DES CARTES
153
DES CARTES
adon, and determined the rude outline of his snb- nt philosophy. His isolation and intense concen- a. of thought afiected his brain so fax that he fan- imself assored by celestial visitations of the truth
philosophic principles and method. Some bus- I of the possibility of delusion led him to yow a mage to Loretto \f his specnlations should prove This vow he discharged four years afterwards. oHcitnde to attain more certain knowledge than cqaired in the schools tempted him to seek a con- m with the mysterious society of the Rosicrucians, were reputed to possess strange learning and a tnlons acquaintance with the secrets of nature. aaUy renounced all belief in the existence of the lerhood of the Rosy Cross. Dm the Bavarian army he passed into the Impe- and attended its early operations in Hungary ist Bethlem Gabor; but, after seeing his general, noy, slain before Neusohl, he resigned a military r. He had taken up arms for the sake of study- men, manners, and countries. He ^mMecuted I researches by returning drcuitously to Holland igh Moravia, Silesia, Pomerania, Brandenburg, iolstein, thus visiting regions deemed wholly bar- as in Western Europe. His unsuspected knowl-
of the Dntch tongue and his resolute demeanor 1 him from murder on the vo3rage between £mb- snd the coasts of Friesland. He returned to the ne after an absence of three years ; passed through Spanish Netherlands, arrived at Paris five years ' he had deserted it, and reached his fiither^s house lennes, in Brittany, in March, 1622. He thence eeded to P<^tou to take possession of his share of mother's estate, designing to sell it and purchase tne place of quick revenue." We are here remind- f the oft-recurring projects of Bacon. He £uled in )lans at this time, returned to Rennes, became op- sed with the want of occupation in his fiither's », and reappeared in Paris, where he was snspect- D be a Rosicrucian emissary. He was stiU harass- >y uncertainties and indecision in regard to the ce of a vocation. Finding his studies interrupted lie capital of France, he visited Rennes and Poitou in, and sold the greater part of his inheritance. Tow commenced a second series of journeys. He It first to Switseriand, thence to the Yalteline and Tyrol, and thence to Venice. He now made his ;rimage to Loretto, whence it may be inferred that ires by this time satisfied of the truth and solidity lis philosophical tenets. He was in Rome during
JubUee of Urban VIII (1624). He visited Flor- e on his homeward route.
le returned to Paris by way of Florence, Turin, and ms, and resided for more than three years in the nch metropolis, engaged in prosecuting his research- and meditations, in polishing lenses and mirrors, Lin determining mathematicidly and experimental- the best form of curvature to be given to them. I conclusions on this point were afterwards embod-
in his Diopirict, He again withdrew fh>m nearly his acquaintances, but his retreat was betrayed by
hidiscretion of a servant Finding it impossible iecnre the desired seclusion in Paris, he sought a reat in Holland in 1629. He now resolved to de- :e himself entirely to a speculative life. This was > end of five years of military service, of eight years travel, and of fifteen years of hesitation. It is prob- ly the lesson of his own experience which is en- c«d in his Etkic$ in the earnest censure of all irres- ttlon. The indecision which is thus forcibly con- mned was characteristic of Des Cartes, and may ve been •unconsciously connected with the adoption doubt as the basis of his Method. He was not stationary in any single abode ; but his me, if home he had anywhere, was in the northern rt of the country, at the remote town of Egmont. 9 used every artifice to conceal his retreat. He
II.-'B B B
communicated his hiding-place to none of his country- men except his Franciscan iriend Mersenne, through whom he conducted nearly all his correspondence with the learned world. In 1631 he visited England on the invitation of Charles I ; in 1684 he went to Denmark. Spain, Portugal, Russia, and Turkey were the only European states not reached in his wanderings. He thrice visited France after his Dutch settlement— in 1644, 1647, and 1648. On one of these occasions he was tempted to Paris by the promise of an honorable provision from the crown, but he found that he had been drawn from his retreat solely to gratify the curi- osity of sight-seers and courtiers.
Des Cartes ascribes the determination of the ftmda- mental principles of his philosophy to his twenty-third year, and to his winter-quarters on the Danube. His mathematical discoveries were still earlier. In 1688, after three years of elaboration, he had prepared a sketch of his views of the constitution of the universe, but the condemnation of Galileo caused him to with- hold it firom the press. At length, in 1687, being then forty-one 3rears of age, he yielded to thewolicitations of his firiends, and promulgated the general principles of his nform in the celebrated Diaccurs de la Methode, to which were appended three other treatises — on Afe- teOTf , Gtometryj and Dioptries,
Soon after the publication of the Method and accom- panying essays, the Pkilotophical Meditations were prepared for the press. Des Cartes sent them to his friend Mersenne in Paris with the request that they should be submitted to the most acute and learned of his acquaintances for the benefit of their suggestions and observations. Searching criticisms were in conse- quence received from Caterus, Hobbes, Amauld, Gas- sendi, Bourdin, S. J., and others. To these objections replies by the author were appended, and the whole were published together at Paris in 1641, with a dedi- cation to the theological faculty of the University of Paris, in order to place his doc^ines under the in-oteo- tion of the Church.