Art. 3.—THE LIFE OF DESCARTES.

1. Euvres de Descartes. Publiées par Charles Adam et Paul Tannery. 11 vols. Paris: Leopold Cerf, 1897-1912. 2. Vie et Euvres de Descartes. Étude historique par Charles Adam. Paris: Léopold Cerf, 1910.

THE Completion of a great national undertaking, such as is represented by the eleven quarto volumes of Descartes' works recently published in Paris under the auspices of the Ministère de l'Instruction Publique, is a notable event. This, indeed, is no ordinary undertaking; the work of M. Charles Adam, Rector of the University of Nancy (assisted, to begin with, by the late M. Paul Tannery of mathematical fame), it represents the tribute of a grateful country to one of her most distinguished sons. Three hundred years after Descartes' birth in 1596, it was decided that there could be no more fitting celebration of that event than an edition of his writings, as far as possible complete, in the languages in which they were originally given to the world; and the succeeding decade was devoted to the unremitting toil necessary for the accomplishment of this end.

Possibly no nation has more adequately recognised a distinguished son as its own than France in the case of René Descartes; and La Bruyère's description of him as 'né Français, et mort en Suède,' if it is meant to imply that by living and dying abroad he had lost his birthright, is in the last degree unjust. Above most others Descartes was typically French, despite the fact that he lived the greater part of his life out of his native land. He constantly talks of his 'French blood'; he trusts that his country may 'defeat the efforts of all who endeavour to harm her,' and he even includes in his claim not only the rights of citizenship but those of a son of the Catholic Church. For, notwithstanding his being the Father of Modern Philosophy,' and in a a great measure the inaugurator of modern scientific methods, Descartes never ceased to be a good son of the Church. One wonders, indeed, whether any man of his time brought up from childhood under the direction of the Jesuit Fathers ever really escaped the influence they brought to bear on him, even though in the world's eyes he might

have broken with their teaching; widely as his path might deviate in later life, there was always a restraining bond that made their former pupil seek to show that the divergence from these great educationists was one of form rather than substance. But Descartes was a Frenchman in other ways than merely by birth and religion. No one who reads his Method can fail to distinguish the 'logic and lucidity' which Matthew Arnold tells us characterise the natives of a country whose sons inherit the culture of generations. The matter and form of the great Essay seem to us, in reading it, to have grown into one; and its careful reasoning is as remarkable as is the charm of its expression.

The twelfth volume of this great work has taken the form of a study of the life and writings of the author. M. Adam's biography is well described as a 'historic study.' It is not a life for the casual seeker for information, nor has it any special claims to literary style. It is a work full of research and accurate to the smallest detail, written perhaps more after the so-called German method than what we are, or at least till recently were, accustomed to look for in the literature of France. Every point that lends itself to investigation has been investigated, and the facts of the life of René Descartes are recorded in the greatest detail; though, as we are told in his preface, the writer's aim is not to deal with the large questions which might be raised in reference to the philosophy or science of the day, the personal relationship of the man to his contemporaries, or even to the history of philosophy. His object is to give the guiding thread which is indispensable if we are to make our way intelligently through the eleven volumes of Descartes' treatises and letters. In spite of the copious notes throughout the work a quantity of material had been collected by the principal editor which had not been adequately utilised. In the words of M. Adam,

'Comme cette édition est à l'usage de ceux que l'histoire de la philosophie intéresse, nous en avons fait un instrument de travail aussi utile que possible, n'hésitant pas à y prodiguer les renseignements sans compter: chaque lecteur saura bien y choisir ce qui lui convient, et laisser là le reste.'

For the student of those days, then, the student of Vol. 219.-No. 436.

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history in the 17th century, the topic is of exceeding interest. Descartes himself stands out as the central figure in a time of exceptional intellectual activity. The old order was passing into the new; the rule of authority in philosophy and religion was being supplanted by the liberty of private judgment. The Scientific Method was beginning to maintain its right to judge by experiment and by refusing to accept what was taught only by tradition. The 17th century was perhaps of all others the century in which the mode of searching after knowledge was most revolutionised, because the breach with medievalism was then thoroughly and completely made. M. Adam, in his Life of Descartes,' does not propose to treat this most interesting theme. He does not deal with the growth and meaning of Cartesianism, which has been such a force in the modern world as we know it, but merely with its originator and his writings historically considered. This work, indeed, treated by a thorough master of his subject in possession of a vast amount of new material, suffices to fill a quarto volume of 628 pages. In addition to the better-known authorities, M. Adam brings into requisition the journals of Isaac Beeckman and Constantin Huygens, as well as the correspondence of Père Mersenne, Chanut and Brasset, all of them in manuscript, and many other materials obtained through the assistance of various collaborators.

