Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences

In this reflective essay the author opens by insisting that good sense – the capacity to judge rightly – is distributed equally among people. He attributes the great variety of opinions not to any innate superiority, but to the differing ways each mind is guided, warning that a brilliant intellect can veer into error if it strays from a steady path. By contrast, a modest thinker who follows a clear, straight‑forward course can make steady progress toward truth.

The work is organized into six parts, beginning with a survey of the sciences and then presenting the fundamental rules of a newly discovered method. Subsequent sections explore the moral principles that follow from that method, the author’s arguments for the existence of God and the soul, and his investigations into physical phenomena such as the motion of the heart. The final part looks ahead, urging readers to adopt the disciplined approach as a means of advancing knowledge in all fields.