end CUNYB/Clarke December, :
Notes to Pages– .See Descartes to Mersenne,January, where he uses the ‘war and peace’
metaphor to comment that the Jesuits seem not to want ‘peace’ as long as they deal
with him indirectly through Father Bourdin (iii.).
.Descartes to Mersenne,July(iii.–). Descartes’ frequent feigning not
to know something that he obviously knows raises a general problem about how
to read his letters. For example, he wrote to Mersenne,December, that
he had pretended that he would not even dare ask that his letter be shown to
the Jesuit provincial superior, while simultaneously suggesting that he would be
disappointed if Mersenne were not able to arrange for that to happen (iii.).
.The proverb quoted in Latin is from Plautus,Amphitruo, II,,. Clerselier may
have modified the allusion, in the Latin text, to the Jesuits as hornets by translating
this phrase into French as: ‘although I have known for a long time that one should
not draw one’s adversaries on oneself ’ (iii.).
.Descartes to Mersenne,July(iii.). His later contrast with critics in
Utrecht is discussed at length in Chapter.
.Descartes to Mersenne for Bourdin,July(iii.–).
.Descartes to Mersenne,August(iii.,)
.See a similar scheming letter to Mersenne, December(iii.–). Descartes
repeatedly alleged that objections voiced by one Jesuit were likely to represent
the views of the whole Society, although he knew that this was not true. He was
evidently using this ploy to provoke the Jesuits into writing some kind of official
response to hisMeditations.Herepeated the same idea, and withdrew it in the face
of the evidence, in replying to Father Bourdin’s objections (vii.,), and in
his letter to Father Dinet (vii.).
.Descartes to Mersenne,December(iii.).
.In a letter to Mersenne,September(iii.), Descartes mentioned this
strategy. By December of that year, he was reconsidering the idea (iii.), and
in Descartes to Mersenne,December,headmits to having given it up
entirely (iii.). However, he asked Mersenne,January(iii.–), not
to reveal his change of mind to the Jesuits and to encourage them to believe that
he still planned to target their philosophy.
.Descartes to Huygens,January(iii.,). Descartes was living at
Endegeest at that time, but it was close enough to Leiden that the latter could be
used as a penultimate address.
.He attributes to Descartes the unquestioned assumption that ‘nothing belongs to
the body apart from what I previously understood as belonging to it’ (vii.), to
which Descartes’ reply is completely unsatisfactory.
.He concluded his prolix replies to Bourdin with the comment: ‘Since he says he
is my friend and since I deal with him in as friendly a manner as possible...I
commend our bricklayer to his superior’ (vii.).
.The Sorbonne’s monopoly in granting degrees was a source of bitter controversy
with the Jesuits. See, for example, the collection of defensive tracts published on
behalf of the Sorbonne under the title:Traictez pour la Deffence de l’universit ́e
de Paris, contre les Iesuites(). The sharpness of the exchanges seems to have