Descartes: A Biography

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 Descartes: A Biography

outstanding features – for which a soul is required – remain to be specified

and discussed further.

I desire that you consider that all the functions that I have attributed to this machine,

such as the digestion of food, the beating of the heart and the arteries, the nourishment

and growth of the bodily parts, respiration, waking and sleeping; the reception of light,

sounds, odours, smells, heat, and other such qualities by the external sense organs; the

impression of the ideas of them in the organ of common sense and the imagination;

the retention or imprint of these ideas in the memory; the internal movements of the

appetites and the passions; and finally the external movements of all the bodily parts

that so aptly follow both the actions of objects presented to the senses, and the passions

and impressions that are encountered in memory; and in this they imitate as perfectly

as possible the movements of real men. I desire, I say, that you should consider that

these functions follow in this machine simply from the disposition of the organs as

wholly naturally as the movements of a clock or other automatons follow from the

disposition of its counterweights and wheels. To explain these functions, then, it is

not necessary to conceive of any vegetative or sensitive soul, or any other principle of

movement or life, other than its blood and its spirits which are agitated by the heat of

the fire that burns continuously in its heart, and which is of the same nature as those

fires that occur in inanimate bodies. (xi.–)

When Descartes decided not to publishThe World, and not even to show it

to his most trusted friends, he had to face the reality that his life’s work to

date had come to a sudden halt. The fact thatThe Worldendorsed Galileo’s

astronomy was a minor problem compared to its radical suggestions about

human knowledge, scientific explanation, and the extent to which human

and animal behaviour could be explained without any of the ‘souls’ on

which philosophers traditionally relied. Since he could not publish his

ideas in the form in which they were written, he had to think of some

way of salvaging his results, while at the same time protecting himself

from church censure. Descartes the fabulist had to be transformed into

Descartes the defender of the Catholic faith. This was the focus of his

energies for the next four years.

At a personal level, the limited evidence suggests that Descartes lived

a relatively isolated life, even in busy towns, and that he enjoyed the com-

pany of a small number of devoted male friends. Ville-Bressieux lived with

him in Amsterdam in,ashehad done during his earlier residence

atAmsterdam (–). During his temporary domiciles at Leiden,

Deventer, and Utrecht, he enjoyed the company of Henri Reneri. The

other friend who is mentioned in similar terms, as a close disciple, was