Discourse on the Method of Reasoning | Page 5

and to travel,
are almost the same thing. It is useful to know something of the
manners of different nations, that we may be enabled to form a more
correct judgment regarding our own, and be prevented from thinking
that everything contrary to our customs is ridiculous and irrational, a
conclusion usually come to by those whose experience has been limited
to their own country. On the other hand, when too much time is
occupied in traveling, we become strangers to our native country; and
the over curious in the customs of the past are generally ignorant of
those of the present. Besides, fictitious narratives lead us to imagine the
possibility of many events that are impossible; and even the most
faithful histories, if they do not wholly misrepresent matters, or
exaggerate their importance to render the account of them more worthy
of perusal, omit, at least, almost always the meanest and least striking
of the attendant circumstances; hence it happens that the remainder
does not represent the truth, and that such as regulate their conduct by
examples drawn from this source, are apt to fall into the extravagances
of the knight-errants of romance, and to entertain projects that exceed
their powers.
I esteemed eloquence highly, and was in raptures with poesy; but I
thought that both were gifts of nature rather than fruits of study. Those
in whom the faculty of reason is predominant, and who most skillfully
dispose their thoughts with a view to render them clear and intelligible,
are always the best able to persuade others of the truth of what they lay
down, though they should speak only in the language of Lower Brittany,
and be wholly ignorant of the rules of rhetoric; and those whose minds
are stored with the most agreeable fancies, and who can give
expression to them with the greatest embellishment and harmony, are
still the best poets, though unacquainted with the art of poetry.

I was especially delighted with the mathematics, on account of the
certitude and evidence of their reasonings; but I had not as yet a precise
knowledge of their true use; and thinking that they but contributed to
the advancement of the mechanical arts, I was astonished that
foundations, so strong and solid, should have had no loftier
superstructure reared on them. On the other hand, I compared the
disquisitions of the ancient moralists to very towering and magnificent
palaces with no better foundation than sand and mud: they laud the
virtues very highly, and exhibit them as estimable far above anything
on earth; but they give us no adequate criterion of virtue, and frequently
that which they designate with so fine a name is but apathy, or pride, or
despair, or parricide.
I revered our theology, and aspired as much as any one to reach heaven:
but being given assuredly to understand that the way is not less open to
the most ignorant than to the most learned, and that the revealed truths
which lead to heaven are above our comprehension, I did not presume
to subject them to the impotency of my reason; and I thought that in
order competently to undertake their examination, there was need of
some special help from heaven, and of being more than man.
Of philosophy I will say nothing, except that when I saw that it had
been cultivated for many ages by the most distinguished men, and that
yet there is not a single matter within its sphere which is not still in
dispute, and nothing, therefore, which is above doubt, I did not
presume to anticipate that my success would be greater in it than that of
others; and further, when I considered the number of conflicting
opinions touching a single matter that may be upheld by learned men,
while there can be but one true, I reckoned as well-nigh false all that
was only probable.
As to the other sciences, inasmuch as these borrow their principles
from philosophy, I judged that no solid superstructures could be reared
on foundations so infirm; and neither the honor nor the gain held out by
them was sufficient to determine me to their cultivation: for I was not,
thank Heaven, in a condition which compelled me to make
merchandise of science for the bettering of my fortune; and though I

might not profess to scorn glory as a cynic, I yet made very slight
account of that honor which I hoped to acquire only through fictitious
titles. And, in fine, of false sciences I thought I knew the worth
sufficiently to escape being deceived by the professions of an alchemist,
the predictions of an astrologer, the impostures of a magician, or by the
artifices and boasting of any of those who profess to know things of
which they are ignorant.
For these reasons,