to traveling before the winter was well ended. And, during the nine
subsequent years, I did nothing but roam from one place to another,
desirous of being a spectator rather than an actor in the plays exhibited
on the theater of the world; and, as I made it my business in each matter
to reflect particularly upon what might fairly be doubted and prove a
source of error, I gradually rooted out from my mind all the errors which
had hitherto crept into it. Not that in this I imitated the sceptics who
doubt only that they may doubt, and seek nothing beyond uncertainty
itself; for, on the contrary, my design was singly to find ground of
assurance, and cast aside the loose earth and sand, that I might reach
the rock or the clay. In this, as appears to me, I was successful enough;
for, since I endeavored to discover the falsehood or incertitude of the
propositions I examined, not by feeble conjectures, but by clear and
certain reasonings, I met with nothing so doubtful as not to yield some
conclusion of adequate certainty, although this were merely the inference,
that the matter in question contained nothing certain. And, just as in
pulling down an old house, we usually reserve the ruins to contribute
towards the erection, so, in destroying such of my opinions as I judged to
be Ill-founded, I made a variety of observations and acquired an amount of
experience of which I availed myself in the establishment of more certain.
And further, I continued to exercise myself in the method I had
prescribed; for, besides taking care in general to conduct all my thoughts
according to its rules, I reserved some hours from time to time which I
expressly devoted to the employment of the method in the solution of
mathematical difficulties, or even in the solution likewise of some
questions belonging to other sciences, but which, by my having detached
them from such principles of these sciences as were of inadequate
certainty, were rendered almost mathematical: the truth of this will be
manifest from the numerous examples contained in this volume. And thus,
without in appearance living otherwise than those who, with no other