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A92327 Reflections upon Monsieur Des Cartes's Discourse of a method for the well-guiding of reason, and discovery of truth in the sciences. Written by a private pen in French, and translated out of the original manuscript, by J.D. Davies, John, 1625-1693. 1655 (1655) Wing R720; Thomason E1491_3; ESTC R208515 34,351 109

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if he be fetter'd unless you take away the fetters The principle then of this ratiocination which the Philosophers call {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} is that which distinctively makes us men and in that I do confess that all men are equal but right understanding is not absolutely that principle but is the state or condition wherein our understanding ought to be for to exercise its functions Now for an interemptory conclusion to this point I need say but this That the state or condition before mentioned which is the constitutive and distinctive difference between man and beast hath no dependance on the understanding but on the disposition and temperament of the Body whereof there being a great diversity it will follow that the Author to prove an equal division of right understanding among men should have built it upon this Paradox That the disposition and temperament of all mens bodies is one and the same Before I break open the other question I shall beg the Authors favor to tell him that though he had made it his design to bring Philosophy into disrepute as much as lay in his power yet cannot he do it without commending it and that more then he intended For first of all he confesses that by the assistance of it He hath discovered his own ignorance that is to say it hath been his Collyrium whereby he hath seen the difficulty which is in the acquisition of the knowledge of things But there are many degrees of Ignorance For the present it shall suffice us to observe that there is a kind of gross beastly ignorance which Philosophy abhors and another kind which in respect of this may be said to be knowing and such as wherein Philosophy many times leaves us The first is in those who are utterly ignorant of the state of a Question the second is in those that know it well enough but finding that many things may be brought both for and against it they are not convinc'd whether opinion to cleave to As for example to make a square to a circle would be thought by those that are not acquainted with the Mathematicks a very easie thing to do and that a Carpenter or a Bricklayer would not stick at it but a good Mathematician will tell you he cannot doe it nay haply will question whether it can be done at all Secondly the Author confesses that Philosophy affords us the means to speak of all things with probability If it do so then certainly it hinders us from advancing propositions that are ridiculous or impertinent To which I may adde this that as in consultation or deliberation though we cannot be assured of the success of what we design we ought not to hold our arms across but put that in execution which seems most conformable to reason so in the speculative Sciences we must not always suffer our minds to be gravel'd in an indifferencie or aequilibrium as to all opinions like Scepticks but embrace that which carries with it most probability But what shall we say of the procedure of the Author in this case As soon as he had gone through the ordinary course of Philosophy in the Schools because he found not the satisfaction he expected he perswades himself that there is nothing in all Philosophy which is not disputable and by consequence not doubtful and thereupon quits the reading of all books of Philosophy resolving to seek no other knowledge but what he could find in himself and the great volume of the world But is not this resolution a little too precipitate I would gladly ask him whether when he had finished his course of Philosophy he had read all Aristotles works leisurely and with that attention of mind which were requisite and with the necessary helps for the understanding of them When he had done this whether he had consulted Alexander Themistius Simplicius Philoponus and other Greek Philosophers for their opinions concerning what he thought of most importance to see whether they agreed among themselves and with their great Master I am confident he will not affirm that he had done all this at that time Besides that I know these books are not so common among young Students nay many times their Tutors and Professors read them not but upon the reputation of others But let us put the case that Aristotle and his disciples should never have done any thing but gull'd us I doe not perceive how a man could thence infer that there is nothing certain in all Philosophy before he had read Plato's works were it only to see whether the Antiens had with just reason entitled him divine but especially before he had decipher'd his Timaeus to see if there were any thing more solid in that then in the works of Aristotle And when both Aristotle and Plato should have been deceived had it been amiss or was it not necessary to have sifted the Philosophy of Epicurus as also that of the Stoicks before the pronouncing of this severe sentence against all Philosophy Not to mention that it had not been any crime to have turn'd over the writings of Hippocrates to see on what princiciples of Philosophy he had built his Physicks But to rip up the bottom of the question If the Author had contented himself to say that there were but few things in Philosophy that were certain and indisputable he would have had that advantage of ground of me that I durst not have set upon him but since he flies so high as to declare absolutely and without any exception that there is not any thing in all Philosophy which is not doubtful I think there needs no great forces to encounter with him I shall say nothing of the certainty and clearness of the Demonstrations of Geometry because he seems not to reckon it as any part of Philosophy but as for Logick he doth her the honor to make her one of the children or at least the handmaid of Philosophy When I seriously consider it I cannot but wonder how he should without any exception say that there were nothing certain in Philosophy For not to speak of the other parts of Logick those very precepts which Aristotle gives us of Opposition Conversion and the Transposition of the three Figures of Syllogisms and the manner how to reason in any of them and of the Reduction of the Syllogisms of the second and third figures to the first all which are as firm and indisputable as any Demonstrations of Geometry and so generally received that no man hath hitherto call'd them into the least question And to produce one conclusive proof hereof let us see what the Author himself confesses pag. 28. of his Discourse where he says That Logick contains divers most true and good Precepts and teaches us to speak with judgment of the things we are ignorant of To pass from Logick to Moral Philosophy which forasmuch as it may be treated of two manner of ways the one Parainetick the other Dogmatick the former he
