Discourse on the Method and Metaphysical Meditations

DISCOURSE ON METHOD

that the power of judging well and distinguishing the true from the false, which is properly what we call good sense or reason, is naturally equal in all men; and thus that the diversity of our opinions does not arise from some being more reasonable than others, but only from the fact that we conduct our thoughts by different paths and do not consider the same things. For it is not enough to have a good mind, but the main thing is to apply it well. The greatest souls are capable of the greatest vices as well as the greatest virtues; and those who walk only very slowly can advance much further, if they always follow the right path, than those who run and wander from it.

For my part, I have never presumed my mind to be in any way more perfect than those of the common people; indeed, I have often wished I had a thought as quick, or an imagination as clear and distinct, or a memory as ample or as present as some others. And I know of no other qualities than these that serve the perfection of the mind; for, as for reason or sense, insofar as it is the only thing that makes us human and distinguishes us from the beasts, * I am inclined to believe that it is whole and complete in each person, and to follow in this the common opinion of the Philosophers who say that there is "more" or "less" only among the accidents In traditional philosophy, "accidents" are non-essential qualities like height or hair color that can change without changing the essence of the person., and not at all among the forms The "form" refers to the essential nature or "blueprint" of a species; in this case, the human capacity for reason. or natures of individuals of the same species.

X But I will not fear to say that I think I have had the great fortune to have encountered, since my youth, certain paths which have led me to considerations and maxims from which I have formed a method by which it seems to me that I have the means to increase my knowledge by degrees, and to raise it little by little to the highest point that the mediocrity of my mind and the short duration of my life can permit it to reach. For I have already gathered such fruits from it that, although in the judgments I make of myself I always try to lean toward the side of distrust rather than toward that of presumption, and although, looking with a philosopher’s eye at the various actions and enterprises of all men, there are almost none that do not seem to me vain and useless, I do not fail to receive extreme satisfaction from the progress I think I have already made in the search for truth, and to conceive such hopes for the future that if, among the occupations of men, purely as men, there is any one that is solidly good and important, I dare believe it is the one I have chosen.

Treg...? However, it may be that I am mistaken, and it is not