DESCARTES - THE LOST EPISODES

The lives of great figures in the history of ideas exert a

perennial fascination for those who find their ideas exciting. This

fascination is even more evident in cases where enough is known to

sketch the figure’s outline or silhouette, but not quite enough to fill

in the details. One approaches the life of Lucretius, for example,

compressed in a single paragraph, with a sense of forever knowing too

little; and leaves a thousand page biography of Russell with a sense

(perhaps) of knowing too much. What is known about Descartes’ life story

falls somewhere between these two extremes – enough to whet the

appetite, but not enough to satisfy it. An underlying curiosity focuses

on those long gaps and peculiar hiatuses between his infrequent early

letters, curiosity aggravated by his penchant for leaving so many things

unsaid. Several conferences and symposia in 1996 commemorated the 400th

anniversary of Descartes’ birth; in addition to discussion of his

philosophical doctrines and heritage, several respected scholars have

taken the opportunity to reevaluate his philosophical contributions in

the context of his life story.

The starting point for any historical investigation of Descartes’

life is the first full-scale biography by Adrien Baillet (Paris, 1691),

who had access to a great deal of original manuscripts (through

Descartes’ nephew Clerselier) which have long since vanished. Gregor

Sebba1 conducted a meticulous study of Baillet’s unique access to the

documents and witnesses, and his scrupulous probity in reporting to his

employers; Sebba’s work establishes quite clearly Baillet’s basic

reliability as the chronicler of Descartes’ life. After fifty years of

outstanding research in Descartes’ life and thought, G. Rodis-Lewis

retains a positive assessment of Baillet’s basic probity. In her words,

he is “a conscientious historian, who often enough shows a critical

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mind”; though she does caution that readers should be vigilant, “without

mistaking his positive contribution.”2 The current research is devoted

to expanding our understanding of three crucial episodes in Descartes’

life, two of which were mentioned by Baillet, but without corroborative

support. Each of these episodes was an important “learning experience”

(as one says today) and had a profound impact on the next stage in

Descartes’ philosophical enterprise. On a number of salient points this

paper will bring in recently uncovered support, in one form or another,

for what until now has been dismissed as little more than the subject of

wishful thinking.

Observations in Marvelous Prague, November 1620.

Almost every biographer of Descartes until 1900 has concurred with

his first biographer Pierre Borel (writing only three years after the

philosopher’s death) who placed him at the Battle of White Mountain, 8

November 1620, in the armies of the Catholic League. Since the

publication of Charles Adam’s biography which completed the landmark

twelve volume edition of Descartes’ works (1896-1910) questions have

been raised about the legitimacy of this claim. In considering the

evidence pertinent to the issue of Descartes’ presence in Prague it will

be helpful to review the historical context. The Catholic League had

been organized against the Protestant Union when the Czech Estates

dethroned the Emperor Ferdinand and offered the crown of Bohemia to

Prince Friedrich, the Calvinist Palatinate Elector, and his wife

Elizabeth, daughter of King James of England. In 1616 the Winter King

and Queen moved their court to Prague, the Bohemian capitol, which at

that time still attested to the pervasive influence of Emperor Rudolf II

who had died in 1612. Under Rudolf, Prague had become the cultural

center for a wide variety of heterodox thinkers, protected and

encouraged by the Emperor’s own personal interests. Lured by the court’s

great wealth and Rudolf’s insatiable curiosity, alchemists, astrologers,

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hermeticists and magicians descended on Prague. Among other, perhaps

less welcome visitors, were some celebrities: John Dee and Edward Kelly,

Giordano Bruno, Michael Mayer, Tycho Brahe, and Johann Kepler. The

Hradcany Castle was an architectural labyrinth with its ‘wonder-rooms’

constructed of mirrors and false walls, alchemists’ laboratories,

archives of hermetic manuscripts, elaborate astronomical equipment,

mechanical automata and dreadful dungeons.3 During the ten days after

the battle in which the Catholic armies looted the city, the young

Descartes might have had an opportunity to discover at first hand this

unique assemblage - after that date the collection was dispersed

throughout Europe.

It is my contention that what he witnessed there had a profound

influence on his thinking, especially his hypothesis about the machine-

like nature of animal and human bodies, his utter rejection of the

“false sciences”, such as alchemy and astrology, and his lifelong

interest in contrived optical illusions. In the summer of 1997 the

Prague City Council sponsored several exhibitions which allowed visitors

to examine for the first time in almost four hundred years a substantial

portion of the original Rudolfine collections in their original

locations4; these exhibits are the background for some of my

speculations. The present inquiry focuses on the claim, which has

achieved the status of Prague ‘legend’, that the young cavalier

Descartes was present at the battle. This legend originates with his

first biographer, Pierre Borel who, as Rodis-Lewis comments, “sends him

to the maximum number of battles and sieges”, and was endorsed by Adrien

Baillet5 in his great work La Vie de M. Descartes in 1691. Most writers on

Czech history simply repeat this legend, without any further

corroboration, for example, Peter Demetz, Patrick Leigh Fermor, and

Frances Yates6; though others such as Angelo Ripellino and R. J. Evans

4 See Eliska Fuchickova et al, Eds. Rudolf II and Prague: The Court and the City.London: Thames & Hudson, 1997, “Introduction”.

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do not feel that such second-hand testimony merits attention7. Even the

most recent Czech National Encyclopedia (1995) recounts the illustrious

Descartes’ involvement in words straight from Baillet’s biography.

Although it is generally agreed that Baillet sometimes allows his

imagination and enthusiasm for his subject to carry him away, it is hard

to believe that he invented such an episode out of whole cloth. Given

the bald fact that Descartes himself never referred either to Prague or

the crucial battle, making a case for his presence or absence must rely

on the persuasive force of indirect evidence. In her most recent book,

Rodis-Lewis goes to great lengths to show that he could not have been in

that place, at that time8. Gaukroger says that “it is quite possible

that he was no longer a serving soldier [in July 1620] and the

circumstantial evidence indicates that he was probably not present at

the Battle of the White Mountain outside Prague.”9 But this statement is

misleading about the relation of circumstantial evidence to probability;

there is no direct evidence that he was at the battle, and the indirect

evidence shows nothing about the probability of his not being somewhere,

rather it shows a high probability that he was some place whose details

match all the available oblique references.

In order to properly assess the probability that he was in Prague

in mid-November 1620, let us briefly review the salient events in his

life before that date. René Descartes received his degree from the

Jesuit College of La Fleche in June 1615, went to study law at Poitiers

and was awarded his license to practice10 in 1616 (the ceremony was held

on 10 November, a highly symbolic date). By late 1618 he was in Holland

where, on 10 November, he met Isaac Beeckman, with whom he studied

mathematics off and on during the next two years. In March 1619 he wrote

to Beeckman that he as about to depart on his travels; after leaving

Amsterdam he hoped to visit Gdansk, Poland, the part of Hungary near

Austria, and Bohemia. (AT X.159) One month later he was still in

Holland, but again informed Beeckmann about his plans, though he was

uncertain where his route might take him. “The preparations for war have

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not yet led to my being summoned to Germany, but I suspect that many men

will be called to arms, though there will be no outright fighting. If

that should happen, I shall travel about in Denmark, Poland and Hungary,

till [reaching] Germany11, until such time as I can find a safer route,

one not occupied by marauding soldiers, or until I have definitely heard

that war is likely to be waged.” (AT X.162) Seven months later military

events had overtaken the young chevalier’s travel plans; “At that time I

was in Germany, where I had been called by the wars that are not yet

ended there. While I was returning to the army from the coronation of

the Emperor, the onset of winter detained me in quarters…” He made this

statement according to his recollection seventeen years later in the

Discourse (AT VI.11; CSM I. 116). The coronation ceremonies took place in

Frankfurt from 20 July to 9 September (AT XII.47), after which he began

moving in a more or less eastward direction, i.e. in an effort to rejoin

the forces of Prince Maximilian.

On 10 November 1619, he fell asleep in those “winter quarters” and

experienced two (or three) extraordinary dreams, about which much

ingenious speculation has been expended. The location of this house was

most likely in the principality of Neuburg, near Ingolstadt, on the

northern border of Bavaria12, and not in the town of Ulm, the site which

has entered the standard history books. The confusion between the sites

of Ulm and Neuburg may have been occasioned by Baillet himself who

corrects his earlier reference to Ulm in an abridgement of his biography

published the next year, where he clearly situates the stove-heated room

in Neuburg. An important recent discovery clinches the case: an

antiquarian collector discovered an edition of Pierre Charron’s Traité de

la sagesse, dedicated in Latin “to the most learned dear friend, and

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little brother, René Cartesio, Father Jean B. Molitor S. J., end of year

1619.” Father Molitor was resident at the newly established Jesuit

retreat in Neuburg, which Descartes obviously visited exactly during the

winter he claimed his dreams occurred.13 In his “Private Thoughts”,

Descartes recorded this signal event in the Olympica section with these

words: “X. Novembris 1619, cum plenus forem Enthusiasmo, et mirabilis

scientiae fundamenta reperirem”, that is, “filled with a strong

enthusiasm, I discovered the foundations of a marvelous science” (AT

X.179). After this date he probably began some of his geometrical

Experiments (or Observations) which immediately follow the Olympica

section. Another entry, written in the margin of the former, appears to

refer to the same date, but the next year: “XI. Novembris 1620, coepi

intelligere fundamentum inventi mirabilis”, that is, “I began to

understand the foundation of a marvelous invention (or discovery).”

