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Rules for the Direction of the Mind

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RULES FOR THE DIRECTION OF THE MIND René Descartes

(summary)

Rule One -The aim of our studies should be to direct the mind with a view to forming true and sound judgements about whatever comes before it.

Rule Two - We should attend only to those objects of which our minds seem capable of having certain and indubitable cognition.

Rule Three - Concerning objects proposed for study, we ought to investigate what we can clearly and evidently intuit or deduce with certainty, and not what other people have thought or what we ourselves conjecture. For knowledge can be attained in no other way.

Rule Four - We need a method if we are to investigate the truth of things.

Rule Five - The whole method consists entirely in the ordering and arranging of the objects on which we must concentrate our mind's eye if we are to discover some truth. We shall be following this method exactly if we first reduce complicated and obscure propositions step by step to simpler ones, and then, starting with the intuition of the simplest ones of all, try to ascend through the same steps to a knowledge of all the rest.

Rule Six- In order to distinguish the simplest things from those that are complicated and to set them out in an orderly manner, we should attend to what is most simple in each series of things in which we have directly deduced some truths from others, and should observe how all the rest are more, or less, or equally removed from the simplest.

Rule Seven - In order to make our knowledge ^1 complete, every single thing relating to our undertaking must be surveyed in a continuous and wholly uninterrupted sweep of thought, and be included in a sufficient and well-ordered enumeration.

Rule Eight - If in the series of things to be examined we come across something which our intellect is unable to intuit sufficiently well, we must stop at that point, and refrain from the superfluous task of examining the remaining items.

Rule Nine - We must concentrate our mind's eye totally upon the most insignificant and easiest of matters, and dwell on them long enough to acquire the habit of intuiting the truth distinctly and clearly.

Rule Ten - In order to acquire discernment we should exercise our intelligence by investigating what others have already discovered, and methodically survey even the most insignificant products of human skill, especially those which display or presuppose order.

Rule Eleven - If, after intuiting a number of simple propositions, we deduce something else from them, it is useful to run through them in a continuous and completely uninterrupted train of thought, to reflect on their relations to one another, and to form a distinct and, as far as possible, simultaneous conception of several of them. For in this way our knowledge becomes much more certain, and our mental capacity is enormously increased.

Rule Twelve - Finally we must make use of all the aids which intellect, imagination, sense-perception, and memory afford in order, firstly, to intuit simple propositions distinctly; secondly, to combine correctly the matters under investigation with what we already know, so that they too may be known; and thirdly, to find out what things should be compared with each other so that we make the most thorough use of all our human powers.

Rule Thirteen - If we perfectly understand a problem we must abstract it from every superfluous conception, reduce it to its simplest terms and, by means of an enumeration, divide it up into the smallest possible parts.

Rule Fourteen - The problem should be re-expressed in terms of the real extension of bodies and should be pictured in our imagination entirely by means of bare figures. Thus it will be perceived much more distinctly by our intellect.

Rule Fifteen - It is generally helpful if we draw these figures and display them before our external senses. In this way it will be easier for us to keep our mind alert.

Rule Sixteen - As for things which do not require the immediate attention of the mind, however necessary they may be for the conclusion, it is better to represent them by very concise symbols rather than by complete figures. It will thus be impossible for our memory to go wrong, and our mind will not be distracted by having to retain these while it is taken up with deducing other matters.

Rule Seventeen - We should make a direct survey of the problem to be solved, disregarding the fact that some of its terms are known and others unknown, and intuiting, through a train of sound reasoning, the dependence of one term on another.

Rule Eighteen - For this purpose only four operations are required: addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. The latter two operations should seldom be employed here, for they may lead to needless complication, and they can be carried out more easily later.

Rule Nineteen - Using this method of reasoning, we must try to find as many magnitudes, expressed in two different ways, as there are unknown terms, which we treat as known in order to work out the problem in the direct way. That will give us as many comparisons between two equal terms.

Rule Twenty - Once we have found the equations, we must carry out the operations which we have left aside, never using multiplication when division is in order.

Rule Twenty-one - If there are many equations of this sort, they should all be reduced to a single one, viz. to the equation whose terms occupy fewer places in the series of magnitudes which are in continued proportion, i.e. the series in which the order of the terms is to be arranged.