PREFACE 



IN two essays upon the life and work of Des- 

 cartes, which will be found in the first volume of 

 this collection, I have given some reasons for my 

 conviction that he, if any one, has a claim to the 

 title of father of modern philosophy. By this I 

 mean that his general scheme of things, his con- 

 ceptions of scientific method and of the conditions 

 and limits of certainty, are far more essentially and 

 characteristically modern than those of any of his 

 immediate predecessors and successors. Indeed, 

 the adepts in some branches of science had not 

 fully mastered the import of his ideas so late as 

 the beginning of this century. 



The conditions of this remarkable position in 

 the world of thought are to be found, as usual, 

 primarily, in motherwit, secondarily, in circum- 

 stance. Trained by the best educators of the seven- 

 teenth century, the Jesuits; naturally endowed 

 with a dialectic grasp and subtlety, which even 

 they could hardly improve; and with a passion 

 for getting at the truth, which even they could 



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