Another entry shortly after the previous two enigmatic entries refers to

either one conjoint promise or to two separate promises. “Before the end

of November, I shall head for Loreto. I intend to go there on foot from

Venice, if this is feasible and is the custom. If not, I will make the

pilgrimage with all the devotion that anyone could normally be expected

to show.” This is immediately adjacent to the next few lines: “At all

events, I will complete my treatise before Easter, and if I can find

publishers, and I am satisfied with what I manage to produce, I shall

publish it. This is the promise I have made today, 23 February [or

September] 1620.” (AT X.218; CSM I.5)

There has been much discussion14 ever since the first publication

of Leibniz’s transcript of the “Private Thoughts” in the Foucher-Careil

edition (1859) about whether February or September 1620 is the correct

reading of the second promise. Even if the vow to visit Loreto, and not

just the completion of his treatise, were dated as late as September

1620, and hence only six weeks before the great battle, there is no

reason to think that Descartes might not have changed his mind. In any

case, the issue of the entry’s date and the issue of whether or not he

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ever made it to Loreto do not directly pertain to the principal claim

advanced here – that he could have been on the outskirts of Prague in

early November 1620. It is almost certain, however, that Descartes was

indeed in Ulm in July 1620, perhaps drawn to that place to observe the

treaty signed between the Catholic League and the Protestant Union.15

According to Daniel Lipstorp’s unique recollection of these events

(first published in 1653) Descartes visited the mathematician Johann

Faulhaber at his home in Ulm, where the older scholar quizzed the young

man on his knowledge of geometry and showed him his “collection of

instruments, models and other new inventions that would fill a room in a

museum.” (AT X.252-3) William Shea draws our attention to an entry in

the “Private Thoughts” (AT X.241-2) where Descartes describes several

instruments for making drawings that he probably observed in Faulhaber’s

house. Shea also mentions an associate of the astronomer Kepler, a minor

figure named Simbert Wehe, who had a book printed in Ulm in 1619, that

refers to a young scholar named Castra or Castrae, yet another variant

on the name “des Cartes”. Even more significant because of its precise

date of 1 February 1620, is a letter from another Kepler crony, Johann

Hebenstreit, to Kepler himself, asking whether the astronomer had

received a letter entrusted to “a certain Cartelius [sic], a man of

genuine learning and singular urbanity. I do not wish to burden my

friends with ungrateful and shameless vagrants, but Cartelius seems of a

different sort and really worthy of your help.”16 The fact that

Hebenstreit had given Cartesius a letter for Kepler, then in Linz, and

that he was concerned lest Kepler might feel burdened with a vagrant,

that is, a visitor, seems to indicate that Descartes intended to visit

Kepler.

It seems that one can confidently place Descartes in Bavaria in

the spring and summer of 1620, but after that time his movements are

open to conjecture. The only indication of any date before his

reappearance in Denmark at the end of 1621 is the puzzling entry in the

“Private Thoughts” already mentioned above. In the margin of the

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register next to the date of the dream entry, “in a more recent ink, but

surely in the same hand as the author”, this line appears: “11 November

1620, I began to understand the foundation of a marvelous discovery (or

invention)”. It is important to bear in mind that Descartes wrote his

“Private Thoughts” in this parchment register in two directions: from

the front and from the back, leaving blank pages in the middle. When

Leibniz made his personal copy from the original in Paris in 1676,

sometime before Baillet examined the manuscript, he simply transcribed

it straight through. Thus, one cannot infer from the order of entries

any strict chronological order in the sequence of events.17 In fact, it

is not unusual for commonplace books to be disarranged in this fashion

and for errors to creep in when an interpreter’s order is imposed upon

the original. As with the vow to visit Loreto, there has been much

scholarly discussion of the significant difference between the two

dates, 10 November 1619 and 11 November 1620. Gouhier has examined every

possible interpretation of the context, formulation, and connotation of

these two entries18; although the Olympian dreams are the only obvious

candidate for the former, there are numerous conjectures about the

discovery mentioned in the latter.

Rodis-Lewis has also examined these two dates and built an

argument about the basic purport of the second date that needs to be

challenged here. Rodis-Lewis dismisses the thesis that Descartes might

have been in Prague in November 1620 by noting that his attendance at

the Battle of White Mountain, “did not prevent Descartes from making a

new and admirable discovery on the anniversary of his dreams”. She also

claims that he “first proposed to continue to travel, going to Italy

after the hot season to celebrate piously the anniversary of the 1619

dreams”. She shows great surprise that, “we might even think that the

days of violence that followed the battle of 8 November would have made

altogether impossible a serene scientific meditation capable of eliciting an

important discovery.”19 But her confident assertions state the issues

back to front, imputing some sort of design or intention behind this

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dated entry. There is nothing in the second entry from the “Private

Thoughts” to show that Descartes set out to find a solitary, quiet spot in

order to make a scientific study. Surely the more plausible

interpretation is that he found himself in some place where he made a

marvelous discovery, and that by chance this was the same date as his

previous discovery. That is why he made the second entry adjacent to the

first entry, not to emphasize the similarity of the discovery, but to

underline the striking coincidence in the dates. Of course, one can only

wonder at the number of significant events in Descartes’ life which

occurred on 10 November: his license at law, his first meeting with

Beeckman, the dream episode, the battle’s aftermath, and (later) his

encounter with Sieur de Chandoux. Thus, there are two separate events,

recorded in two adjacent entries; they are partially discriminated by

subtly different formulations. The first says, “mirabilis scientiae

fundamenta reperirem”, placing the emphasis on “find out” or “discover”

the foundations (plural) of a “marvelous science”. The second says,

“coepi intelligere fundamentum inventi mirabilis”, placing the emphasis

on “understand” the foundation (singular) of “a marvelous discovery (or

invention)”. There is a profound difference between, on the one hand,

discovering or even inventing a new science, one that does not already

exist, and on the other hand, beginning to understand a discovery or

invention, which may after all not be one’s own.

My preference for an appropriate interpretation of the second

entry is that after the victory of the Catholic forces on 8 November,

Descartes entered the city of Prague. By 11 November, he might have made

his way to the Castle where he discovered the extraordinary wonder-rooms,

alchemical apparati, ornate gardens, startling automata, and other

marvels assembled by the Emperor Rudolf before his death in 1612. Within

weeks of the Protestant forces’ defeat, large convoys of wagons carried

most of this booty out of the city, to be dispersed across the Continent

and never seen as an integral collection again. The final irony is that

during the last five months of his life, at the court of Queen Christina

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in Stockholm, he would have seen more treasures from Prague, removed in

late August 1648 by the Swedish army corps which then occupied the Czech

capital20; perhaps Descartes recognized some of these rare and unusual

Rudolfine artifacts. After the conclusion of the Westphalian peace

treaties, the Queen prevailed on her reluctant French philosopher to

compose an elegant pageant, “The Birth of Peace”,21 first staged in

Stockholm on 19 December 1649. Within two months the philosopher had

succumbed to the frigid cold and dawn tutorials demanded by the Queen.

Despite the lack of explicit references to Prague in the “Private

Thoughts”, there are traces from passages in later texts to this

marvelous city, fraught with internal divisions, and threatened by

external dangers. In an undated register entry under the heading

“Experimenta”, written entirely in French unlike all the other entries

in Latin, this strange observation is recorded.

In a garden we can produce shadows to represent certain shapes,

such as trees; or we can trim a hedge so that from a certain

perspective it represents a given shape. Again, in a room we can

arrange for the rays of the sun to pass through various openings

so as to represent different numbers and figures; or we can make

it seem as if there are tongues of flame, or chariots of fire, or

other shapes in the air. This is all done by mirrors which focus

the sun’s rays at various points. Again, we can arrange things so

that when the sun is shining into a room, it always seems to come

from the same direction, or seems to go from west to east. This is

all done by parabolic reflectors; the sun’s rays must fall on a

concave mirror on the roof, and the mirror’s focal point must be

in line with a small hole, on the other side of which is another

concave mirror with the same focal distance, which is also aligned

on the hole. This causes the sun’s rays to be cast in parallel

lines inside the room. (AT X. 216; CSM I. 3)

This meticulous account strikes me as a first-hand description of

an actual site. There is hardly any need to point out Descartes’

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persistent interest in optical illusions, an interest that appears

throughout several later works. What is unusual about this passage is

its attention to contrived illusions that are generated by elaborate

optical apparati. Without stretching the point to far, there is a very

good candidate for the original exemplum of this careful description in

one of the wonder-rooms in Prague Castle. On the north side of the Royal

Palace, overlooking the Deer Moat, is the Powder Tower; built in the

late 15th century and used in the 16th century as the gun and bell

foundry, under Rudolf’s direction it was converted into alchemists’

workshops. During the citywide exhibitions in the summer of 1997, some

of the rooms in the Powder Tower were restored to their 1612 state. One

of these rooms comprised an elaborate optical apparatus whose mirrors

and lenses, positioned on the walls, ceiling and floor, created

unnatural movements of sunlight and shadows.22 And further, almost

thirty years later, after taking up residence at Queen Christina’s court

in Stockholm, he composed the unfinished dialogue, The Search After Truth;

although there is some dispute about this23, November or December 1649

seems the most likely date for its composition. As mentioned above, a

substantial portion of the remainder of Rudolf’s marvelous collection

had been removed from Prague the previous year and was now housed in

Queen Christina’s palace. Given the philosopher’s actual setting when he

wrote the dialogue, the following exchange between Epistemon (the

learned scholar) and Eudoxus (Descartes’ spokesman) seems highly

significant for our hypothesis about traces of Magical Prague in

Descartes’ later writings.

