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DISCOURSE ON THE METHOD OF RIGHTLY CONDUCTING THE REASON, AND SEEKING TRUTH IN THE SCIENCES  by Rene Descarte. 

Descartes contributed a towering amount in the history of science and in establishing modern Western philosophy, all accomplished in a relatively short period of time, as Descartes for all of his massive output only lived to be 54 (1596-1650)…and most of that was completed between 1630 and 1650.  Twenty years. Outstanding. 

René Descartes. Engraving by Jacques Lubin, after Frans Hals (via Houghton Library blog, here).

“PREFATORY NOTE BY THE AUTHOR

If this Discourse appear too long
to be read at once, it may be divided into six Parts: and, in the first, will
be found various considerations touching the Sciences; in the second, the
principal rules of the Method which the Author has discovered, in the third,
certain of the rules of Morals which he has deduced from this Method; in the
fourth, the reasonings by which he establishes the existence of God and of the
Human Soul, which are the foundations of his Metaphysic; in the fifth, the
order of the Physical questions which he has investigated, and, in particular,
the explication of the motion of the heart and of some other difficulties
pertaining to Medicine, as also the difference between the soul of man and that
of the brutes; and, in the last, what the Author believes to be required in order
to greater advancement in the investigation of Nature than has yet been made,
with the reasons that have induced him to write.