Descartes: A Biography

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

Descartes and Princess Elizabeth 

comment about Van Schurman: ‘This Voetius has also ruined Miss Van

Schurman. Whereas she had an excellent mind for poetry, painting, and

other similar niceties, he has totally dominated her for the past five or six

years so much that she is interested only in theological disputes, which has

caused her to be excluded from the conversation of respectable people.’

At about the same time, Descartes seems to have learned enough

Hebrew to read the first chapter ofGenesisin the original language. How-

ever, this brief venture into biblical studies failed to provide him with clear

and distinct ideas of what Moses intended to teach, and he gave up the

enterprise as a waste of time. This was surely the principal source of his

disagreement with Van Schurman, as described by a contemporary.

Mr. Descartes went to visit her at home in Utrecht....he found her occupied with her

favourite study, which was Holy Scripture, in the original Hebrew language. Descartes

was surprised that such an outstanding woman devoted so much time ‘to something

that was so unimportant.’ These were the very words he used. When this lady tried

to show him the great importance of this study for knowledge of the word of God,

Descartes replied that he himself had had the same thought and, with that in mind,

that he had learned the language that is called sacred....when he read the first chapter

ofGenesis...he was forced to acknowledge that he found nothing clear and distinct

in it....This response surprised Miss Van Schurman very much, and she acquired

such an antipathy to this philosopher that she avoided ever having any contact with

him since then.

There is independent evidence that Van Schurman devoted much effort

to studying the Bible in its original languages. For example, when Marie

de Gournay questioned the benefits of learning languages in,Van

Schurman replied that she only spent her ‘spare time’ studying languages.

‘However, I make an exception, if you permit, for the sacred languages of

the Bible.’

It is true that Van Schurman subsequently became enamoured of the

dubious mysticism of a French cleric, Jean de Labadie (–), and

that she joined his community of enthusiasts, having cast off the restric-

tions of strict Calvinist orthodoxy. Perhaps Descartes recognized early

symptoms of this disposition toward religious enthusiasm when he tried

to discuss theology with her. She certainly thought of him as a profane

man, as someone who was more confident about clear and distinct ideas

than about the word of God as found in the Bible. It also seems as if there

was a genuine basis for each one’s assessment of the other. Just as Van

Schurman was much more trusting of religious teaching then Descartes,