The Rene Descartes Collection

Rules for the Direction of the Mind

Rule I

The aim of our studies should be to direct the mind with a view to forming true and sound judgements about whatever comes before it.

Whenever men notice some similarity between two things, they are wont to ascribe to each, even in those respects in which the two differ, what they have found to be true of the other. Thus they erroneously compare the sciences, which entirely consists in the cognitive exercise of the mind, with the arts, which depend upon an exercise and disposition of the body. They see that not all the arts can be acquired by the same man, but that he who restricts himself to one, most readily becomes the best executant, since it is not so easy for the same hand to adapt itself both to agricultural operations and to harp-playing, or to the performance of several such tasks as to one alone.

Rule II

We should attend only to those objects of which our minds seem capable of having certain and indubitable cognition.

Science in its entirety is true and evident cognition. He is no more learned who has doubts on many matters than the man who has never thought of them; nay he appears to be less learned if he has formed wrong opinions on any particulars. Hence it were better not to study at all than to occupy one’s self with objects of such difficulty, that, owing to our inability to distinguish true from false, we are forced to regard the doubtful as certain; for in those matters, any hope of augmenting our knowledge is exceeded by the risk of diminishing it. Thus in accordance with the above maxim we reject all such merely probable knowledge and make it a rule to trust only what is completely known and incapable of being doubted. No doubt men of education may persuade themselves that there is but little of such certain knowledge, because, forsooth, a common failing of human nature has made them deem it too easy and open to everyone, and so led them to neglect to think upon such truths; but I nevertheless announce that there are more of these than they think --truths which suffice to give a rigorous demonstration of innumerable propositions, the discussion of which they have hitherto been unable to free from the element of probability. Further, because they have believed that it was unbecoming for a man of education to confess ignorance on any point, they have so accustomed themselves to trick out their fabricated explanations, that they have ended by gradually imposing on themselves and thus have issued them to the public as genuine.

But if we adhere closely to this rule we shall find left but few objects of legitimate study. For there is scarce any question occurring in the sciences about which talented men have not disagreed. But whenever two men come to opposite decisions about the same matter one of them at least must certainly be in the wrong, and apparently there is not even one of them who knows; for if the reasoning of the second were sound and clear he would be able so to lay it before the other to succeed in convincing his understanding also. Hence apparently we cannot attain to a perfect knowledge in any such case of probable opinion, for it would be rashness to hope for more than others have attained to. Consequently if we reckon correctly, of the sciences already discovered, Arithmetic and Geometry alone are left, to which the observance of this rule reduces us.

Yet we do not therefore condemn that method of philosophizing which others have already discovered, and those weapons of the schoolmen, probable syllogisms, which are so well suited for polemics. They indeed give practice to the wits of youth and, producing emulation among them, act as a stimulus; and it is much better for their minds to be moulded by opinions of this sort, uncertain though they appear, as being objects of controversy amongst the learned, than to be left entirely to their own devices. For thus through lack of guidance they might stray into some abyss, but as long as they follow in their masters’ footsteps, though they may diverge at times from the truth, they will yet certainly find a path which is at least in this respect safer, that it has been approved by more prudent people. We ourselves rejoice that we in earlier years experienced this scholastic training; but now, being released from that oath of allegiance which bound us to our old masters and since, as become our riper years, we are no longer subject to the ferule, if we wish in earnest to establish for ourselves those rules which shall aid us in scaling the heights of human knowledge, we must admit assuredly among the primary members of our catalogue that maxim which forbids us to abuse our leisure as many do, who neglect all easy quests and take up their time only with difficult matters; for they, though certainly making all sorts of subtle conjectures and elaborating most plausible arguments with great ingenuity, frequently find too late that after all their labours they have only increased the multitude of their doubts, without acquiring any knowledge whatsoever.

