*/ Note by the Author. If this Discourse appear too long to be read at once, it may be divided into 6 parts: and, in the 1 st , will be found various considerations touching the Sciences; in the 2 nd , the principal rules of the Method which the Author has discovered; in the 3 rd , certain of

*/ Discourse On Method. Part VI. Three years have now elapsed since I finished the Treatise containing all these matters; and I was beginning to revise it, with the view to put it into the hands of a printer, when I learned that persons to whom I greatly defer, and whose authority over my action is hardly less influential than

Discourse On Method. Part II. 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,

*/ Discourse On Method. Part III. And, finally, as it is not enough, before commencing to rebuild the house in which we live, that it be pulled down, and materials and builders provided, or that we engage in the work ourselves, according to a plan which we have beforehand carefully drawn out, but as it is likewise necessary that we

*/ Discourse On Method. Part IV. I am in doubt as to the propriety of making my first meditations, in the place above mentioned, matter of discourse; for these are so metaphysical, and so uncommon, as not, perhaps, to be acceptable to everyone. And yet, that it may be determined whether the foundations that I have laid are sufficiently secure,

*/ Discourse On Method. Part V. I would here willingly have proceeded to exhibit the whole chain of truths which I deduced from these primary; but as with a view to this it would have been necessary now to treat of many questions in dispute among the learned, with whom I do not wish to be embroiled, I believe that