Discourse on Method
Of Rightly Conducting The Reason,
And Seeking Truth In The Sciences
By
Rene Descartes(1637)
Prefatory Note By the Author
If this Discourse appear too long to be read at once, it may be divided
into six Parts: and, in the first, will be found various considerations
touching the Sciences; in the second, the principal rules of the Method
which the Author has discovered, in the third, certain of the rules of
Morals which he has deduced from this Method; in the fourth, the
reasonings by which he establishes the existence of God and of the Human
Soul, which are the foundations of his Metaphysic; in the fifth, the
order of the Physical questions which he has investigated, and, in
particular, the explication of the motion of the heart and of some other
difficulties pertaining to Medicine, as also the difference between the
soul of man and that of the brutes; and, in the last, what the Author
believes to be required in order to greater advancement in the
investigation of Nature than has yet been made, with the reasons that
have induced him to write.
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