01__The aim of our studies should be the direction of our mind so that it can form solid and truthful judgments on any matter that arises.
02__ We must deal only with those objects that our intellectual faculties seem competent to know clearly and undoubtedly.
03__With regard to any subject that we propose to investigate, we should not ask what other people have thought, or what we ourselves conjecture, but what we can clearly and manifestly perceive by intuition or deduce with certainty. Because there is no other way to acquire knowledge.
04__You need a method to discover the truth.
05__The method consists entirely of the order and arrangement of the objects towards which our mental vision must be directed if we want to discover any truth. We will accomplish exactly this if we step by step reduce the involved and obscure propositions to those that are simpler, and then starting with the intuitive understanding of all those that are absolutely simple, we attempt to ascend to the knowledge of all the others by following similar steps.
06__To separate what is simple enough from what is complex, and to organize these matters in a methodical way, in the case of each series in which we have deduced certain facts from each other, we must note which fact is simple. and to mark the interval, greater, less or equal, that separates all the others from this.
07__If we want our science to be complete, those matters that advance the end in view must be analyzed by a movement of thought that is continuous and in no place interrupted; they should also be included in an enumeration that is appropriate and methodical.
08__If we reach a step in the series in the matters to be examined in which our understanding is not good enough for intuitive cognition, we must stop there. We should not attempt to examine what follows; Thus we will save unnecessary work.
09__We should devote our full attention to the most insignificant and easy-to-master facts, and spend a long time in their contemplation until we are accustomed to seeing the truth clearly and distinctly.
10__In order to acquire sagacity, the mind must be exercised in the search for those investigations whose solution has already been found by others; and it should go through systematically even the most insignificant inventions of men, though those in which the order is explained or implied should be preferred.
11__If, after we have intuitively recognized a number of simple truths, we wish to draw some inference from them, it is helpful to review them in a continuous and uninterrupted act of thought, reflect on their relationships to each other, and grasp together different of these propositions as far as possible. as possible at the same time. Because this is a way to make our knowledge much more secure and to greatly increase the power of the mind.
12__Finally, we must employ all the help of understanding, imagination, sense, and memory, first for the purpose of having an intuition other than simple propositions; In part also to compare the propositions.
