Descartes: A Biography

C CUNYB/Clarke     December, :

 Descartes: A Biography

in Joshua:,inwhich the Sun is commanded to stand still.The

injunction to Galileo inmentioned the opinion ‘that the sun is in

the centre of the universe and is immobile, and that the earth moves,’

and it forbade him to ‘hold, teach, or defend it in any way, either verbally

or in writing’.When theDialoguewas published in, therefore, the

focus of attention was no longer on the alleged conflict between a scientific

theory and the Bible, but on whether Galileo had disobeyed the original

decree of sixteen years earlier. By June, the almost inevitable decision

was reached and Galileo was found guilty of having breached an explicit

instruction of the Holy Office.

News of the decision reached Descartes in his remote retreat in Deven-

ter, and he wrote immediately to Mersenne to explain why he could not

send him the long-promised results of his research.

I had planned to send you myWorldas a New Year’s gift....But I should tell you that,

having inquired recently in Leiden and Amsterdam whether Galileo’sSystem of the

World[i.e.,Dialogue] was available, since I thought I had heard that it was published

in Italy last year, I was told that it had been published but that all the copies were

immediately burned in Rome and that he had been fined. This surprised me so much

that I more or less decided to burn all my papers, or at least not to allow them to be seen

byanyone. For I could not imagine that, as an Italian and even, I have heard, someone

who is in the good graces of the Pope, he could have been convicted for nothing more

than attempting, as he surely did, to establish the earth’s movement....Iacknowledge

that, if that is false, then so are all the foundations of my physics, because it is easily

demonstrated from them. It is so connected with all the parts of my treatise, that I

could not detach it from them without undermining everything that remains. But since

Iwould not wish for all the world to publish a discourse in which the least word was

disapproved by the Church, I have for that reason preferred to suppress it rather than

to have it appear mutilated. (i.–)

By February, Descartes was more concerned about the fate of his

ownWorldthan by minor disagreements with Galileo. Although he had

decided to suppressThe World,herevealed an insider’s understanding

of the workings of the Roman Inquisition by questioning whether its

decisions were automatically a matter of faith, or whether they were merely

an exercise of the church’s teaching authority unless confirmed by the Pope

or a general council of the church:

I hope that you will have greater respect for me when you see that I have decided to

suppress completely the treatise that I wrote and to lose almost all my work over four

years, in order to offer complete obedience to the Church insofar as it forbade the view

that the earth moves. However, since I have not yet seen that the Pope or the Council