René Descartes published the Discourse on the Method in 1637 while living in the Dutch Republic, setting out a programme of systematic doubt and step-by-step deductive reasoning as the path to certain knowledge. In an often-cited passage he observed that buildings and towns laid out by a single planner on a clear plan are more regular and orderly than those that have grown piecemeal over centuries. He used this contrast to argue for reasoning afresh from first principles.
It gave rationalist philosophy its method and offered an influential early articulation of the planned, geometrically ordered city as superior to the organic, accreted town — a notion later echoed by advocates of comprehensive planning.