Descartes: A Biography

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The ScientificEssaysand theDiscourse on Method 

reluctance about even this limited publication in his efforts to have his

name omitted from the title page.

Part VIof theDiscourse on Methodprovides a rather lengthy, self-

justifying explanation of Descartes’ intention to publish some of his

physics, at a time when he was still drafting the text in.

It is now three years since I reached the end of the treatise that contains all these

things [i.e. questions that were discussed inThe World, and mentioned briefly in the

Discourse] and began to revise it for submission to a publisher, when I noticed that

some people whom I respect, and whose authority over my actions can hardly be less

than that of my own reason over my thoughts, had censured a physical theory which

had been published a little earlier by someone else. I am not saying that I shared that

view. However, I would not have noticed anything about it prior to their censure that

I could have imagined as prejudicial either to religion or the state or, consequently,

that would have prevented me from writing the same if I had been convinced of it

byreason. This made me fear that I might have been mistaken about one of my own

views, despite the great care I had always taken not to accept any new beliefs unless I

had very certain demonstrations of them, and not to write anything about them that

could turn out to be detrimental to anyone. (vi.)

This is hardly an accurate account of what happened. Despite what he says

in the paragraph just quoted, Descartes had supported the same helio-

centric theory as Galileo, and he was convinced when he wroteThe World

that his supporting reasons were enough to defend it against misguided

theologians.Three years later, he begins to backtrack in theDiscourseand

writes with false modesty that ‘I have never attributed great significance

to what came from my own mind’ (vi.). He then rehearses at length the

reasons for and against publishing scientific theories when they are still in

the process of being developed. He explains that ‘two other reasons made

me set down here some essays on particular issues and offer the public

some account of my work and my plans’ (vi.). These reasons were: (a)

that many people who already knew about his work might conclude from a

failure to publish that the theories had been shown to be false; and (b) that

the completion of his research project needed much more observational

and experimental work than he could do alone, and that he hoped to ben-

efit from the contributions of others by sharing his provisional theories

with the public.

The result of all this soul searching was the compromise represented

bythebook. It omitted what Descartes called the ‘foundations of

myphysics’ (vi.), that is, the controversial view of the universe that