of some tenet of Publick Faith who yet in some other things have that weakness which is the most adequate attribute of mankinde and that it hath far'd thus with our great Author may partly appear by these REFLECTIONS on his DISCOURSE I am in some doubt whether he might have seen them before he died much more before the publishing of his Discourse it being his custom to communicate all things to be strictly examined by his Friends and Correspondents before he committed them to the Press for however he might haply think them slight yet certainly we should somewhere have met with his resentment As for the Author of these Reflections I cannot do him so much honor as tell the World his name for I never knew it having met with them accidentally in a Manuscript If I have done him right as I believe in the Translation I have perform'd what I undertook If any man will reflect upon these Reflections he is at liberty and will shew himself a Philosopher by engaging Ingenuities into those Olympick exercises where the prize is TRUTH J. D. ERRATA PAg. 19. l. 3. r. Ancients p. 28. l. 2. r. of those p. 38. l. 19. r. {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} p. 45. l. 1. r. which it p. 46. l. 23. r. internal p. 53. l. 15. r. depend p. 59. l. ult. r. conceive p. 74. l. 20. r. t. REFLECTIONS UPON Monsieur DES CARTES'S Discourse of a Method for the well-guiding of Reason and the Discovery of Truth in the Sciences c. WHenever I have to deal with any work of Monsieur Des Cartes I rowse my self up to all the attention and vigilance possible And this I do not only out of the justice which obliges a man to use the nicest scrutiny and ponderation of Reason where nothing can be obtained but by the irrefragable conviction thereof but also to examine how deservedly this man is plac'd in that extraordinary esteem wherein we find him in the world even amongst the greatest men which is as much as to say whether Fame be not in great part out of his debt As for his Dioptriques and his Geometry I can pass no other censure upon them then what Socrates pass'd on a Book of Heraclitus in these words {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} But for his doctrine of the Nature of Light which he inserts in his D●optriques and the Hypotheses he hath at the beginning of his Meteors he must pardon me if in stead of calling them {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} I name them {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} And seeing he prostitutes them in their nakedness without the least shadow of proof he is unjust according to his own rule For how can he expect I should receive them as true when he hath tyed me to this general rule viz. Never to admit any thing into perswasion but by the sufficient evidence of Reason And though he have made a handsom superstructure of doctrine upon them as may and ought to be acknowledged yet have they no dependance on those principles nor is any thing that is said advanc'd out of any design to prove them But I shall not at the present give you my particular opinion of them but shall content my self to send you certain REFLECTIONS on the same Authors DISCOURSE of a Method as he calls it for the well-guiding and conduct of our Reason in the discovery of truth in the Sciences The Piece resembling the great Author that brought it forth must be noble and excellent and if there be any thing deficient it is the more excusable in regard he protesteth that he hath only advanced it as a proposition which he exposes to the battery of other mens judgments And therefore whatever I shall say of it shall carry that reverence as shall witness I have done no violence to that deserved respect which the world beares him and shall calmly give my judgment of it which is that he himself desires all men should do who any ways conceive themselves able to be contributors to the Commonwealth of Learning To the first Part. THe first Part of his Discourse may be reduced to these heads That that which according to the French word is called bon sens that is to say Reason or sound judgment or as the English Translation of the said Discourse hath it Right understanding is naturally equally distributed among all men so that one man ought not to be called more rational or more understanding then another yet with this restriction That all had not the same conduct of their reason and that therefore it were necessary there were a certain Method contrived for the regulation and conduct thereof That he had form'd to himself an Idaea of such a Method as if there be any thing solidly good and of importance it must be that and by the assistance thereof his progress in the Sciences hath been mightily advanced That he hath been so liberal as to communicate this Method unto us that we might judg of it That having studied in the most famous Universities in Europe and arrived to as great reputation of Learning as any of his Contemporaries whatsoever when yet he came seriously to cast up his accounts he found the summa totalis to amount to this that all the advantage he had made was That he had only more and more discover d his own ignorance That he had not found any thing in Philosophie though cultivated by the most excellent wits that have lived these many ages which was certain and indisputable nothing but doubt ambiguity and sophistry And That in regard there were so many different opinions about the same thing he thought himself sufficiently disobliged from any further prosecution of his studies and consequently resolved to seek no other knowledge but what he should find in himself and the great volume of the world It hath been ever generally observed that those men who either out of restlesness of humor or contempt of what is past have been most busie and agitating in the introduction of any new doctrines or opinions have ever observed this rule to make their advances very gradual at the first and to temper their propositions with so much plausibility as a doctrine which comes to quarrel with the common Tenent can bear so for a while to support the spirits of those they have to deal with But Monsieur des Cartes to my great astonishment begins his Discourse with a Paradox which not only causes the Reader to make a halt at the first step but is withall so slenderly proved that I wonder it could proceed from one who admits nothing for current but what hath undergone the grand test of Reason and desies all perswasion which is not induc'd by irrefragability and demonstration But that we shall here first examine shall be these two Questions which are easily started out of the foregoing words 1. Whether Reason sound judgment or right understanding be equally distributed 2. Whether