Cartesius Page #12

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I can't get up any more,

- I feel that I'll never get up ever again.

- Ah, don't talk rubbish.

Those who experience bad,

taste good all the better,

I'll go and wake your master.

There is never a day so long

as not to arrive at the night.

Sir, the broth is there.

Your servant still has the fever,

he can't move.

And you , get up, because

it's the early bird

that catches the worm.

You're impertinent.

What time is it?

After noon , time and the tide

wait for no man.

Midday already.

Those who eat survive,

those who fast die.

Good day.

He must be a famous doctor at Dventer,

he's all anyone talks about,

when he goes by, he never looks

anyone in the face

and the university students

greet him with respect.

He may be famous as you say,

but there is a proverb that says:

make a good reputation ,

and sleep soundly,

he certainly has some unusual

habits, living closed in his room

which is the dirtiest and most

disorderly one in the entire tavern.

For me order is bread

and disorder famine.

Gentlemen, I have the pleasure of

presenting Mr Rene Descartes to you.

He has come to study among us

and is a Frenchman who has

honoured us coming to Dventer.

He has written about

mechanics and geometry

about astronomy and mathematics

and has fixed precious rules

for guiding intelligence.

Mr Descartes abhors the obscurity

of scholastic philosophy,

as do many of us and on the other

hand, does not like innovators,

those innovators who want to amaze

the world with sophisticated doctrines,

because those persons, gentlemen,

maintain that science is like a woman,

who if left alongside her spouse

is always respected by everyone,

but if she gives herself to

everyone, she is deprecated.

And for this reason ,

I invited Mr Descartes

to present to us what he

intends to write in the treatise,

he has been working on for a long time

now, and I ask you to listen to him.

I am thank the illustrious professors

of this university and Mr Reigne

for inviting me, and I am pleased to

illustrate to you what you want to know.

I intend to write in my treatise

everything that may explain

the nature of material things.

I n order to explain my

thoughts more freely

without being obliged

to follow or disprove

the common opinions of the

learned men of our time,

I have decided to leave aside

the limited images of this world

in which we live and its

architecture and to talk only

of what could happen in a new

world that I will conceive

for my reader in an imaginary space.

I will lead my reader into

this world by the hand, so far away

that he loses sight of

everything God created

at the beginning of the centuries, five

or six thousand years ago or thereabouts.

We will then finally halt at

a determinate point in space

and suppose that God creates so

much material around us again

that our imagination on

whatever side it extends

absolutely cannot see

one single place,

any space that has remained empty.

This material I talk of

has nothing in common

with the so-called primary

material of philosophers

which they have so well despoiled

of forms and qualities

to the point that nothing has remained

of it, but a vague conceptual abstraction,

very difficult to imagine - and seeing

that we are going to take the liberty

of designing this material

according to our imagination ,

we are also going to take the liberty

of attributing a nature to it

in which there is nothing which

could prevent anyone from knowing

it as perfectly as possible.

We shall then suppose that God divides

this material into different parts,

some larger, others smaller,

some with certain shapes,

others with different shapes,

just as we care to imagine them,

but without ever determining

any separation between them

so as to prevent

a vacuum between them.

The difference that God will impose

of these pieces of the nature

will consist in the different

movement he sets on them

so that right from the

first moment of creation

they can continue to move

according to the ordinary

laws of nature.

What do you mean by nature?

When I talk of nature,

I do not mean a goddess

or some other imaginary power,

I use this word to

indicate matter itself,

in the form in which

God keeps it

and in the form in

which he has created it.

So, when the nature

you've just said,

suffers changes to its parts,

you do not believe that this can

be attributed to Divine action?

Everything depends

on Divine action.

God has established laws

that are absolutely perfect,

that even if we want to suppose

that from the beginning

he created the most

confused chaos that

all the poets together

could imagine,

his laws are sufficient to direct

all the parts of this chaos

in a way that they arrange themselves

harmoniously in an exact order,

that will take the

form of a perfect world

in which we can see

not only the light,

but also everything that exists,

of whatever nature

and form appearing in this true

world in which we live.

In your imaginary world, are

there going to be planets, a Sun?

Certainly.

And a Moon, an Earth, men.

Men born and comprised like us,

with a soul and a body.

I will now separately describe

the body of these men first,

and then I will describe the soul ,

and finally I will demonstrate

how these two natures

must be joined together

to be able to give life

to men identical to us.

I will suppose that the body

is nothing but a statue,

an amount of earth

that God forms expressly

making it look like and according

to the pattern of our body.

And finally I will explain

that when God places

the thinking soul

inside this machine

the soul will have its

main location in the brain,

from where to direct

all of man's movements.

This, gentlemen, will be

my story of the world.

One written , which

Like all stories,

will - I hope -

be useful because it will

permit a better understanding

of the world we live in.

I had warned you gentlemen,

that this man is the only Archimedes

of our century, is the

Atlas of the universe

is a confidant of

nature and will answer

all the questions and queries

you want to put to him,

about the secrets and

the order of nature

in a wonderful and

amazing manner.

How long can you stay

here with us sir?

Until this evening and I will have

time to answer all your questions.

Goodbye. Good night.

Ah you've finally come back,

he's been calling your

name all day, the fever burns.

I'm very poorly,

help me if you can.

Boil up a potion for him

with a glass of wine,

a few grapes from Damascus,

two grains of isoffo,

ten of fennel and of aniseed, until

the liquid reduces by one third,

this is for the cough, the

fever will disappear by itself.

Those three gentlemen are

waiting for you, they're French.

I'll talk with them now.

Poor Bretaigne, what'll I do

without him, stay close to him.

I'm Descartes, did you want me?

I'm a dealer in valuable furs sir,

I'm called Antoine Poquet,

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