Descartes: A Biography

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

 Notes to Pages–

Descartes of the royal request, although the reclusive and dutiful Frenchman had

not yet received the first letter.

.Descartes to Chanut,November(v.), and Descartes to Elizabeth [

November](v.–), in which he alerts Elizabeth to sharing his letters with

a second royal correspondent.

.This must have been his dominant impression of Descartes, since he wrote to

Rivet,December, wondering how Descartes would cope ‘in his solitude’ with

the attacks from Revius (v.).

.Brasset to Rivet,January(v.).

.Descartes to Elizabeth [January](v.).

.Elizabeth to Descartes,December(v.).

.Descartes to Elizabeth,January(v.–). The first reason offered was

that it would have been impossible to include all the truths that were required in

such a treatise without provoking a hostile reaction from the schoolmen (especially

those in Leiden and Utrecht). The other equally unconvincing reason was that

muchof what he planned for this treatise had been dealt with adequately in the

Principles, which was now available in a French edition for all to read.

.Descartes to Mersenne,November: ‘It is twelve or thirteen years since I

described all the functions of the human body, but the paper on which I wrote is

so confused that I would have great difficulty myself in reading it’ (iv.–).

.Descartes to an unknown correspondent [March](v.).

.Descartes also refers to this in reply to a query from Burman, in Descartes ():

‘Indeed, in theTreatise on Animals,onwhich he worked this winter, he [the

author] noticed the following: when he wished merely to explain animal functions,

he realized that that could hardly be done without having to explain how an animal

is formed from an egg’ (v.–).

Chapter

.Descartes to Chanut, written from Egmond (v.).

.Descartes to Mersenne,January: ‘this year the winter has been the mildest

that I have ever seen in this country’ (v.). Brasset, in his letter to Descartes

ofDecember,advised that if Chanut mentioned the cold weather they

experience in Sweden, Descartes could counter with the cold temperatures they

experience ‘in Holland’ (v.). This must have been a general comment about their

usual winter weather conditions, rather than a specific comment about conditions

in December.

.He reported to Mersenne the following month that, despite the fact that ‘it has

not been very cold this winter’, the mercury had risen ‘more than fifteen lines’.

Descartes to Mersenne,February(v.).

.Father No ̈el published three books in, the first of which was written in Latin

under the title:Gravitas comparata, seu Comparatio Gravitatis A ̈eris cum Hydargyri

gravitate(Paris,). Mersenne sent a copy to Huygens,May, requesting

that he read the book himself and then forward it to Descartes.