ABSTRACT
The Cartesian method, as Descartes makes clear in the second chapter of the Discourse on Method, is not to accept as true anything of which people have not a clear and distinct idea, to analyse the problem, to start from more simple and more certain thoughts and proceed to the more complex, and to review the field so thoroughly as not to omit any consideration. Malebranche was a theologian whose prime interest was in Augustine, but he was influenced by Descartes when he read the latter's work on Man. Spinoza's philosophy can be dealt with adequately only if considered as a whole. In so far as it is valid, it hangs together, and it is impossible to elucidate fully one part of it without considering the rest. Perhaps the most noteworthy aspect of Leibniz's thought is the fact that he had a multiplicity of reasons for most of the views which he put forward.
