Descartes: A Biography

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

 Descartes: A Biography

Wa rwith the Jesuits

Descartes wrote to Mersenne (July) that he had not yet published

his ‘five or six sheets of metaphysics, even though they have been ready

foralong time. What stopped me from doing so is that I do not want them

to fall into the hands of pseudo-theologians or, in future, into those of the

Jesuits (with whom I foresee that I am going to go to war)’ (iii.).

Descartes was reflecting on his experience of publishing theEssays, when

parts of the book were distributed to readers in France and the United

Provinces even before they were officially published. On this occasion he

was being extra careful, given the sensitivity of the subject matter, that no

onewould see his metaphysics until he had had an opportunity to have it

‘read and approved by various doctors [i.e., theologians] and, if possible,

bythe Sorbonne as a whole’ (iii.–). The reason for identifying the

Jesuits as a likely source of opposition in Paris was that one member of

the society had already engaged in a public criticism of theDioptrics. The

reverberations of this controversy appeared in the second edition of the

Meditationsin.

Clermont College (renamed Louis-le-Grand in), which was the

Jesuit college in Paris, organized a two-day disputation on Descartes’

Dioptricson JuneandJuly, under the direction of Father Pierre

Bourdin (–). Bourdin had entered the Jesuit novitiate in,

and he had probably attended La Fleche as a student while Descartes`

was there, before becoming a teacher in the same college in.Mean-

time he had been promoted, in,tolecture in physics and mathe-

matics at Clermont College. Mersenne notified Descartes, who was still

in Leiden, about this disputation almost immediately after it was held,

since it was obviously critical of some of the main features of his optics.

Descartes thanked Mersenne for passing on the news and asked him to

pretend that he had not told him the name of the Jesuit involved.This

ruse would allow Descartes to write to the rector of the college and refer

anonymously to the author. He could not restrain himself, however, from

commenting that he had heard that Bourdin was a relative of Petit, and

that the Jesuit had possibly become involved in the controversy out of

affection for a relative whom Descartes had earlier compared to a small

barking dog.

Descartes then wrote to Father Hayneuve, the Jesuit rector of Clermont

College, on the same day as his letter of thanks to Mersenne – but in