I was then in Germany, attracted thither by the wars in that country,
which have not yet been brought to a termination; and as I was
returning to the army from the coronation of the emperor, the setting
in of winter arrested me in a locality where, as I found no society to
interest me, and was besides fortunately undisturbed by any cares or
passions, I remained the whole day in seclusion, with full opportunity
to occupy my attention with my own thoughts. Of these one of the very
first that occurred to me was, that there is seldom so much perfection
in works composed of many separate parts, upon which different hands
had been employed, as in those completed by a single master. Thus it is
observable that the buildings which a single architect has planned and
executed, are generally more elegant and commodious than those which
several have attempted to improve, by making old walls serve for
purposes for which they were not originally built. Thus also, those
ancient cities which, from being at first only villages, have become,
in course of time, large towns, are usually but ill laid out compared
with the regularity constructed towns which a professional architect
has freely planned on an open plain; so that although the several
buildings of the former may often equal or surpass in beauty those of
the latter, yet when one observes their indiscriminate juxtaposition,
there a large one and here a small, and the consequent crookedness and
irregularity of the streets, one is disposed to allege that chance
rather than any human will guided by reason must have led to such an
arrangement. And if we consider that nevertheless there have been at
all times certain officers whose duty it was to see that private
buildings contributed to public ornament, the difficulty of reaching
high perfection with but the materials of others to operate on, will be
readily acknowledged. In the same way I fancied that those nations
which, starting from a semi-barbarous state and advancing to
civilization by slow degrees, have had their laws successively
determined, and, as it were, forced upon them simply by experience of
the hurtfulness of particular crimes and disputes, would by this
process come to be possessed of less perfect institutions than those
which, from the commencement of their association as communities, have
followed the appointments of some wise legislator. It is thus quite
certain that the constitution of the true religion, the ordinances of
which are derived from God, must be incomparably superior to that of
every other. And, to speak of human affairs, I believe that the
pre-eminence of Sparta was due not to the goodness of each of its laws
in particular, for many of these were very strange, and even opposed to
good morals, but to the circumstance that, originated by a single
individual, they all tended to a single end. In the same way I thought
that the sciences contained in books (such of them at least as are made
up of probable reasonings, without demonstrations), composed as they
are of the opinions of many different individuals massed together, are
farther removed from truth than the simple inferences which a man of
good sense using his natural and unprejudiced judgment draws respecting
the matters of his experience. And because we have all to pass through
a state of infancy to manhood, and have been of necessity, for a length
of time, governed by our desires and preceptors (whose dictates were
frequently conflicting, while neither perhaps always counseled us for
the best), I farther concluded that it is almost impossible that our
judgments can be so correct or solid as they would have been, had our
reason been mature from the moment of our birth, and had we always been
guided by it alone.
It is true, however, that it is not customary to pull down all the
houses of a town with the single design of rebuilding them differently,
and thereby rendering the streets more handsome; but it often happens
that a private individual takes down his own with the view of erecting
it anew, and that people are even sometimes constrained to this when
their houses are in danger of falling from age, or when the foundations
are insecure. With this before me by way of example, I was persuaded
that it would indeed be preposterous for a private individual to think
of reforming a state by fundamentally changing it throughout, and
overturning it in order to set it up amended; and the same I thought
was true of any similar project for reforming the body of the sciences,
or the order of teaching them established in the schools: but as for
the opinions which up to that time I had embraced, I thought that I
could not do better than resolve at once to sweep them wholly away,
that I might afterwards be in a position to admit either others more
correct, or even perhaps the same when they had undergone the scrutiny
of reason. I firmly believed that in this way I should much better
succeed in the conduct of my life, than if I built only upon old
foundations, and leaned upon principles which, in my youth, I had taken
upon trust. For although I recognized various difficulties in this
undertaking, these were not, however, without remedy, nor once to be
compared with such as attend the slightest reformation in public
affairs. Large bodies, if once overthrown, are with great difficulty
set up again, or even kept erect when once seriously shaken, and the
fall of such is always disastrous. Then if there are any imperfections
in the constitutions of states (and that many such exist the diversity
of constitutions is alone sufficient to assure us), custom has without
doubt materially smoothed their inconveniences, and has even managed to
steer altogether clear of, or insensibly corrected a number which
sagacity could not have provided against with equal effect; and, in
fine, the defects are almost always more tolerable than the change
necessary for their removal; in the same manner that highways which
wind among mountains, by being much frequented, become gradually so
smooth and commodious, that it is much better to follow them than to
seek a straighter path by climbing over the tops of rocks and
descending to the bottoms of precipices.
