Common sense is the best shared thing in the world; for every one thinks that he is so well provided that even those who are the most difficult to satisfy in anything else are not in the habit of desiring more than they have. In which it is not probable that all are mistaken: but rather it testifies that the power of judging and distinguishing truth from falsity, properly so called good sense or reason, is naturally equal in all men; and as the diversity of our opinions does not arise from the fact that some are more reasonable than others, but only because we conduct our thoughts by various means, and do not consider the same things. Because it is not enough to have good spirit, but the main one is to apply it well. The greatest souls are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues; and those who walk very slowly can advance much more, if they follow the right path, than those who run and depart.
For my part, I have never assumed that my mind was in any way more perfect than that of the common; I have often wished to have thought so prompt, or imagination as clear and distinct, or memory as ample or present, as some others. And I know no other quality except these which serve for the perfection of the spirit; for reason, or sense, especially as it is the only thing which makes us men and distinguishes us from animals, I wish to believe that it is entirely in each one; and to follow in this the common opinion of the philosophers, who say that there is nothing more and less than between accidents, and not between the forms or natures of individuals of the same species.
But I shall not be afraid to say that I think I was very fortunate to have met from my youth in certain ways which led me to considerations and maxims of which I formed a method, by which it seems to have the means of gradually increasing my knowledge, and gradually elevating it to the highest point at which the mediocrity of my mind and the short duration of my life will enable it to attain. For I have already gained such fruits that, although I judge lowly of myself, I always try to lean towards the side of mistrust rather than that of presumption, and that, looking with an eye of philosopher the various actions and undertakings of all men, there is scarcely any which does not seem to me vain and useless, I do not let receive an extreme satisfaction of the progress which I think I have already made in research of the truth, and to conceive such hopes for the future, that if, among the occupations of men, purely men, there is some that is solidly good and important, I dare to believe that it is that which I have chosen.
However, it may be that I am mistaken, and it is perhaps only a little copper and glass that I take for gold and diamonds. I know how much we are liable to misunderstand what affects us, and how much the judgments of our friends ought to be suspect to us, when they are in our favor. But I shall be glad to show in this speech what paths I have followed, and to represent my life there as in a picture, that each may judge of it, and that, extracting from common noise the future opinions, it will be a new means of instructing me, which I shall add to those I am accustomed to use.
Thus my intention is not to teach here the method which each one must follow in order to conduct well his reason, but only to show in what manner I have endeavored to conduct mine. Those who meddle in giving precepts ought to esteem themselves more clevers than those to whom they give them; and if they fail in the least thing, they are blamable. But, proposing this writing only as a history, or, if you like it better, than as a fable, in which, among some examples that can be imitated, we may also find several others I hope that it will be useful to some without being injurious to any one, and that all will be grateful to me for my frankness.
I have been nourished with letters since my childhood; and because they persuaded me that by their means they could acquire a clear and assured knowledge of all that is useful to life, I had an extreme desire to learn them. But as soon as I had completed all this course of study, at the end of which it is customary to be received among the learned, I entirely changed my opinion. For I was embarrassed by so many doubts and errors, that it seemed to me that I had made no other profit, by trying to instruct myself, except that I had discovered more and more my ignorance. And yet I was in one of the most celebrated schools of Europe, where I thought that there ought to be learned men if there were any in the world. I had learned all that the others learned there; and, not being satisfied with the sciences which were taught us, I had gone through all the books dealing with those which are considered the most curious and the rarest, which might have fallen into my hands. With this I knew the judgments which others made of me; and I did not see that they considered me inferior to my fellow-students, although there were already some among them who were destined to fill the places of our masters. And finally, our age seemed to me as blooming and fertile in good spirits as none of the preceding ones. This made me take the liberty of judging by myself of all the others, and of thinking that there was no doctrine in the world which was such as I had previously hoped for.
I did not, however, allow to estimate the exercises in which schools are engaged. I knew that the languages which are taught there are necessary for the understanding of ancient books; that the gentleness of fables awakens the mind; that the memorable actions of the stories raise it, and that being read with discretion they help to form the judgment; that the reading of all good books is like a conversation with the most honest people of past ages, who were its authors, and even a studied conversation in which they discover only the best of their thoughts; that eloquence has incomparable strengths and beauties; that poetry has delicacies and sweet delights; that mathematics has very subtle inventions, and which can serve so much to satisfy the curious as to facilitate all the arts and diminish the work of men; that the writings which deal with manners contain several teachings and several exhortations to virtue which are very useful; that theology teaches to reach heaven; that philosophy furnishes a means of presumably speaking of all things, and of being admired by the less learned; that jurisprudence, medicine, and other sciences bring honors and riches to those who cultivate them; and that it is good to have examined all of them, even the most superstitious and the most false, in order to know their true worth and be careful not to be deceived.
