Descartes' Thoughts On Fulfillment

Descartes again rarely discuses the ultimate human fulfillment in his published works. He does say that, "men, in whom the principal part is the mind, ought to make their principal care the search after wisdom, which is its true source of nutriment." Descartes also claims that "the pursuit of virtue" is such a worthy goal that it "cannot fail to have a happy outcome for us, since it depends on us alone, and so we always receive from it all the satisfaction we expected from it," compared to the goal of worldly possessions, in which a person must live, "in such a way that his conscience cannot reproach him for ever failing to do something he judges to be the best."