end CUNYB/Clarke December, :
Notes to Pages– .Schoock was appointed to Deventer in, and at Groningen in. See
Verbeek (),–.
.Schoock (), pp.,,of unpaginated Preface,,;Verbeek (),
,,,,.
.Schoock (),;Verbeek (),.
.The query about practising religion is in Schoock (),–;Verbeek (),
, while the comparison to Vanini is found in Schoock (),;Verbeeck
(),.
.Schoock (), pp.–of unpaginated Preface; Verbeek (),.
.Schoock (),;Verbeek (),.
.Schoock (), p.of unpaginated Preface; Verbeek (),. Descartes
replies to this comparison to Vanini in theLetter to Voetius(viii-.).
.Schoock (),;Verbeek (),.
.Schoock (),;Verbeek (),–. See also pp.–,. Descartes’
similar reply to Mersenne is quoted earlier on p..
.Schoock (),–,–,–;Verbeek (),,,–.
.Descartes to Mersenne,March(iii.–); to Colvius,April
(iii.–); to Huygens,May(iii.–).
.Descartes to (Samuel Maresius) (late January or early February): ‘What I
am most pleased about is that what I shall write will be published in Latin and in
Dutch, because I think it is important that people are disabused of the excessively
high opinion they have of this man [Voetius]’ (iii.).
.Mill wrote in ChapterofOn Liberty(Mill,:): ‘But the peculiar evil
of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race;
posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion,
still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the
opportunity of exchanging error for truth; if wrong, they lose, what is almost as
great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced
byits collision with error.’
.Letter to Voetius(viii-.).
.Ibid., viii-.;‘Ihavenot yet published a philosophy that could have followers’
(viii-.); ‘since you have never seen it [my philosophy], because I have not
published it, you obviously cannot know it’ (viii-.).
.Ibid., viii-,.
.This partisan portrait of a dispute-prone Voetius is confirmed by a relatively
independent witness, Samuel Sorbi`ere: ‘He was always at odds with one of his col-
leagues or with some other learned man. I saw him implacably opposed sometimes
to Vedelius and Maresius, sometimes to Regius and Descartes, at other times again
to Borel, Courc ̧elles and an infinity of others with whom he delighted in having
rows.’ Sorbi`ere (a),.
.Descartes repeats this charge of interfering in the affairs of another republic toward
the conclusion of hisLetter.‘Were you not too inquisitive into the affairs of another
republic when, in these same theses, you accused of idolatry the leading citizens
of ’s-Hertogenbosch’ (viii-.).
.Israel (),.Given the delicate balance that was under negotiation at the
time between provincial autonomy and national unity, Descartes was able to claim