But now let us proceed to explain more carefully our reason for saying , as we did a little while ago, that of all the sciences known as yet, Arithmetic and Geometry alone are free from any taint of falsity or uncertainty. We must note then that there are two ways by which we arrive at the knowledge of facts, viz. by experience and by deduction. We must further observe that while our inferences from experience are frequently fallacious, deduction, or the pure illation of one thing from another, though it may be passed over, if it is not seen through, cannot be erroneous when performed by an understanding that is in the least degree rational. And it seems to me that the operation is profited but little by those constraining bonds by means of which the Dialecticians claim to control human reason, though I do not deny that that discipline may be serviceable for other purposes. My reason for saying so is that none of the mistakes which men can make (men, I say, not beasts) are due to faulty inference; they are caused merely by the fact that we found upon a basis of poorly comprehended experiences, or that propositions are posited which are hasty and groundless.

This furnishes us with an evident explanation of the great superiority in certitude of arithmetic and Geometry to other sciences. The former alone deal with an object so pure and uncomplicated, that they need make no assumptions at all which experience renders uncertain, but wholly consist in the rational deduction of consequences. They are on that account much the easiest and clearest of all, and possess an object such as we require, for in them it is scarce humanly possible for anyone to err except by inadvertence. And yet we should not be surprised to find that plenty of people of their own accord prefer to apply their intelligence to other studies, or to Philosophy. The reason for this is that every person permits himself the liberty of making guesses in the matter of an obscure subject with more confidence than in one which is clear, and that it is much easier to have some vague notion about any subject, no matter what, than to arrive at the real truth about a single question however simple that may be.

But one conclusion now emerges out of these considerations, viz. not, indeed, that Arithmetic and Geometry are the sole sciences to be studied, but only that in our search for the direct road towards truth we should busy ourselves with no object about which we cannot attain a certitude equal to that of the demonstrations of Arithmetic and Geometry.

Rule III

Concerning objects proposed for study, we ought to investigate what we can clearly and evidently intuit or deduce with certainty, and not what other people have thought or what we ourselves conjecture. For knowledge can be attained in no other way.

We must read the works of the ancients; for it is an extraordinary advantage to have available the labors of so many men, both in order to recognize what true discoveries have already long since been made and -also to become aware of what scope is still left for invention in the various disciplines. There is, however; at the same time a great danger that perhaps some contagion of error, contracted from a too attentive reading of them, may stick to us against our will, in spite of all precautions. For authors are ordinarily so disposed that whenever their heedless credulity has led them to a decision on some controverted opinion, they always try to bring us over to the same side, with the subtlest arguments; if on the other hand they have been fortunate enough to discover something certain and evident, they never set it forth without wrapping it up in all sorts of complications. (I suppose they are afraid that a simple account may lessen the importance they gain by the discovery ; or perhaps they begrudge us the plain truth.)

But in fact, even if all writers were honest and plain; even if they never passed off matters of doubt upon us as if they were truths, but set forth everything in good faith; nevertheless, since there is hardly anything that one of them says but someone else asserts the contrary, we should be continually uncertain which side to believe. It would be no good to count heads, and then follow the opinion that has most authorities for it; for if the question that arises is a difficult one, it is more credible that the truth of the matter may have been discovered by few men than by many. But even if all agreed together, it would not be enough to have their teachings. For we shall never be mathematicians, say, even if we retain in memory all the proofs others have given, unless we ourselves have the mental aptitude of solving any given problem; we shall never be philosophers, if we have read all the arguments of Plato and Aristotle but cannot form a solid judgment on matters set before us; this sort of learning would appear historical rather than scientific. Further, this Rule counsels us against ever mixing up any conjectures with our judgments as to the truth of things. It is of no small importance to observe this; for the chief reason why in the common philosophy there is nothing to be found whose certitude is so apparent as to be beyond controversy is that those who practice it have not begun by contenting themselves with the recognition of what is clear and certain, but have ventured on the further assertion of what was obscure and unknown and was arrived at only through probable conjectures. These assertions they have later on themselves gradually come to hold with complete confidence, and have mixed them up indiscriminately with evident truths; and the final result was their inability to draw any conclusion that did not seem to depend on some such proposition, and consequently to draw any that was not uncertain.

