Descartes: A Biography

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 Descartes: A Biography

were missing, which would have increased its size by a third. It will contain three parts,

of which the first will be about the passions in general and, as required, the nature of

the soul, etc.; the second part will be about the six primitive passions, and the third

part about all the others.

Descartes seems to have been procrastinating at this stage, and to have been

concerned primarily with a decision about going to Sweden – whether he

would go at all and, if so, when would be the best time to travel.

His importunate correspondent of the previous year wrote again, in July

, bemoaning the fact that ‘it has been such a long time that you have

made me wait for yourTreatise on the Passionsthat I am beginning to lose

hope of getting it’ (xi.).This correspondent had hoped to facilitate

Descartes’ ambition to complete the unfinished parts of thePrinciples,

and he suggested that, if he were to publish this essay, it might prompt

those who had access to public funds or private donors to provide the

money required to complete the necessary experiments.One reason

forDescartes’ reluctance to part with the text of thePassions, which his

correspondent could not have known about, was that he was worried

about publishing a book that he had previously shown to Queen Christina

without dedicating it to her and without her permission to make public

something that he had shared with her as if with a privileged reader. This

scruple was resolved by writing to the queen’s librarian and asking him

to inquire discreetly about whether she might take offence.Once that

was cleared, Descartes replied to his anxious editor that he was not so lazy

that he feared the challenge that would result if he had adequate funds

forhis scientific work. However, he was now able to report that he had

worked on the revisions he had promised and was ready to release the work

forpublication. He thus wrote onAugust,two weeks before his

departure for Sweden:

Iconfess that it took more time to revise the little treatise that I am sending you than

it previously required to write it. Nonetheless, I added very little to it, and I changed

nothing in the argument, which is so simple and brief that it will show that my plan

was not to explain the passions as an orator or even as a moral philosopher but only as

anatural philosopher. I foresee, therefore, that this treatise will not do any better than

myother writings. Although its title may possibly attract more people to read it, only

those who take the trouble to study it carefully can find it satisfactory. Such as it is, I

place it in your care. (xi.)

It seems as if there was another short delay before the manuscript was

finally dispatched.It found its way to Louis Elzevier in Amsterdam