Descartes: A Biography

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

 Notes to Pages–

about morality. ‘Thus I drafted this past winter a little treatise on the nature of the

passions of the soul, without however having any plan to publish it...’(iv.)

.Elisabeth to Descartes,April(iv.), and Descartes to Elizabeth [May

](iv.).

.The text quoted from Elizabeth’s letters implies that Descartes listed five primitive

passions in his draft. These were increased to six in the final version of the theory,

The Passions of the Soul(xi.,).

.Descartes to Elizabeth, July(v.). He adds that he thought this type of

control of the body by the mind was much more plausible and reasonable than the

opposite experience, when those who are persuaded by an astrologer or a physician

that they are going to die at a certain time fall ill and die as a result of the prediction.

Descartes had referred to this earlier (iii.).

Chapter

.Kenyon (),–,–.

.Baillet (), ii.; Descartes to Mersenne,May(iii.), when he

visited Amsterdam for a day to consult with Louis Elzevier about printing his

response to Voetius. He suggested that letters be sent to Elzevier, in Amsterdam,

forforwarding to his address.

.Descartes to Mersenne,May: ‘It is four or five weeks since I wrote to you,

the reason being that I have changed residence and I am now in a district that is a

bit isolated, where I do not receive the letters that you have sent to Leiden until

eight days after they have arrived there’ (iii.). He gave the same indications of

delays in receiving letters to Huygens,May(iii.).

.Gassendi (),.

.Rivet to Sarrau,August: Bots and Leroy (–), ii..

.Huygens to Descartes,November(iv.).

.Disquisitio Metaphysica. Seu Dubitationes et Instantiae, Adversus Renati Carte-

sii Metaphysicam, & Responsa(Amsterdam: Johannes Blaeu,). Heere-

bord had a copy onFebruary(iv.). Rivet informed Sarrau,

March, that the printing had been completed. Bots and Leroy (–),

ii..

.Descartes to Huygens,February(iv.).

.Digby to Hobbes,October: Hobbes,Correspondence,i..

.This whole episode is recounted in Des Maizeau’s ‘Life of St. Evremond’, which

is published in the first volume of St. Evremond’sOeuvres.See St. Evremond

(), I, xxv–xxvi.

.Ibid., xxv.

.Ibid., xxvi.

.Descartes to Mersenne,October(iii.) andOctober(iii.).

These were delayed responses to reports of Digby’s week in jail.

.The book was published in Paris by Gilles Blaizot.

.Descartes wrote to Newcastle,November:‘Ivery much regret that I

cannot read Mr. Digby’s book, because I do not understand English’ (iv.).