Descartes: A Biography

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 Descartes: A Biography

Regius should provide arguments from which informed readers could

conclude that they are redundant.

Iwould wish above all that you never propose any new opinions but, while retaining all

the old ones in name, that you offer only new arguments. No one could object to that,

and anyone who understands your new arguments properly will conclude immediately

from them what you mean. Thus, why did you need to reject explicitly the substantial

formsand real qualities? Do you not remember that, in myMeteors(vi.), I expressly

said that I did not reject or deny them at all, but only that I did not need them in order

to explain my arguments? (iii.–)

One might commend Descartes for encouraging Regius to avoid public

controversy as much as possible, especially when his opponents included

a renowned theologian who happened to be the rector of the university in

which he worked.

When Descartes offers specific suggestions about Voetius’ theses, he

goes beyond the general guidance just offered – that he not deny sub-

stantial forms and that he merely offer alternative explanations of natural

phenomena that would make them redundant. He argues that there is no

mention of substantial forms in Scripture (iii.), and that those who

accept them are more likely than Cartesians to compromise the unique-

ness and immateriality of the human soul. Descartes also advised Regius

to consult two local sympathizers in Utrecht, Gijsbert van der Hoolck

(a town councillor) and Antonius Aemilius. When he did this, Van der

Hoolck gave a rather alarmist interpretation of events. He thought that

Regius was in danger of being dismissed from his professorial chair and

that the apparently conciliatory suggestions of Descartes might even be

interpreted by critics as sarcasm. Aemilius read the situation in a similar

way. It would be better, he thought, not to reply to Voetius, and to calm the

situation by silence. Regius consulted Descartes once again (February

). His reply revealed what he really thought of Voetius. ‘I did not know

that he ruled over Utrecht...and I feel sorry for the city that it is willing to

be subject to such a vile pedagogue and such miserable tyranny’ (iii.).

However, he advised Regius (as had Van der Hoolck and Aemilius) not

to publish any reply that might compromise his tenure at the university.

At the same time, Descartes also offered apparently contradictory advice

with further detailed comments about Voetius that had occurred to him

since he had written the previous month. The argument here was that if

the so-called forms of purely material things are shown to be nothing more