Descartes is rightly regarded as the father of modern philosophy primarily and generally because he helped the faculty of reason to stand on its own feet by teaching men to use their brains in place whereof the Bible, on the one hand, and Aristotle, on the other, had previously served.

E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 3 - Parerga and Paralipomena (1851) - Sketch of a History of the Doctrine of the Ideal and the Real