 Traditionally, geometry had been regarded as a paradigm of truth, certainty, and justification. This can be found e.g. in many authors of the seventeenth century. Descartes was ready to criticize the Euclidian method for a certain stiffness, which made it difficult to find the solution of new problems, and he sought to alleviate it by combining algebra and geometry; yet, even so, he always emphasized the clarity and evidence of geometry and its demonstrations. According to Pascal, geometry was the perfect illustration of the methods of demonstrating truths, and of establishing a body of propositions in methodical order. Leibniz, Spinoza, and others, continued taking mathematics as a model for philosohical discourse.