Descartes: A Biography

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AFabulous World (–) 

He tells Mersenne in April that, although he had promised to send him

the long awaited ‘treatise’ before Easter, he would have to defer the deliv-

ery date a little longer to provide time for corrections and to complete

some of the diagrams required. He repeats the request for a delay one

month later, when he tells Mersenne that he has decided to spend the

summer in the country, and that Mersenne should redirect his letters

there (i.).

Deventer,–

The next change of residence hardly interrupted the consistency with

which Descartes pursued his primary goal. He had few books and rel-

atively few personal items that required transport. He could thus move

his residence with ease, and apparently without much advance planning.

Once installed at Deventer, he wrote to Mersenne to acknowledge that his

letters had arrived and that work onThe Worldwas still not finished:

Iamnowin Deventer and I have decided not to leave here until theDioptricsis

completely finished. I have been wondering, for the past month, whether to include in

myWorlda description of how animals are generated, and I have eventually decided not

to do anything about it because it would take too much time. I have finished everything

that I planned to include in it about inanimate bodies. It only remains for me to add

something about the nature of man, and then I will make a clean copy to send you. But

I dare not say when that will be, because I have failed so often in my promises that I

am ashamed. (i.–)

This tentative plan to include something about human nature was

expanded within six months. The revised project, in November,

was to produce a comprehensive account of human nature and to outline a

scientific explanation of various human faculties, such as the imagination

and memory.

I shall speak about human nature in myWorlda little more than I had thought I would,

forIplan to explain all the principal human functions. I have already written those

sections that pertain to life, such as the digestion of food, the beating of the heart, the

distribution of nourishment, etc., and the five senses. I am now dissecting the heads of

various animals, to explain what the imagination, the memory, etc. consist in. I have

seen the bookThe Motion of the Heart, about which you previously spoke to me, and

Ifound that I differ a little from it, although I had not seen it until after I had written

about this topic. (i.)