Some typed up Descartes - Discourse on Method Part 1

[Author's Preface]

If this discourse seems too long to be read at one time, it may be divided into six parts. In the first part, you will find various considerations concerning the sciences' in the second part, the chief rules of the method which the author has sought' in the third part, some of the rules of morality which he has derived from this method;in the fourth part, the arguments by which he proves the existence of God and the human soul, which are the foundations of his metaphysics; in the fifth part, the order of the questions in physics that he has investigated, and particularly the explanation of the movement of the heart and of other difficulties that pertain to medicine., as well as the difference between our soul and that of beasts; and in the final part, what things the author believes are required in order to advance further in the investigation of nature than the author has done, and what reasons have made him write.

Part One

Good sense is the best distributed thing in the world, for everyone thinks himself to be so well endowed with it that even those who are the most difficulty to please in everything else are not at all wont to desire more of it than they have. It is not likely that everyone is mistaken in this. Rather, it provides evidence that the power of judging well and of distinguishing the true from the false (whcih is, proerly speaking, what people call "good sense" or "reason") is naturally equal in all men, and that the diversity of our opinions does not arise from the fact that some people are more reasonalbe than others, but solely from the fact that we lead our thougts along different paths and do not take the same thigns into consideration. For it is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to apply it well. The greatest souls are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues. And those who proceed only very slowly can make much greater progress, provided they always follow the right path, than do those who hurry and stray from it.

For myself, I have never presumed that my mind was in any respect more perfect than that of ordinary men. In fact, I ( have often desired to have as wuick a wit, or as keen and distinct an imagination, or as full and responsive a memory as some other people. And other than these I know of no qualities that serve in the perfecting of the mind, for as to reason or sense, inasmuch as it alone makes us men and distinguishes us form the beasts, I prefer to believe that it exists whole and entire in each of us, and in this to follow the opinion commonly held by philosophers, who say thtat there are differences of degree on ly between accidents, but not at all between forms or natures of individuals of the same species.

But I shall have no fear of saying that I htink I have been rather fortunate to have, since my youth, found myself on certain paths taht have led me to considerations and maxims from which I have formed a method by which, it seems to me, I have the means to increase my knowledge by degrees and to raise it little by little to the highest point which the mediocrity of my mind and the short duration of my life will be able to allow it to attain. For I have already reaped from it such a harvest that, although I try, in judgments I make of myself, always to lean more on the side of diffidence than of presumption, and although, looking with a philosopher's eye at the various actions and enterprises of all men, there is hardly one of them that does not seem to me vain and useless, I cannot but take immense satisfaction i nthe progress that I think I have already made in the search for truth, and I cannot but envisage such hopes for the future that if, among the occupations of men purely as men, there is one that is solidly good and imprtant, I dare to believe that it is the one I have chosen.

All the same, it could be that I am mistaken, and what i take for gold and diamonds is perhaps nothing but a bit of copper and glass. I know how much we are prone to err in what affects us, and also how much the judgemnts made by our friends should be distrusted when these judgments are in our favor. But I will be very happy to show in this discourse what paths I have followed and to represent my life in it as if in a picture, so that everyone may judge it ofr himself; and that, learning from the comon response the opinions one will have of it, this may be a new means of teaching myself, which I shall add to those that i am accustomed to using.