![]() ![]() These stems bear the names of the half-a-dozen men, endowed with intellects of heroic force and clearness, to whom we are led, at whatever point of the world of thought the attempt to trace its history commences, just as certainly as the following 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. The thoughts of men seem rather to be comparable to the leaves, flowers, and fruit upon the innumerable branches of a few great stems, fed by commingled and hidden roots. It has been well said that "all the thoughts of men, from the beginning of the world until now, are linked together into one great chain " but the conception of the intellectual filiation of mankind which is expressed in these words may, perhaps, be more fitting metaphor. Descartes' Discourse on Method (1870) On Descartes' "Discourse Touching the Method of Using One's Reason Rightly and of Seeking Scientific Truth" (1870) Collected Essays I ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |