Reading Exercise 2

Directions:

Read the following selection, applying the strategy for reading complex material without headings. Then answer the questions below.

Some Thoughts on the Sciences

Good sense is mankind’s most equitably divided endowment, for everyone thinks that he is so abundantly provided with it that even those most difficult to please in other ways do not usually want more than they have of this.  As it is not likely that everyone is mistaken, this evidence shows that the ability to judge correctly, and to distinguish the true from the false—which is really what is meant by good sense or reason—is the same by nature in all men; and that differences of opinion are not due to differences in intelligence , but merely to the fact that we use different approaches and consider different things.  For it is not enough to have a good mind: one must use it well.  The greatest souls are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues; and those who walk slowly can, if they follow the right path, go much farther than those who run rapidly in the wrong direction.

As for myself, I have never supposed that my mind was above the ordinary. On the contrary, I have often wished to have as quick a wit or as clear and distinct an imagination, or as ready and retentive a memory, as another person.  And I know of no other qualities which make for a good mind, because as far as reason is concerned, it is the only thing which makes us men and distinguishes us from the animals, and I am therefore satisfied that it is fully present in each one of us.  In this I follow the general opinion of philosophers, who say that there are differences in degree only in the accidental qualities, and not in the essential qualities or natures of individuals of the same species.

But I do not hesitate to claim the good fortune of having stumbled, in my youth, upon certain paths which led to certain considerations and maxims from which I formed a method of gradually increasing my knowledge and of improving my abilities as much as the mediocrity of my talents and the shortness of my life will permit.  For I have already had such results that although in self-judgment I try to lean rather toward undervaluation than to presumption, I cannot escape a feeling of extreme satisfaction with the progress I have already made in the search for truth. And although from the philosophers’ viewpoint almost all the activities of men appear to me as vain and useless, yet I conceive such hopes for the future that if some single one of the occupations of men, as men, should be truly good and important, I dare to believe that it is the one I have chosen.

-- Descartes, René. The Search for Certainty

Questions:

1. Which of the following words/phrases did you identify as important in the first sentence?

   Choose as many as apply:
   good sense	abundantly provided
   equitably divided	difficult to please
   endowment	want more
   everyone thinks

    
   Click here for a discussion.

2. What tone is created in the second and third paragraphs?

   A. formal

   B. personal

   C. indifferent