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A Source Book in Geology [1400-1900]
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Biographical SummaryRené Descartes, great French philosopher, was probably more influential than any other individual in raising European thought from the medieval level.
Geology
Descartes
RATIONAL BASIS FOR HYPOTHESIS OF CREATION OF SOLAR SYSTEM
1637
Translated from Discours de la méthode, Leyden, 1637; reproduced, Paris, 1902.
I did resolve to leave all this world here to their disputes, and to speak only of that which would take place in a new, if God should now create in some region, in the imaginary spaces, enough material to compose it, and that he agitate diversely and without order the divers parts cf this matter, so that he form of them a chaos as confused as the poets could imagine, and that, thereafter, he do nothing other than lend his usual aid to nature, and allow it to act according to the laws which he has established.
I shall show how the greatest part of the matter of this chaos, as result of these laws, ought to be disposed and arranged in a certain fashion which would render it similar to our heavens; how, meanwhile, some of its parts ought to compose an earth, and some, planets and comets, and some others a sun and fixed stars.
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Chicago: René Descartes, "Rational Basis for Hypothesis of Creation of Solar System," A Source Book in Geology [1400-1900] in A Source Book in Geology [1400-1900], ed. Kirtley F. Mather and Shirley L. Mason (New York: Hafner Publishing Company, 1939), 14. Original Sources, accessed November 26, 2024, http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=T1TCJC3DHNY7ZW5.
MLA: Descartes, René. "Rational Basis for Hypothesis of Creation of Solar System." A Source Book in Geology [1400-1900], in A Source Book in Geology [1400-1900], edited by Kirtley F. Mather and Shirley L. Mason, New York, Hafner Publishing Company, 1939, page 14. Original Sources. 26 Nov. 2024. http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=T1TCJC3DHNY7ZW5.
Harvard: Descartes, R, 'Rational Basis for Hypothesis of Creation of Solar System' in A Source Book in Geology [1400-1900]. cited in 1939, A Source Book in Geology [1400-1900], ed. , Hafner Publishing Company, New York, pp.14. Original Sources, retrieved 26 November 2024, from http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=T1TCJC3DHNY7ZW5.
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