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beliefs of his predecessors; and this was a real advance in the scientific standpoint.

But while immersed in his profounder studies an influence had come into Descartes' life of a quite new kind. Love, as we have said, did not play any great part in his existence, but with Platonic friendships it was otherwise. The strange thing about these friendships was that both of them were with women of royal blood; and we cannot help wondering whether his extraordinary reverence for royalty had not something to do with the exuberance of his feelings. His doctrines of Divine Right are not such as we often hear in these days; he believes that 'the means taken by princes to establish themselves are nearly always righteous if they believe them so to be,' and 'God gives the right to those to whom he gives the strength.' This was written to Princess Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Elizabeth of Bohemia, the Queen of Hearts, and granddaughter of our King James I, and to Frederick V, Elector Palatine, who was crowned at Prague and lost his kingdom in the following year by that battle at which Descartes himself was very probably present. The family took refuge at the Hague, where they kept up a little exile court. After her husband's death, the Electress continued to make the Hague her home and that of her ten children, who must indeed have been a lively crew. Amongst them were Rupert of the Civil Wars, Maurice, and Sophia, mother of King George I of England. Elizabeth was the eldest of the daughters, and besides being remarkably gifted intellectually by nature, she was well instructed by her teachers in modern languages, Latin and mathematics. Although a strong Protestant in religion, she was strongly attracted by the distinguished philosopher whom she made her friend. In her younger days she was far from a recluse, but as time went on and trouble, family and other, came to her, she turned for consolation to the philosophy she had learned to care for from her friend and master. It was long after his death that she found peace in the Abbey of Hervorden, where, as Abbess, she was able to offer refuge to her old friend Anna Maria Schurmann, another learned lady of the day, and where she also entertained William Penn the Quaker. She died there, finding satisfaction in the somewhat mystical views of Labadie, though at the

same time she was always faithful to the teaching of Descartes.

Elizabeth was a remarkable woman, and her letters show true appreciation of the problems she discussed with Descartes when her correspondence was not occupied with her own woes, physical and mental. There was a family scandal at the Hague, as a result of which a Frenchman was killed by one of Elizabeth's brothers in circumstances not yet cleared up. But the issue was that Elizabeth, whether personally involved or not, departed from Holland and never returned-a sad distress to her. The subsequent execution of her uncle, Charles I of England, was one of the keen trials which she, like the rest of this suffering but courageous family, had to meet. And besides, there were frequent difficulties of other sorts, in all of which Descartes was ready with his sympathy. He always enjoyed prescribing for his friends, and he had ample opportunities of doing this in the young princess's case, for her health was often far from good, and he had the consolation that few lay physicians enjoy, of knowing that his advice would certainly be followed. A mind diseased appealed to him as strongly as a body, and 'The Passions of the Soul,' one of his later works, was written in order to meet the objections to his philosophy made by his royal friend. The complete correspondence between the two is to be found in the edition which is before us; some day it may be, one may hope, published in a separate and more accessible form.

Descartes' interest in science was, as we know, as keen as his interest in speculative philosophy, and at this time there was a scientific problem which concerned him deeply. The great and world-famed experiment on the decrease of barometric pressure with altitude was made on September 19, 1648, on the Puy-de-Dôme mountain in Auvergne. The nature and amount of atmospheric pressure was first discussed and measured by Torricelli, whose account of the subject was conveyed from Italy to France by Mersenne, who made it known to friends in Paris. Mersenne, however, could not satisfactorily repeat the experiment, despite many efforts in which Chanut helped him. Petit succeeded in doing so with mercury, and Pascal carried out further experiments with other

liquids and long tubes expressly made for the purpose. It was Descartes, however, who suggested that the experiment should be made of measuring the height of the column of mercury at the foot and at the top of a mountain respectively, since he expected that the pressure of air on the mercury would decrease as the mountain was ascended, and hence the mercury in the tube would fall. When he suggested this to Pascal, Pascal got his brother-in-law to carry out what became the famous experiment. Pascal published an account of it, but Descartes did not hear of the publication for several months subsequently, and was somewhat hurt at receiving no recognition of his suggestion. The whole story, with Jacqueline Pascal's account of Descartes' visit to her brother, then a young man of twenty-five living in Paris, is one of the most interesting of the many romances of scientific discovery. Descartes' part in it has been overlooked (just as was Mersenne's until recent times), but that he is entitled to a considerable amount of credit in the discovery of the behaviour of the barometer-credit which never was accorded to him-is indubitable if we are to accept M. Adam's account; and he has studied the whole question most carefully in connexion with the original documents, some of which were until recently overlooked.

