14 DESCARTES. 



mentally changing it throughout, and overturning it 

 in order to set it up amended; and the same I 

 thought was true of any similar project for reform- 

 ing the body of the Sciences, or the order of teach- 

 ing them -established in the Schools : but as for the 

 opinions which up to that time I had embraced, I 

 thought that I could not do better than resolve at 

 once to sweep them wholly away, that I might after- 

 wards be in a position to admit either others more 

 correct, or even perhaps the same when they had 



, undergone the scrutiny of Reason. I firmly 

 believed that in this way I should much better suc- 



J ceed in the conduct of my life, than if I built only 

 upon old foundations, and leant upon principles 

 which, in my youth, I had taken upon trust. For 

 although I recognised various difficulties in this 

 undertaking, these were not, however, without 

 remedy, nor once to be compared with such as 

 attend the slightest reformation in public affairs. 

 Large bodies, if once overthrown, are with great 

 difficulty set up again, or even kept erect when 

 once seriously shaken, and the fall of such is always 

 disastrous. Then if there are any imperfections in 

 the constitutions of states, (and that many such 

 exist the diversity of constitutions is alone sufficient 

 to assure us,) custom has without doubt materially 

 smoothed their inconveniences, and has even man- 

 aged to steer altogether clear of, or insensibly cor- 

 rected a number which sagacity could not have 

 provided against with equal effect ; and, in fine, the 

 ^defects are almost always more tolerable than the 

 change necessary for their removal j in the same 



