Discours De La Methode Pour bien conduire sa raison, & chercher la verite dans les sciences. Plus La Dioptrique. Les Meteores. Et La Geometrie. Qui sont des essais de cete Methode.

Descartes, Rene.

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Leiden: Joannes Maire, 1637. Descartes' most famous work, in which he announced 'cogito ergo sum.' "He described in Discours de la method how, in a day of solitary thought, he reached two radical conclusions: first, that if he were to discover true knowledge he must carry out the whole program himself, just as a perfect work of art or architecture was always the work of First edition.one master hand; second, that he must begin by methodically doubting everything taught in current philosophy and look for self-evident, certain principles from which to reconstruct all the sciences." [DSB]"It is no exaggeration to say that Descartes was the first of modern philosophers and one of the first modern scientists; in both branches of learning his influence has been vast... The revolution he caused can be most easily found in his reassertion of the principle (lost in the middle ages) that knowledge, if it is to have any value, must be intelligence and not erudition. His application of modern algebraic arithmetic to ancient geometry created the anylitical geometry which was the basis of the post-Euclidian development of that science. His statement of the elementary laws of matter and movement in the physical universe. the theory of vortices, and many other speculations threw light on every branch of science from optics to biology. Not least may be rmarked his discussion of Harvey's discovery of the circulation of blood, the first mention of it by a prominent foreign scholar." [PMM] First edition.