In order to avoid our subsequently falling into the same error, the Rule enumerates all the intellectual activities by means of which we can attain to knowledge of things without any fear of deception; it allows of only two such intuition and induction. By intuition I mean, not the wavering assurance of the senses, or the deceitful judgment of a misconstructed imagination, but a conception, formed by unclouded mental attention, so easy and distinct as to leave no room for doubt in regard to the thing we are understanding. It comes to the same thing if we say: It is an indubitable conception formed by an unclouded mental mind; one that originates solely from the light of reason, and is more certain even than deduction, because it is simpler (though, as we have previously noted, deduction, too, cannot go wrong if it is a human being that performs it). Thus, anybody can see by mental intuition that he himself exists, that he thinks, that a triangle is bounded by just three lines, and a globe by a single surface, and so on; there are far more of such truths than most people observe, because they disdain to turn their mind to such easy topics.

Some people may perhaps be troubled by this new use of the word intuition, and of other words that I shall later on be obliged to shift away from their common meaning. So I give at this point the general warning that I am not in the least thinking of the usage of particular words that has prevailed in the Schools in modern times, since it would be most difficult to use the same terms while holding quite different views; I take into account only what a given word means in Latin, in order that, whenever there are no proper words for what I mean, I may transfer to that meaning the words that seem to me most suitable. The evidentness and certainty of intuition is, moreover, necessary not only in forming propositions but also for any inferences. For example, take the inference that 2 and 2 come to the same as 3 and 1; intuition must show us not only that 2 and 2 make 4, and that 3 and 1 also make 4, but furthermore that the above third proposition is a necessary conclusion from these two.

This may raise a doubt as to our reason for having added another mode of knowledge, besides intuition, in this Rule -namely, knowledge by deduction. (By this term I mean any necessary conclusion from other things known with certainty.) We had to do this because many things are known although not self-evident, so long as they are deduced from principles known to be true by a continuous and uninterrupted movement of thought, with clear intuition of each point. It is in the same way that we know the last link of a long chain is connected with the first, even though we do not view in a single glance (Intuitu) all the intermediate links on which the connexion depends; we need only to have gone through the links in succession and to remember that from the first to the last each is joined to the next. Thus we distinguish at this point between intuition and certain deduction’; because the latter, unlike the former, is conceived as involving a movement or succession; and is again unlike intuition in not requiring something evident at the moment, but rather, so to say, borrowing its certainty from memory. From this we may gather that when propositions are direct conclusions from first principles, they may be said to be known by intuition or by deduction, according to different ways of looking at them; but first principles themselves may be said to be known only by intuition; and remote conclusions, on the other hand, only by deduction.

These are the two most certain ways to knowledge; and on the side of the mind no more must be admitted; all others must be rejected as suspect and liable to mislead. This, however, does not prevent our believing that divine revelation is more certain than any knowledge; for our faith in it, so far as it concerns obscure matters, is an act not of the mind but of the will; and any intellectual foundations that it may have can and must be sought chiefly by one or other of the two ways I have mentioned. Perhaps I shall later on show this to be so at greater length.

Rule IV

We need a method if we are to investigate the truth of things.

Rule V

The whole method consists entirely in the ordering and arranging of the objects on which we must concentrate our mind’s eye if we are to discover some truth. We shall be following this method exactly if we first reduce complicated and obscure propositions step by step to simpler ones, and then, starting with the intuition of the simplest ones of all, try to ascend through the same steps to knowledge of all the rest.

Rule VI

In order to distinguish the simplest things from those that are complicated and to set them out in an orderly manner, we should attend to what is most simple in each series of things in which we have directly deduced some truths from others, and should observe how all the rest are more, or less, or equally removed from the simplest.

