DESCARTES. 



683 



Bescar'es. as usual; but believing that the "whole company of Je- 

 S ~^°Y^~' suits were combined against him, and that Bourdin 

 wished to throw ridicule upon his opinions, Descartes 

 lost the usual serenity of his temper, and declared war 

 against the whole society. He addressed a letter, full of 

 vigour and respect, to the rector of the college, com- 

 plaining of the conduct of Bourdin ; but the rector left 

 it to his colleague to defend himself, and the dispute was 

 long carried on between the Jesuits and the Cartesians 

 without any profitable effect. During this dispute, Des- 

 cartes lost his father, and his daughter Francina, to 

 whose mother there was no proof of his having been 

 married, and a long time elapsed before he recovered 

 from this severe affliction. In 1640, Louis XIII. at the 

 advice of Cardinal Richelieu, invited Descartes to Paris, 

 upon the most honourable terms; but the high induce- 

 ments which were held out, could not prevail upon 

 him to leave his retirement. In l6'41, Descartes pub- 

 lished his Meditations touchant la premiere pkilosophie, oa 

 Ion demontre {'existence de Dieu, el Vimmortalite de Vame, 

 which involved him in fresh contentions. His enemy 

 Voetius, who was now promoted to the rectorate of the 

 university of Utrecht, renewed his attacks against Regius 

 and Descartes, and succeeded, after many intrigues, in 

 procuring a decree of the magistrates, and a resolution of 

 the university, to prevent the former from teaching any 

 thing else but medicine. But while Cartesianism was thus 

 persecuted in Holland, it was making rapid advances in 

 France among the Jesuits, some of whom even compo- 

 sed abridgments of Descartes' " Meditations." The re- 

 putation of Descartes was now so widely extended, that 

 crowds of visitors flocked to see him in his retirement 

 at Eyndegeest near Leyden; but the pleasure which he 

 derived from these attentions was again embittered by 

 the new hostilities of Voetius, who published in 1640, 

 under the name of his friend Schookius, a work en- 

 titled, Pkilosophia Carlesiana she admiranda metkodus 

 novce pkilosophia; Renati Descartes. Tins work was 

 answered by Descartes in his Epistola Ren. Descartes 

 ad celeberrimum virum D. Gisbertum Voetium, in qua 

 examinantur duo libri nuper pro Voeiio Ullrajecli simul 

 cdili, vnu.i de confralernitale Mariana, alter de Pkiloso- 

 phia Carlesiana. Tin's reply irritated Voetius to such 

 a degree, that he publicly charged Descartes before the 

 magistrates as guilty of gross defamation; and having 

 suborned five witnesses, Descartes was summoned to 

 appear as a criminal at Utrecht. The French ambassa- 

 dor, however, remonstrated against this conduct to the 

 Prince of Orange, who immediately put a stop to the 

 views of Voetius, whose calumnies and bad conduct 

 were afterwards exposed before a court of justice at 

 Groningen. After having settled a violent dispute with 

 Gassendi, and made a tour through France, for the pur- 

 pose of visiting his friends, Descartes returned to Paris, 

 where he found complete copies of his Principia Philo- 

 sopkiw, which was published in 1(544 by Elziver, and of 

 a French translation of his Essais, which had been com- 

 pleted under his oWn eye by M. de Courcelles. His 

 Principia was dedicated to Elizabeth, Princess Palatine, 

 and daughter of the unfortunate Prince Frederic V. 

 This lady was a zealous disciple of Descartes ; and not 

 satisfied wth reading his works, she went to Eyndegeest 

 to receive instructions from Descartes himself, and made 

 the most wonderful proficiency in her metaphysical 

 studies. 



Descartes again sought for tranquillity at Egmond in 

 Holland, that he might apply himself to the study of 

 animals, plants, and minerals; but the ingratitude of 

 his friend Regius, who began to appropriate to himself 



the discoveries of his master, and who inserted in his Descafr.*-. 

 Fondemens de Physiqvc, a great part of Descartes' Trea- s "~ "~\"""" *' 

 tise on Animals, which he had seen in MS. was the 

 source of great uneasiness. His anatomical pursuits 

 were in some measure interrupted, by the problem of 

 the quadrature of the circle, which was now agitated 

 among mathematicians, but which he declared to be an 

 useless and an impracticable attempt. In the winter of 

 1645, Descartes wrote a small tract in reply to Gassendi's 

 Instances, and also composed a work on the " Nature 

 of the Passions." In 1646, he conducted a dispute with 

 Roberval, respecting a question of Pappus, and the 

 oscillation of bodies suspended at one of their extremi- 

 ties, and carried on a correspondence with the Princess 

 Elizabeth on moral philosophy. 



M. Chanut, the French resident at Stockholm, who 

 had long been the intimate friend of Descartes, applied 

 to him in 1647, as arbiter between himself and Chris- 

 tina Queen of Sweden, on a point in moral philoso- 

 phy, about Avhich they had differed. In consequence 

 of this application, he wrote a treatise on " Love," with 

 which the Swedish queen was highly delighted. Ha- 

 ving returned to France in 1647, the king granted him 

 a pension of 3000 livres, in consideration of his great 

 talents, and of the advantage of his researches to the 

 human race, and also for the purpose of enabling 

 him to carry on his experiments. After he had again 

 taken up his abode at Egmond, he was ordered by the 

 French court to return to France, with the promise 

 of anew pension, and of an honourable situation, which 

 would not interfere with his researches. The state 

 of public affairs, however, was changed before he 

 reached Paris, and he found that all the promises 

 which had been held out to him could not be ful- 

 filled. He accordingly returned to Holland, where he 

 received an invitation from the queen of Sweden to 

 visit Stockholm, and initiate her into the principles of 

 his philosophy. In October 1 649, he arrived in Stock- 

 holm, and was received by the queen with that re- 

 spect and affection which were due from a sovereign 

 who could appreciate his talents. She rose every morn- 

 ing at five o'clock, to receive instructions from Descar- 

 tes ; and she persuaded him to revise and digest the 

 unpublished MSS. which he had brought with him from 

 Holland. In spite of the mean jealousies of some of the 

 Swedish nobility, who envied the attention which he 

 received from Christina, that enlightened sovereign 

 strained every nerve to establish Descartes in her king- 

 dom ; and she had repeated conferences with the French 

 ambassador respecting the best method of executing 

 her plans. The delicacy of his health was the princi- 

 pal difficulty which was to be encountered. She pro- 

 posed to give him an annual revenue of 3000 crowns, 

 and the possession in perpetuity of the property from 

 which it was derived ; and lest the climate should be 

 too cold, she agreed that he might reside either in the 

 archbishopric of Bremen, or in Swedish Pomerania. 

 The illness of the French ambassador, however, pre- 

 vented any arrangement from being completed; and no 

 sooner had he recovered, than Descartes caught a severe 

 cold, which terminated in an inflammation of his lungs, 

 which carried him off on the 11th of February 1650, 

 in the 54th year of his age. Christina was inconsola- 

 ble for the loss of her illustrious master ; she sent for 

 the French ambassador, and expressed her wish to bury 

 Descartes at the public expence, to Jay his ashes be- 

 side those of the Swedish kings, and to erect a magni- 

 ficent mausoleum to his memory. The ambassador, 

 however, proposed, that the funeral should be simple, 



