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  1. Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One’s Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences
    1. Prefatory Note by the Author
    2. Discourse on the Method
      1. Part I
      2. Part II
      3. Part III
      4. Part IV
      5. Part V
      6. Part VI
  2. Meditations on the First Philosophy
    1. Dedication To the Very Sage and Illustrious the Dean and Doctors of the Sacred Faculty of Theology of Paris.
    2. Preface to the Reader
    3. Synopsis of the Six Following Meditations
    4. Meditations on the First Philosophy
      1. Meditation I
      2. Meditation II
      3. Meditation III
      4. Meditation IV
      5. Meditation V
      6. Meditation VI
  3. Selections from the Principles of Philosophy
    1. Letter of the Author to the French Translator of the Principles of Philosophy Serving for a Preface
    2. Selections from the Principles of Philosophy
      1. Part I
        1. I That in order to seek truth, it is necessary once in the course of our life, to doubt, as far as possible, of all things.
        2. II That we ought also to consider as false all that is doubtful.
        3. III That we ought not meanwhile to make use of doubt in the conduct of life.
        4. IV Why we may doubt of sensible things.
        5. V Why we may also doubt of mathematical demonstrations.
        6. VI That we possess a free will, by which we can withhold our assent from what is doubtful, and thus avoid error.
        7. VII That we cannot doubt of our existence while we doubt, and that this is the first knowledge we acquire when we philosophize in order.
        8. VIII That we hence discover the distinction between the mind and the body, or between a thinking and corporeal thing.
        9. IX What thought (cogitatio) is.
        10. X That the notions which are simplest and self-evident, are obscured by logical definitions; and that such are not to be reckoned among the cognitions acquired by study, [but as born with us].
        11. XI How we can know our mind more clearly than our body.
        12. XII How it happens that every one does not come equally to know this.
        13. XIII In what sense the knowledge of other things depends upon the knowledge of God.
        14. XIV That we may validly infer the existence of God from necessary existence being comprised in the concept we have of him.
        15. XV That necessary existence is not in the same way comprised in the notions which we have of other things, but merely contingent existence.
        16. XVI That prejudices hinder many from clearly knowing the necessity of the existence of God.
        17. XVII That the greater objective (representative) perfection there is in our idea of a thing, the greater also must be the perfection of its cause.
        18. XVIII That the existence of God may be again inferred from the above.
        19. XIX That, although we may not comprehend the nature of God, there is yet nothing which we know so clearly as his perfections.
        20. XX That we are not the cause of ourselves, but that this is God, and consequently that there is a God.
        21. XXI That the duration alone of our life is sufficient to demonstrate the existence of God.
        22. XXII That in knowing the existence of God, in the manner here explained, we likewise know all his attributes, as far as they can be known by the natural light alone.
        23. XXIII That God is not corporeal, and does not perceive by means of senses as we do, or will the evil of sin.
        24. XXIV That in passing from the knowledge of God to the knowledge of the creatures, it is necessary to remember that our understanding is finite, and the power of God infinite.
        25. XXV That we must believe all that God has revealed, although it may surpass the reach of our faculties.
        26. XXVI That it is not needful to enter into disputes22 regarding the infinite, but merely to hold all that in which we can find no limits as indefinite, such as the extension of the world, the divisibility of the parts of matter, the number of the stars, etc.
        27. XXVII What difference there is between the indefinite and the infinite.
        28. XXVIII That we must examine, not the final, but the efficient, causes of created things.
        29. XXIX That God is not the cause of our errors.
        30. XXX That consequently all which we clearly perceive is true, and that we are thus delivered from the doubts above proposed.
        31. XXXI That our errors are, in respect of God, merely negations, but, in respect of ourselves, privations.
        32. XXXII That there are only two modes of thinking in us, viz., the perception of the understanding and the action of the will.
