All this is set forth very plausibly, but it is still indeterminate, formal, and shallow; we only have the assertion made to us that this is so. Descartes’ method is the method of the clear understanding merely. Certainty with him takes the first place; from it no content is deduced of necessity, no content generally, and still less its objectivity as distinguished from the inward subjectivity of the ‘I.’ At one time we have the opposition of subjective knowledge and actuality, and at another their inseparable union. In the first case the necessity of mediating them enters in, and the truth of God is asserted to be this mediating power. It consists in this, that His Notion contains reality immediately in itself. The proof of this unity then rests solely upon the fact of its being said that we find within us the idea of complete perfection; thus this conception here appears simply as one found ready to hand. With this is compared the mere conception of God which contains no existence within it, and it is found that without existence it would be imperfect. This unity of God Himself, of His Idea, with His existence, is undoubtedly the Truth; in this we find the ground for holding as true what is for us just as certain as the truth of ourselves. As Descartes proceeds further we thus find that in reality everything has truth for him only in so far as it is really an object of thought, a universal. This truth of God has been, as we shall see, expressed even more clearly and in a more concise way by a disciple of Descartes, if one may venture to call him so—I mean Malebranche (who might really be dealt with here),[177] in his _Recherche de la vérité_.