Descartes: A Biography

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

 Descartes: A Biography

channeled into finding political support to resist the new pressure from

Utrecht, while he was simultaneously putting the final touches to the

Principles of Philosophy. The apparent pause in the correspondence with

Elizabeth is interrupted five months later, in November, when

Descartes writes about resolving a mathematical problem.There are

no surviving letters for almost another year, when Elizabeth writes to

Descartes in August. Between those two dates, Descartes published

thePrinciples of Philosophyand dedicated the book to Princess Elizabeth.

Descartes had published his first book inand had intentionally

withheld the author’s name from the title page. His second book, the

Meditations, had appeared inwith the author’s name and an intro-

ductory letter of dedication to the theology faculty at the Sorbonne, from

whom he had unsuccessfully sought some kind of guarantee of theological

orthodoxy and thus an indemnity against Jesuit criticism. There is no sig-

nificant change, during the intervening years, in the caution with which

Descartes attempted to protect his publications from criticism or official

censure. His recent experiences in Utrecht, which were still unresolved

as he prepared thePrinciplesforthe printer, and the political intervention

that protected him from legal action in Utrecht suggested the need for a

prominent Calvinist patron in the United Provinces. The obvious person

forthis role was Princess Elizabeth, even if she was not Dutch and not

directly in the ancestral line of the House of Orange. Descartes accord-

ingly dedicated the book to ‘her most Serene Highness, Princess Elizabeth,

eldest daughter of King Frederick of Bohemia, Count Palatine and Elec-

tor of the Holy Roman Empire’. At the time, Elizabeth was twenty-six

years old. Descartes acknowledges her previous correspondence about the

Meditations, the scope of her interests in natural philosophy and mathe-

matics, and the extent to which she had engaged him in genuine scholarly

debate despite her lack of a formal university education.

Most Serene Highness: The most rewarding result of my previously published writ-

ings was that you deigned to read them and, by making your acquaintance in this way, I

discovered that your natural gifts were such that I was convinced that it would benefit

the human race if I publicized them as an example for future generations....Those

in whom a very firm will to act rightly is combined with a very acute intelligence and

the greatest devotion to discovering the truth are much more eminent [than those

who are ignorant but loyal to their religious faith]. It is obvious that Your Highness

possesses such great devotion, because neither the distractions of the court nor the

customary education that normally condemns young women to ignorance was able to