Rule VII

In order to make our knowledge complete, every single thing relating to our undertaking must be surveyed in a continuous and wholly uninterrupted sweep of thought, and be included in a sufficient and well-ordered enumeration.

The observance of these precepts is necessary in order that we may admit to the class of certitudes those truths which, I previously said, are not immediate deductions from the first self-evident principles. For sometimes the succession of inferences is so long that when we arrive at our results we do not readily remember the whole road that has led us so far; and therefore I say that we must aid the weakness of our memory by a continuous movement of thought.

For instance, suppose that by excessive mental acts I have learnt first the relation between the magnitudes A and B, then that between B and C then that between C and D, and finally that between D and E; I do not on this account see the relation between A and E; and I cannot form a precise conception of it from the relations I know already, unless I remember them all. So I will run through these several times over in a continuous movement of the imagination, in which intuition of each relation is simultaneous with transition to the next, until I have learnt to pass from the first to the last so quickly that I leave hardly any parts to the care of memory and seem to have a simultaneous intuition of the whole. In this way memory is aided, and a remedy found for the slowness of the understanding, whose scope is in a way enlarged.

I add that the movement must be uninterrupted because it often happens that people who try to make some deduction in too great haste and from remote principles do not run over the whole chain of intermediate conclusions with sufficient care to avoid making many unconsidered jumps. But assuredly the least oversight immediately breaks the chain and destroys all the certainty of the conclusion. Further, I say that enumeration is required in order to complete our knowledge. For other precepts are helpful in resolving very many questions, but it is only enumeration that enables us to form a true and certain judgment about anything whatever that we apply our mind to, and, by preventing anything from simply escaping our notice, seems to give us some knowledge of everything.

This enumeration, or induction, ranging over everything relevant to some question we have set before us, consists in an inquiry so careful and accurate that it is a certain and evident conclusion that no mistaken omission has been made. When, therefore, we perform this, if the thing we are looking for still eludes us, we are at any rate so much the wiser, that we can see with certainty the impossibility of our finding it by any way known to us; and if we have managed to run over all the ways of attaining it that are humanly practicable (as will often be the case) then we may boldly affirm that knowledge of it has been put quite out of reach of the human mind.

It must further be observed that by adequate enumeration or induction I mean exclusively the sort that makes the truth of conclusions more certain than any other type of proof, apart from simple intuition, makes it. Whenever a piece of knowledge cannot be reduced to simple intuition (if we throw off the fetters of syllogism), this method is the only one left to us that we must entirely rely on. For whenever we have deduced one thing from others, if the inference was an evident one, the case is already reduced to genuine intuition. If on the other hand, we make a single inference from many separate data, our understanding is often not capacious enough to grasp them all in one act of intuition, and in that case we must content ourselves with the certitude of this further operation. In the same way, we cannot visually distinguish all the links of a longish chain in one glance (intuitu); but nevertheless, if we have seen the connexion of each with the next, this will justify us in saying that we have actually seen how the first is connected to the last.

I said this operation must be adequate, because it may often be defective, and consequently liable to error. For sometimes our enumeration includes a number of very obvious points; nevertheless, the least omission breaks the chain and destroys all the certainty of the conclusion. Again, sometimes our enumeration covers everything but the items are not all distinguished, so that we have only a confused knowledge of the whole.

Sometimes, then, this enumeration must be complete, and sometimes it must be distinct; but sometimes neither condition is necessary., This is why I say merely that the enumeration must be adequate. For example, if I want to establish by enumeration how many kinds of things are corporeal, or are in some way the objects of sensation, I shall not assert that there are just so many without first assuring myself that my enumeration comprises all the kinds and distinguishes each from the others. But if I want to show in the same way that the rational soul is not corporeal, a complete enumeration will not be needed; it will be enough to comprise all bodies in a certain number of classes and show that the rational soul cannot be referred to any of these. Again, if I want to show by enumeration that the area of a circle is greater than the areas of all other figures of equal periphery, I need not give a list of all figures; it is enough to prove this in some particular cases, and then we may inductively extend the conclusion to all other figures.

