Descartes: A Biography

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 Descartes: A Biography

friendship for Beeckman. The subsequent row with Beeckman about the

latter’s alleged plagiarism of ideas from theCompendiumthrows more light

onthe character of its author than on the search for a tempered intonation

in the early modern period.

However, despite the brevity and the relative lack of novelty of this

essay, there are already some indications in theCompendium of Musicof

positions that Descartes adopted subsequently in his mature published

work. The first line suggests that the objective of music is ‘to please us and

to stimulate various emotions in us’ (x.). The second paragraph takes

a decisive turn in the direction of distinguishing between the explanatory

task of the physicist and a very different task, described in instrumentalist

terms, of learning how to produce pleasant sounds without necessarily

understanding adequately what causes them (x.). In complete contrast,

therefore, with the Pythagorean project of discovery, the Cartesian analy-

sis of music was designed merely to assist musicians to produce the sounds

required to stimulate various emotions. In realizing that objective, there

is no reason to limit oneself to simple mathematical ratios; the limits of

one’s musical skills are a function of the limits of one’s mathematical abili-

ties. Having rehearsed some of the standard ways of dividing a monochord,

Descartes cuts short his discussion by pleading that an adequate treatment

would ‘exceed the scope of this small volume’ (x.). Instead, he sends

the draft essay to his friend Beeckman with these words:

I hope that this progeny of my mind, so imperfect and similar to a small bear which has

just been born, will reach you as a testament of our friendship and a most certain token

of my affection, but on one condition: that it remain forever hidden in the shadows of

your study....forithas been composed for you alone by someone who is free and idle

in the midst of ignorant soldiers, but is concerned with entirely different thoughts and

actions. (x.)

Beeckman returned to Middelburg onJanuary. When Descartes

went to visit him in March, his return journey was delayed by a storm

atsea that forced the boat on which he had set sail to return to port at

Vlissingen. There is no evidence that they met again for another twelve

years, until.Meantime, Descartes wrote to him (January)

that he was passing his time by painting, studying military architecture,

and by learning Dutch. His efforts at language learning were successful

enough that, in later years, he could write short letters in Dutch, though

usually with apologies for his limited competence.