【英文原著类】Descartes’ Reason Discourse(笛卡尔的推理).pdf

DISCOURSE ON THE METHOD OF RIGHTLY CONDUCTING THE REASON, AND
SEEKING TRUTH IN THE SCIENCES
DISCOURSE ON THE
METHOD OF RIGHTLY
CONDUCTING THE
REASON, AND SEEKING
TRUTH IN THE
SCIENCES
by Rene Descartes
1
DISCOURSE ON THE METHOD OF RIGHTLY CONDUCTING THE REASON, AND
SEEKING TRUTH IN THE SCIENCES
PREFATORY NOTE BY THE AUTHOR
If this Discourse appear too long to be read at once, it may be divided
into six Parts: and, in the first, will be found various considerations
touching the Sciences; in the second, the principal rules of the Method
which the Author has discovered, in the third, certain of the rules of
Morals which he has deduced from this Method; in the fourth, the
reasonings by which he establishes the existence of God and of the Human
Soul, which are the foundations of his Metaphysic; in the fifth, the order
of the Physical questions which he has investigated, and, in particular, the
explication of the motion of the heart and of some other difficulties
pertaining to Medicine, as also the difference between the soul of man and
that of the brutes; and, in the last, what the Author believes to be required
in order to greater advancement in the investigation of Nature than has yet
been made, with the reasons that have induced him to write.
PART 1
Good sense is, of all things among men, the most equally distributed;
for every one thinks himself so abundantly provided with it, that those
even who are the most difficult to satisfy in everything else, do not usually
desire a larger measure of this quality than they already possess. And in
this it is not likely that all are mistaken the conviction is rather to be held
as testifying that the power of judging aright and of distinguishing truth
from error, which is properly what is called good sense or reason, is by
nature equal in all men; and that the diversity of our opinions,
consequently, does not arise from some being endowed with a larger share
of reason than others,