iv DESCARTES' DISCOURSE ON METHOD 105 



When you did me the honour to ask me to 

 deliver this address, I confess I was perplexed 

 what topic to select. For you are emphatically 

 and distinctly a Christian body ; while science 

 and philosophy, within the range of which lie all 

 the topics on which I could venture to speak, are 

 neither Christian, nor Unchristian, but are Extra- 

 christian, and have a world of their own, which 

 to use language which will be very familiar to 

 your ears just now, is not only " unsectarian," but 

 is altogether " secular." The arguments which I 

 have put before you to-night, for example, arc 

 not inconsistent, so far as I know, with any form 

 of theology. 



After much consideration, I thought that I 

 might be most useful to you, if I attempted to 

 Ejive you some vision of this Extrachristian world, 

 as it appears to a person who lives a good deal in 

 it ; and if I tried to show you by what methods 

 the dwellers therein try to distinguish truth from 

 falsehood, in regard to some of the deepest and 

 most difficult problems that beset humanity, " in 

 order to be clear about their actions, and to walk 

 surefootedly in this life," as Descartes says. 



It struck me that if the execution of my 

 project came anywhere near the conception of it, 

 you would become aware that the philosophers 

 and the men of science are not exactly what they 

 are sometimes represented to you to be ; and 

 that their methods and paths do not lead so 



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