Epistemon: I should like you to go on to clarify for me some

special difficulties which I find in every science, and chiefly

those concerning human contrivances, apparitions, illusions, and

in short all the marvelous effects attributed to magic….

Eudoxus: After causing you to wonder at the most powerful

machines, the most unusual automatons, the most impressive

illusions, and the most subtle tricks that human ingenuity can

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devise, I shall reveal to you the secrets behind them, which are

so simple and straight-forward that you will no longer have reason

to wonder at anything made by the hands of men. (AT X. 504-5; CSM

II. 404-5)

From his “Private Thoughts”, his early letters to Beeckman, and

Beeckman’s own journal one can discover Descartes’ particular, even

obsessive interests at that time. These interests included, amongst

others: the Rosicrucian manifestoes24; astronomical experiments,

especially those of Kepler25 and Brahe; guides to the art of memory,

such as the works of Lull, Bruno, and Schenkel; ornate and topiary

gardens; automata, especially complex full-scale machines; and ‘wonder-

rooms’, such as the one above, with elaborate optical effects. There was

one place in Europe at that time where he could have satisfied his

immense curiosity about all these things, one place where they were all

collected together and displayed, and that was, of course, the City of

Prague. My contention here is that there are important traces, though

they are sometimes subtle and oblique, to his first-hand experiences of

such ‘experiments’ after the Battle of White Mountain, during the ten

days before Prince Maximilan’s troops removed them.

First, as Frances Yates has so eloquently demonstrated26, the

Rosicrucian ‘fantasy’ or story, which spread through Central Europe

between 1615-20, was inextricably linked with the Winter King and Queen,

first at their court in Heidelberg and then in Prague. The three genuine

Rosicrucian tracts, the Fama, the Confessio, and The Chemical Wedding, were

printed at or near the Palatinate and were probably written by senior

members of the court circle. Descartes himself contemplated such an

24 See esp. Shea, Magic of Numbers and Motion, pp. 95-120; Gaukroger,Descartes, pp. 101-5; Gouhier, Premier Pensées, pp. 134-41, 150-7.

25 On Descartes’ and Beeckman’s interest in Kepler’s astronomy in 1628-29, see Gaukroger, Descartes, pp. 220-1; John Schuster, Descartes and theScientific Revolution, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1977, vol. 2,pp. 566-79.

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esoteric tract, the so-called “Mathematical Thesaurus of Polybius the

Cosmopolitan”, mentioned without further explanation in the “Private

Thoughts”. (AT X.214; CSM I.2) Second, Johannes Kepler and Tycho Brahe

(died 1601) had separately established their astronomical headquarters

in one of the Prague palaces during the reign of Rudolf II who died in

1612. Third, Prague was one of the centers for the study of the art of

memory, and both Bruno and his disciple Schenkel had lived there27.

Fourth, although ornate gardens could be found at several royal palaces,

one of the best known was the South Gardens (Jizni Zahrady) below the

Hradcany Gates, which overlooked the steps down to the Little Quarter

(Mala Strana). The gardens were laid out in 1562 and an elaborate

circular pavilion was built for the Emperor Matthias in 1617. It is in

fact the site of the defenestration of the three Catholic nobles in

1618, who by good fortune survived the steep fall by landing in a large

manure pile. In front of the magnificent Belvedere building is an ornate

geometrical garden in the center of which is the Singing Fountain; built

in 1568 it still survives and produces various musical sounds when the

water passes through hidden pipes and bronze bowls. Perhaps Descartes

had this garden in mind28 when he wrote in the Treatise on Man (circa 1630-

32): “You may have observed in the grottos and fountains in the royal

gardens that the mere force with which the water is driven as it emerges

from its source is sufficient to move various machines, and even to make

them play certain instruments or utter certain words…” (AT XI. 130; CSM

I. 100) Fifth, one of the single greatest collections of automata at

that time had been assembled by Rudolf II; although it’s not possible to

match specific descriptions of such machines in Descartes’ texts and

letters with items in Rudolf’s inventory, Prague Castle was still one of

the best places to observe them.

And finally, given his tendency to sometimes use real examples to

illustrate his imaginary experiments, perhaps one should pay more

attention to Descartes’ hypothesis about an artificial human, or perhaps

more accurately, a human-beast conceived as the artifice of a great

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craftsman. In the Treatise on man he says, “I suppose the body to be

nothing but a statue or machine made of earth, which God forms with the

explicit intention of making it as much as possible like us. [He also]

places inside it all the parts required to make it walk, eat, breathe,

and indeed to imitate all those of our functions which can be imagined

to proceed from matter and to depend solely on the disposition of our

organs.” [emphasis added] Shortly after this he defines the animal

spirits as “a certain very fine wind, or rather a very lively and pure

flame.” (AT XI. 120, 129; CSM I. 99, 100) This passage occurs in the

context of his remarks about royal gardens, automata, and clockwork

machines. In the Meditations he clearly identifies this concept of soul

before rejecting it in favor of the mind as a thinking thing: the soul,

he says, “is something tenuous, like a wind or fire or ether, which

permeated my more solid parts”; and on the next page, it is “a wind,

fire, air or breath”. (AT VII. 26, 27; CSM II. 17, 18) He often refers

to the heart as a source of fire: again in the Treatise on man (AT XI.202,

CSM I.108), in the Description of the Human Body (AT XI.226; CSM I.316), and

in the letter to Vorstius, June 1643. (AT III.687; CSM III.225) Richard

Carter has examined these organic-mechanical images in some detail,

underlining the novelty and peculiarity of Descartes’ hypothesis,

explicitly with regard to the template of an automaton made of earth or

clay.29 In Part Five of the Discourse, he recapitulates some of the

principal theses of the Treatise on man, which he had withheld from

publication when he learned about Galileo’s condemnation.

I supposed too that in the beginning God did not place in this

body any rational soul or any other thing to serve as a vegetative

or sensitive soul, but rather that he kindled in its heart one of

those fires without light [like] that of the fire which heats hay when it

is stored before it is dry, or which causes new wine to seethe

when it is left to ferment from the crushed grapes. And when I

looked to see what functions would occur in such a body, I found

precisely those which may occur in us without our thinking of them, and

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hence without any contribution from our soul… Those functions are

just the ones in which animals without reason may be said to

resemble us. (AT VI. 46; CSM I. 134; emphasis added; and again AT

VI.54; CSM I.138)

Now there is an exemplar for Descartes’ beast-human, fabricated

from earth, with the breath of life, a fire in its heart, and which

imitates the movements of a human being - the Golem. In Prague legend,

Rabbi Loew, with the help of two associates, created the Golem about

1580 in order to provide a guardian or sentinel for the Jewish Quarter.

The Golem was made out of earth or clay, received the breath of life

from the Cabbalist Rabbi, and was doused with water and fire from his

associates in order to incorporate the other basic elements.30 The

earliest version of this legend is the Nifluot Maharal, the Miracles of the

Maharal Rabbi Loew, composed in the early 1600s, which tells the story

of the oppression experienced by the Prague Jews. The Emperor Rudolf

held Rabbi Loew in high esteem and assured him that the court would not

permit any further blood libels against his people, i.e. that a crime

committed by a single Jew would not implicate the whole Jewish populace.

But the Rabbi had an implacable and dangerous enemy in the Catholic

Priest Thaddeus who was reputed to be a powerful sorcerer. When the

Rabbi called upon the Lord in a dream to give him advice, the Lord told

him to create a golem out of clay to destroy the enemies of Israel. He

confided this instruction to two learned friends trained in the mystical

Cabala; they purified themselves for seven days in preparation for the

ritual. One winter day in 1580, the three magicians made their way to

the city of Moldau; “there, on the clay bank of the river, they molded

the figure of a man three ells in length. They fashioned for him hands

and feet and a head, and drew his features in clear relief.” The second

rabbi circled the figure seven times from right to left, and the golem

began to glow like fire; the third rabbi circled the figure seven times

from left to right, at which steam issued from the golem; all three

chanted Cabalistic spells. Then Rabbi Loew circled the golem seven

15

times, and all three chanted in unison the line from Genesis, chapter 2,

verse 7, “and God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man

became a living soul” – at which the golem came to life.31

It is not credible to assert that the golem was the model

Descartes had in mind when he described the human body as an automaton.

However, there are definitely striking similarities between the two

images: a statue made of earth, whose material parts imitate organic

functions, whose heart is like a fire, and whose vital spirits are

infused through a fine wind or breath. Moshe Idel and Byron Sherwin have

made the connection between the concept of the golem and the earliest

scientific efforts to imagine the living body as an organic machine.32

The fact that Descartes may have been aware of this Czech legend is

hardly conclusive in itself, but in conjunction with the many other

hints and clues discussed above, all of which find their historical and

geographical epicenter in this Central-European city, it becomes more

and more difficult to resist Baillet’s assertion that Descartes did

indeed visit the marvelous city of Prague.

