DISCOURSE ON THE METHOD

13

V

But, like a man who walks alone and in the darkness, I resolved to go so slowly and to use such caution in all things that, even if I advanced only a very little, I would at least be sure not to fall. I did not even wish to begin by entirely rejecting any of the opinions that might have slipped into my beliefs without being introduced by reason, until I had first spent enough time planning the work I was undertaking and seeking the true method for arriving at the knowledge of all things of which my mind was capable.

In my younger years, I had studied—among the branches of philosophy—logic, and—among the mathematical sciences—the analysis of the geometers and algebra: three arts or sciences that seemed likely to contribute something to my design. But, in examining them, I noticed that, as for logic, its syllogisms A syllogism is a form of logical argument where a conclusion is drawn from two premises (e.g., All men are mortal; Socrates is a man; therefore Socrates is mortal). and most of its other instructions serve more to explain to others the things one already knows—or even, like the art of Lully Ramon Llull (1232–1315) was a philosopher who devised a system of revolving wheels with symbols to "automatically" generate arguments, which Descartes critiques here as being hollow., to speak without judgment about things one does not know—rather than to actually learn them. And although logic does indeed contain many very true and very good precepts, there are nonetheless so many others mixed in that are either harmful or superfluous, that it is almost as difficult to separate them as it is to draw a statue of Diana or Minerva out of a block of marble that has not yet been roughed out.

Then, regarding the analysis of the ancients and the algebra of the moderns, besides the fact that they extend only to very abstract matters that seem to have no practical use, the former is always so restricted to the consideration of figures In this context, "figures" refers to geometric shapes like triangles and circles. that it cannot exercise the understanding without greatly fatiguing the imagination; and in the latter, one has so subjected oneself to certain rules and certain numbers that it has been turned into a confused and obscure art that embarrasses the mind, instead of a science that cultivates it. This was why I thought I had to look for some other method which, comprising the advantages of these three, would be free from their defects. And, just as a multitude of laws often provides excuses for vices, so that a State is much better governed when, having only a very few, they are very strictly observed; so, instead of that great number of precepts of which logic is composed, I believed I would find the method four following rules to be sufficient, provided I made a firm and constant resolution never to fail to observe them even once.

The first was never to accept anything as true that I did not evidently know to be such; that is, to carefully avoid haste and prejudice...