I added further that the enumeration must be orderly for the defects already enumerated cannot be remedied more directly than they are by an orderly scrutiny of all items. Again, it is often the case that nobody could live long enough to go through each several item that concerns the matter in hand; either because there are too many such items, or because we should keep going back to the same items. But if we arrange these items in the ideal order, then as a rule they will be reduced to certain classes; and it may be enough to have an exact view of one class, or of some member of each class, or of some classes rather than others; at any rate, we shall not ever go futilely over and over the same point. This is a great help; a proper arrangement often enables us to deal rapidly and easily with an apparently unmanageable multitude of details.

This order of enumeration is variable, and depends on the free choice of the individual; skill in devising it requires that we bear in mind the terms of Rule V. There are, indeed, a good many ingenious, trivialities where the device wholly consists in effecting this sort of arrangement. For example, suppose you want to make the best anagram you can by transposing the letters of a certain name. Here there is no need to advance from easy to difficult cases, or to distinguish between what is underived and what is dependent; for these problems do not arise here. It will be enough to determine an order for examining transpositions of letters, so that you never go over the same arrangement twice over, and to divide the possible arrangements into certain classes in a way that makes the most likely source of a solution immediately apparent. The task will then often be no long one-child’s play, in fact.

Really, though, these last three Rules are inseparable; in most cases they have all to be taken into account at once, and they all go together towards the completeness of the method. The order of setting them forth did not much matter; I have explained them here briefly because almost all the rest of this treatise will be a detailed exposition of what is here summed up in a general way.

Rule VIII

If in the series of things to be examined we come across something which our intellect is unable to intuit sufficiently well, we must stop at that point, and refrain from the superfluous task of examining the remaining items.

Rule IX

We must concentrate our mind’s eye totally upon the most insignificant and easiest of matters, and dwell on them long enough to acquire the habit of intuiting the truth distinctly and clearly.

Rule X

In order to acquire discernment we should exercise our intelligence by investigating what others have already discovered, and methodically survey even the most insignificant products of human skill, especially those which display or presuppose order.

Rule XI

If, after intuiting a number of simple propositions, we deduce something else from them, it is useful to run through them in a continuous and completely uninterrupted train of thought, to reflect on their relations to one another, and to form a distinct and, as far as possible, simultaneous conception of several of them. For in this way our knowledge becomes much more certain, and our mental capacity is enormously increased.

It is in place here to give a clearer exposition of what I said before about intuition (Rules III and VII). In the one place I contrasted intuition with deduction; in the other, merely with enumeration. (I defined enumeration as an inference made from many separate data put together; the simple deduction of one thing from another is made, I said, by intuition.) This procedure was necessary because intuition must satisfy two conditions: first, our understanding of a proposition must be clear and distinct; secondly, it must be one simultaneous whole without succession. Now if we are thinking of the act of deduction, as in Rule III, it has not the appearance of being a simultaneous whole; rather, it involves a movement of the mind in which we infer one thing from another. Here, then, we were justified in distinguishing it from intuition. If on the other hand we attend to deduction as something already accomplished, as in the notes on Rule VII, then the term does not stand any longer for such a movement, but for the result of the movement. In that sense, then, I assume that a deduction is something intuitively seen, when it is simple and clear, but not when it is complex and involved; for that, I used the term ‘ enumeration’ or ‘induction ‘. For the latter sort of deduction cannot be grasped all at once; its certainty depends in a way on memory, which must retain judgments about the various points enumerated in order that we may put them all together and get some single conclusion.

All these distinctions had to be made in order to bring out the meaning of the present Rule. Rule IX dealt only with intuition, and Rule X only with enumeration; then comes this Rule, explaining how these two activities cooperate-operate and supplement one another-seem, in fact, to merge into a single activity, in which there is a movement of thought such that attentive intuition of each point