Descartes in Germany

After the Hungarian campaign, Descartes resolved to never carry the musket.

He had no fight to wage on this occasion, neither against his temperament, whose ardor had cooled with the labors of four years of military service, nor against his inclination which now only carried him to seek tranquility to meditate on his philosophy.

He did not want to return to France because of:

• the war that the Huguenots had just ignited there, or
• the plague in Paris for nearly a year which only ceased in 1623

So he went to the northern countries.

The envious and adversaries that providence destined him from then on, did not let this circumstance of his life escape: and a long time after, a minister from Holland was seen reproaching him for this action as a trait of cowardice. According to this author, it was the despair of being able to become a marshal or lieutenant general, that made him renounce the profession of arms, him who had never wanted to be an ensign or a lieutenant.

Descartes was content to laugh at this insult. The minister who, to make him odious among Protestants, affected to make him pass for a short-robed Jesuit, drew up his horoscope on this place, and guessed that he was born under the star of St. Ignatius of Loyola.

He pretended by this extravagant imagination to make a parallel of this saint and his disciples with Mr. Descartes and the followers of his new philosophy, giving as an epoch to the foundation of the institute of the first, and to the origin of the philosophy of the second, the renunciation of one and the other to the bearing of arms, of which he put the principle in a movement of despair. Although Mr. Descartes was not of the number of saints like Ignatius of Loyola, he did not fail to suffer these reproaches with the patience of a saint: at least he tried to imitate the disciples of this saint, who only avenged him of this outrage from the minister by contempt and silence.

Few great men in the world have been seen who have not taken the side of traveling, since the human race has spread in the various places of the earth, and that it has been found divided by the diversity of language, religion, morals, and ways of life. We have been very satisfied with the reasons that these great men have alleged to us for this curiosity: and one must hope from public justice that we will not be less so from those of Descartes, whom no one will accuse of having been an innovator in this point. The example of these great men is an apology for his conduct, as his conduct can be one for them when they need it.

Common sense which is of all centuries, made him know as to them, that to know exactly, one must not stick to the meditations of one’s office, nor to the habits of one’s native country. He therefore used the rest of his youth to travel, especially in the provinces where there were no wars. He applied himself particularly to seeing and examining the courts of princes, to frequenting people of various humors, and of different conditions. He also studied a lot to collect various experiences, both on the natural things that the different climates he passed through produced, and on the civil things he saw among the peoples, of different inclinations and customs.

This is what he called “the great book of the world,” in which he pretended to seek the true science, not hoping to be able to find it elsewhere than in this volume open publicly, and in himself, according to the persuasion where he was that the seeds that God has put in us are not entirely suffocated by ignorance or by the other effects of sin. Following these principles, he wanted his travels to serve him to test himself in the encounters that fortune proposed to him, and to make him make on all the things that presented themselves, reflections useful for the conduct of his life.

For he flattered his mind with the hope of being able to meet more truth in the reasonings that individuals make concerning the affairs that concern them, than in those that a man of letters makes at the bottom of his office, concerning speculations that produce almost no other effects than vanity, which he draws from it all the more willingly, as they are usually more distant from common sense, after having put all his mind and all his industry to make them probable.

But to tell the truth, when he only applied himself to considering the morals of other men, he found hardly anything to assure himself of anything. He perceived there almost as much diversity as he had noticed formerly among the opinions of the philosophers. So that the greatest profit that he drew from it, was that seeing several things which, however extravagant and ridiculous they appear to us, do not fail to be commonly received and approved by other peoples, he learned at least to believe nothing lightly, and not to be stubborn about what example and custom had formerly persuaded him. This is how he gradually delivered himself from a lot of errors, which he believed capable of obscuring our natural light.

He left Hungary towards the end of July of the year 1621, and taking the extremities of upper Germany, he re-entered Moravia to pass into Silesia. We do not know of what duration was the stay he made in Breslau and in the other cities of the country. The peoples were beginning to breathe a little from the ravages and cruelties exercised during that year throughout Silesia by the army of the Marquis of Jägerndorf, whom the elector palatine had left to try to revive his party and that of the rebels, when he withdrew into the march of Brandenburg. The holding of the states of Silesia, which assembled in Breslau around the same time, gave him the opportunity to see all that the province had of most considerable gathered in the same place. The elector of Saxony, general commissioner of the imperial ban, arrived there in November with a lot of pomp.

