Abstract
This is a consideration of the connection of L’Homme to two very different forms of early modern Dutch Cartesianism. On the one hand, this work was central to a dispute between Descartes and his former disciple, Henricus Regius. In particular, Descartes charged that Regius had plagiarized L’Homme in order to distance himself from a form of Cartesian physiology in Regius that is not founded on a proof of the spirituality of the human soul. Despite this repudiation, Regius remained a prominent proponent of Cartesian medicine. On the other hand, Florentius Schuyl published a Latin translation of L’Homme that included a preface in which he defends Descartes’s doctrine of the “beast-machine” by invoking the authority of Augustine. This preface set the stage for the emphasis in the work of Clerselier and other French Cartesians on the presence in Descartes of a kind of Augustinian spiritualism.
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Notes
- 1.
1598–1679.
- 2.
1619–1669.
- 3.
1622–1702.
- 4.
Aka Sanctorio Sanctorio; 1561–1636.
- 5.
On Sanctorius’s approach in medicine and its influence on Regius, see Farina 1975.
- 6.
Descartes told Regius that in making this claim “you could scarcely have said anything more offensive and provocative” (Descartes to Regius, second half of Dec. 1641, Descartes and Regius 2002, 91). Nonetheless, Descartes also held that Regius’s heart was in the right place when he said that a human being is an ens per accidens, since he does not “understand otherwise than what everyone admits, namely that is is composed of two things that are really distinct” (Descartes to Regius, late Jan. 1642, Descartes and Regius 2002, 98).
- 7.
AT 8-2:163. AT = Descartes 1964–1976.
- 8.
Descartes to Regius, July 1645, Descartes and Regius 2002, 187–88.
- 9.
Descartes and Regius 2002, 188.
- 10.
Regius to Descartes, 23 July 1645, Descartes and Regius 2002, 189.
- 11.
See, for instance, Hallyn 2006, 173–201.
- 12.
Here following Bos 2013, 59.
- 13.
But cf. the claim in Wilson 2000 that Regius’s position is in fact latent in Descartes’s work.
- 14.
Regius to Descartes, 23 July 1645, Descartes and Regius 2002, 190.
- 15.
1584–1648.
- 16.
Barlaeus to Constantijn Huyghens, 7 Aug. 1642, quoted in McGahagan 1976, 127.
- 17.
Descartes and Regius 2002, 190.
- 18.
AT 9-2:19.
- 19.
That this is the reference is clear from Descartes remark in a 1646 letter that “it is now twelve or thirteen years since I described all the functions of the human or animal body” in the work in question (Descartes to Mersenne, 23 Nov. 1646, AT 4:566–67).
- 20.
Descartes to Elisabeth, Mar. 1647, AT 4:626. Cf. Descartes to [Huygens], 5 Oct. 1646, AT 4:517–18; Descartes to Mersenne, 23 Nov. 1646, AT 4:566.
- 21.
Descartes to Mersenne, 23 Nov. 1646, AT 4:567. This account of the muscles also receives special attention both in Clerselier’s preface to his edition of L’Homme and in La Forge’s Remarques included in this edition.
- 22.
AT 11:xii–xiii, xix–xx. Clerselier described this figure as “petit, déchiré, et défiguré,” and noted that he saved the original so that it could be reviewed by “ceux qui en auront curiosité.” Clerselier noted that he needed to improve the design because Descartes’s drawing suggested that there were three folds on the valves regulating the flow of animal spirits into the eye muscles, rather than the two folds mentioned in the text of L’Homme.
- 23.
AT 11:133–37. During the 1660s, Descartes’s hydro-mechanical theory of the eye muscles was disproved by Jan. Swannerdam (1637–1680) in the United Provinces and Jonathan Goddard (1617–1675) in London, who showed that muscle volume did not increase during contraction. Nonetheless, this theory remained influential in the early modern period. See Donaldson 2009.
- 24.
Gariepy 1991, 179.
- 25.
FP X, Regius 1646, 233–35.
- 26.
Regius 1646, 234.
- 27.
There is a similar account of Regius’s error in Mouy 1934, 87–89.
- 28.
In correspondence with Clerselier, which I discuss presently. It should be noted, however, that there is some evidence that Regius did see a draft of Descartes’s Le Monde; see the editorial comments on Descartes’s letter to Regius of May 1641, in Descartes and Regius 2002, 67n.18. The question is whether this draft included L’Homme.
- 29.
Regius 1646, 231–32. Regius takes his experimental work to show that some portion of the animal spirits sent to the muscles reach the heart by means of venules and then are returned to the brain through arteries.
- 30.
AT 7:582–83.
- 31.
Descartes to Regius, Nov. 1641, AT 3:443, Descartes and Regius 2002, 87.
- 32.
For instance, Regius recognized sooner than Descartes the importance of Gaspare Aselli’s discovery in 1627 of lacteal vessels that carry chyle from the intestines. Moreover, Regius offered an account of the motion of the heart in terms of the flow of animal spirits that cannot be found in Descartes. I discuss these points further in §5.2 of Schmaltz 2017.
- 33.
d. 1680.
- 34.
Included as part of Regius and Wassenaer1647, and re-published in Regius 1648.
- 35.
I am drawing here on the discussion in the editorial introduction to Verbeek 1993a, 1–3.
- 36.
- 37.
- 38.
In Andreae 1653, 21–81, 98–113 and 149–63, respectively.
- 39.
AT 5:754.
- 40.
There is perhaps some temptation to identify Fabricius with Regius himself. However, in the preface to Fabricius 1648, the author indicates that he is writing from Roermond, a town in the province of Limburg. Unless this is a mere invention, it would seem that Fabricius is not Regius. Thanks to Erik-Jan. Bos for drawing my attention to this evidence.
- 41.
