Discourse on the Method, part 2, ¶ 4-1

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René Descartes

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Isaiah 17:9 speaks of God’s judgment against Syria, specifically Damascus, predicting the desolation of its strong cities. The verse compares these cities to a forsaken branch, abandoned due to the actions of the Syrians against Israel. The destruction and abandonment of these cities serve as a consequence of the hostility they had shown toward Israel, highlighting the divine retribution for their offenses. The prophecy emphasizes the total ruin and desolation that will come as a result of this judgment.

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Discourse on the Method (Veitch translation)

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But I had become aware, even so early as during my college life, that no opinion, however absurd and incredible, can be imagined, which has not been maintained by some one of the philosophers; and afterwards in the course of my travels I remarked that all those whose opinions are decidedly repugnant to ours are not on that account barbarians and savages, but on the contrary that many of these nations make an equally good, if not a better, use of their Reason than we do.

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The majority of men is composed of two classes, for neither of which would this be at all a befitting resolution: in the first place, of those who with more than a due confidence in their own powers, are precipitate in their judgments and want the patience requisite for orderly and circumspect thinking; whence it happens, that if men of this class once take the liberty to doubt of their accustomed opinions, and quit the beaten highway, they will never be able to thread the byeway that would lead them by a shorter course, and will lose themselves and continue to wander for life; in the second place, of those who, possessed of sufficient sense or modesty to determine that there are others who excel them in the power of discriminating between truth and error, and by whom they may be instructed, ought rather to content themselves with the opinions of such than trust for more correct to their own Reason.