Page:Discourse on the method of rightly conducting the reason, and seeking truth in the sciences - Descartes (trans. Veitch).djvu/12

x To these I propose to advert in their order; but chiefly to the former, because, in the first place, a special reference to the Method itself is mainly relevant in an introduction to the, and because, in the second place, a formal though general discussion of the results of the Cartesian Method must far exceed the limits of the present introduction. Certain of the prominent results of the Method will, however, fall to be noticed as illustrative of the characters of the Method itself: and certain of the more general relations of to succeeding philosophers will be indicated in conclusion.

The Method of has a preliminary, the character of which it is necessary precisely to ascertain.

The preliminary to the Method is Doubt. This leads us to inquire, in the first place, into the nature of the Cartesian Doubt.

I. Doubt in general, and the Cartesian doubt in particular, is equivalent simply to the absence of any decision, whether affirmative or negative, respecting the relation of the subject and predicate of a judgment. Doubt is thus the suspension of the act of the faculty of judgment, in so far as the determination of the joining or disjoining of the terms of a proposition is concerned. This suspension arises in the absence of grounds adequate to determine either certain affirmation or nega-