Descartes: A Biography

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

Notes to Pages– 

.Descartes to Mersenne,November(iv.–), where he discusses Clerse-

lier’s illness in some detail and makes suggestions about how he should be

treated, and again to Mersenne,December(iv.): ‘Please tell me how

Mr. Clerselier is coping with the sickness, which I am very sorry to hear about.’

.Foradetailed account of its printing history, see Van Otegem (), i.–.

.Descartes to Picot,February(iv.–).

.Descartes to Mersenne,April(iv.).

.Descartes to Clerselier,March(iv.).

.Baillet (), ii.. Baillet extends the religious analogy by referring to Regius

first as a ‘martyr’ and later as a ‘schismatic’ (ii.).

.Regius to Descartes,July(iv.–). I follow the redating of the corre-

spondence proposed by Regius (),–and–.

.Regius to Descartes,July(iv.).

.Descartes to Regius, [July or early August](iv.).

.Regius (), p.of unpaginated dedication: ‘If I walk in the footsteps of the most

noble and incomparable philosopher, Ren ́e Descartes, or if I follow my own path or

proceed by a route that differs from the common views of those who acknowledge

that they are occult and not understood...Idosointhe interests of philosophical

freedom....’ This was not the explicit acknowledgement that he had promised

Descartes, but rather an ambivalent indication that he may or may not differ from

Cartesian philosophy.

.Regius (), Chapter,‘De Homine’, extends from p.to p..

.Ibid.,:‘Frustra itaque quaeritur, quomodo mens cogitet; cum illa hoc per

suam essentiam jam explicatam faciat, ut corpus per extensionem, seu essentiam

extensam, se extendit.’

.Ibid.,.

.Ibid.,–.

.Ibid.,.

.Ibid.,,.

.Forthis reading of how the human will moves the body, see Clarke (),–.

.Regius (),.

.Ibid.,.

.Ibid.,.

.Descartes to Huygens,February(iv.–).

.Descartes to Chanut,March(iv.–), and Descartes to Huygens,

March(iv.–), when he wrote: ‘I have been planning to travel to The

Hague for a long time, but the bad weather has kept me here. I hope it will not last

forever and that I shall see you soon.’

.‘Illi mors gravis incubat / Qui, notus nimis omnibus, / Ignotus moritur sibi.’

Descartes to Chanut,November(iv.), quoted from Seneca,Thyestes.

.Baillet (), ii.,.

.‘His habit of meditating made him very reserved and a little taciturn.’ Ibid.,

ii..

.Ibid., ii.–.

.Ibid., ii..