Regius 1657b, 6. Fabricius is alluding here to the fact that Regius and not Clerselier had the originals of the letters that Descartes sent him, and that Clerselier’s version of these letters relied on incomplete drafts that he needed to augment. For discussion of the history of Clerselier’s publication of the Descartes-Regius correspondence, see the editorial introduction to Descartes and Regius 2002.
- 42.
Regius 1657b, 9. Fabricius also notes—correctly—that Regius has addressed the question of how the nerves prevent “the return of the spirits to the brain.”
- 43.
Regius 1657b, 10. As evidence, Fabricius cites two letters from Robert Creighton (1593–1672), sent from Sweden to his friend Regius, that were appended to the second edition of Brevis explicatio.
- 44.
See Clerselier’s report of his request in his preface to L’Homme, AT 11:xiv-xv. In this preface Clerselier also presents a more moderate discussion of the plagiarism charge, admitting that it is “not impossible” that the resemblances are coincidental, and leaving it to the reader to decide “who between Monsieur Descartes and Monsieur le Roy is the master or the disciple, and which of the two is the first inventor of things where they agree, or if they are both invented” (AT 11:xv).
- 45.
Regius’s last letter to Clerselier is published in Regius 1661a, which is prefaced by remarks from none other than Carolus Fabricius. Fabricius’s reference in these remarks to the “slanderous preface” of Clerselier is repeated in Regius’s letter.
- 46.
Baillet [1691] 1970, 2: 21 and 269.
- 47.
Baillet [1691] 1970, 2:271.
- 48.
Baillet [1691] 1970, 2:171.
- 49.
This edition was retitled Praxis medica; the preferatory letter there is unpaginated.
- 50.
ca. 1594–1658.
- 51.
Harvey 1653, 114.
- 52.
1663–1703.
- 53.
As indicated in the 1642 Testimonium Academiae Ultrajectinae, et Narratio Historica quà defensae, quà exterminatae novae Philosophiae, reproduced in French translation in Descartes and Schoock 1988, 86–87.
- 54.
- 55.
Descartes 1664, 412 (from the French translation of Schuyl’s preface).
- 56.
See AT 6:56–59.
- 57.
Dibon 1990, 683.
- 58.
Schuyl cites passages from De libero arbitrio VIII.18 and De quantitate animae XIV and XXXIII, in Descartes 1664, 428–29 and 435, respectively.
- 59.
For instance, when a Dutch contemporary Andrea Colvius noted the Augustinian roots of his cogito argument, Descartes responded that he made a very different use of this argument than did Augustine (AT 3:247). For a further defense of the notion of an essential connection between the views of Augustine and Descartes is one that Descartes himself did not embrace, see §3.1 of Schmaltz 2017.
- 60.
1597–1678.
- 61.
On this point, see Ruler 2008, 164.
- 62.
Clauberg [1691] 1968, index, n.p. In the corresponding §26 of IV, Clauberg cites several texts from Augustine.
- 63.
- 64.
La Forge 1974, 75.
- 65.
Manning 2012, 150.
- 66.
Henri Gouhier has famously distinguished those, such as Martin, who offer a form of “cartesianized” Augustinianism—augustinisme cartésianisé—from those, such as Schuyl, Clerselier and La Forge, who offer a form of “augustinized” Cartesianism—cartésianisme augustinisé; see Gouhier 1978.
- 67.
This work was based on a series of disputations on the (pseudo-) Aristotelian Problemata on which the Leiden curators allowed De Raey to lecture starting in 1651.
- 68.
Raey 1654, Epistola, n.p.
- 69.
Raey 1654, 40.
- 70.
1631–1680.
- 71.
An earlier version of this work was published in Pierre le Gallois’s Conversations de l’Academie de Monsieur l’Abbé Bourdelot (1672). Cf. the discussion of Le Bossu’s Parallèle in Grene 1993, 81–85.
- 72.
Le Bossu [1674] 1981, 293.
- 73.
1620–1672. The contrast between the texts of Le Bossu and Rohault is indicated by the fact that whereas Le Bossu’s Parallèle had only one modern edition, between 1671 and 1739 there were more than 25 reprintings of Rohault’s Traité, including several Latin and English translations.
- 74.
TP, Préf., Rohault 1671, n.p.
- 75.
On Rohault’s endorsement of hylomorphism, see Manning 2012, 28–32. As Manning notes, Rohault does distinguish himself from Aristotle in confining his hylomorphism to matter and form and in excluding the third Aristotelian principle of privation. One can find a similar exclusion in Le Bossu [1674] 1981, 283.
- 76.
Rohault 1671, 1:39.
- 77.
TP, Préf., Rohault 1671, n.p.
- 78.
Raey 1654, 36; cf. Descartes’s claim in the Second Meditation that we know the nature of the wax solius mentis inspectio at AT 7:31.
- 79.
Raey 1654, 16.
- 80.
AT 7:83.
- 81.
As indicated in Verbeek 1995, 81.
- 82.
1614–1672. Sylvuis was a proponent of an “iatrochemical” approach to medicine that sometimes contrasted with the more “iatromechanical” approach of Regius. For this point, see Ragland 2012.
- 83.
The claim from Sylvius’s “De hominis cognitione” (1658), in Sylvius 1679, 896.
- 84.
Raey 1692, 654.
- 85.
Raey 1692, 259.
- 86.
Sylvius 1679, 896.
- 87.
AT 8-2:344.
- 88.
For documentation of this point, see Ruler 2008, 165–66.
- 89.
AT 9-2:14.
- 90.
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Schmaltz, T.M. (2016). The Early Dutch Reception of L’Homme . In: Antoine-Mahut, D., Gaukroger, S. (eds) Descartes’ Treatise on Man and its Reception. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, vol 43. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46989-8_5
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