To return to the story of Descartes' life. A visit to Paris during the troubles of the Fronde, when he found himself in the position of a 'guest arriving when the kitchen was in disorder and the saucepans upset,' gave Descartes little pleasure, though we cannot but feel a wish to have heard more of a dinner party given by the Marquis of Newcastle to Hobbes, Descartes and Gassendi, a very remarkable trio of guests. Back in his hermitage' at Egmond he set himself to work at his various experiments and also to complete the Passions,' the lastpublished of his books. But we have no reason, in spite of his solitary life, to look on Descartes as a pedant; he was also an honnête homme in the 17th-century sense of that phrase.

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Now comes the last stage in this remarkable life story. Queen Christina of Sweden desired to make for herself and her country a reputation, but of another kind from

that of her father, Gustavus Adolphus. He had distinguished himself in war; she would do so in the realm of learning and science, and try to get, amongst others, the most famous of living philosophers to grace her Court. Negotiations were carried on with the utmost skill by the French representative in Stockholm, Pierre Chanut, also a philosopher, though that name was used in a freer sense than nowadays. Chanut was a newly-acquired friend of Descartes, and one of considerable diplomatic powers. He was perhaps a little weary of the part he himself had to play of acting as interpreter to his royal mistress, and following her in her distant expeditions to the mountains, where his head, he confesses, suffered from the cold, uncovered as it had to be. Anyhow he persuaded his correspondent that it was an easy matter to get to Stockholm-a' simple promenade '-and, ostensibly on his own account, but in reality, one must surmise, to find diversion and interest for the headstrong young Queen, he at length persuaded Descartes to agree to go to Sweden. Of course, courtier as he was, Descartes hesitated to take so formidable a step as to change his abode and quiet bachelor ways, especially as he was no longer young. He feared, as he says, to go and live in a country of bears'; and even an emissary in the shape of a Swedish Admiral could not at first persuade him to quit his hermitage.' He doubted also, characteristically enough, how the world would regard the visit of a Catholic to a Protestant Queen.

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All scruples, however, were at length overcome, and Descartes took his departure in September 1649, after carefully putting his affairs in order and obtaining a sort of trousseau of the sort he deemed most suitable. Never forgetful of his personal appearance, he saw to his wig, gloves and shoes being of the fashionable sort. The weary month's voyage accomplished-and during that voyage he enormously impressed the pilot by his knowledge of navigation-he was enthusiastically received by Queen Christina, though for the month succeeding his arrival he saw nothing at all of his erratic mistress. In his heart he soon began to doubt the young lady's having the same inclination for philosophy that she certainly had for letters, and probably he began to compare her unfavourably with his other royal friend, Princess

Elizabeth, who seems to have been a little hurt by hearing that copies of letters to her on philosophical questions had been sent on to the Queen. In any case, she was not as anxious to make friends with Christina as Descartes, in all innocence and with an uncommon lack of human knowledge, imagined she was likely to be.

Queen Christina was indeed a striking figure at the age of twenty-three. She had, by the wish of her father, had the training of a man, and in appearance, dress and action played the part well. Ten hours on horseback did not tire her, and she was an excellent shot, besides being a woman of great erudition. But all her education had unfortunately not taught her that self-control which is most necessary to a Queen, and she certainly had not learned consideration for others. The winter drew on; Chanut was away; and Descartes spoke of returning home, solitary as he found himself and destitute of likeminded friends. He irritated the Greek scholars of the Court by openly depreciating their erudition, and he himself composed, of all unlikely things, the verses for a ballet, glad doubtless to have escaped being asked to dance. This is the time at which he probably had the portrait painted that has recently been discovered. At length Chanut returned, but the cold increased. Then at last the Queen summoned him to explain to her his philosophy, but to do this she chose the extraordinary hour of five in the morning, when the philosopher had to attend her at the Palace. To the healthy young Queen this was apparently a pleasure. To the recluse, who regularly spent his morning in bed in order to reflect the better, it meant misery. To make matters worse, Chanut, his friend, fell ill of pneumonia; and Descartes, in nursing him, probably contracted the malady. The Queen pressed on him the attentions of a German doctor; but he begged that he should leave him, or at least that he should not bleed him. 'Messieurs, épargnez le sang francais,' was what he said. His own remedies had no effect, and he expired on February 11, 1650, after receiving the last offices of the Church.

Few portions of the great philosopher's life were more dignified than the end. He wrote to his brothers, with whom his intercourse had been of the slightest, commending to their care an aged nurse. He had always

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