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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

Stockholm shortly before his death. This portrait is 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.

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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

through Descartes' later life, exaggerated though it may have been by those biographers who wished to protect him from the ill-will of the Church. In later days he tells us how he dreamt of his college chapel, of going there to pray; and in reference to the visit made by him to Loretto, it appears that a distinguished member of the Order had recommended pilgrimages to be made to that very shrine in a treatise which, M. Adam tells us, would most likely have been placed in the young boy's hands.

Even at school, Descartes came in contact with the political events of the day in a most striking and impressive way. In 1610, on May 14, the King by whose aid the college was established was struck down by the hands of an assassin. In accordance with his own expressed desire, his heart was taken from Paris to La Flèche, the college of his own foundation. It was naturally interred with the greatest pomp and circumstance, and young Descartes was not only present as a witness of the ceremonial, but was distinguished by being selected as one of the twenty-four gentlemen students who took part in the procession. All through his life Descartes had that love of pageants that many possess but few educated persons confess to. He made a point, for example, of being present at the coronation of the Emperor Ferdinand at Frankfort and at the marriage of the Doge with the Adriatic at Venice. But none of these events could have impressed him more than the long-drawn-out obsequies (involving a three weeks' cessation of work) of the King whose loss was so overwhelming to his country.

One cannot help wondering, in reading the account of the school and college life under the Jesuit régime, whether with all our study of the theory and practice of education we have made any very real advance on the methods of the 17th century. Such schools as La Flèche were of course exceptional, but in these the teachers certainly succeeded in interesting the scholars in learning, which is presumably the principal object in teaching. Despite a curriculum scholastic in its essence, the lighter side of education was not neglected, for dancing, fencing, and versifying were taught; but what impresses us most in these modern days (for it is a matter that was too long neglected) is that the instructors were chosen as men of

polished and agreeable manners, and taught to teach by long years of training. They learned the lesson which subsequent generations too frequently forgot, that in a school like this, which might be called the Eton of France, in order to teach the governing classes of the future to carry out their work, hard and serious preparation is necessary on the part of the teachers. It was this personal influence of cultured men that made their pupils look back on the years at school, between eight and sixteen, as the most valuable in their lives. No university education of the modern kind followed the school training. Descartes, though he graduated in law, for the most part continued his studies in the camp and amongst rough soldiers. We certainly miss in his later life a real appreciation of the classics, and also of the artistic side of life. He regrets time' wasted on philological studies,' as he terms purely classical pursuits; and, though he lived in the country and during the lifetime of the great Dutch artists, he never even mentions the work of a Rembrandt, any more than the learning of a Grotius. His interests indeed were elsewhere. In Descartes' time the wonders of a century of scientific discoveries were just being revealed; and the telescope, whose capacities were as yet undiscovered ('might we not know whether there were animals in the moon?' he asks), was the instrument on which all eyes were turned. The scientific side of nature was indeed as engrossing to him as was the speculative.

How the young man occupied his time during the seven years following his schooldays is not very clear. M. Adam, not without reason, scorns the idea that he should be supposed to have retreated from public view for two whole years, as his earliest and almost contemporaneous biographer, Baillet, suggests. He may have studied at Poitiers, where he took a degree in law in 1616. We have, however, only glimpses of his doings until he reached the age of 22, when it would seem that he definitely adopted the profession of arms, and offered himself as a volunteer with the army of Prince Maurice of Nassau in Holland, despite the fact that he was thereby espousing the Protestant cause at the beginning of what became the Thirty Years' War. It is characteristic of the man that he gave thanks that he could fight as a volunteer, and had not to adopt a profession for the sake of the

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