DISCOURSE ON THE METHOD

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and to include nothing more in my judgments than what presented itself so clearly and so distinctly to my mind that I would have no occasion to doubt it;

The second, to divide each of the difficulties I would examine into as many parts as possible and as required to better resolve them;

The third, to conduct my thoughts in an orderly manner, beginning with the simplest objects and those most easy to know, in order to climb little by little, as if by steps, to the knowledge of the most complex, and even assuming an order among those that do not naturally precede one another;

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And the last, to make everywhere such complete enumerations An "enumeration" is a thorough, step-by-step listing of all elements in an argument to ensure no part of the problem has been overlooked. and such general reviews that I would be certain of omitting nothing.

These long chains of simple and easy reasons, which geometers Descartes is referring to mathematicians who use deductive logic to move from simple axioms to complex theorems. are accustomed to using to reach their most difficult demonstrations, had given me cause to imagine that all things that can fall under human knowledge follow one another in the same way, and that, provided only that one refrains from accepting anything as true which is not, and that one always maintains the order necessary to deduce one from the other, there can be none so remote that they are not eventually reached, nor so hidden that they are not discovered. And I was not much troubled to seek which ones it was necessary to begin with, for I already knew it was with the simplest and easiest to know; and, considering that among all those who have previously sought truth in the sciences, only the mathematicians were able to find any demonstrations—that is to say, certain and evident reasons—I did not doubt that it was through these same things they examined, although I expected no other utility from them except that they would accustom my mind to nourish itself on truths and not be satisfied with false reasons. But I did not intend, for that reason, to try to learn all those particular sciences commonly called mathematics; and, seeing that although their objects are different, they do not fail to agree in that they consider nothing other than the various relations or proportions found therein, I thought it better that I should examine only these proportions in general, without assuming them to be in anything but subjects that would serve to make my knowledge of them easier, yet also without restricting them to those subjects in any way, so as to be better able to apply them afterward to