        33. XXXIII That we never err unless when we judge of something which we do not sufficiently apprehend.
        34. XXXIV That the will as well as the understanding is required for judging.
        35. XXXV That the will is of greater extension than the understanding, and is thus the source of our errors.
        36. XXXVI That our errors cannot be imputed to God.
        37. XXXVII That the chief perfection of man is his being able to act freely or by will, and that it is this which renders him worthy of praise or blame.
        38. XXXVIII That error is a defect in our mode of acting, not in our nature; and that the faults of their subjects may be frequently attributed to other masters, but never to God.
        39. XXXIX That the liberty of our will is self-evident.
        40. XL That it is likewise certain that God has foreordained all things.
        41. XLI How the freedom of our will may be reconciled with the divine preordination.
        42. XLII How, although we never will to err, it is nevertheless by our will that we do err.
        43. XLIII That we shall never err if we give our assent only to what we clearly and distinctly perceive.
        44. XLIV That we uniformly judge improperly when we assent to what we do not clearly perceive, although our judgment may chance to be true; and that it is frequently our memory which deceives us by leading us to believe that certain things were formerly sufficiently understood by us.
        45. XLV What constitutes clear and distinct perception.
        46. XLVI It is shown, from the example of pain, that a perception may be clear without being distinct, but that it cannot be distinct unless it is clear.
        47. XLVII That, to correct the prejudices of our early years, we must consider what is clear in each of our simple28 notions.
        48. XLVIII That all the objects of our knowledge are to be regarded either (1) as things or the affections of things: or (2) as eternal truths; with the enumeration of things.
        49. XLIX That the eternal truths cannot be thus enumerated, but that this is not necessary.
        50. L That these truths are clearly perceived, but not equally by all men, on account of prejudices.
        51. LI What substance is, and that the term is not applicable to God and the creatures in the same sense.
        52. LII That the term is applicable univocally to the mind and the body, and how substance itself is known.
        53. LIII That of every substance there is one principal attribute, as thinking of the mind, extension of the body.
        54. LIV How we may have clear and distinct notions of the substance which thinks, of that which is corporeal, and of God.
        55. LV How duration, order, and number may be also distinctly conceived.
        56. LVI What are modes, qualities, attributes.
        57. LVII That some attributes exist in the things to which they are attributed, and others only in our thought; and what duration and time are.
        58. LVIII That number and all universals are only modes of thought.
        59. LIX How universals are formed; and what are the five common, viz., genus, species, difference, property, and accident.
        60. LX Of distinctions; and first of the real.
        61. LXI Of the modal distinction.
        62. LXII Of the distinction of reason (logical distinction).
        63. LXIII How thought and extension may be distinctly known, as constituting, the one the nature of mind, the other that of body.
        64. LXIV How these may likewise be distinctly conceived as modes of substance.
        65. LXV How we may likewise know their modes.
        66. LXVI How our sensations, affections, and appetites may be clearly known, although we are frequently wrong in our judgments regarding them.
        67. LXVII That we are frequently deceived in our judgments regarding pain itself.
        68. LXVIII How in these things what we clearly conceive is to be distinguished from that in which we may be deceived.
        69. LXIX That magnitude, figure, etc., are known far differently from colour, pain, etc.
        70. LXX That we may judge of sensible things in two ways, by the one of which we avoid error, by the other fall into it.
        71. LXXI That the chief cause of our errors is to be found in the prejudices of our childhood.
        72. LXXII That the second cause of our errors is that we cannot forget these prejudices.
        73. LXXIII The third cause is, that we become fatigued by attending to those objects which are not present to the senses; and that we are thus accustomed to judge of these not from present perception but from preconceived opinion.
        74. LXXIV The fourth source of our errors is, that we attach our thoughts to words which do not express them with accuracy.
        75. LXXV Summary of what must be observed in order to philosophize correctly.
        76. LXXVI That we ought to prefer the divine authority to our perception:34 but that, apart from things revealed, we ought to assent to nothing that we do not clearly apprehend.
      2. Part II
        1. I The grounds on which the existence of material things may be known with certainty.
        2. II How we likewise know that the human body is closely connected with the mind.
        3. III That the perceptions of the senses do not teach us what is in reality in things, but what is beneficial of hurtful to the composite whole of mind and body.
