Descartes: A Biography

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 Descartes: A Biography

The same gentleman [i.e., Roberval] also told me, because you call him your enemy,

that he never had any other intention except to honour you. He has also asked me to

write to you, formally, as I do below...in the hope of re-establishing peace between

you, which may have been unwittingly damaged by the good Father Mersenne who

sometimes understood things a bit crudely and often wrote about them in a way that

reflected his own understanding rather than the way things were in fact. The same Mr.

Roberval told me, therefore, that if you call him your enemy because he sought you

out to tell you about something that seemed not quite right in yourGeometry...that

this enmity was not reciprocal, because it survives only in your belief about him, since

he is willing in all other ways to respect your achievements and status, as he has told

youhimself face to face.

This apparently genuine attempt at a reconciliation was rebuffed by

Descartes with the contemptuous comment that he never paid those who

displeased him the honour of esteeming them worthy of his hatred! In

the case of Roberval, and the suggestion that Mersenne might have been

partly responsible for their quarrel, he was very explicit.

I can also assure you that the Reverend Father Mersenne did nothing to influence

myjudgment about the animosity of the said Mr. Roberval. Instead, he always hid it

as much as the laws of friendship allowed. It was Roberval himself who declared his

animosity so explicitly and in words that were so rash and so conceited that, if he now

speaks in a different manner, I have reason to think that his only motivation is to be less

suspected of calumny when he says something unfavourable about me. For the same

reason, I want everyone to know how annoyed and angry he is with me. He may be

someone whose profession requires him to appear learned. However, having attacked

me five or six times to show how learned he is, he forced me on as many occasions to

discover his mistakes, as he does once again with his three objections that you have

taken the trouble to include in your letter.

Although he could not respond positively to the peace overtures from

Roberval, Descartes was able to inform Carcavi that the Latin version of

hisGeometry, which had been translated by Van Schooten, had finally

appeared. Unfortunately, Van Schooten’s Latin was not very stylish, and

since Descartes was unable ‘to see it before publication without being

obliged to change everything in it’ (v.), he excused himself com-

pletely from the work involved and tolerated its publication without any

corrections.

After what seemed like a relatively quiet summer in, with little

new work to report and most of his efforts devoted to revising thePassions

of the Soulbefore releasing it for publication, Descartes eventually made

final preparations for his departure to Stockholm.