end CUNYB/Clarke December, :
Notes to Pages–about light, including those that eventually appeared in theDioptrics(). In a
letter to Mersenne, June(i.), he decided to withhold publication of the
sine law and effectively to separateThe Worldfrom some of his work in dioptrics.
.In July, Descartes regrets that three of Mersenne’s letters were lost in transit,
and he wants to know the dates on which they were sent, so that he might identify
the messenger responsible for losing them (i.–).
.Morin (),–,.
.Ibid.,.
.Ibid.,–: ‘Quinta ratio valde notanda desumitur ab Astrologia, totius physicae
capite ad quam prae caeteris scientiis spectat definire, quo in Mundi loco sit Terra
omnium influentiarum coelestium receptaculum, sive passivum subjectum.’
.Galileo’s book was published in Florence in.Gassendi wrote to him from
Lyons,November, that his personal copy, which arrived in October, was
still the only one available in France.
.Descartes to Mersenne, November or December(i.).
.Denzinger (),. This passage is also translated in Blackwell (),.
.‘Joshua declaimed: Sun, stand still over Gibeon, and moon, you also, over the
Vale of Aijalon. And the sun stood still, and the moon halted, till the people had
vengeance on their enemies.’ Joshua:–.
.Blackwell (),.
.Galileo was judged ‘strongly suspected of heresy, namely of having believed and
held the doctrine which is false and contrary to the Sacred and Divine Scriptures,
that the sun is the centre of the world and does not move from east to west and that
the earth moves and is not the centre of the world; and that any opinion may be
held and defended as probable after it has been declared and defined as contrary
to the Holy Scriptures.’ Blackwell (),.
.Descartes to Mersenne, February(i.). On this question, see Westfall
().
.Descartes to Mersenne, April(i.). The ‘churchman’ in question was
either Tommaso Campanella or Paolo Antonio Forcarini. See Blackwell ().
.Galileo’s position is best expressed in hisLetter to the Grand Duchess Christina,in
Galilei (),–, and is analysed in McMullin (),–, and Blackwell
(),–.
.‘The loss of the letters I wrote you towards the end of November makes me think
that they were intentionally withheld by some inquisitive person who found a way
of taking them from the messenger and who, perhaps, knew that I had planned to
send you my treatise about that time. Thus if I had sent it to you, it would very
likely have been lost. I also remember that I had earlier failed to receive four or
five of your letters, which should alert us not to write anything that we would not
be willing to share with everyone’ (i.).
.Va nOtegem (), ii.–.
.When writing about the publication of thePrinciplesin, Baillet claims that
it was not ‘son fameux trait ́edu Monde, qui n’a jamais vulejour, si ce n’est aprˆ `es
avoiret ́ ́ereduit en fort petit abr ́ eg ́e, qui par ́ ut pour la premiˆ ere fois l’an` d’une