Descartes: A Biography

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 Descartes: A Biography

itself ’, and that the union of body and soul is ‘not accidental but essential’

to both parts (iii.).

Regius had resisted attempts in the past by his colleagues to cancel

disputations or to change their content significantly. On this occasion

his characteristic stubbornness reappeared. Despite the possible threat of

losing his chair and the unanimous advice of friends that he not reply

publicly to Voetius, he published a pamphlet onFebruary, under

the title:A Reply or Notes on the Appendix to the Theologico-Philosophical

Corollaries. The reaction of Voetius was hardly surprising. Within days, he

called on the university senate to initiate proceedings against a book that

had been published without permission, by a Remonstrant printer and

that, he claimed, had libelled him personally and disrespected the office of

the rector.The senate agreed to send a delegation to the city magistrates

to request seizure of Regius’ pamphlet and the suppression of the new

philosophy that it endorsed. This was agreed; the remaining copies of the

book were confiscated; and the city council issued a condemnation of the

‘new philosophy’ onApril.

It was in these delicate and most inopportune circumstances that

Descartes published, as an appendix to the second edition of theMedita-

tions, the letter to Father Dinet that included the provocative comments

about the University of Utrecht and its rector.

Letter to Father Dinet

The primary purpose of this appendix to theMeditations,inthe style of an

open letter, was to bring about a reconciliation between Descartes and the

Jesuits in France. The Jesuits were not allowed to function in the Dutch

Republic, and there was therefore no possibility that they would raise

objections locally to what Descartes had written. In fact, they showed

little enthusiasm for criticizing him even in France, and this silence on

their part may have been as much the issue as anything else. The reality

was that the Jesuits had not responded, critically or otherwise, to the two

books that Descartes had already published, namely, theDiscourse and

Essays() and theMeditations().

However, Father Pierre Bourdin – a relatively insignificant professor at

the Paris Jesuit college – had arranged a disputation in which some fea-

tures of Descartes’ optical theory were criticized. Descartes’ exaggerated

response at the time, which coincided with his failure to win approval