Descartes’ experiences there had a complex and multi-faceted

influence on his thinking about many different issues in natural

science. One might say that his attitude toward automata, optical

devices, and occult practices crystalized around these ‘observations’,

that his previously only partly formed ideas, both positive and

negative, were made concrete during the period between November 1619 and

November 1620. The most pervasive fashion in which these nascent ideas

reached some form of full expression can be seen in three (or more)

thematic concerns that wind in and out of his texts and letters from

this date. First, the undeniable importance that he attached to the very

notion of the human (and animal) body as an automaton or organic

machine. He returned to the study of the body-machine again and again,

laying great stress on the significance that this mechanistic

understanding of the material dimension of human being had for an

insightful, intuitive understanding of the union of mind and body.

16

Second, it is the incentive for his persistent lifelong fascination with

both the nature and function of the visual apparatus and of light

itself, an account of which often drew pertinent lessons from the ways

in which optical illusions deceived our senses. His account of the

process of human vision, in the Essay on “Optics” and The World, or Treatise

on Light, was closely tied to his philosophical arguments about sensory

perception in the Discourse and the Meditations. Third, it would be

difficult to overstate his negative and derisory attitude33 toward the

“false sciences” such as alchemy, astrology, and cabalism, ‘marvels’

exhibited in such abundance in Prague. Recalling the earliest stage of

his own education in the Discourse, he comments on the false sciences: “I

thought that I already knew their worth well enough not to be liable to

be deceived by the promises of an alchemist or the predictions of an

astrologer, the tricks of a magician or the frauds and boasts of those

who profess to know more than they do.” (ATVI.9; CSM I.115) In addition

to his exceptional achievements in formulating algebraic geometry, the

mechanical model of the organic body, and various elementary physical

laws, Descartes was almost alone in this period in his total dismissal

of the pseudo-sciences.

The Chandoux Affair, Winter 1628.

Richard Popkin once described Descartes’ meeting with the

mysterious Chandoux as a pivotal event in the young philosopher’s

development, “a microcosm of the plight of the whole learned world”.34

Aside from Baillet’s detailed synopsis of this lecture to a small

audience, only one letter from Descartes and one from Mersenne testify

to the facts in the matter. Although Gaukroger, Rodis-Lewis and others

repeat Baillet’s account they do not attach much weight to it, claiming

that since the biographer’s story is uncorroborated there is no other

way to confirm the information. Moreover, this episode is usually

17

treated as an incursion of skeptical doubt at an early date in his life;

for example, Gaukroger reprises Popkin’s remarks and then comments that

he can find nothing in letters or texts from the late 1620s “to indicate

any interest in scepticism on Descartes’ part at this time”35 However,

as we shall attempt to show here, this encounter had little or nothing

to do with systematic doubt or a robust rebuttal of skepticism.

Nevertheless, as these same scholars point out, this event marks a

watershed for Descartes’ philosophical development, since shortly after

this episode he abandons work on the Rules. The manuscript of the Rules

ends at Rule XVIII, with several others planned for its completion;

there have been many, many speculations about why the author became

dissatisfied both with the subject matter and the approach or method. In

the Discourse, he refers to a dramatic event “nine years after” his

marvelous discovery (November 1619) and “exactly eight years earlier”

(this part was completed perhaps in late 1636) which made him change

direction.

Sometime about the middle of November 1628, at the home of the

papal nuncio, a number of learned men, including Cardinal Berulle, Marin

Mersenne, Cardinal Barberin, de Villebressieu, and perhaps Gabriel

Naudé, gathered to hear a lecture by the itinerant savant Chandoux on

“the new philosophy”. Baillet reported that “Chandoux gave a great

speech to refute the way philosophy is usually taught in the schools; he

even set forth a fairly ordinary system of philosophy that he claimed to

establish and which he wanted to appear as new”36; Baillet suggested

that his views were a mixture of Aristotle, Bacon, Mersenne, Gassendi

and Hobbes. Everyone except Descartes was favourably impressed by what

Baillet described as a sustained and clever attack on neo-Aristotelian

scholastic philosophy using skeptical tropes in the demolition of its

prime tenets. It seems that Descartes fell into a “brown funk” and could

not be roused to give his opinion for some time. But eventually, to

everyone's astonishment, the young cavalier held forth at some length on

18

the utter lack of grounds and abundant sophistry in the peroration which

they had just heard. He showed that Chandoux wanted to accept

probability as the standard of truth, that opposite conclusions were at

least as probable, and that every skeptical trope could be countered

with another, turning every truth into a falsehood. Descartes commented

that this was the same thing as School Philosophy disguised in new terms

and unless the principles of a true and reliable method were established

there was little point for further scientific inquiries. Cardinal

Berulle was very impressed with this impromptu speech and persuaded

Descartes to organise and publish his arguments on this matter -- these

were the seeds that bore fruit in The World, or Treatise on Light and later in

the Discourse on the Method.

It is unfortunate that due to a lack of primary, corroborative

testimony, this decisive episode is given scant attention by most

Descartes scholars. However, Richard Popkin and Stephen Gaukroger have

argued that this encounter was one of the incentives for Descartes’

lifelong search for a certain foundation and method for scientific

knowledge. Thus, this episode synopsizes two aspects of Descartes’

turning away from the old world and turning toward the new world. First,

his response highlights some sort of philosophical disgust that anyone

adroit enough with rhetorical tropes could turn any statement on its

head, and hence inspired in him an irritable repugnance towards this

sophistic approach. And second, it signals Descartes’ abandonment of the

mathematical research he had already undertaken as being irremediably

undermined by its lack of proper metaphysical foundations. Descartes’

reaction to Chandoux’s speech can be summed up in a few words: “this is

utter rubbish and you’ve all been taken in”.

Despite the presence of such luminaries at this salon, there is a

startling lack of testimony for this event or to the person of Chandoux.

Thorough searches of the indices of the letters and papers of Gabriel

Naudé, Cardinal Bagni, Cardinal Barberin, Cardinal Berulle (who reported

directly to Richelieu) and Richelieu himself reveal not a single mention

19

of the mysterious Chandoux. There is one memoir from Mersenne37, written

perhaps in response to Descartes’ letter to Villebrissieu (AT I. 213;

CSM III. 32) about Chandoux’s execution for forgery in August 1631.

Mersenne’s aide-memoire dates the event to approximately 15 November 1628

and is probably one of the sources of Baillet’s account. Descartes’

letter to his good friend (also present in the salon) mentions the same

names and remarks that Chandoux’s speech provoked him into a defense of

“the art of right reasoning”, but provides no further details. The only

other source indicated by Baillet in his marginal notes is the

manuscript dossier from Clerselier; this alone provides in paraphrase

the only record of what Chandoux actually said. J. R. Partington briefly

mentioned Chandoux in his survey of minor characters in the 17th century

development of chemistry38 and provided a reference to Thorndike’s

history of experimental science. Lynn Thorndike gave a brief synopsis of

the 1628 affair and then commented, “Chandoux seems to have preached

better than he practiced, since within three years he was hanged for

counterfeiting; but perhaps his philosophy was counterfeit too.”39

Thorndike made a reference to Mersenne’s letter and to the entry for

Chandoux in the mid-18th century Nouvelle Biographie Generale, which is worth

quoting in full:

Chandoux, French physician and chemist, died in 1631. He was one

of the free spirits who appeared in large numbers during the

beginning of the 17th century and who declared themselves

adversaries of scholasticism. Ardent in the search for a new

philosophy, the eloquence with which they developed their ideas

told in favor of their principles. His reputation grew much larger

[for] Cardinal de Bagni. Chandoux almost completed a book on

chemistry and its application to the decomposition of metals.

France then was distressed by a number of criminals who profited

from the royal troubles, [and] who defrauded by various means in

the making and title of money. Louis XIII, in order to suppress

the abuse, established in the Paris arsenal a special chamber of

20

justice; Chandoux was tried, found guilty of the alteration and

falsification of metals; and, despite his eloquence and numerous

protectors, hung at the gallows.40

One can only wonder whom these “numerous protectors” were, whether

they had been clients of Chandoux’s alchemical expertise, or whether

they figured amongst those who attended Cardinal Bagni’s reception three

years earlier. No trace has survived of “the nearly completed book on

chemistry and its application to the decomposition of metals”. But the

best clue is the statement that he was “one of the free spirits”, the

erudite libertines, like Gabriel Naudé and Guy Patin, who caused such

annoyance through their various outrages in the French capitol41. In any

case, the Sieur de Chandoux was only known by his patronym, and has

until now not been identified. He seems to have preferred to be known

only under this name, an impostor who skillfully mimicked the person of

a skeptic or anti-scholastic, who disguised Scholastic philosophy in new

terms, and who was executed for counterfeiting or defacing the currency,

at that time a capital offense. These characteristics are all that is

really known about him, but together they give us a picture, like a

photo-fit, not of a skeptic or a reformer or an anti-scholastic, but of

a cynic. Diogenes “the dog” and his followers often used nicknames,

pretended to be members of a school or inner circle only to mock their

hosts, and sometimes took as their motto, DEFACE THE CURRENCY. Perhaps

Chandoux may have delighted in the only barely concealed pun on his

name, chien-doux, “nice dog”42; but he certainly had made something of a

career from defacing the currency and defrauding the public.

