Descartes: A Biography

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AFabulous World (–) 

Kepler died in,acknowledged by Descartes as having been pre-

eminent in his contribution to optics.Meantime, Descartes’ daily life

continued in relative isolation in Amsterdam while he worked on what he

called ‘the most important occupation on which I could ever be employed’

(i.). He slept very peacefully for ten hours every night, and then allowed

his imagination to wander so that his daydreams merged with those of his

sleep (i.). In the course of trying to persuade Balzac to choose Am-

sterdam as his retreat, he claimed that, since everyone apart from him-

self was engaged in commerce, he could live his whole life there without

being seen by anyone. He took a walk daily through the busy commercial

centre of the town, and saw ships laden with ‘the produce of the Indies

and the most rare items from Europe’ (i.). Descartes was in fact living

in one of the most active commercial and cultural centres in Europe –

Rembrandt lived close by, but neither he nor any of his famous literary

or artistic contemporaries is ever mentioned by Descartes. While in his

‘retreat’, Descartes was not in the habit of reading many books (i.); in

fact, this reluctance to read books never changed, and it applied even to

books written by his friends. For example, Father Gibieuf ’s book on God’s

freedom was published in,but Descartes was still making excuses

in Octoberthat he had not yet had an opportunity to read it, and

he asked Mersenne to co-operate by keeping his procrastination secret.

While in Deventer the following year, Descartes wrote that ‘I have no

books, and even if I had some, I would begrudge the time spent in read-

ing them’ (i.). Instead, he used the time available in thinking about

the numerous scientific problems that he received from correspondents,

and in doing experiments himself. The apparently single-minded com-

mitment to writingThe World,however, did not prevent him from further

travel.

Descartes seems to have taken a trip to Denmark during the summer

of, accompanied byEtienne de Ville-Bressieux, a medical doctor ́

from Grenoble who had come to spend some time with Descartes and had

lived with him at ‘our lodging of the Old Prince’ (i.). In the course of

that trip, he met Longomontanus and spent a whole day in philosophical

discussion. Having failed to persuade him of his errors, he concluded that

‘it is not worth while to go to him any more’.Following this voyage, and

in spite of the extremely acrimonious correspondence with Beeckman the

previous year, Descartes went to visit his former collaborator at Dordrecht,

who, according to Baillet, had been close to death because of old age and