end CUNYB/Clarke December, :
Notes to Pages–.Descartes to Regius,May: ‘When these theses are being disputed [those
of/June], I can visit Utrecht if you wish, but only on condition that no
oneknows about it and that I can remain hidden behind the curtain where Miss
Schurman usually hears the lectures’ (iii.).
.The journal of Franc ̧ois Ogier (quoted in iv.) recalls a visit with Descartes in
The Hague, during which Descartes told his guests that he ‘did not have much
respect for Miss Schurman, and that she was also a great friend of this minister
[i.e., Voetius]’.
.Descartes to Mersenne,November(iii.).
.Quoted from Foucher de Careil,Descartes et la Princess Elizabeth(Paris: Germer-
Bailli`ere,),–,iniv.–.
.Va n S churman (),.
.Maurits Huygens (–) had died onSeptember, and Descartes wrote to
Huygens onOctober(iii.–).
.Descartes to Pollot,October(iii.).
.Ifollow the revised dating in Descartes (),.
.Descartes to Elizabeth,June(iii.).
.In more technical language, they have no properties in common that are relevant
to explaining how they interact. According to Descartes, mind and body have
in common the property of being substances, of existing, etc., but none of these
common features could explain how they interact.
.Cf. Descartes to Reneri for Pollot [April/May]: ‘Of course one may won-
der whether the nature that thinks may perhaps be the same as the nature that
occupies space, so that there is one nature that is both intellectual and corporeal’
(ii.).
.Descartes to Elizabeth [November](iv.–), and Elizabeth to Descartes,
November(iv.–).
.The printing of thePrincipleswas completed onJuly,byElzevier in
Amsterdam. It is discussed in more detail in Chapter.
.Forexample, in Elizabeth to Descartes,May(iii.);June
(iii.);July(iv.);August(iv.).
.Descartes later provided a theory of why people in radically different social posi-
tions cannot love each other, in a letter to Chanut,February. ‘It is also
true that ordinary language usage and the demands of civility do not allow us to
tell someone that we love them if they are very much superior to us socially. We
are allowed to say only that we respect, honour, and esteem them and that we are
zealous and devoted to serving them. The reason for this, it seems to me, is that
friendship between people makes those in whom it is reciprocated in some way
equal to each other. Thus, if one tries to be loved by some great person, if one says
that one loves them, they could think that one treats them as an equal and that one
harms them’ (iv.).
.Elizabeth to DescartesMay(iii.);June(iii.);October
(iv.). OnSeptember,andonApril, she again refers to
her ‘stupidity’ (iv.,).