R. B. Branham has argued43 that “defacing the currency” was what

the cynics were all about; overturning religious, political and ethical

beliefs, subverting the status quo and mocking everyone’s pretensions to

superior knowledge. One of the legends attached to Diogenes himself was

that he (or his father) had been exiled from Sinope for defacing and

counterfeiting the currency. Branham’s notes refer to archaeological

discoveries of Sinopean coins from Diogenes’ era which have been

21

mutilated with a chisel stamp and which bear the name of Diogenes’

father, Hicesias. When Descartes epitomized Chandoux’ speech he said

that this “charlatan” had turned the true into the false, had replaced

probability with improbability and certainty with uncertainty; that he

had overturned their confidence in the right use of reason. It is my

contention then that Chandoux the cynic was an infiltrator who disguised

1

REFERENCES

My thanks to the special collections staff at Palace Green Library,Durham University, and the Durham 17th C. Studies Group where, in Spring1999, many of the original ideas were first tried out. My thanks also tothe Univ. of Western Australia Philosophy Research Seminar for questionsand comments; to Dr. Toby Burrowes for help in retrieving records fromthe Hartlib Papers Project; to Dr. Emma Rooksby for help in translating17th C. French; to Clare Brown, the Bodleian Library, Oxford University,for details about Digby’s 1636 letter. I am especially indebted to ananonymous reader for this journal whose detailed criticisms andsuggestions compelled me to clarify some of the evidence and sharpen thearguments.

CSM - Descartes, The Philosophical Writings, trans. by Cottingham, Stoothoff &Murdoch. 2 vols.; and The Correspondence, trans. by Cottingham, Stoothoff,Murdoch & Kenny. Cambridge University Press, 1985, 1991.

AT - Oeuvres de Descartes, ed. Charles Adam & Paul Tannery. New Edition. 11vols. Paris: J. Vrin, 1996.

? Gregor Sebba, “Baillet’s Life of Descartes”, in Problems of Cartesianism,Ed. by T. M. Lennon et al. Montreal: McGill University Press, 1982. pp. 48-60.

2 G. Rodis-Lewis. Descartes: His Life and Thought. trans. by Jane Marie Todd.Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998, pp. xiii, xiv.

3 For a very detailed description of Prague Castle, building bybuilding, and floor by floor, see Erhard Gorys, Czecho-Slovakia. Cologne &London: Pallas-Athene, 1991. pp. 83-124.

22

himself as a philosopher in order to confuse and disenchant those who

attended the Cardinal’s educational evening.

The mysterious Sieur de Chandoux has a well-recognized place in

Descartes’ biography; he stands as an enigma or cipher at that juncture

in Descartes’ development where one project is abandoned in favor of

another project. But we can help in removing Chandoux’ mask and exposing

his disguise; he did have another name, and that was Nicolas de

5 Adrien Baillet, La Vie de M. Descartes (Paris, 1691) Facsimile reprint, 2vols. in 1, NY: Garland, 1970.vol. I, pp. 70-80.6

? Peter Demetz, Prague in Black and Gold, Penguin Books, 1997, p. 227;Patrick Fermor, A Time of Gifts, Penguin Books, 1979, p. 246; Frances Yates,The Rosicrucian Enlightenment, London: RKP, 1972, pp. 114-16.

7 Angelo Ripellino, Magical Prague, trans. by David Marinelli, London:Picador Books, 1995; R. J. W. Evans, Rudolf II and His World, London: Thames& Hudson, 1997; see also Josef Petran & Lydia Petranova, “The WhiteMountain as a symbol in modern Czech history”, in Bohemia in History, Ed.by Mikulas Teich. Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 143-63.

8 Rodis-Lewis. Descartes: His Life and Thought, pp. 50-2; see also her article,“Descartes’ life and the development of his philosophy”, in CambridgeCompanion to Descartes, Ed. by John Cottingham. Cambridge University Press,1992. pp. 32-33.

9 Stephen Gaukroger. Descartes: An Intellectual Biography. Oxford University

Press, 1995, p. 126.

10 J-R Armogathe et al, “La Licence en droit de Descartes: un placardinedit de 1616”, in Nouvelles de la Republique des Lettres, vol. 8, 1988, pp.123-45.

11 The phrase donec in Germania is strangely missing from the CSM

translation, CSM III.4.

12 Rodis-Lewis, Descartes: His Life and Thought, p. 36; this mistake was made byBaillet himself, who in the opening of volume two backtracks to thewrong site; Baillet corrected this mistake, but his correction isusually ignored.

23

Villiers. An undated, but definitely early 17th century factum in the

Bibliotheque Nationale, reports this deed or claim in the courts:

Deed for Nicolas de Villiers, Sieur de Chandoux, and Robert le

Toul, Sieur de Vassy, royal councilor, bailiff and provost of

Avallon in Bourgongne, prisoners in the palace concierge,

defendants and incidental applicants for absolution and

restoration [of goods], and so forth, against the royal procurator

13 Reported by Rodis-Lewis, Descartes: His Life and Thought, p. 44.

14 Amongst others, in minute detail by Henri Gouhier, Les Premieres Penséesde Descartes, Paris: J. Vrin, 1979, pp. 82-5, 104-10; Rodis-Lewis, Descartes:His Life and Thought, pp. 49-58. In the 1936 edition of Descartes’Correspondence, edited with Milhaud (Tome I, pp. 22-23), Charles Adamproposed an alternate itinerary for Descartes’ movements during thesetwo years, a proposal which extrapolates backwards from comments made inletters written by Descartes almost thirty years later (1648-49). 15 Gaukroger, Descartes, p. 126; Demetz, Prague in Black and Gold, pp. 225-30.

16 William Shea, The Magic of Numbers and Motion, Washington: Science

History, 1991, p. 105.

17 Gouhier, Premier Pensées, pp. 11-18.

18 Gouhier, Premier Pensées, pp. 38-41, 74-6, 78-85.

19 Rodis-Lewis, Descartes: His Life and Thought, pp. 50-51.

20 Demetz, Prague in Black and Gold, p. 218.

21 First published in 1920 and only recently reprinted in the revised

edition of AT V. 616-27.

22 Some of these wonder-rooms can be seen in the CD-ROM, Bird of Paradise:Rudolf II’s Curiosity Cabinet, Prague: Avant-Bozell, 1997; Fuchikova, Rudolf II andPrague, pp. 199-208; see also Ripellino, Magical Prague, pp. 74-76. WilliamShea argues that Descartes was thinking about Della Porta’s Magia Naturalisand draws several ingenious parallels with entries in his “PrivateThoughts”, Magic of Numbers and Motion, pp. 107-8, note 50.

24

general. [Note] The defendants had been implicated in an

information against Father Dies and falsely accused of dogmatism

and magic. The deed and memoirs are preceded by ‘summary of the

lawsuit shown between Nicolas de Villiers, Sieur de Chandoux, and

Robert le Toul, Sieur de Vassy’.44

It seems that on at least one previous occasion Chandoux had been

charged with “dogmatism and magic” (though what exactly constitutes the

23 On the date of The Search After Truth, see Richard Popkin, The History ofScepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979 p. 286, note 24.

26 Frances Yates, Rosicrucian Enlightenment, pp. 1-29.

27 See Frances Yates, The Art of Memory, Penguin Books, 1969. pp. 355-66.

28 Gaukroger makes a very good case that Descartes may have seen someof these gardens with working automata as early as the years 1614-16 inSt. Germain-en-Lay, Descartes, pp. 63-4.

29 Richard Carter, Descartes’ Medical Philosophy, Baltimore: Johns HopkinsUniversity Press, 1983, pp. 175-9; see also his “Descartes’ Bio-Physics”, in Philosophia Naturalis, Band 22, 1985, pp. 223-49.

30 Ripellino, Magical Prague, pp. 131-43; see also G. G. Scholem, On theKabbalah and its Symbolism, trans. by Ralph Manheim. NY: Schocken Books,1996, pp. 64-70.

31 Synopsis from Bedrich Thieberger, The Great Rabbi Loew of Prague, NY:

Farrar, Strauss, 1955.

32 Moshe Idel, Golem: Jewish Magical and Mystical Traditions on the Artificial Anthropoid.Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1990; Byron Sherwin, The Golem Legend: Origins andImplications. Lanham, MD: Univ. Press of America, 1985.

33 See also his letter (November 1629) seeking assistance from JeanFerrier about how the right techniques in the use of light and air cansimulate “all the illusions that magicians are said to make with thehelp of demons”, AT I.61; and his letter to Villebressieu (summer 1631)upbraiding his friend for twelve years of fruitless trials in themedical-alchemical use of adulterated metals, AT I.216.

34 Popkin, History of Scepticism, p. 175.

25

criminal offense of dogmatism remains unknown) but had been exonerated;

he and his equally shadowy colleague Robert le Toul were suing for

replevin of goods seized through distraint. On the presumption that this

factum precedes the salon evening at the home of the papal nuncio, by

late 1628 Chandoux had improved his game enough to fool all but one of

his auditors. Although Descartes never again directly refers to

Chandoux, traces of his cynical provocation and the distaste it caused

35 Gaukroger, Descartes, p. 184; for Popkin’s imputation of systematicdoubt, see his History of Skepticism, p. 177; for another account of thisepisode, see Stephen Menn, Descartes and Augustine, Cambridge UniversityPress, 1998, pp. 46-9.

