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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: measure of genius will entertain, perhaps, designs still more exalted; but
for the many I am much afraid lest even the present undertaking be more
than they can safely venture to imitate. The single design to strip one's
self of all past beliefs is one that ought not to be taken by every one.
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 byway that would
Reason Discourse |