He made the ceremony of the oath of fidelity and obedience, which the princes and the states of the duchy of Silesia lent in his hands to Emperor Ferdinand.

Descartes then wanted to push his curiosity to North Germany. He went to Pomerania by the extremities of Poland towards the beginning of the autumn of the same year.

He found it peaceful with a rather small foreign commerce, outside of the city of Stettin.

After having visited mainly the coasts of the Baltic Sea, he went up from Stettin in the march of Brandenburg.

The elector was newly returned from the diet of Warsaw in Poland, and from Prussia, where he had gone to have the homages of the nobility and the peoples rendered to him, after having received the investiture of the King of Poland. He was actually at war with the house of Neuburg concerning the succession of the duchies of Jülich, Cleves, Berg, or Monts.

Descartes then passed to the duchy of Mecklenburg, and from there to Holstein, from where some authors believed that he had gone to Denmark. This opinion would have nothing incredible, if we had something to persuade ourselves that Mr. Descartes had made the trip to Denmark twice in his life.

But if he was there only once, as he seems to insinuate in the places of his letters where he had occasion to speak of it, it is necessary to cut out the supposed trip of the year 1621, because the one he made to Denmark eleven or twelve years after, is indubitable, having for a character of certainty the fixed establishment of Mr. Descartes in Holland, and the company of Mr. de Ville-Bressieux, called by Sieur Borel Mr. de Bressieux, whom he did not yet know in 1621.

Being on the point of leaving to go to Holland before the end of November of the same year, he got rid of his horses and a good part of his luggage: and he only retained one valet with him.

He embarked on the Elbe, whether it was in Hamburg, or whether it was in Glückstadt, on a vessel that was to let him land in East Friesland, because his intention was to visit the coasts of the German sea at his leisure.

He went back to sea a few days later, with the resolution of landing in West Friesland, of which he was also curious to see some places. To do it with more freedom, he retained a small boat to himself all the more willingly, as the journey was short from Emden to the first access of West Friesland. But this disposition that he had taken only to better provide for his convenience, almost proved fatal to him. He had to deal with sailors who were the most rustic and most barbaric one could find among people of this profession. It was not long before he recognized that they were scoundrels, but after all they were the masters of the boat. Mr. Descartes had no other conversation than that of his valet, with whom he spoke French. The sailors who took him more for a foreign merchant than for a cavalier, judged that he must have money.

This is what made them take resolutions that were in no way favorable to his purse. But there is this difference between sea robbers and those of the woods, that these can in assurance leave life to those they rob, and save themselves without being recognized: while those cannot put a person whom they have robbed on board, without exposing themselves to the danger of being denounced by the same person. Also the sailors of Mr. Descartes took surer measures not to fall into a similar inconvenience. They saw that it was a stranger come from afar, who had no knowledge in the country, and that no one would think of claiming him, when he came to be missing. They found him of a very tranquil, very patient humor; and judging by the gentleness of his face, and the honesty he had for them, that he was only a young man who did not yet have much experience, they concluded that they would have an easier time of his life. They did not hesitate to hold their council in his presence, not believing that he knew any other language than the one he was talking with his valet; and their deliberations went to beat him to death, to throw him in the water, and to profit from his spoils.

Descartes seeing that it was for real, got up all at once, changed his countenance, drew his sword with an unforeseen pride, spoke to them in their language in a tone that seized them, and threatened to pierce them on the spot, if they dared to insult him. It was on this occasion that he noticed the impression that the boldness of a man can make on a base soul; I say a boldness that rises much above the forces and the power in the execution; a boldness that on other occasions could pass for a pure bravado. The one he showed then had a marvelous effect on the minds of these wretches. The fright they had of it was followed by a stunning that prevented them from considering their advantage, and they conducted him as peacefully as he could wish.