36 Baillet, La Vie de Descartes, vol. I, pp. 160-65.

37 Mersenne, Correspondence, Tome III, pp. 199-200.

38 J. R. Partington, History of Chemistry, NY & London, 1963, vol. II, p.

431.

39 Lynn Thorndike, History of Magic and Experimental Science, NY: ColumbiaUniversity Press, 1957, vol. VII, p. 188.

40 Nouvelle Biographie Generale, Paris, 1854. Tome IX, p. 663 (my literaltrans.). This entry is based on an entry in the 1759 edition of LouisMoreri, Le Grand dictionnaire historique, Tome III, p. 465, which oddly enoughdoes not appear in the 1727 edition; Moreri’s entry is itself based onthe original report in the 1632 issue of Mercure Francois (the copyexamined for this paper is in Leeds University Library.)41

? In addition to the classic studies of René Pintard and FrédéricLachèvre, several recent works have explored some of the connectionsbetween the erudite libertines and philosophical movements in 17th

century France; see especially Joan DeJean, Libertine Strategies: Freedom and theNovel in 17th Century France, Columbus, Ohio, 1981; Louise de Donville, Lelibertin des origines à 1665, Paris, 1989; Cecilia Rizza, Libertinage et litterature,Paris, 1996.42

? The epithets “kind dog” and “false dog” were used by the later Greekcynics, according to John Moles, University of Durham (personalcommunication, May 1999); see his paper, “Cynic Cosmopolitanism”, in TheCynics: the cynic movement in antiquity and its legacy. Ed. by R. B. Branham & M.-O.Goulet-Cazé. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996, pp. 105-20.

26

him surface again and again. In two letters to Mersenne in April and May

1630, Descartes refers to a nasty book (almost certainly La Mothe de

Vayer’s Dialogues45) which he thought should be replied to immediately,

since it was “very dangerous” and “very false”. He devised an ingenious

scheme (never executed) in which the book might be published, without

the author’s knowledge, inter-leaved with anonymous refutations. (AT I.

144-5, 148-9; CSM III. 22-4) La Mothe de Vayer was an erudite libertine,

but not so erudite that Popkin could call him “an insipid Montaigne”,

who concealed his impiety, ridicule, and atheism beneath a cloak of

pseudo-skepticism.46 In several letters to Mersenne and Huygens in 1637

Descartes sometimes refers to his fulfilling the promise to publish his

researches as “paying off a debt”. At the end of May 1637, alluding to

his receipt of the French King’s license to publish the Discourse on the

Method, Descartes appeals to Huygens’ good faith in these efforts,

knowing that the Dutchman would not be willing to “pass off bad money

for good” (AT I. 638; CSM III. 60), an unequivocal phrase drawing an

analogy between false or insincere arguments and counterfeit money.

In Part Three of the Discourse, when he recounts many of the

decisions he made as a young man after his marvelous discoveries in

November 1620, Descartes affirms his allegiance to a provisional moral

code whose maxims reveal an obedient, conservative attitude towards

religious and political authority. (AT VI.23-28; CSM I. 122-5) He

reprises these same maxims in one of his Letters to Elizabeth in August

1645 (AT IV.265-6; CSM III.257-8) and again in the Preface to the French

edition of the Principles (AT IXB.13; CSM I.185-6). On several occasions

he was concerned that the method of systematic doubt not spill over into

hyperbolic or exaggerated doubt, as he explicitly indicates near the

close of the Sixth Meditation (AT VII.89; CSM II.61) and again in

43 R. B. Branham, “Defacing the Currency”, in The Cynics, pp. 81-104; seealso D. R. Dudley, A History of Cynicism from Diogenes to the Sixth Century AD,London, 1937, pp. 54-57.

27

response to Father Bourdin’s misdirected objections (AT VII.460; CSM

II.308). In the Seventh Objections, the implacable Father Bourdin

attempts to turn Descartes himself into some kind of cynic or libertine;

Descartes’ increasingly angry responses are similar to those that he

made thirteen years earlier in his riposte to Chandoux’s overly clever

pseudo-arguments. Descartes responds to Bourdin’s goading by rejecting

the skeptical technique of equal-weighted claims (isosthenia) (AT VII.465;

CSM II.313), just as he had rejected Chandoux’s recourse to this

technique; he twice likens excessive skepticism to some sort of mental

infection (AT VII.481, 512; CSM II.324, 349); in the Letter to Father

Dinet, he says that the skeptical disease can only be cured by

refutation (AT VII.574; CSM II.387). Contrary to Bourdin’s feeble

efforts to contend with the skeptical assault, he asks with some

frustration just exactly what it is that the worthy father would

suggest. “We should not suppose that sceptical philosophy is extinct. It

is vigorously alive today, and almost all those who regard themselves as

more intellectually gifted than others, and find nothing to satisfy them

in philosophy as it is ordinarily practised, take refuge in scepticism

because they cannot see any alternative with greater claims to truth.”

(AT VII.548-9; CSM II.374) He could have had someone like Chandoux in

mind, someone who thought himself “more intellectually gifted than

others”, and managed to persuade the gullible that this self-assessment

was true.

He would have had no tolerance whatsoever for the libertines,

either the trendy or the erudite variety, those “strong spirits” whom

Baillet refers to immediately before recounting the Chandoux affair.

Descartes and Mersenne would have been familiar with the Jesuit Francois

Garasse’s 1623 work La Doctrine curieuse des beaux esprits de ce temps, an unwieldy,

overstuffed polemic directed at what the author thought were the

underlying atheist tendencies behind the libertines and “strong

spirits”. In 1624 he followed this with an Apologie pour son livre contre

atheistes et libertines, and in 1625 his final exhaustive statement, La Somme

28

Theologique. In each of these works what Garasse lacked in scholarly

expertise he more than made up for in zeal, roundly condemning every

fashion in which skeptical and libertine thinkers fell away from the

Catholic faith.47 One of Garasse’s former pupils at Poitiers was Guez de

Balzac, who adopted much of his Jesuit teacher’s angry arguments against

the libertines and false-thinkers who so plagued French literary society

at that time. Sylvain Matton has offered clear textual evidence to show

that one of the principal targets of Garasse and Balzac in the 1620s was

the persistent, irritable presence of revitalized cynicism.48 The gist

of Garasse’s Doctrine curieuse, in her words, is that “Diogenes was nothing

but a hypochondriac, a madman, a dolt, and an idiot, a buffoon, an ill-

mannered and self-conceited fool, and an atheist to boot.” Matton quotes

from Balzac’s rant against the nasty cynics, where he remarks on some of

the ways in which they behave. Their attitude “is to violate laws and

customs; it is to be without shame or honesty; it is to recognize

neither family nor friends; it is to be always yapping or biting,” and

so forth. Strong words indeed, perhaps stronger than Descartes might

have voiced, but certainly ones he would have agreed with. Guez de

Balzac was one of Descartes’ favorite writers, someone he admired, not

just for his superb literary style, but also for his sound philosophical

judgment.49 In an open letter written in 1628, Descartes defends Balzac

in very decided terms: “everything that he undertakes to say is

explained with such sound arguments and is illustrated with such fine

examples…. [He] generally uses arguments that are so clear that they

easily gain credence among the common people, and for all that they are

so certain and so true that the better the mind of the reader the more

sure they are to convince.” (AT I.10) Sometime later that same year,

confronted with Chandoux’s cynical mockery and pretense, Descartes might

have been forcefully reminded of just what separated genuine skepticism

from its paltry imitation.

It is crucial to our attempted reconstruction of this lost

episode, as well as to the general picture of philosophical debates in

29

this period, that one carefully discriminate between the skeptical and

the cynical approach to serious questions. It will further our

comprehension of the cynical approach to first characterize some of the

essential features of the skeptical attitude. These are the

argumentative and substantive strategies the skeptics employ: (a) in

opposition to a given dogmatic claim to assert an equal-weighted claim

contrary to the former; (b) to withhold or suspend judgement about those

questions that cannot be known for certain; (c) to seek quietude or

tranquility from the cognitive disquiet or disturbance generated by

attempts to resolve questions that are basically uncertain; (d) to

disallow or prevent doubts raised by metaphysical questions from

infecting or spilling over into practical issues, especially moral

concerns. In contrast, the cynics’ strategies and purposes can be

typified in these ways: (e) to pretend that what is true is false and

that what is false is true, i.e. to turn the truth into the semblance of

truth; (f) to disguise oneself as a dogmatist or skeptic or fideist (and

so forth) in order to expose their position to ridicule and contempt;

(g) to encourage, or at least not disallow doubts raised by metaphysical

questions from infecting or spilling over into practical issues,

especially to undermine moral and religious authority; (h) to seek out

and provoke disquiet and agitation attendant on the cognitive

disturbance generated by attempts to resolve questions that are

basically uncertain. The cynic thus has an enlightened false

consciousness, assiduously maintaining a superior and detached attitude,

that is, detached from and indifferent to whether the dogmatist or the

skeptic is correct. Whereas the skeptic genuinely cares that the

dogmatist is wrong, and vice-versa, the cynic does not care at all who

is right and who is wrong. The cynic is also superior in that he

secretly despises and laughs at both the skeptic and the dogmatist for

being fools of an equal stature. Where Descartes took seriously the

challenge posed by skeptical assaults on the certainty of scientific

30

knowledge, he reacted with vigorous repugnance to the cynics’ pretense

and ridicule.

