A book ought to speak for itself, and the brief est prefaces are the best. Accordingly, I shall restrict myself to the few words indispensable to the purpose of indicating the object and the char acter of this work. Given the intention of writing a History of Modern Philosophy in France, it was natural to begin it with Descartes, since by general consent Descartes opened a period in the history of philo sophic thought, and this not simply for France, but for the world at large.
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