        4. IV That the nature of body consists not in weight, hardness, colour and the like, but in extension alone.
        5. V That the truth regarding the nature of body is obscured by the opinions respecting rarefaction and a vacuum with which we are preoccupied.
        6. VI In what way rarefaction takes place.
        7. VII That rarefaction cannot be intelligibly explained unless in the way here proposed.
        8. VIII That quantity and number differ only in thought (ratione) from that which has quantity and is numbered.
        9. IX That corporeal substance, when distinguished from its quantity, is confusedly conceived as something incorporeal.
        10. X What space or internal place is.
        11. XI How space is not in reality different from corporeal substance.
        12. XII How space differs from body in our mode of conceiving it.
        13. XIII What external place is.
        14. XIV Wherein place and space differ.
        15. XV How external place is rightly taken for the superficies of the surrounding body.
        16. XVI That a vacuum or space in which there is absolutely no body is repugnant to reason.
        17. XVII That a vacuum in the ordinary use of the term does not exclude all body.
        18. XVIII How the prejudice of an absolute vacuum is to be corrected.
        19. XIX That this confirms what was said of rarefaction.
        20. XX That from this the nonexistence of atoms may likewise be demonstrated.
        21. XXI It is thus also demonstrated that the extension of the world is indefinite.
        22. XXII It also follows that the matter of the heavens and earth is the same, and that there cannot be a plurality of worlds.
        23. XXIII That all the variety of matter, or the diversity of its forms, depends on motion.
        24. XXIV What motion is, taking the term in its common use.
        25. XXV What motion is properly so called.
      3. Part III
        1. I That we cannot think too highly of the works of God.
        2. II That we ought to beware lest, in our presumption, we imagine that the ends which God proposed to himself in the creation of the world are understood by us.
        3. III In what sense it may be said that all things were created for the sake of man.
      4. Part IV
        1. CLXXXVIII Of what is to be borrowed from disquisitions on animals and man to advance the knowledge of material objects.
        2. CLXXXIX What perception (sensus) is, and how we perceive.
        3. CXC Of the distinction of the senses; and, first, of the internal, that is, of the affections of the mind (passions), and the natural appetites.
        4. CXCI Of the external senses; and first of touch.
        5. CXCII Of taste.
        6. CXCIII Of smell.
        7. CXCIV Of hearing.
        8. CXCV Of sight.
        9. CXCVI That the soul perceives only in so far as it is in the brain.
        10. CXCVII That the nature of the mind is such that from the motion alone of body the various sensations can be excited in it.
        11. CXCVIII That by our senses we know nothing of external objects beyond their figure [or situation], magnitude, and motion.
        12. CXCIX That there is no phenomenon of nature whose explanation has been omitted in this treatise.
        13. CC That this treatise contains no principles which are not universally received; and that this philosophy is not new, but of all others the most ancient and common.
        14. CCI That sensible bodies are composed of insensible particles.
        15. CCII That the philosophy of democritus is not less different from ours than from the common.41
        16. CCIII How we may arrive at the knowledge of the figures, [magnitudes], and motions of the insensible particles of bodies.
        17. CCIV That, touching the things which our senses do not perceive, it is sufficient to explain how they can be, [and that this is all that aristotle has essayed].
        18. CCV That nevertheless there is a moral certainty that all the things of this world are such as has been here shown they may be.
        19. CCVI That we possess even more than a moral certainty of it.
        20. CCVII That, however, I submit all my opinions to the authority of the church.
  4. Appendix Reasons Which Establish the Existence of God, and the Distinction Between the Mind and Body of Man, Disposed in Geometrical Order (From the Reply to the Second Objections—Latin, 1670, pp. 85–91. French, Garnier, Tom. II, pp. 74–84)
  5. Endnotes
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Philosophical Works

René Descartes, übersetzt von John Veitch

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Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One’s Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences

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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