Hence it is that I cannot in any degree approve of those restless and
busy meddlers who, called neither by birth nor fortune to take part in
the management of public affairs, are yet always projecting reforms;
and if I thought that this tract contained aught which might justify
the suspicion that I was a victim of such folly, I would by no means
permit its publication. I have never contemplated anything higher than
the reformation of my own opinions, and basing them on a foundation
wholly my own. And although my own satisfaction with my work has led me
to present here a draft of it, I do not by any means therefore
recommend to every one else to make a similar attempt. Those whom God
has endowed with a larger measure of genius will entertain, perhaps,
designs still more exalted; but for the many I am much afraid lest even
the present undertaking be more than they can safely venture to
imitate. The single design to strip one’s self of all past beliefs is
one that ought not to be taken by every one. The majority of men is
composed of two classes, for neither of which would this be at all a
befitting resolution: in the first place, of those who with more than a
due confidence in their own powers, are precipitate in their judgments
and want the patience requisite for orderly and circumspect thinking;
whence it happens, that if men of this class once take the liberty to
doubt of their accustomed opinions, and quit the beaten highway, they
will never be able to thread the byway that would lead them by a
shorter course, and will lose themselves and continue to wander for
life; in the second place, of those who, possessed of sufficient sense
or modesty to determine that there are others who excel them in the
power of discriminating between truth and error, and by whom they may
be instructed, ought rather to content themselves with the opinions of
such than trust for more correct to their own reason.
For my own part, I should doubtless have belonged to the latter class,
had I received instruction from but one master, or had I never known
the diversities of opinion that from time immemorial have prevailed
among men of the greatest learning. But I had become aware, even so
early as during my college life, that no opinion, however absurd and
incredible, can be imagined, which has not been maintained by some on
of the philosophers; and afterwards in the course of my travels I
remarked that all those whose opinions are decidedly repugnant to ours
are not in that account barbarians and savages, but on the contrary
that many of these nations make an equally good, if not better, use of
their reason than we do. I took into account also the very different
character which a person brought up from infancy in France or Germany
exhibits, from that which, with the same mind originally, this
individual would have possessed had he lived always among the Chinese
or with savages, and the circumstance that in dress itself the fashion
which pleased us ten years ago, and which may again, perhaps, be
received into favor before ten years have gone, appears to us at this
moment extravagant and ridiculous. I was thus led to infer that the
ground of our opinions is far more custom and example than any certain
knowledge. And, finally, although such be the ground of 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.
The second, to divide each of the difficulties under examination into
as many parts as possible, and as might be necessary for its adequate
solution.
The third, to conduct my thoughts in such order that, by commencing
with objects the simplest and easiest to know, I might ascend by little
and little, and, as it were, step by step, to the knowledge of the more
complex; assigning in thought a certain order even to those objects
which in their own nature do not stand in a relation of antecedence and
sequence.
And the _last_, in every case to make enumerations so complete, and
reviews so general, that I might be assured that nothing was omitted.