One always wants to know how a great man looked, and an attractive feature in the book is the number of interesting portraits which are reproduced in it. The appearance of the philosopher has ever been a matter of speculation, though it is one that both he himself and his contemporaries frequently dwell upon. The best-known portrait of him is that attributed to Franz Hals, which was taken shortly before Descartes went to Sweden and is now in the collection at the Louvre. It has been reproduced in M. Adam's 'Life' by Achille Jacquet, who also reproduces another portrait, hitherto unknown, the authenticity of which is at least probable. Then there is Franz Schooten's rather poor portrait, which we know from its being engraved in the beginning of the 'Geometry,' and another portrait recently discovered in Sweden and apparently quite genuine, painted by a pupil of Van Dyck, David Beck, during Descartes' ill-starred visit to

This portrait is

Stockholm shortly before his death. specially valuable to us, and we are grateful for its discovery. All these portraits, and the picture of his home at Egmond, give interest to the book, though one regrets that the original sketch ascribed to Hals, now in Denmark, is not also reproduced, since it is a more forcible presentation of the artist's work than the later painting.

Though M. Adam gives us every detail of Descartes' family history that he can collect, there is nothing new in his work that is of much interest to a modern reader. One would have liked to see some really authentic record of the strange childhood of the boy who lost his consumptive mother in infancy, and who inherited from her a dry cough and a pale complexion.' Until his sixth year he was left under the care of a nurse in the little village of La Haye. That nurse was remembered even in his last testament; for it was a fine trait in the philosopher, reputedly so calm and cold, that his servants were always cared for and considered by him. To some he gave an education-the best gift in his power -and one, much regarded, the faithful Schluter,' was with him at his death. Love, of the kind that plays a part in most men's and women's lives, would appear to have played little in that of Descartes. He was fond of a little squinting girl in childhood, and this fancy, by an association of ideas which interested him as a psychologist, made him partial to those who squinted. Later, in Holland, he had a liaison with a certain woman whom we know as 'Hélène,' and who became the mother of his child called Francine. In spite of every effort M. Adam has been unable to discover any particulars about Hélène. His investigations merely go to prove, what we already surmised, that the child was not born in wedlock. When she was just five years of age, and her father was considering how she could be sent to France to be educated with a relative of his own, the little Francine fell ill of a malignant fever and died. This was to Descartes, his biographer Baillet says, 'the greatest sorrow of his life.'

One would also like to have had yet fuller details of young René Descartes' life in that wonderful Jesuit school at La Flèche where he spent eight years of his life. It was one of the schools established under the authorisation of King Henry IV, and, as Descartes himself tells us

(at the beginning of his Method'), it was one of the most celebrated schools in Europe. The rector and professors were selected with the greatest care, for in those days the Jesuits as a body alone understood that education was a matter on which too much consideration and thought could not be lavished. René, a delicate motherless boy, received special attention; he was allowed to awake in the mornings of his own accord and get up when he would. Like some other great men, all through life he rose late and worked in bed; indeed the sudden change from this lifelong habit is thought to have been partially responsible for his death in Sweden. He had a room to himself at school, and in this charming old building, which may yet be seen (it is still a school, although now a military one), a room is shown as his, which looks out on a beautiful garden and park; while the chapel is just as it was in his time. He tells us himself of his course of studies in that wonderful self-revealing autobiography given in the Method'-an autobiography which for conciseness and depth of meaning has rarely been equalled. He speaks of the fables and stories that he read (probably the 'Metamorphoses' of Ovid and in Roman and Greek biographies), the poetry and rhetoric which he was taught, and the 'philosophy' that formed the subject of his final year at school, i.e. logic, physics and metaphysics. Latin was, of course, used as a spoken language as well as a subject of study, as in all the establishments for learning of the day.

M. Adam discusses the interesting question how the young boy was influenced on the religious side by the good Fathers who showed him so much kindness. The view to which he inclines is that the catholicism of the Jesuits simply imposed certain dogmas from without and left the mind free to speculate as it would; at the same time in their seminaries the teachers excelled in laying hold of the imagination and senses by the ceremonial side of their worship, thereby accustoming their pupils to those outward habits of piety that remained with them all their lives, and induced them to form themselves into a confrérie of a religious kind, so giving a definitely religious tone to their lives. One fancies that the reason may go deeper than the explanation implies, but it is anyhow the case that the religious strain is traceable all