From a Wall Street Journal column by David A. Shaywitz headlined “”Rivals’ Review: An Experiment in Amiability”:

In 1619, René Descartes resolved to transform the study of philosophy—a broad ambit that at the time embraced mathematics and the study of nature. He hoped to deduce all observable phenomena—the paths of planets, the beating of the heart—from a few foundational laws or principles. After years of effort, and despite triumphs such as the invention of analytic geometry, he conceded defeat.