Meditations - pg. xxix

The seeds of knowledge are in us: that is the deep reason why the Cartesian endeavour is not a chimera, the reason why we can, and must, attempt to discumber our reason of all the contents that it may have received from outside in the course of our life. These 'seeds of knowledge' or, as Descartes will call them later, thus rediscovering the deep intuition of Plato, 'innate ideas', 'eternal truths', 'true and immutable natures', purely intellectual essences that are utterly independent of the contents given to us by sense-perceptions, concepts that the rigorous catharsis of radical, methodical doubt reveals in our soul: these are the firm and sure foundations -- which Montaigne was not able to discover -- upon which we can base our judgment.

Meditations - pg. xiv

It is obvious that Descartes considers Montaigne perfectly justified in his destructive criticism of the false scholastic rationalism and of all the 'superstitions', 'preconceptions', and 'prejudices' that clutter up the mind and obscure its natural light. The fault of Montaigne, in Descartes's opinion, is not, however, that he is too radical; on the contrary, it is that he is not radical enough. The only way to deal with Montaigne is to go beyond him. It is because Montaigne was too timid that he could not find the way out of the labyrinth; and it was because of Descartes's own fearless decision not to stop; not to yield, but to pursue his way to the end, that he succeeded in breaking through into the realm of pure mind -- a realm which Montaigne could not reach; and thus, whereas Montaigne stopped at the finitude of the human soul, Decartes discovered the fullness of spiritual freedom, the certainty of intellectual truth, the reality of infinite God.