Descartes: A Biography

end CUNYB/Clarke     December, :

 Notes to Pages–

.Epistolicae Quaestiones, cum doctorum responsiswas published in, and included

contributions from Van Schurman, Vossius, Hensius, Colvius, and Salmasius.

.Descartes to Van Beverwijck,July(iv.).

.Descartes to Tobias Andreae,May(iv.).

.Descartes to De Willem,July,inwhich he confirms having the same

devotion to others that he had ‘in Holland’, and that he is concerned that he might

be suspected of forgetting his friends ‘in travelling by sea’ (iv.).

.Descartes to Willem,July(iv.).

.Descartes to Father Dinet,February:‘Iwent to France last summer because

of my personal affairs, but having concluded them quickly, I returned to this land

of Holland, where nonetheless I am detained by no reason except that I can be more

easily free to dedicate myself to my studies, because the customs of this country

do not encourage mutual visiting as freely as in France’ (iv.–).

.Baillet (), ii..

.Descartes to Dinet, October(iv.), and Descartes to Bourdin, October

(iv.).

.‘Now that I have eventually published the principles of this philosophy...you

are one of those to whom I wish most of all to present a copy, both because I owe

youall the fruits that I can derive from my studies, given the care you took of my

instruction when I was young...’ (Descartes to Charlet, October:iv.).

.Digby (), p.of unpaginated Preface.

.Ibid.,.

.Ibid.,.

.Ibid.,–.

.Ibid.,.

.Descartes uses the same argument in a subsequent letter to Father Mesland,

(February), when he explains how we have the same body over time, even

if all its parts are gradually replaced, because it is joined with the same soul (iv.

–).

.The official certification that a book contains nothing objectionable to the Catholic

Church was called a ‘nihil obstat’ (literally: ‘nothing prevents’ the publication). The

nihil obstatsigned by H. Holden certified that ‘nothing contained in either of those

two treatises...doth any way tende to the disadvantage of the faith or pietie of

our Catholike Roman church, whereof this author professeth him selfe a dutiful

& obedient child’ (Paris,November).

.Digby (). This was republished in twenty-nine editions.

.Ibid.,.

.Baillet (), ii..

.Descartes to Picot,November(iv.).

.Baillet (), ii..

.Ibid., ii..

.Descartes to Chanut,February(v.), when he was explaining to Chanut

how unnecessary it was for Queen Christina to read theMeditationsif she was read-

ing the French edition of thePrinciples.‘Although the first part [of thePrinciples]

is merely a summary of what I wrote in myMeditations,itisstill not necessary,