34 The Concept of Method 



analogous to that subsequently stated by Kant to exist between 

 concept and percept in epistemological theory. 



Descartes, however, must not be understood to interpret the 

 term " thought " in any narrow sense. In cogitatio he compre- 

 hends " all that is in us of which we are immediately conscious. 

 Thus all the operations of the will, of the intellect, of the imagina- 

 tion and senses are thoughts" (Resp. ad. sec. Object.) ; and by 

 the thinking subject he understands " a thing that doubts, under- 

 stands, conceives, affirms, desires, wills, refuses, that imagines 

 also, and perceives." (Medit. II.) Hence the whole breadth of 

 experience in cross-section is the basis for Descartes' assurance 

 of his existential truth as a reality, and as a reality which is the 

 necessary starting-point and centre for the organisation of the 

 series of realities which go to make up the world of our experi- 

 ence. The existential validity of the thought-process is the 

 starting-point for Descartes' method, as it must be for all subse- 

 quent considerations of the method of experience. Reality for 

 Descartes, then, is primarily a reality of process, rather than of 

 fact. The function of thought involves the reality of existence, 

 and not vice versa. It is this central idea in his philosophy that 

 stamps Descartes as a Rationalist; but he is a Rationalist from 

 the genetic rather than from the teleological standpoint, and that 

 is a distinction that is highly significant when we consider the 

 subsequent development of Rationalism, with its variation in em- 

 phasis and its change in point of view. 



There are four laws which Descartes undertook to apply in 

 his search for the valid method of experience: 



" The Urst was never to accept anything for true which I did 

 not clearly know to be such ; that is to say, carefully to avoid pre- 

 cipitancy and prejudice, and to comprise nothing more in my 

 judgment than what was presented to my mind so clearly and 

 distinctly as to exclude all ground of doubt. 



" The second, to divide each of the difficulties under examina- 

 tion into as many parts as possible, and as might be necessary 

 for its adequate solution. 



" The tJvird, to conduct my thoughts in such order that, by 

 commencing with objects the easiest and simplest to know, I 

 might ascend by little and little, and, as it were, step by step, to 

 the knowledge of the more complex ; assigning in thought a 

 certain order even to those objects which in their own nature 

 do not stand in relation of antecedence and sequence. 



