Descartes: A Biography

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 Descartes: A Biography

philosophy. The culmination of his gradual enlightenment is found inThe

Passions of the Soul().

It is also obvious from these letters that Elizabeth adopted the role

of the untutored junior partner, as someone who experienced many of

the weaknesses that were typically attributed to women, and that she

welcomed the advice of Descartes as both an expert in philosophy and

a wise life coach. It seems equally clear, however, that Descartes learned

muchmore from Elizabeth’s letters than she did from him. Her questions

were invariably precisely on target with respect to the gaps in his arguments

and weaknesses in his theories. Both correspondents continued to play

their assumed official roles, while acknowledging the reciprocal benefits

that they both enjoyed.

This correspondence continued even after Elizabeth’s abrupt depar-

ture from The Hague and Descartes’ extremely reluctant departure from

Egmond in the service of another young royal female, Queen Christina

of Sweden. Descartes’ letters expressed extravagant claims about his feel-

ings of duty and service toward the young princess. For example, he wrote

from Egmond in May, when she was living in Berlin: ‘The letter

that I have had the honour of receiving from Your Highness makes me

hope that you will return to The Hague towards the end of summer. I can

say, however, that it is the principal reason which makes me prefer living

in this country rather than in any other’ (v.). In fact, Elizabeth never

returned to Holland, and Descartes never met her again. They continued

to correspond, intermittently, until his death.

Descartes’ language throughout these letters might give the impression

of someone who may have been in love with the princess or, at least, of

having such respect for her that he was willing to follow her wherever

she lived and to provide counselling and philosophical guidance despite

the inconvenience involved for himself. However, the letters he wrote to

Queen Christina in–atthat stage, to someone he had never even met,

and about whom he knew relatively little – put a different complexion on

his extravagant prose style. In the case of Queen Christina, Descartes will

write parallel letters to Chanut and the queen in which he cancels in the

former what he pledges with apparent sincerity in the latter. This duplicity

or, at least, this exaggerated use of diplomatic obfuscation suggests the

need to reread his letters to Princess Elizabeth in the same way. She was a

potential patron, and she was certainly an able intellectual critic. She was

also perhaps the unwitting object of an immature affection on the part of