Descartes's work, exciting as it was when it first appeared, is now merely used as an antiquated reference system for academic philosophers, when it is hardly more than an elegant example of the art of writing. But Descartes did have the audacity to try to rid the human mind of mistaken ideas that were preventing man from using his brains. Descartes made use of the "material" of his times - i.e. God and the existence of the real physical world - as subjects for intelligent meditations. While on the one hand exerting the intelligence was valuable, on the other, the unsatisfactory "material" at his disposal could only produce a miserable result, such as the logical proof of the real existence of the physical world. Rene Magritte, Selected Writings, trans. Jo Levy (2016)
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