Descartes: A Biography

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

 Notes to Pages–

of choice, as being so extensive in my own case that I conceive the idea of nothing

greater, so that it is principally because of this faculty that I understand myself

as being in some sense the image and likeness of God. For although the will is

incomparably greater in God than in me...when it is considered formally and in

a strict sense, however, it does not seem to be greater’ (vii.).

.Descartes wrote in similar terms to Huygens,May(v.–). He had

no objection to Calvinist theologians reading his books or publishing alternative

views themselves. What he objected to were the ‘outrageous calumnies’ involved in

accusing him publicly of blasphemy and other crimes, and threatening to examine

him in a Calvinist synod.

.Descartes to the Leiden University curators,May(v.–).

.Descartes to De Willem,May(v.).

.We velichoven had acknowledged politely Descartes’ original letter of complaint,

onMay(v.–), and this prompted the further request from Descartes,

May(v.).

.Voetius (–). The Preface to the first volume was datedOctober.

.Quoted by Verbeek (),.

.Heereboord (),.

.Revius ().

.Ibid.,.

.Brasset to Descartes,July(v.). Brasset passed on the information he

had received from Pollot, while Descartes was in Paris. See Verbeek (),,

note.

.Descartes to Elizabeth, May (v.), and Elizabeth to Descartes

[May](v.).

.Elizabeth to Descartes [May](v.).

.Descartes to Picot,June(v.), and Baillet (), ii..

.Baillet (), ii..

.Ibid., ii..

.Le Tenneur, a mathematician from the Auvergne, wrote to Mersenne on

September, with the prayer that ‘God would not deprive the public of a hand

which is as useful as yours, and which serves the public every day with such great

service in the excellent books that you produce constantly.’ He was able to write, on

October, to express his great happiness that the threat of gangrene had passed.

Both letters are quoted in v.–. See also Descartes to Mersenne,December

,atthe beginning of which Descartes wrote: ‘I was very glad to see some of

your writing because I learned that your inexpert bleeding had not deprived you

of the use of your hand.’ E.-J. Bos and M. van Otegem (),.

.Baillet (), ii..

.Jacqueline Pascal to her sister Gilberte, Pascal (), i.–.

.Magno’s work was entitledDemonstratio ocularis;itwas published in Warsaw in

, and a copy was sent to Roberval almost immediately. See Desnoyers to

Mersenne, CM, xv.–.

.There is a fuller account of this controversy, with the focus on Pascal, in Clarke

(a).