Descartes: A Biography

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Chapter

.Descartes to Mersenne,October(ii.). He also wrote to Mersenne,

August, that ‘metaphysics is a science that almost no one understands’

(ii.).

.Descartes to Gibieuf,July. Although he did not specify that the treatise

in question was on metaphysics, it seems clear from corroborating evidence that it

was. He wrote: ‘I am waiting to bother you when I have completed a little treatise

that I am beginning. I would not have asked you anything about it until it was

finished if I had not feared that the length of time involved would cause you to

forget that you promised me to correct it and to add the final touches to it. I do

not hope to finish it for two or three years and I may decide to burn it then or,

atleast, it will not escape from my hands and from those of my friends without

being examined in detail. For, if I am not skilled enough to produce something

worthwhile, I shall try at least to be wise enough not to publish my imperfections’

(i.).

.Descartes to Mersenne,April(i.). In Part IV of theDiscourse on Method,

he wrote about his first months in the United Provinces: ‘I do not know if I should

tell you about the first meditations that I did there, because they are so metaphysical

and unusual that they may not be to everyone’s taste’ (vi.).

.It is clear why he refused to publishThe World.He wrote to Mersenne, December

, that ‘nothing has prevented me so far from publishing my Philosophy apart

from the prohibition on the Earth’s movement’ (iii.). Descartes then explained

that he accepted the infallibility of the church, that he did not doubt the reasons that

supported his cosmology, and therefore that these two truths must be compatible.

However, he did not wish to put himself at risk of censure from the church while

the question of compatibility was being resolved. The question raised here is why

he was so fearful of a censure.

.Mersenne to Rivet,September(CM viii.).

.In a letter to Mersenne,April, Descartes mentions that he could not have

found the foundations of his physics if he had not studied metaphysics (i.). There

was an obvious sense in which the laws of nature and other basic assumptions about

matter and explanation, which were included inThe World,were foundations of

his natural philosophy. Thus, Descartes seems to have been willing, in–,to

reveal his metaphysical foundations while still reserving for later publication (in the

Principles of Philosophy,) the fundamental physical assumptions of his natural

philosophy.

.There were Latin editions published inand, and Descartes acknowl-

edges having read the Latin edition previously (Descartes to Mersenne,June

: ii.). The French edition,De la Verit ́e, en tant qu’elle est distincte de la

Revelation, du Vray-semblable, du Possible et du Faux, was published in Paris in

.

.Descartes to Mersenne,August(ii.–) andOctober(ii.–).

.Descartes to Mersenne,November(ii.).