l8 DESCARTES. 



which ought, as I conceived, to contribute some 

 thing to my design. But, on examination, I found 

 that, as for Logic, its syllogisms and the majority of 

 its other precepts are of avail rather in the com 

 munication of what we already know, or even as the 

 Art of Lully, in speaking without judgment of 

 things of which we are ignorant, than in the investi 

 gation of the unknown ; and although this Science 

 contains indeed a number of correct and very excel 

 lent precepts, there are, nevertheless, so many 

 others, and these either injurious or superfluous, 

 mingled with the former, that it is almost quite as 

 difficult to effect a severance of the true from the 

 false as it is to extract a Diana or a Minerva from a 

 rough block of marble. Then as to the Analysis of 

 the ancients and the Algebra of the moderns, 

 besides that they embrace only matters highly 

 abstract, and, to appearance, of no use, the former 

 is so exclusively restricted to the consideration of 

 figures, that it can exercise the Understanding only 

 on condition of greatly fatiguing the Imagination;* 

 and, in the latter, there is so complete a subjection 

 to certain rules and formulas, that there results an 

 art full of confusion and obscurity calculated to 

 embarrass, instead of a science fitted to cultivate the 

 mind. By these considerations I was induced to 

 seek some other Method which would comprise the 

 advantages of the three and be exempt from their 

 defects. And as a multitude of laws often only 

 hampers justice, so that a state is best governed 



*The imagination must here be taken as equivalent simply to 

 the Representative Faculty. Tr. 