The long chains of simple and easy reasonings by means of which
geometers are accustomed to reach the conclusions of their most
difficult demonstrations, had led me to imagine that all things, to the
knowledge of which man is competent, are mutually connected in the same
way, and that there is nothing so far removed from us as to be beyond
our reach, or so hidden that we cannot discover it, provided only we
abstain from accepting the false for the true, and always preserve in
our thoughts the order necessary for the deduction of one truth from
another. And I had little difficulty in determining the objects with
which it was necessary to commence, for I was already persuaded that it
must be with the simplest and easiest to know, and, considering that of
all those who have hitherto sought truth in the sciences, the
mathematicians alone have been able to find any demonstrations, that
is, any certain and evident reasons, I did not doubt but that such must
have been the rule of their investigations. I resolved to commence,
therefore, with the examination of the simplest objects, not
anticipating, however, from this any other advantage than that to be
found in accustoming my mind to the love and nourishment of truth, and
to a distaste for all such reasonings as were unsound. But I had no
intention on that account of attempting to master all the particular
sciences commonly denominated mathematics: but observing that, however
different their objects, they all agree in considering only the various
relations or proportions subsisting among those objects, I thought it
best for my purpose to consider these proportions in the most general
form possible, without referring them to any objects in particular,
except such as would most facilitate the knowledge of them, and without
by any means restricting them to these, that afterwards I might thus be
the better able to apply them to every other class of objects to which
they are legitimately applicable. Perceiving further, that in order to
understand these relations I should sometimes have to consider them one
by one and sometimes only to bear them in mind, or embrace them in the
aggregate, I thought that, in order the better to consider them
individually, I should view them as subsisting between straight lines,
than which I could find no objects more simple, or capable of being
more distinctly represented to my imagination and senses; and on the
other hand, that in order to retain them in the memory or embrace an
aggregate of many, I should express them by certain characters the
briefest possible. In this way I believed that I could borrow all that
was best both in geometrical analysis and in algebra, and correct all
the defects of the one by help of the other.
And, in point of fact, the accurate observance of these few precepts
gave me, I take the liberty of saying, such ease in unraveling all the
questions embraced in these two sciences, that in the two or three
months I devoted to their examination, not only did I reach solutions
of questions I had formerly deemed exceedingly difficult but even as
regards questions of the solution of which I continued ignorant, I was
enabled, as it appeared to me, to determine the means whereby, and the
extent to which a solution was possible; results attributable to the
circumstance that I commenced with the simplest and most general
truths, and that thus each truth discovered was a rule available in the
discovery of subsequent ones Nor in this perhaps shall I appear too
vain, if it be considered that, as the truth on any particular point is
one whoever apprehends the truth, knows all that on that point can be
known. The child, for example, who has been instructed in the elements
of arithmetic, and has made a particular addition, according to rule,
may be assured that he has found, with respect to the sum of the
numbers before him, and that in this instance is within the reach of
human genius. Now, in conclusion, the method which teaches adherence to
the true order, and an exact enumeration of all the conditions of the
thing sought includes all that gives certitude to the rules of
arithmetic.
But the chief ground of my satisfaction with thus method, was the
assurance I had of thereby exercising my reason in all matters, if not
with absolute perfection, at least with the greatest attainable by me:
besides, I was conscious that by its use my mind was becoming gradually
habituated to clearer and more distinct conceptions of its objects; and
I hoped also, from not having restricted this method to any particular
matter, to apply it to the difficulties of the other sciences, with not
less success than to those of algebra. I should not, however, on this
account have ventured at once on the examination of all the
difficulties of the sciences which presented themselves to me, for this
would have been contrary to the order prescribed in the method, but
observing that the knowledge of such is dependent on principles
borrowed from philosophy, in which I found nothing certain, I thought
it necessary first of all to endeavor to establish its principles. And
because I observed, besides, that an inquiry of this kind was of all
others of the greatest moment, and one in which precipitancy and
anticipation in judgment were most to be dreaded, I thought that I
ought not to approach it till I had reached a more mature age (being at
that time but twenty-three), and had first of all employed much of my
time in preparation for the work, as well by eradicating from my mind
all the erroneous opinions I had up to that moment accepted, as by
amassing variety of experience to afford materials for my reasonings,
and by continually exercising myself in my chosen method with a view to
increased skill in its application.