ABSTRACT
Of all his writings upon metaphysical matters there is only one work to which Descartes refers as his Metaphysic, and that work is his Meditations on First Philosophy. To the end of his life he showed no inclination to add to nor subtract from what he had written there. Though he reached his conclusions at a fairly early age, he seems to have remained quite satisfied with them. But for Descartes methodology is not Metaphysics, since metaphysics presupposes principles of method. The first aim of the Discourse, therefore, is not metaphysics nor any other branch of science. Descartes possessed a wonderful new method of conducting his thought with which he had secured extraordinary results became public after his famous meeting with Berulle, the Neo-Platonist cardinal, at the house of Papal Nuncio. To be methodical, metaphysics must commence by doubting rigorously everything that can be doubted, and this for the majority of people must mean the loss of their mental stability'.
