 Descartes’ avowed goal was to “start again right from the foundations” (First Meditation, 1988 [1641]: 17) of science—i.e., to legitimate the foundations of inquiry per se, and to show how we ought to conduct ourselves intellectually in order to achieve knowledge and avoid error. The realization of the possibility of massive error—made vivid through the device of certain skeptical possibilities—of course had a significant influence over Descartes’ theorizing. His specific recommendation, arrived at through careful reflection on his own ideas, was a particularly strong foundationalism designed to rule out the possibility of error: one should “hold back [one’s] assent from opinions which are not completely certain and indubitable” (ibid.), and in fact treat as false anything that could possibly be false. On the other hand, Descartes says, “I…seem to be able to lay it down as a general rule that whatever I perceive very clearly and distinctly is true” (ibid.: 87). So long as one carefully apportions one’s judgment to the degree of “clarity and distinctness” of one’s ideas, given God’s providence, one can proceed in confidence that one is not theorizing in error.