"SEEKING TRUTH IN THE SCIENCES" - читать интересную книгу автора (Descartes Rene)

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, as soon as my age permitted me to pass from under the
control of my instructors, I entire y abandoned the study of letters, and
resolved no longer to seek any other science than the knowledge of myself,
or of the great book of the world. I spent the remainder of my youth in
traveling, in visiting courts and armies, in holding intercourse with men
of different dispositions and ranks, in collecting varied experience, in
proving myself in the different situations into which fortune threw me,
and, above all, in making such reflection on the matter of my experience
as to secure my improvement. For it occurred to me that I should find
much more truth in the reasonings of each individual with reference to the
affairs in which he is personally interested, and the issue of which must
presently punish him if he has judged amiss, than in those conducted by a
man of letters in his study, regarding speculative matters that are of no
practical moment, and followed by no consequences to himself, farther,
perhaps, than that they foster his vanity the better the more remote they
are from common sense; requiring, as they must in this case, the exercise
of greater ingenuity and art to render them probable. In addition, I had