I formed for myself a provisional moral code consisting of just
three or four maxims, which I should like to tell you about.
(1) The first was to obey the laws and customs of my
country, holding constantly to the religion in which by
God’s grace I had been instructed from my childhood, and
governing myself in all other matters—·i.e. all the ones not
settled by the law of the land or my religion·—on the basis of
the most moderate and least extreme opinions, the opinions
commonly accepted in practice by the most sensible of the
people with whom I would have to live. For I had begun at
this time to count my own opinions as worthless, because
I wanted to examine them all, and didn’t see how I could
do better than ·in the meantime· to follow those of the most
sensible men. And although the Persians or Chinese may
have men as sensible as any of ours, I thought •that it would
serve me best to be guided by those with whom I was going
to live, and—·a second reason for going this way·—•that in
order to discover what opinions people really held I had to
attend to their actions rather than their words. ·There are
two reasons for this last point·. With our declining standards
of behaviour, few people are willing to say everything that
they believe; and anyway many people don’t know what they
believe, since •believing something and •knowing that you
believe it are different acts of thinking, and you could have
one without the other. Where many opinions were equally
well accepted, I chose only the most moderate, both because
these are always the most convenient in practice, and
probably the best (excess being usually bad),
and also so that
if I made a mistake, it wouldn’t take me as far from
the right path as if I had chosen one extreme when I
ought to have adopted the other.
Coming down to details: I counted as excessive all promises
by which we give up some of our freedom. Not that I
disapproved of laws that allow people to make vows or
contracts that •oblige them to persevere in some worthy
project (or even, for the security of commerce, in something
that is neither good nor bad)—this being a remedy for the
inconstancy of weak minds. ·But I didn’t see myself as
bound by any contract to remain faithful to any of my earlier
beliefs·. I saw nothing in the world that remained always in
the same state, and for my part I was determined to make
my judgments ever more perfect, rather than worse; so I
thought I would be sinning against good sense if I took my
previous approval of something as •obliging me to regard it
as good later on, when it had perhaps ceased to be good or I
no longer regarded it as such.
(2) My second maxim was to be as firm and decisive in
my actions as I could, and to follow even the most doubtful
opinions, once I had adopted them, as constantly as if they
had been quite certain. In this I would be imitating travellers
who find themselves lost in a forest: rather than •wandering
about in all directions or (even worse) •staying in one place,
they should •keep walking as straight as they can in one
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direction, not turning aside for slight reasons, even if their
choice of direction was a matter of mere chance in the first
place; for even if this doesn’t bring them to where they want
to go it will at least bring them to somewhere that is probably
better for them than the middle of a forest. Similarly, since
in everyday life we often have to act without delay, it is a
most certain truth that when we can’t pick out the truest
opinions we should follow the most probable ones. And
when no opinions appear more probable than any others, we
should nevertheless adopt some; and then we should regard
those as being—from a practical point of view—not doubtful
but most true and certain, because the reason that made us
pick on them is itself true and certain. This maxim could
free me from all the regrets and remorse that usually trouble
the consciences of those weak and stumbling characters who
set out on some supposedly good course of action and then
later, in their inconstancy, judge it to be bad.
(3) My third maxim was to try always to master •myself
rather than •fortune, and change •my desires rather than
changing •how things stand in the world. This involved
getting the habit of believing that nothing lies entirely within
our power except our thoughts, so that after we have done
our best in dealing with matters external to us, whatever
we fail to achieve is absolutely impossible so far as we are
concerned. This seemed to me to be enough, all by itself,
to •prevent me from having unsatisfied desires and thus to
•make me content. For it is the nature of our will to want
only what our intellect presents to it as somehow possible; so
if we regard all external goods as equally beyond our power,
that will certainly save us from regrets over not having goods
that seem to be our birthright but which we are deprived
of through no fault of our own, any more than we regret
not owning the kingdom of China or of Mexico
a virtue of necessity’—as the phrase goes—we shan’t want
to be healthy when ill, or free when imprisoned, any more
than we now want to have bodies as hard as diamonds
or wings to fly like the birds. But I admit that it takes
long practice and repeated meditation to get used to seeing
everything in this light. I think this was the secret of those
philosophers of old who could escape from being dominated
by fortune and, despite suffering and poverty, could rival
their gods in happiness. By constantly busying themselves
with thoughts about the limits that nature had placed on
them, they became thoroughly convinced that nothing was
in their power except their own thoughts, which was enough
to prevent them from being attracted to other things. They
were so absolutely in control of their thoughts that this gave
them some reason to think themselves richer, more powerful,
freer and happier than any men who—however favoured by
nature and fortune they may be—don’t have this philosophy
and so never get such control over all their desires.
(4) Finally, to conclude this moral code, I decided to
review the various occupations of human life, so as to try
to choose the best. Without wanting to say anything about
other people’s occupations, I thought it would be best for me
to continue with the very one I was then engaged in, and
devote my whole life to cultivating my reason and advancing
as far as I could in the knowledge of the truth, following my
self-imposed method. Since beginning to use this method I
had felt such extreme satisfactions that I didn’t think one
could enjoy any sweeter or purer ones in this life [= ‘before we
get to heaven’]. Every day my method led me to discover truths
that seemed to me to be quite important and not widely
known; my pleasure in this so filled my mind that nothing
else mattered to me. The sole basis for maxims (1)–(3) was
my plan to continue my self-instruction, ·i.e. the course of
action decided on in (4)·. For God has given each of us a light
to distinguish truth from falsehood, and I wouldn’t have (1)
thought myself obliged to rest content for a single moment
with the opinions of others if I hadn’t intended in due course
to bring my own judgment to bear on them; I couldn’t have
(2) avoided having scruples about following these opinions, if
I hadn’t hoped to take every opportunity to discover better
ones if there were any; and I couldn’t have (3) limited my
desires, or been happy, if I hadn’t been following a path that
I thought was sure to lead me to
all the knowledge of which I was capable,
and in this way to lead me to
all the true goods that were within my power.
For our will tends to pursue (or avoid) only what our intellect
represents as good (or bad), so all we need in order to act
well is to judge well; and judging as well as we can is all we
need to •act as well as we can—that is to say, •to acquire
all the virtues and in general all the other attainable goods.
With this certainty, one cannot fail to be happy.
Rene Descartes
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