Excerpts from René Descartes’
Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One’s Reason
and Searching for the Truth in the Sciences
Editor’s Note: The main text of Descartes’ book consists of six sections for a total of about 60 pages. What
appears here is a selection of the key thoughts of the first four sections. The fourth section is arguably the most
important. The fifth and sixth sections, which talk about his hesitations to publish this work and a previous
work, “The World”, have not been included here. –Jamie York
I. The Aim of this Discourse
Good sense or reason must be better distributed
than anything else in the world, for no man desires
more of it than he already has. This shows that
reason is by nature equal in all men. If there is
diversity of opinion, this arises from the fact that we
conduct our thought by different ways, and consider
not the same things. It does not suffice that the
understanding be good—it must be well applied.
My mind is no better than another's, but I have
had the great fortune, from my youth up, in
pursuing certain paths which have led me to
considerations and maxims from which I have
formed a Method, by whose assistance it appears to
me I have the means of gradually increasing my
knowledge and of little by little raising it to the
highest possible point which the mediocrity of my
talents and the brief duration of my life can permit
me to reach. I shall be very glad to make plain in
this discourse the paths I have followed, and to
present a picture of my life so that all may judge it.
Thus my design is not to teach the method which
each man ought to follow for the right guidance of
his reason, but only to show in what manner I have
tried to conduct my own.
I had been nourished on letters since my
childhood, but as soon as I had finished the
customary course of study, I found myself involved
with so many doubts and errors that I became
convinced I had advanced no farther in all my
attempts at learning, than the discovery of my own
ignorance. Yet I was at one of the most celebrated
schools in Europe, and I was not held inferior to my
fellow students, some of whom were destined to
take the place of our instructors; nor did our age
seem less fruitful of good wits than any which had
gone before.
Though I did not cease to esteem the studies of
the schools, I began to think that I had given
enough time to languages, enough also to ancient
books, their stories and their fables; for when a man
spends too much time in traveling abroad he
becomes a stranger in his own country; and so,
when he is too curious concerning what went on in
past ages, he is apt to remain ignorant of what is
taking place in his own day.
I set a high price on eloquence, and I was in
love with poetry; above all, I rejoiced in
mathematics, but I had not as yet a precise
knowledge of its true use. I revered our theology,
but, since the way to heaven lies open to the
ignorant no less than to the learned, and the
revealed truths which lead thither are beyond our
intelligence, I did not dare to submit them to my
feeble reasonings. In philosophy there is no truth
which is not disputed, and which, consequently, is
not doubtful; and, as to the other sciences, they all
borrow their principles from philosophy. Therefore,
I entirely gave up the study of letters, and employed
the rest of my youth in traveling, being resolved to
seek no other science than what I might find within
myself, or in the great book of the world.
Here the best lesson that I learned was not to
believe too firmly anything of which I had learnt
merely by example and custom; and thus I
gradually extricated myself from the many errors
powerful enough to darken our natural intelligence
and diminish our ability to listen to reason. Finally,
I resolved one day to make myself an object of
study, and to employ all the powers of my mind in
choosing the paths I ought to follow. This
succeeded much better, it appeared to me, than if I
had never departed from either my country or my
books.
