268 Professor E. A. Schdfer [March 20, 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 

 Friday, March 20, 1903. 



Sir James Crichton-Browne, M.D. LL.D. E.E.S., Treasurer and 

 Vice-President, in the Chair. 



Professor E. A. Schafer, LL.D. F.E.S. 



Tlie Paths of Volition. 



On the 31st of March, 1596 — ^just three hundred and seven years ago 



there was born of a noble family, at La Haye in Touraine, Rene 



Descartes (whose portrait 1 here place before you), one of the greatest 

 thinkers of that or any other age. This was, be it remembered, the 

 age of Shakespeare, of Rembrandt and of Galileo ; a period of extra- 

 ordinary progress in literature, art and science. The education of 

 Descartes he himself testifies to have been excellent of its kind. He 

 was brought up from the age of eight at the College of La Fleche, " one 

 of the most celebrated schools of Europe," conducted by the Jesuits, 

 who have always been famous for the thoroughness of their teaching. 

 But since the kind of education which they imparted was similar to 

 that which still survives in the public school system of this country, 

 it was little calculated to satisfy the inquiring spirit of the future 

 philosopher, who left the college at the age of sixteen " loaded with 

 laurels, and still more," says one of his biographers, " with philo- 

 sophic doubts." The story of his disgust — at a much later period of 

 his life — at hearing that Queen Christina was spending several hours 

 a day in the study of Greek, and his remark that it was no evidence 

 of learning to have an acquaintance with Latin no better than that 

 which was possessed by the Roman populace, have often been quoted. 

 After spending three years in Paris he determined to educate 

 himself by seeing the world, rightly considering the proper study of 

 man to be mankind. Solely, it would appear, with this object in view 

 he enrolled himself as a volunteer in the army of Prince Maurice of 

 Nassau, assisting at the siege of Breda. Two or three years later 

 he transferred his services to the Duke of Bavaria, then commanding 

 the Catholic forces in the Thirty Years War, and was present at the 

 battle of Prague. Under all these strange conditions Descartes 

 continued the mathematical investigations which he had already com- 

 menced in Paris, and whilst still occupied with soldiering he found 

 time for the pursuit of the studies to which he had resolved to devote 

 his energies. It was at this time that he excogitated his famous 

 Method of pursuing the study of science, and the earliest result of 

 that excogitation was the discovery of the application of algebra to 



