Cartesius Page #15

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happy on this earth.

I fear that I will not be able to come and

visit you this month as I promised you

but be certain that

I'm not forgetting you.

Words fly

and children remain.

Do you want me to carry on?

Yes.

Let me have your news

through Dr.Ogelham's courier,

who you shall thank on my behalf

for the hospitality he's giving you.

Rene Descartes.

Who promises a lot and keeps

his word a little.

Thank you Doctor.

When did it arrive?

This morning , sir.

It's Father Mersenne.

Jan, clothes.

I will publish everything.

I cannot renounce printing a treatise

I've worked on for so many years.

Any way, it was almost finished,

I only had to correct and copy it,

but if Galileo, an Italian, esteemed

by the Pope has been condemned,

I no longer feel like continuing.

But perhaps you exaggerate,

you could publish it later.

In his letter, Father Mersenne was

very clear and I think he is right.

But Holland is so far from Rome.

I have already said that I do not

want to run the risk of contradicting,

or worrying the Church.

I'm almost tempted to

burn all my papers.

I certainly will not show it to anyone.

All my work is so much connected with

the hypothesis of the motion of the skies,

that it is impossible to correct it,

even if I wanted to.

If that's how it is,

I can't say you're wrong.

Wait.

Here, listen to what a disciple

of our Galileo writes to me.

After a long and

infinite insulting trial,

he has been relegated

to the city of Siena

from which he cannot wander

without permission.

His writings have all been

outlawed because he held

the false doctrine taught by a few as true,

that the sun is at the centre of the world

immobile and that the Earth

moves with endless motion

and also for having taught

the same doctrine

and for diffusing it

with letters and writings.

After all , I never

desired to write books.

If I hadn't given in to the insistence of a few

friends of mine, I would never have written.

I'm not looking for spiritual

peace and tranquility.

There are already so many

opinions in philosophy,

apparently solid, that can

be debated in disputes

and if mine are not much

more solid than these,

and cannot be approved

without controversy,

I will never accept

to publish them.

You're a little too prudent.

Did you know that in France, there

were people who defended Galileo?

I know. Even that good brother

Mersenne is among these defenders,

but he too recommended

me to be prudent.

I however, will never

do what I must not do.

It's necessary to placate

one's own excitation , desire.

I'll wait, because what

seems impossible today,

may be possible tomorrow.

Francine, I baptise you in

the name of the Father,

the Son and the

Holy Spirit.

Amen.

The Father.

The witnesses.

Can I come back and

live with you now?

Not yet, Elena, not yet.

So you don't want us.

Don't say that,

the girl is very beautiful.

I'll write to you ,

I'll never abandon you.

Are you certain he has left Amsterdam?

His servant advised me that

he would have arrived here

at Utrecht during the day.

Mr Descartes, has arrived.

Oh , here he is, let him enter.

Mr Rene Descartes has arrived.

Cartesius.

My very Dear Descartes, here

you are, finally back at Utrecht.

Madam , I'm flattered

by so much honour.

We were expecting you.

I was fifteen days at Amsterdam.

In this parlour, in which

madam Annamaria de Schurman

often receives the most famous

learned men of the Low Countries,

your absence was greatly felt.

In this way, you confuse

me dear friend.

We were told that you are preparing

the printing of a new work

at your printer's place of work.

We were very disappointed

when you renounced

printing the treatise on

the world out of fear...

You're wrong,

it wasn't out of fear,

it was out of respect

for authority and prudence.

Just prudence.

These friends have

come to listen to you.

My new work takes up ideas and

material from the treatise on the world.

Gentlemen , I've written the

project of a universal science,

that can raise nature to its

highest degree of perfection.

You're telling too little, my dear

Rene, you had talked to me so much

about your progress in metaphysics.

Are you afraid to illustrate it?

Have you written a

book on metaphysics?

Are you renouncing your

mathematical method?

Don't worry, I intend to

demonstrate the truths explained

until now by metaphysics

using new ways.

It would be sterile to have thought up

a method for the correct use of reason,

and not to employ it to demonstrate

the foundations of the creation

of the spirit and of what

surrounds it, beyond the theses

of scholars, without giving

anything to their reasoning.

Here's one of my new arguments.

We all know that sometimes

our senses trick us.

I suppose then nothing of what

we see is as our senses

make us perceive, but

if I doubt everything it is

immediately evident that I think

and if I think, I must be an entity.

I think, therefore I exist.

This certainty of being ,

I take from myself.

I am a substance whose natural

essence consists in thinking,

totally independent of

any other material thing.

Well, what I'm referring

to here is the soul,

by which I am what I am.

I then discovered, that none

of the things that exist:

the Earth, the light, colour,

appear superior to me,

more perfect than me, but who

put the idea in me of a being

more perfect than myself?

I asked myself.

Certainly, a more

perfect nature than mine,

is able to conceive

the idea of perfection,

in other words of an absolutely

perfect supernatural being

that I indicate with

a single word:
God.

In my treatise, I also

demonstrate clearly,

the existence in myself and in

the world of a thinking substance

distinct from that of the body, but

which of the two is the nature of God?

I shall demonstrate that

God, certainly cannot be

a composition of two substances

- the bodily one and the thinking one

because the mixture would

be a sign of imperfection.

Dear Rene.

You talk of the existence of the soul

and of God in a really unusual way.

You moved me.

Your construction is very

bold and highly acute.

However, your distinction of

reality in bodily substance

and thinking substance will

provoke many objections.

I'll answer everyone.

In the meantime you must publish

my treatise as soon as possible,

I'll think about the

objections afterwards.

Madam.

Come here, good girl.

I've put in bread, butter,

cheese, candied fruit

and four pairs of tights

I made for you.

A person that possesses a

treasure without knowing it,

is much poorer than someone

who doesn't have one.

When will you arrive at Leida?

In two days, I've got a good horse.

You stayed with us for

too short a time.

I've got some duties to

perform, I can't do otherwise.

A pot of gold doesn't mean a hearth.

You cannot understand.

I'm talking for your daughter,

not for myself.

Elena, I hope that the day'll

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