Descartes: A Biography

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 Descartes: A Biography

Wooing the Jesuits

Descartes had visited a number of prominent Jesuits based in Paris during

his visit in October.Hedistributed twelve copies of thePrinciples

specifically to the Jesuits, and left behind with Picot some extra copies

forother French supporters. On his return to the United Provinces, he

went back to northern Holland and settled in one of the three villages

that included ‘Egmond’ in their names, possibly in Egmond-Binnen. In

early,hetook up again the charm offensive toward the Jesuits, to try

to have hisPrinciplesadopted as a college text. He pursued this plan so

aggressively that, on a single day, he wrote four lengthy letters to different

Jesuits in Paris, all with the same objective.

Despite the lapse of almost thirty years since he had been a Jesuit

student, Descartes seems to have received a reply from Father Charlet, his

former college rector, to his letter of October.Hewrote in February

to acknowledge that he had received a number of similar letters

from various Jesuits and that he felt very much obliged to them.The

fact that Father Charlet was now assistant to the Father General of the

Jesuits in France made it all the more important that Descartes exploit

this connection to his advantage – an effort that, on this occasion, he was

uncharacteristically honest in acknowledging. He tried to persuade Charlet

that Cartesianism would eventually emerge as the preferred philosophy of

the schools, and that the Jesuits had the power to facilitate that recognition

or, alternatively, that they could delay it by their lack of interest.

For, although this philosophy [i.e., Descartes’] relies so much on demonstrations that

I cannot doubt that, in time, it will be generally approved and adopted, nevertheless,

if a lack of interest prevented them [the Jesuits] from wishing to read it, I could not

hope to live long enough to see that day because they are the largest group who are

competent to evaluate it. However, if their goodwill persuades them to examine it, I

dare to hope that they will find in it so many things that will appear true to them, and

which can easily be substituted for what is commonly taught and can be helpful in

explaining the truths of the Faith, that – without contradicting Aristotle’s text – they

will even accept them and thus, within a few years, this Philosophy will acquire the

kind of credibility that it would otherwise not acquire for a century. I acknowledge

that this is something in which I have an interest; I am a man like other men, and I am

not so insensitive that I am not affected by success.

The letter to Father Dinet acknowledges his assistance in converting

what initially seemed like a concerted Jesuit attack, led by Bourdin, into