The Evil Demon of Loudun, 1632-34.

Ever since his death there has been some dispute about the exact

site of Descartes’ birth; whether it was Chattelerault, 20 km north of

Poitiers, or La Haye in Touraine, just to the north of Poitou.50 In

either case, he spent most of his early childhood, as well as his school

holidays, in Chatellerault with his maternal grandparents. After leaving

the College of La Fleche, he returned to Poitiers where, as we’ve seen,

he received his license in law in November 1616, dedicated to his

maternal uncle René Brochard, chief judge of Poitiers until 1621. In

November 1618, Beeckman referred to his young friend as René le

Poitevin, and in Paris in 1623-25 he was sometimes known as the young

man from Poitiers. In a letter to Mersenne of May 1637 (AT I.376), he

mentions that he had recently received his letters of privilege for

nobility; in the next letter of 14 June (AT I.379), he comments that he

learned in Leyden of Beeckman’s death after “a long trip of six weeks” –

more than enough time to visit Chatellerault. It was common practice at

that time for a noble to attend the place of his privilegement, in this

case his family demesne near Poitiers. In any case, after moving house

from Poitiers, Descartes either visited there or exchanged letters about

family business on a number of occasions.

During the summer of 1637, the scandalous stories and exposés

about the possessions and exorcisms in Loudun had circulated throughout

France, Holland and the Low Countries. Now, the town of Loudun is

located about 30 km from Chatellerault, and about 40 km from Poitiers.

The final stages of Urbain Grandier’s trial were conducted before the

presidial of the town of Poitiers, where Descartes’ uncle, René

Brochard, though retired from the magistracy, still served in an

advisory role until his death in 1648. With a strong motive to visit

31

Poitiers, an area completely embroiled in the possession scandals, and

an uncle closely connected with the trial itself, how likely is it that

Descartes would have heard nothing? This straightforward connection

between simple geographical and biographical facts has not been

mentioned in any account of Descartes’ life.

Another chain of events may help to explain how Descartes became

aware of the Loudun affair. In 1636, the eccentric philosopher-alchemist

Kenelm Digby went to Loudun where he took part in an extended séance

with some of the town’s principal figures. What transpired during this

conference with the spirits is not known, though his manuscript account

of this episode is extant.51 In October 1637, the ever-curious Digby,

on the recommendation of Claude Mydorge,52 sent Thomas Hobbes a copy of

Descartes’ Discourse on the Method; it was the essay on “Optics” which

provoked Hobbes to work on the “Latin Optical Manuscript”. In early

1641, Digby went to great lengths to obtain a private interview with

Descartes at his retreat in Egmont, Holland, some time before the

publication of Descartes’ Meditations, according to the memoir of des

Maizeaux (AT XI. 670); an eight day visit to Descartes’ retreat is

confirmed by the most recent editors. (AT III.90) According to des

Maizeaux’s recollection, Digby wanted to persuade Descartes to visit

England, questioned him about the construction of the human body, its

application for the prolongation of life, and other “useful and

agreeable knowledge”.53 Given Descartes’ intense interest at that time

in possible sources of cognitive and perceptual deception, my conjecture

is that something about the events in Loudun, possibly transmitted by

Digby in this interview, may have inspired Descartes with the hypothesis

of the malin genie. Three years later, in 1644, after the publication of

his own Hermetic-Cartesian work, Two Treatises: of Bodies and of Man’s Soul, Digby

again met Descartes, this time in Paris. Did Digby recognize the French

philosopher’s employment of the fiction of an evil demon who

systematically deceived the meditator at every point? The simple answer

is that we do not know. However, the significance of Digby’s first visit

32

to Descartes and the opportunity which he may have had to communicate

his thoughts about demonic possession has never been mentioned in

connection with the development of his philosophical thought.

It is hardly necessary to recount the events in this famous case

of witchcraft and possession, but a brief sketch may serve to highlight

the theological and philosophical significance of the exorcisms. Within

a short time after his appointment as parish priest, Urbain Grandier had

won the support and patronage of several powerful Catholic families, but

had also antagonized other equally powerful Protestant families. It is

almost certain that he seduced the daughter of one of these notables,

publicly humiliated others, and having escaped charges of indecency and

assault two or three times, showed an unwise smugness and lack of

contrition. Robert Rapley54 has shown that Grandier was probably

employed by the Duke of Armagnac to report on Protestant activities and

to vigorously defend the Duke’s claim to retain his walled citadel in

Loudun, directly against King Louis’ and Richelieu’s orders to have the

walls torn down. The weight of documentary evidence shows that powerful

forces were allied to bring down Grandier at any cost. His enemies’ best

opportunity came when the Ursuline Convent nuns began to report

disturbances and nightly visitations. The Baron de Laubardemont and the

Bishop of Poitiers began a protracted investigation over the next two

years to discover the truth of the nuns’ accusations, especially the

most strident of these, the Mother Superior, that Father Grandier was a

witch who had inflicted them with demons. Lurid stories of the nuns’

behavior spread through France, placards and pamphlets appeared

everywhere, and during the Spring of 1634 thousands of onlookers

attended the public exorcisms.

Marin Mersenne, who was in regular contact with Descartes at that

time, was certainly well informed about the progress of events. He had

received a copy of a detailed report from Ismael Boulliaud to Pierre

Gassendi55; and in June 1634, he received an excited letter from the

physician Christophe de Villiers (not the same de Villiers, Sieur de

33

Chandoux), who posed an intellectual question after making an astute

observation. “I am greatly amazed that so many members of the religious

orders are found among the demon-possessed. It is said in this land that

a priest [Grandier] is responsible, as if a man had the ability through

magic to turn souls over to the devil. If indeed such things have

occurred, then why do these magicians not have more people possessed in

the same way? I certainly do not believe that God has granted these

people such abilities, or else all the world would be in the demon’s

power.”56 Descartes addressed the same question when the meditator has

to contend with the supreme doubt he has himself raised: could not an

all-powerful demon have affected the entire world with doubt?

The Loudun church, the magistrates’ court and the market place

became the arena for a struggle for supremacy between Catholic and

Protestant forces, and the focus of this struggle became centered on a

theological doctrine: did the exorcist priest have the power to compel

the demon to tell the truth?57 The Catholics claimed that he did and the

Protestants that he did not; the Catholics proposed several criteria for

demonic possession and the Protestants keenly examined the nuns’

responses to catch them out.58 The Catholic priests and their lay

supporters were trapped several times when the Mother Superior, speaking

through the persona of Asmodeus, clumsily accused one of the cabal

behind the prosecution, made serious factual errors or contradicted her

own previous testimony. But the twofold question remained: was the woman

really possessed by the devil’s agent, and if so, could the devil be

compelled to tell the truth? At the end of a terrible ordeal lasting

three months Father Grandier was charged, convicted and executed, but

the judicial reports, medical examinations, trial proceedings and

declamatory pamphlets continued to be published into the early 1640s. In

fact, other manifestations of demonic possession made sporadic

appearances in Loudun until 1638 and it wasn’t until 1640 that the

principal nun wrote her memoirs.

34

Several connections can be drawn between the Loudun affair and the

articulation of Descartes’ philosophical arguments after the Discourse.

It would have been almost impossible for any person, even a semi-recluse

like Descartes, to have heard nothing about this celebrated scandal,

perhaps the most famous case of possession in early 17th century Europe.

In addition, the fact that the evil demon argument does not occur in the

Discourse (1637) proves nothing about Descartes’ knowledge (or ignorance)

of the events. Perhaps it was only further reflection on specific

documents or the report of Digby’s séance that provoked Descartes to

attempt to solve the puzzle posed by the exorcists and their superiors.

The process-verbal had exposed a serious difficulty for the prosecutor: how

to demonstrate the presence of a malign spirit in the witness when the

assumption was that such a spirit would always deceive. Was there any

way to expose the demon based entirely on declarations of subjective

experience? Were there any “internal marks” whereby an expression of

judgment could be deemed to be false? Twenty years ago, Richard Popkin

suggested that the possessed of Loudun may have been the source for

Descartes’ evil demon argument, and remarked that, “a more extensive

examination of the issues discussed in the learned world as a result of

the Loudun trial may throw some light on the source and significance at

the time of Descartes’ great contribution to sceptical argumentation”59

– but Popkin’s provocative suggestion has never been taken up.

It is the third episode that has the most far-reaching

consequences for the development of Descartes’ mature philosophical

arguments.60 In addition to the evil demon fiction employed to capture

the notion of a persistent and systematic deception, elements in the

Loudun affair provide an important case-study of a profound disturbance

in the je or ego which speaks and the je or ego which thinks.61 This

disturbance is epitomized in the nun’s response “Je est un autre” (“I is an

other”) to the question “Who are you?” This strange declaration

dislocates the subject from the speaker through the agency of a putative

demonic power. On this view, the demon is supposed to be distinct from

35

the living person, already known to the self and to others, and yet it

is identified as the ego. In other words, it is not some other person

(say, Marthe) who is this demon (Asmodeus), but je (Jeanne) who is this

demon. The demon is only able to speak through me by making myself an other

for myself. In this diremption between the ego and the person there lies,

on the one hand, the abyss of psychosis, the radical psychic splitting

exhibited in madness. On the other hand, there lies disclosed for the

first time the clearing or opening which makes possible the Cartesian

grounding of truth and certainty entirely within the ‘objective’ reality

of cognition. “Je est un autre” is a nonsense statement which could not be

understood in terms of scholastic, neo-Aristotelian psychology except as

an instance of demonic possession.

