Descartes: A Biography

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Once More into Battle 

to both events that he was losing interest in battling with his critics. For

example, he described theNotesas ‘a booklet of little significance’ and

seemed unconcerned when others added a Preface and verses that he had

neither approved nor welcomed.However, he was not entirely idle, even

if he was losing his characteristic combativeness.

Descartes continued to regret that he had been unable to complete

those parts of thePrinciplesthat were intended to discuss living creatures.

Research on plants was proceeding slowly, using the garden attached to his

house. The outstanding and most contentious issues involved an expla-

nation of animal life, beginning from conception. This was not a central

focus of his work as he oscillated between a number of projects that were

incomplete or, in the case of one of them, not even begun. The latter was

a‘Treatise on Learning’ that he had apparently mentioned to Princess

Elizabeth in terms that provoked an enthusiastic response from her about

‘how much the world needs theTreatise on Learningthat you formerly

planned to write’.Descartes’ reply indicated that he had dropped the

idea completely, for a number of reasons. None of them was very convinc-

ing, and Descartes’ customarily effusive and subservient reply was that

he would get back to work immediately on the treatise if Her Highness

wished.This was most unlikely. In excusing his relative indolence, how-

ever, Descartes refers in passing to taking up again a project that he had

worked on in the mid-s.

Iamnow working on another essay, which I hope will be more agreeable to your

Highness. It is a description of the functions of animals and human beings. What I

drafted on that topic twelve or thirteen years ago (and which your Highness has seen),

got into the hands of a number of people who transcribed it inaccurately and therefore

I thought I should make a better copy (that is, that I should rewrite it). I have even

ventured (but only in the last eight to ten days) to try to explain in it the way in which

an animal is formed from the beginning of its conception. I write ‘animal’ in general

because, in the specific case of human beings, I would not dare to tackle that problem

since I do not have enough experience to conclude the project. (v.)

Descartes had worked intermittently on a general theory of animal func-

tioning since the earlys,when he had expanded the scope ofThe World

to include a section on human beings. The suppression ofThe Worldand

the subsequent publication of reworked excepts meant that, during the

yearsto, the original manuscript was mined for many of its

best insights while its publication as an integral work was neglected or

indefinitely deferred. On the most recent occasion on which Descartes