DISCOURSE ON THE METHOD

16

...was not yet certain of any [philosophical truths], I thought that I must, above all, try to establish some there. Since this was the most important thing in the world, and a task where haste and prejudice were most to be feared, I decided I should not attempt to accomplish it until I had reached a much more mature age than the twenty-three years I then was. I felt I needed to spend a long time preparing myself, both by uprooting from my mind all the wrong opinions I had accepted before that time, and by gathering many experiences to serve as the raw material for my reasonings, while constantly practicing the method I had prescribed for myself so as to strengthen my hold on it more and more.

PART THREE

And finally, just as it is not enough, before beginning to rebuild the house where one lives, to pull it down and provide materials and architects (or to practice architecture oneself), and to have carefully drawn up the blueprint; but one must also have provided oneself with some other house where one can be comfortably lodged during the time the work is in progress; so, in order that I should not remain indecisive in my actions while reason obliged me to be so in my judgments, and that I might continue to live as happily as I could from then on, I formed for myself a provisional moral code original: "morale par provision." This is a famous Cartesian concept: a "safety net" of ethical rules to live by while one is intellectually doubting everything else., which consisted of only three or four maxims which I should like to share with you.

The first was to obey the laws and customs of my country, firmly holding to the religion in which God gave me the grace to be instructed from my childhood, and governing myself in all other matters according to the most moderate opinions, and those furthest from excess, which were commonly accepted in practice by the most sensible people among whom I would have to live. For, beginning from that time to count my own opinions as nothing (because I wanted to submit them all to examination), I was certain I could do no better than to follow those of the most sensible people. And, even though...