Discourse on Method

by René Descartes

Year
1637
Field
Philosophy
Licence
Public domain (Project Gutenberg, US)
Source
gutenberg
Length
about 23,022 words in 8 sections

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Opening preview

The first paragraphs of "PREFATORY NOTE BY THE AUTHOR". Read the full section

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.

Contents

  1. Part 1 · 33 words
  2. PREFATORY NOTE BY THE AUTHOR · 166 words
  3. PART I · 2,635 words
  4. PART II · 3,333 words
  5. PART III · 2,612 words
  6. PART IV · 2,779 words
  7. PART V · 5,740 words
  8. PART VI · 5,724 words
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