DISCOURSE ON METHOD. 3 



the eye of a philosopher at the varied courses and 

 pursuits of mankind at large, I find scarcely one 

 which does not appear vain and useless, I neverthe- 

 less derive the highest satisfaction from the progress 

 I conceive myself to have already made in the 

 search after truth, and cannot help entertaining 

 such expectations of the future as to believe that if, 

 among the occupations of men as men, there is any 

 one really excellent and important, it is that which 

 I have chosen. 



After all, it is possible I may be mistaken ; and it 

 is but a little copper and glass, perhaps, that I take 

 for gold and diamonds. I know how very liable we 

 are to delusion in what relates to ourselves, and also 

 how much the judgments of our friends are to be 

 suspected when given in our favour. But I shall 

 endeavour in this Discourse to describe the paths I 

 have followed, and to delineate my life as in a pic- 

 ture, in order that each one may be able to judge of 

 them for himself, and that in the general opinion 

 entertained of them, as gathered from current 

 report, I myself may have a new help towards 

 instruction to be added to those I have been in the 

 habit of employing. 



'My present design, then, is not to teach the 

 Method which each ought to follow for the right con- 

 duct of his reason, but solely to describe the way in 

 which I have endeavoured to conduct my own. 

 They who set themselves to give precepts must of 

 course regard themselves as possessed of greater 

 skill than those to whom they prescribe; and if they 

 err in the slightest particular, they subject them- 



