven are above our comprehension, I did not presume to subject

DISCOURSE ON THE METHOD OF RIGHTLY CONDUCTING THE REASON, AND

SEEKING TRUTH IN THE SCIENCES

them to the impotency of my reason; and I thought that in order

competently to undertake their examination, there was need of some

special help from heaven, and of being more than man.

Of philosophy I will say nothing, except that when I saw that it had

been cultivated for many ages by the most distinguished men, and that yet

there is not a single matter within its sphere which is not still in dispute,

and nothing, therefore, which is above doubt, I did not presume to

anticipate that my success would be greater in it than that of others; and

further, when I considered the number of conflicting opinions touching a

single matter that may be upheld by learned men, while there can be but

one true, I reckoned as well-nigh false all that was only probable.

As to the other sciences, inasmuch as these borrow their principles

from philosophy, I judged that no solid superstructures could be reared on

foundations so infirm; and neither the honor nor the gain held out by them

was sufficient to determine me to their cultivation: for I was not, thank

Heaven, in a condition which compelled me to make merchandise of

science for the bettering of my fortune; and though I might not profess to

scorn glory as a cynic, I yet made very slight account of that honor which I

hoped to acquire only through fictitious titles. And, in fine, of false

sciences I thought I knew the worth sufficiently to escape being deceived

by the professions of an alchemist, the predictions of an astrologer, the

impostures of a magician, or by the artifices and boasting of any of those

who profess to know things of which they are ignorant.

For these reasons, as soon as my age permitted me to pass from under

the control of my instructors, I entirely abandoned the study of letters, and

resolved no longer to seek any other science than the knowledge of myself,

or of the great book of the world. I spent the remainder of my youth in

traveling, in visiting courts and armies, in holding intercourse with men of

different dispositions and ranks, in collecting varied experience, in

proving myself in the different situations into which fortune threw me, and,

above all, in making such reflection on the matter of my experience as to

secure my improvement. For it occurred to me that I should find much

more truth in the reasonings of each individual with reference to the affairs

in which he is personally interested, and the issue of which must presently

DISCOURSE ON THE METHOD OF RIGHTLY CONDUCTING THE REASON, AND

SEEKING TRUTH IN THE SCIENCES

punish him if he has judged amiss, than in those conducted by a man of

letters in his study, regarding speculative matters that are of no practical

moment, and followed by no consequences to himself, farther, perhaps,

than that they foster his vanity the better the more remote they are from

common sense; requiring, as they must in this case, the exercise of greater

ingenuity and art to render them probable. In addition, I had always a

most earnest desire to know how to distinguish the true from the false, in

order that I might be able clearly to discriminate the right path in life, and

proceed in it with confidence.

It is true that, while busied only in considering the manners of other

men, I found here, too, scarce any ground for settled conviction, and

remarked hardly less contradiction among them than in the opinions of the

philosophers. So that the greatest advantage I derived from the study

consisted in this, that, observing many things which, however extravagant

and ridiculous to our apprehension, are yet by common consent received

and approved by other great nations, I learned to entertain too decided a

belief in regard to nothing of the truth of which I had been persuaded

merely by example and custom; and thus I gradually extricated myself

from many errors powerful enough to darken our natural intelligence, and

incapacitate us in great measure from listening to reason. But after I had

been occupied several years in thus studying the book of the world, and in

essaying to gather some experience, I at length resolved to make myself an

object of study, and to employ all the powers of my mind in choosing the

paths I ought to follow, an undertaking which was accompanied with

greater success than it would have been had I never quitted my country or

my books.

DISCOURSE ON THE METHOD OF RIGHTLY CONDUCTING THE REASON, AND

SEEKING TRUTH IN THE SCIENCES

PART II

I was then in Germany, attracted thither by the wars in that country,

which have not yet been brought to a termination; and as I was returning

to the army from the coronation of the emperor, the setting in of winter

arrested me in a locality where, as I found no society to interest me, and

was besides fortunately undisturbed by any cares or passions, I remained

the whole day in seclusion, with full opportunity to occupy my attention

with my own thoughts. Of these one of the very first that occurred to me

was, that there is seldom so much perfection in works composed of many

separate parts, upon which different hands had been employed, as in those

completed by a single master. Thus it is observable that the buildings

which a single architect has planned and executed, are generally more

elegant and commodious than those which several have attempted to

improve, by making old walls serve for purposes for which they were not

originally built. Thus also, those ancient cities which, from being at first

only villages, have become, in course of time, large towns, are usually but

ill laid out compared with the regularity constructed towns which a

professional architect has freely planned on an open plain; so that although

the several buildings of the former may often equal or surpass in beauty

those of the latter, yet when one observes their indiscriminate

juxtaposition, there a large one and here a small, and the consequent

crookedness and irregularity of the streets, one is disposed to allege that

chance rather than any human will guided by reason must have led to such

an arrangement. And if we consider that nevertheless there have been at

all times certain officers whose duty it was to see that private buildings

contributed to public ornament, the difficulty of reaching high perfection

with but the materials of others to operate on, will be readily

acknowledged. In the same way I fancied that those nations which,

starting from a semi-barbarous state and advancing to civilization by slow

degrees, have had their laws successively determined, and, as it were,

forced upon them simply by experience of the hurtfulness of particular

DISCOURSE ON THE METHOD OF RIGHTLY CONDUCTING THE REASON, AND

SEEKING TRUTH IN THE SCIENCES

crimes and disputes, would by this process come to be possessed of less

perfect institutions than those which, from the commencement of their

association as communities, have followed the appointments of some wise

legislator. It is thus quite certain that the constitution of the true religion,

the ordinances of which are derived from God, must be incomparably

superior to that of every other. And, to speak of human affairs, I believe

that the pre-eminence of Sparta was due not to the goodness of each of its

laws in particular, for many of these were very strange, and even opposed

to good morals, but to the circumstance that, originated by a single

individual, they all tended to a single end. In the same way I thought that

the sciences contained in books (such of them at least as are made up of

probable reasonings, without demonstrations), composed as they are of the

opinions of many different individuals massed together, are farther

removed from truth than the simple inferences which a man of good sense

using his natural and unprejudiced judgment draws respecting the matters

of his experience. And because we have all to pass through a state of

infancy to manhood, and have been of necessity, for a length of time,

governed by our desires and preceptors (whose dictates were frequently

conflicting, while neither perhaps always counseled us for the best), I

farther concluded that it is almost impossible that our judgments can be so

correct or solid as they would have been, had our reason been mature from

the moment of our birth, and had we always been guided by it alone.

It is true, however, that it is not customary to pull down all the houses

of a town with the single design of rebuilding them differently, and

thereby rendering the streets more handsome; but it often happens that a

private individual takes down his own with the view of erecting it anew,

and that people are even sometimes constrained to this when their houses

are in danger of falling from age, or when the foundations are insecure.

With this before me by way of example, I was persuaded that it would

indeed be preposterous for a private individual to think of reforming a

state by fundamentally changing it throughout, and overturning it in order

to set it up amended; and the same I thought was true of any similar

project for reforming the body of the sciences, or the order of teaching

them established in the schools: but as for the opinions which up to that

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Descartes’ Reason Discourse(笛卡尔的推理)

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