 Famously, Descartes is in the methodist camp. Those who haphazardly “direct their minds down untrodden paths” are sometimes “lucky enough in their wanderings to hit upon some truth,” but “it is far better,” writes Descartes, “never to contemplate investigating the truth about any matter than to do so without a method” (Rules 4, AT 10:371, CSM 1:15f). Were we to rely on our prima facie intuitions, we might accept that the earth is unmoved, or that ordinary objects (as tables and chairs) are just as they appear. Yet, newly emerging mechanist doctrines of the 17th century imply otherwise. Descartes thinks such cases underscore the unreliability of our prima facie intuitions and the need for a method by which to distinguish truth and falsity.