"Rene Descartes - Truth in the Sciences" - читать интересную книгу автора (Descartes Rene)

our opinions, I remarked that a plurality of suffrages is no guarantee of
truth where it is at all of difficult discovery, as in such cases it is
much more likely that it will be found by one than by many. I could,
however, select from the crowd no one whose opinions seemed worthy of
preference, and thus I found myself constrained, as it were, to use my own
reason in the conduct of my life.

But like one walking alone and in the dark, I resolved to proceed so
slowly and with such circumspection, that if I did not advance far, I
would at least guard against falling. I did not even choose to dismiss
summarily any of the opinions that had crept into my belief without having
been introduced by reason, but first of all took sufficient time carefully
to satisfy myself of the general nature of the task I was setting myself,
and ascertain the true method by which to arrive at the knowledge of
whatever lay within the compass of my powers.

Among the branches of philosophy, I had, at an earlier period, given some
attention to logic, and among those of the mathematics to geometrical
analysis and algebra, -- three arts or sciences which ought, as I
conceived, to contribute something to my design. But, on examination, I
found that, as for logic, its syllogisms and the majority of its other
precepts are of avail- rather in the communication of what we already
know, or even as the art of Lully, in speaking without judgment of things
of which we are ignorant, than in the investigation of the unknown; and
although this science contains indeed a number of correct and very
excellent precepts, there are, nevertheless, so many others, and these
either injurious or superfluous, mingled with the former, that it is
almost quite as difficult to effect a severance of the true from the false
as it is to extract a Diana or a Minerva from a rough block of marble.
Then as to the analysis of the ancients and the algebra of the moderns,
besides that they embrace only matters highly abstract, and, to
appearance, of no use, the former is so exclusively restricted to the
consideration of figures, that it can exercise the understanding only on
condition of greatly fatiguing the imagination; and, in the latter, there
is so complete a subjection to certain rules and formulas, that there
results an art full of confusion and obscurity calculated to embarrass,
instead of a science fitted to cultivate the mind. By these considerations
I was induced to seek some other method which would comprise the
advantages of the three and be exempt from their defects. And as a
multitude of laws often only hampers justice, so that a state is best
governed when, with few laws, these are rigidly administered; in like
manner, instead of the great number of precepts of which logic is
composed, I believed that the four following would prove perfectly
sufficient for me, provided I took the firm and unwavering resolution
never in a single instance to fail in observing them.

The first was never to accept anything for true which I did not clearly know
to be such; that is to say, carefully to avoid precipitancy and prejudice,
and to comprise nothing more in my judgement than what was presented to
my mind so clearly and distinctly as to exclude all ground of doubt.