On the scholastic view, since the soul (anima) was the ruling part

of the specific form which the person’s material body assumed, the soul

was inextricably linked with its owner’s body. Thus, if the nun’s soul

had been usurped by another soul, that other soul’s body must also be

present, even if it was the invisible, intangible ‘body’ of a demon.

Since Descartes conceded that the mind and body were separate and

separable substances, each of which could exist independently of the

other, it was conceivable that the nun’s ego was still present

somewhere, and that another ‘ego’ was now also present, but without taking

its place. There was no need to posit an invisible, intangible demonic

‘body’, since the mind, unlike the soul, did not require the person’s

body to give it a specific intelligible form. Having rejected the notion

of an informed material particular, the Cartesian account of mind as a

thinking thing faced a new problem; how to discriminate within the realm

47 Popkin, History of Skepticism, pp. 111-15.

48 Matton, in Branham & Goulet-Cazé, The Cynics, pp. 260-4.

49 See Gaukroger, Descartes, pp. 181-2; Shea, Magic of Numbers and Motion, pp.124-6; see the index in AT V.716 for the many letters to and from Guezde Balzac.

36

of thoughts (cogitata) true from false judgments, including judgments

made about the nature of one’s own ego. The criteria of clarity and

distinctness cannot be invoked for externally observable, behavioral or

material manifestations due to the problems of sense illusions and

cognitive delusions; rather the criteria of truth and falsity have their

application in terms of the ‘objective’ reality of ideas and their

proper cognitive mode. The rational insights directed at the ‘objects’

of one’s thoughts are accessible only through an ‘inner’ sense, a point

of view which is ruled out in principle for any neutral observer, and

that includes the exorcist priest in cases of alleged possession.

On the double assumption that a demon was indeed present and that

an exorcist could compel a demon to tell the truth, anything the demon

said, through the nun’s voice, was taken to be true. The principal

ground of an accusation against a sorcerer, such as Father Grandier, was

the declaration of his guilt by the possessed person, a declaration

which had to be confirmed at least once under the compulsion procedure

invoked by the exorcist priest. This is another way to express the

theological paradox at the heart of the Loudun affair: if the priest has

the power to compel the demon to speak the truth, then the demon’s

accusation of a sorcerer’s guilt must be true; but if the priest does

not have this power then the demon’s accusation does not have to be true

(though, of course, it might be true anyway). Now since there was no

agreement on whether a Catholic priest had this power, either of the two

claims in the consequents followed. Some of the exorcists apparently

thought that, if they could show that everything the demon said was

44 Bibliotheque Nationale, no. FRBNF 36763468; available through BN-

Opal Plus from July 1999.

45 The “wicked booked” identified by René Pintard and Richard Popkin,History of Skepticism, p. 271, note 71 as [Oratius Tubero] Cinq dialogues faits àl’imitation des anciens, published in the early 1630s.46

? Popkin, History of Skepticism, pp. 90-7.

37

true, or at least did not entail anything false, then they had shown

that they had the power to compel the truth – but this is a fallacious

argument, i.e. affirming the consequent. Some of the critics of the

exorcists’ power argued that, since the priest could not compel the

demon to tell the truth, all of the demon’s claims were false, insofar

as the devil is the “father of lies” – but this also is a fallacious

argument, i.e. denying the antecedent. The clash between Catholic and

Protestant political forces around the town of Loudun in the 1630s

exacted a price through the death of an innocent priest. But his

execution could only have followed from a confirmation of his guilt in

the case of the Ursuline nuns’ alleged possession by demons. Although

the Catholic Church had established criteria that gave ‘probable cause’

for the investigation of specific allegations, it was still the task of

the exorcist to determine whether a demon or malign influence was

actually present in the particular case. But no matter how they attacked

the issue, the trial transcripts reveal profound conceptual problems,

fallacious arguments, and question-begging tactics.

Conclusion

For each of the three episodes, we have tendered an hypothesis

about Descartes’ personal experiences which depends to a large degree on

where he was, whom he was with and what he knew at a certain date. In

each case, there is a fact of the matter to be discovered; in each case,

the proof of our contention relies on the preponderance of

circumstantial evidence pointing in one direction rather than another.

Other scholars of Descartes’ life and work have either ‘withheld

judgment’, as the ancient skeptics advised, or have not hesitated to

draw the inference that he was not where his earliest biographer Baillet

claimed that he was. Perhaps the more prudent attitude is to remain

content with the non-committal citation of these events as possibilities in

the formation of Descartes’ beliefs. But further information, brought

forth above, seems to counter-balance the standard interpretation and

38

provide greater weight for the contrary interpretation. Thus a healthy

skepticism should incline one to give some credence to the hypothesis

that makes the best sense of all the available information, and not

remain indecisive due to the fact that we do not have complete knowledge

about these events.

In the first episode, it is Descartes’ reactions to his

experiences in the city of Prague which are significant in terms of his

expression of a new universal science in the Rules for the Direction of the Mind.

The various pseudo-sciences such as alchemy, astrology, and mnemonics,

as well as complex automata, optical illusions, the Rosicrucian

manifestoes, and so forth, were important features of the intellectual

landscape of this period. But what makes Descartes’ reaction so unusual

is his utter rejection of pseudo-scientific explanation, his refusal to

countenance occult powers behind the appearances. Instead he focuses his

exceptional talents on a rigorous and complete natural scientific model,

according to which one can deduce the causal forces at work in such

devices as complex automata and animal bodies. The soul-terms he employs in

this context - a wind, a fire, or a very subtle matter - are precisely

the operative powers that drive the marvels he observed. It is the mind

alone, the thinking thing, which resists all efforts to be accommodated

in this mechanical scheme and thus must have the status of a separate

substance.

In the second episode, Descartes encounters someone who gives

equal weight to both the dogmatic and the anti-dogmatic view about the

connections between appearance and reality, who turns every assertion

into a denial, every truth into a falsity, and so forth. But this is not

an actual version of skepticism, rather it is a mockery of the skeptics’

method of doubt, and reveals Chandoux’s real character as a disguised

cynic or erudite libertine. This hypothesis is further supported by our

identification of Nicolas de Villiers as the Sieur de Chandoux, and the

close connection between counterfeit coinage and cynical subversion. The

third part of this paper has attempted to show that the pre-Cartesian

39

notions of soul and body, the epistemic criteria for judgments, and the

confusion of external with internal ‘marks’ of evidence were incapable

of making sense of anomalous phenomena such as demonic possession. It

was through Descartes’ complete overthrow of these traditional notions,

and his solution to the supreme test case of an evil demon, that “a new

way of ideas” would permit an understanding of the manner in which one

can be an other for oneself, and an understanding of the manner in which

certainty can be grounded within the ‘objective’ structures of

consciousness.

40

50 Rodis-Lewis argues that this dispute arose out of an inter-regionalrivalry between Poitou and Touraine, where each claimed the privilege ofthe famous philosopher’s birth.

41

51

? R. T. Peterson, Sir Kenelm Digby, London, 1956, p. 335, note 124; the ms.reference which Peterson makes is to Bodleian ms. B. P. 5304, Smith 21.Some of the details of this letter to the Prince de Guieme have beensupplied by Clare Brown, the Bodleian Library, Oxford University, June2001.52

? For the full texts of the letters from Digby to Hobbes, see Hobbes’Correspondence, Ed. by N. Malcolm. Oxford University Press, 1990. vol. I,pp. 42-53.

53 Descartes had a modestly good opinion of Digby’s work which hementions in letters on several occasions; see AT II. 192, 271, 336, 398;III. 73, 483, 582, 590; IV. 209, 221, 323; CSM III.105, 251, 277.

42

54

? Robert Rapley, A Case of Witchcraft: the Trial of Urbain Grandier, Montreal:McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1998, Chapter on “Public Exorcisms”.

43

55

? Mersenne, Correspondence, Tome III, p. 400; for the full text, seeCabinet Historique, Ed. by T. de Larroque. Series II, vol. III. Paris, 1879.pp. 1-14.56

? Mersenne, Correspondence, Tome IV, pp. 192-93; my literal translation.

44

57 An important point made by D. P. Walker, Unclean Spirits, Philadelphia:Penn State University Press, 1981, “Introduction”; Stephen Greenblatt,“Loudun and London”, Critical Inquiry, vol. 12, 1986, pp. 326-46; Michel deCerteau, La possession de Loudun, Paris, 1980.58

? The absurdity of some of these interrogations was described withgreat relish by the arch skeptic Pierre Bayle, The Historical and CriticalDictionary, French edition 1697, English trans., London, 1710, article on“Grandier”, vol. III, pp. 1450-57; for some highly pertinent examples,see James Sharpe, Instruments of Darkness: Witchcraft in England 1550-1750. London,1996, pp. 190-210.

45

59 Popkin, History of Skepticism, p. 181.

46

60

61 For which, see Paul Ricoeur, Oneself as another, Univ. Chicago Press,

1992, Chapter One.

Paul S. MacDonaldPhilosophy, School of ArtsMurdoch UniversityPerth, 6150 Australia

47