Descartes: A Biography

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 Descartes: A Biography

with the profession of writing books that it hurts me even to think about it’

(iv.). One must assume, however, that despite his own loss of interest,

work on the two French translations continued. He planned to reuse the

French privilege that had been granted for theEssaysof, because it

applied to ‘all the books that he had written and that he would write’.

Before these projects could be completed, however, Descartes had to

address the painful reality that his most devoted and most public philo-

sophical supporter, who had risked his career at Utrecht University to

publicize Cartesian ideas, was about to publish a book in which he dis-

agreed publicly with Descartes’ metaphysics. In the language of Baillet –

which might have been more appropriate for a religious dispute, than for

a philosophical disagreement – Regius was about to become ‘not so much

the first plagiarist of Mr. Descartes, as the first rebel among his disciples

or the first schismatic among his followers’.

Regius:Physical Foundations

Regius had drafted a book under the titlePhysical Foundations, and he

sent Descartes an advance copy during the summer ofto ask for his

advice. Descartes’ first reaction, in July of that year, was simply to sound

a note of caution about the danger of confusing readers by combining

what Regius had borrowed from Descartes with what he was proposing

in his own name. The Utrecht professor initially accepted the legitimacy

of these concerns and offered to publish a Foreword to his book in which

he would acknowledge publicly that, on some questions, he differed with

Descartes.Descartes repeated his concerns in a second letter the same

month, in which he made those original worries very explicit. During

the intervening days he had read more than the first few pages of the

manuscript, and he was particularly worried by the style – more suitable,

he thought, for disputations than for a book – in which the author’s ideas

were presented in a paradoxical fashion and without the supporting argu-

ments that might help to convince readers. However, when he reached the

section of the book devoted to human nature, his worst fears were realized.

He felt obliged to repeat the reservations that he had expressed in,

atthe beginning of the Utrecht crisis.

But when I reached the Chapter ‘On Man’, and when I saw what you have about

the human mind and about God in that section...I was completely astounded and