Descartes: A Biography

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 Descartes: A Biography

suffered a similar fate in later years. Most notoriously, he cultivated Hen-

ricus Regius as one of the most supportive and insightful proponents of

Cartesian ideas. Within a few years, however, he disowned him and decided

to cut off all communications with him.When one finds that Descartes

disputed publicly with Fermat, Roberval, Voetius, Bourdin, and many

others, the emotionally charged rift with Beeckman assumes the status of

the first example of what subsequently emerged as a pattern in his personal

and professional life. Descartes had a penchant for misunderstanding those

who disagreed with him, attributing motives to their alleged mistakes that

were less than complimentary, and then adopting the moralistic posture

of someone who had been deeply wronged despite the virtues he claimed

always to have exercised when attempting to resolve disagreements.

Tr avels in Germany

Descartes embarked on his travels onApril. The young adventurer

could not possibly have hoped to advance his studies by joining another

army, or by idling in winter quarters with the billeted soldiers of various

belligerent dukes and kings. Given the poor communications about mil-

itary manoeuvres, he anticipated (April) finding ‘many men in

arms but no combat. If that is so, I shall go to Denmark, then to Poland

and Hungary, until I manage to reach Germany by secure routes that are

not occupied by pillaging soldiers. Otherwise, I shall discover with cer-

tainty that they are really at war’ (x.). One motivation for travelling

to Bohemia was the renown of some central European scientists who were

widely known to have contributed significantly to the new sciences. Some

of these names were well known, even among those who had never read

their works: thus Copernicus, Brahe, and Kepler were especially promi-

nent on any list of famous scientists. While the first two were no longer

alive, the centres where they had worked remained a promising source

of inspiration for any aspiring young scientist in the early seventeenth

century. Among those centres, Bohemia had been prominent for almost

thirty years, and Descartes identifies that as his ultimate destination: ‘I

shall reach Austria and Bohemia’ (x.).

The emperor, Rudolf II, an uncle to Philip II of Spain, had moved

the imperial court from Vienna to Prague, where he was crowned in the

Cathedral of St. Vitus, Prague, in.During the following thirty-

six years, he established Prague as a centre of culture and the arts, an