But I thought I had already given enough time to languages, and even to the reading of ancient books, and to their stories and fables. For it is almost the same to converse with those of other centuries than to travel. It is good to know something of the morals of different peoples, in order to judge ourselves more soundly, and that we do not think that all that is against our fashions is ridiculous and contrary to reason, as is customary to do those who have seen nothing. But when one uses too much time to travel, one becomes at length a stranger in his country; and when one is too curious about the things which were practiced in the past centuries, one remains ordinarily very ignorant of those which are practiced in his time. Besides the fact that fables make imagine several events as possible which are not; and that even the most faithful stories, if they do not change or increase the value of things to make them more worthy of reading, at least they almost always omit the lowest and least illustrious circumstances, whence that the rest does not appear as it is, and that those who regulate their manners by the examples they draw from them are liable to fall into the extravagances of the paladins of our novels, and to conceive designs which pass their forces.
I highly esteemed eloquence, and was in love with poetry; but I thought that both were gifts of the mind rather than the fruits of study. Those who have the strongest reasoning, and who best digest their thoughts in order to make them clear and intelligible, can always best persuade what they propose, although they speak only of Low-Breton, and had never learned rhetoric; and those who have the most agreeable inventions, and who know how to express them with the most ornament and gentleness, would not fail to be the best poets, though poetic art was unknown to them.
I was particularly fond of mathematics, on account of the certainty and evidence of their reasons; but I did not yet notice their true use; and, thinking that they were only useful to the mechanical arts, I was astonished that their foundations being so firm and solid, they had not built anything above them. On the contrary, I compared the writings of the ancients pagans, who treat morals, to very superb and magnificent palaces, which were built only on sand and mud: they elevate the virtues very high, and make them appear estimable above all things which are in the world; but they do not teach enough to know them, and often what they call of such a beautiful name is only insensibility, or pride, or despair, or parricide.
I revered our theology, and pretended as much as any other to gain heaven; but having learned, as a very sure thing, that the way is none the less open to the most ignorant than the most learned, and that the truths revealed which lead to it are above our intelligence, I should not have dared to subject them to the weakness of my reasonings; and I thought that, in order to undertake to examine and succeed, it was necessary to have some extraordinary assistance from heaven, and to be more than a man.
I will say nothing of philosophy, except that, seeing that it has been cultivated by the most excellent spirits who have lived for several centuries, and yet there is not yet any thing of which there is no dispute, and consequently which was not doubtful, I had not sufficient presumption to hope to meet there better than the others; and that, considering how many opinions may be found in the same matter, supported by learned men, and there can never be more than one true, I almost repudiate for false all that was only probable.
Then, for the other sciences, especially since they borrowed their principles from the philosophy, I judged that nothing could be built which was solid on so unfounded foundations; and neither the honor nor the gain which they promised was sufficient to invite me to learn them; for I did not feel, thanks to God, a condition which compelled me to make a profession of science for relief of my fortune; and although I did not make a profession of despising glory in cynicism, I nevertheless made very little of that which I could not hope to acquire but false titles. And finally, for the evil doctrines, I thought I already knew enough what they were worth to be no longer liable to be deceived by the promises of an alchemist, neither by the predictions of an astrologer, nor by the impostures of a magician, not by the artifices or boasting of any of those who profess to know more than they know.
Wherefore, as soon as age permitted me to escape from the subjection of my preceptors, I entirely quitted the study of letters; and resolving to seek no other knowledge than that which might be found in myself, or else in the great book of the world, I employed the rest of my youth in traveling, in seeing courts and armies, to meet people of various humours and conditions, to collect various experiences, to experience myself in the encounters fortune proposed to me, and everywhere to make such reflection on the things that presented such that I could get some profit from them. For it seemed to me that I could meet with much more truth in the reasonings which every one makes concerning the affairs which are of importance to him, and the event of which must punish him soon after if he has misjudged, than in those made by a man of letters in his cabinet, touching speculations which produce no effect, and which are of no other consequence to him, except that perhaps he will derive the more vanity from them because they are more distant from common sense, because he must have employed more wit and artifice in trying to make them plausible. And I always had an extreme desire to learn to distinguish the true from the false, to see clearly in my actions, and to walk with confidence in this life.
It is true that while I was merely considering the manners of other men, I found hardly any means of insuring myself, and that I observed in them almost as much diversity as I had formerly had between the opinions of the philosophers. So that the greatest profit I derived from it was that, seeing several things which, though they seem to us very extravagant and ridiculous, do not fail to be commonly received and approved by other great nations, taught not to believe too firmly in what had been persuaded to me only by example and by custom: and thus I gradually delivered myself from many errors which may offend our natural light, and render us less capable of hearing reason. But after I had spent some years studying in the world book, and trying to acquire some experience, I resolved, one day, to study in myself, and to employ all the forces of my mind to choose the paths I ought to follow; which seems to me to be much better than if I had never been away from my country or my books.
Translated by Nicolae Sfetcu from Discours de la méthode Pour bien conduire sa raison, et chercher la vérité dans les sciences, by René Descartes
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