iv DESCARTES' DISCOURSE ON METHOD 167 



history commences, just as certainly as the follow- 

 ing up the small twigs of a tree to the branchlets 

 which bear them, and tracing the branchlets to 

 their supporting branches, brings us, sooner or 

 later, to the bole. 



It seems to me that the thinker who, more than, 

 any other, stands in the relation of such a stem 

 towards the philosophy and the science of the 

 modern world is Ke'ne Descartes. I mean, that if 

 you lay hold of any characteristic product of 

 modern ways of thinking, either in the region of 

 philosophy, or in that of science, you find the spirit 

 of that thought, if not its form, to have been 

 present in the mind of the great Frenchman. 



There are some men who are counted great 

 because they represent the actuality of their own 

 age, and mirror it as it is. Such an one was 

 Voltaire, of whom it was epigrammatically said, 

 " he expressed everybody's thoughts better than 

 anybody." l But there are other men who attain 

 greatness because they embody the potentiality of 

 their own day, and magically reflect the future. 

 They express the thoughts which will be every- 

 body's two or three centuries after them. Such 

 an one was Descartes. 



Bora in 1596, nearly three hundred years ago, 

 of a noble family in Touraine, Rene Descartes 

 grew up into a sickly and diminutive child, whose 



1 I forget who it was said of him : " II a plus que personne 

 1'esprit que tout le monde a." 



