Descartes: A Biography

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

The ScientificEssaysand theDiscourse on Method 

Yo uurge me to publish other treatises [The World], but at the same time you impede

the publication of this one [theDiscourseand essays]. I dare not write everything I

think about this. I beseech you, however, in the name of God, to arrange either that it

can be published as soon as possible with the privilege, in whatever form that may be

given, or at least that you write and tell us that the privilege was refused....(i.)

Descartes asked Mersenne to send the privilege directly to his publisher in

Leiden, if he was successful in his request, perhaps because he had already

decided to leave Leiden in frustration, since the whole book had already

been printed apart from the final page. He moved north to some location

near Alkmaar, probably to Egmond.Meantime, Mersenne’s efforts were

further delayed because the chancellor was absent from Paris, attempting

to suppress a mutiny in Rouen.

Apart from his most trusted friends, so many others anticipated the

imminent publication of Descartes’ first book that it casts some suspicion

onthe author’s apparent determination to remain anonymous. Evidently,

Mersenne was partly responsible for disseminating the news to many

of his other correspondents. For example, he wrote to Andr ́eRivet (

September) that Descartes was still living in Leiden and that he was

about to publish ‘something from his excellent speculations.’Likewise,

Saumaise wrote from Leiden to Jacques du Puy, in April, that ‘the

printing of Mr. Descartes’ book has been completed but it has not yet

appeared because of the privilege that they await from Paris’ (i.).

He expanded on this by giving his impression of Descartes as extremely

reclusive, as among the most zealous of Roman Catholics, but as someone

whom the local intellectuals characterized as ‘without equal’.

Descartes had scarcely left Leiden for his new residence near Alkmaar

when Huygens’ wife died. Susanna Huygens had given birth to her fifth

child, a daughter who was named after her mother, onMarch,at

the age of thirty-eight. She fell sick soon afterward and died onMay.

Descartes might have assisted at the funeral had he still been in Leiden

(and thus within a short journey to The Hague), but it was impossible

forhim to arrive in time for the funeral from his new northern hideaway.

Instead, he wrote a long and genuinely sympathetic letter of condolence,

though, inappropriately, he included a few lines toward the end about his

ownminor frustrations. ‘I do not understand Father Mersenne’s way of

proceeding, because he still has not sent me the privilege and seems to wish

that I should be indebted to him while he does the exact opposite of what I

request’ (i.,). Descartes’ former friend, Isaac Beeckman, died ten