Descartes: A Biography

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Metaphysics in a Hornet’s Nest (–) 

the second edition, to read more accurately: ‘in which God’s existence

and the distinction of the human soul from the body are demonstrated’.

There are also signs that, in the course of publication, Descartes had sec-

ondthoughts about the extensive scope for editing that he had granted

to Mersenne. Although he had originally made Mersenne ‘the godfa-

ther’ of the book and had given him ‘the power to baptize’ it,Descartes

now reverted to discussing detailed amendments and even typographical

corrections.

Descartes thought that it might take ‘two or three years’ to gather the

objections envisaged for the first edition. He eventually received five more

sets of objections, in addition to those of Caterus, which he asked to have

published in the order in which they were received. The Second Objec-

tions were written by Mersenne, although Descartes seems not to have

been aware of that when he received them by messenger. Their arrival

in Leiden was delayed by icy weather conditions, and Descartes thanked

anonymously ‘those who took the trouble to write them’.Mersenne

apparently sent copies of theMeditationsto a number of people simul-

taneously. The invitation to Thomas Hobbes (–) precipitated a

lengthy and rather bitter controversy about theDioptrics, during which

Hobbes raised objections that resembled those already made by Fermat.

Hobbes had fled to Paris into escape from the political turmoil that

was about to erupt in the English civil war, and he remained there until

as a member of the informal Mersenne circle. During his Paris years,

Hobbes wrote some of his most famous political works, includingDe Cive

() and theLeviathan(). He hardly fitted Descartes’ profile of

aCatholic theologian, since he was neither a Catholic nor a theologian,

and the mismatch that resulted is evident in the hostility of Descartes’

response.

Descartes’ initial reply to Hobbes (January) implied that

he thought the objections had been sent from England, and he ini-

tially referred to their author, without appreciating who he was, as ‘the

Englishman’.During the following three months, Hobbes continued

to dispute the Cartesian theory of light; he also independently provided

objections specifically against theMeditations, which arrived in Leiden on

January.As often happened, the controversy between Hobbes

and Descartes included a priority dispute. In this case, they disagreed

about which of them would be acknowledged by subsequent generations

as the one who had first thought about the subtle matter that allegedly