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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Reason Discourse by Rene Descartes: acknowledge them as mine. I am glad, by the way, to take this opportunity
of requesting posterity never to believe on hearsay that anything has
proceeded from me which has not been published by myself; and I am not at
all astonished at the extravagances attributed to those ancient
philosophers whose own writings we do not possess; whose thoughts,
however, I do not on that account suppose to have been really absurd,
seeing they were among the ablest men of their times, but only that these
have been falsely represented to us. It is observable, accordingly, that
scarcely in a single instance has any one of their disciples surpassed
them; and I am quite sure that the most devoted of the present followers
of Aristotle would think themselves happy if they had as much knowledge of
Reason Discourse |
