Ferrier

Mr. Ferrier was the celebrated maker of mathematical instruments for grinding lenses in Paris.

Mr. Mydorge had recommended Ferrier to Descartes.

He did not forget anything to make the conditions he was offering him very advantageous, both for the conveniences of life and for the satisfaction of the mind. He wrote to him on June 18, in a way that was both polite and urgent, and dated his letter from Amsterdam, where he gave him his address so as not to be obliged to reveal the place of his residence.

He pointed out to him, to invite him to come even more willingly, that since he had left him, he had learned many new things concerning their lenses, and that he hoped to make him go beyond anything that had ever been seen.

Everything he had in mind on this seemed so easy to execute, and at the same time so certain, that he no longer had any doubt about what could depend on the hand, as he had had before. But because these things could not be sent by letters, due to a thousand things that cannot be foreseen on paper and that are often corrected with a word when one is present, it was necessary for them to be together.

He promised him that if he was “man enough” to make the trip and come spend some time with him “in the desert,” he would leave him all the leisure to practice without anyone being able to distract him; that he would remove from him all objects capable of giving him anxiety; in a word, that he would be no worse off than him in any way, and that they would live together “as brothers.” He obliged himself to pay all his expenses as long as he pleased to stay with him, and to put him back in Paris when he wanted to return there.

Not being able to give him money in Paris without revealing the place of his residence which he wanted to keep hidden, he provided him with other means, both for his personal expenses and for the purchase of useful tools and furniture for their household. He marked his route by Calais to Rotterdam or Dordrecht, where he addressed him to Beeckman, rector of the college, who was to provide him on his behalf with money and everything he might need to complete his journey.

He advised him to bring everything of his own that he would have trouble leaving, and in case of difficulty, to come rather “all naked” than to fail.

He told him, however, that if he currently had some good fortune, he would be sorry to entice him away; but that if he was no better off than when he had left him, he should not hesitate about the trip he was proposing to him. Finally, he told him that while waiting for him, he would take a whole lodging for themselves, where they could both live “in their own way and at their ease.”

Mr. Ferrier’s response to such advantageous offers made him realize that he lacked the resolve for this trip and that he should not expect him, either because of the honor he had of currently being employed for Gaston of France, the king’s brother, or because of the hope of making his fortune better in Paris than elsewhere.

Mr. Descartes had already hired a boy who knew how to cook in the French style. He was thinking of buying furniture and wanted to take for three years a part of the small castle of Franeker, where he had been content until then with a simple “apartment.” But seeing that Mr. Ferrier was not coming, he arranged his affairs in another way, so that he left Friesland to come and live in Amsterdam around the beginning of October.

He did not fail to serve Mr. Ferrier with his usual affection, and he gave him new signs of it from the first week of his establishment in Amsterdam. Ferrier had written to him toward the end of July or the beginning of August to let him know of the hope that had been given to him of being able to work for the king. To facilitate the means of advancing this matter, Mr. Descartes had recommended him to the Fathers of the Oratory, most of whom were his private friends. The thing was already succeeding to the liking of both, when the death of Cardinal De Bérulle came to break the measures that had been taken under his protection.

Ferrier did not fail to write back to Mr. Descartes immediately, and he tried to make him feel how much this accident was harming his particular interests.

Descartes was not insensitive to it, and he made him understand by the letter he wrote to him from Amsterdam on the eighth of October how much he would have wished that fortune had been more favorable to him.

He told him that he should not yet despair of being able to lodge at the Louvre, despite the absence of Father De Gondren who was to succeed Cardinal De Bérulle in the general superiority of his congregation. He even advised him to go and find Father Gibieuf or Father De Sancy if a place became vacant before Father De Gondren’s return and to engage them by his importunities to guarantee him what one of their fathers had made him obtain. Ferrier, who on the recommendation of Mr. Descartes and Mr. Mydorge had gained access to scholars and even to great people, had imperceptibly fallen into negligence out of a little too much self-satisfaction. Mr. Descartes noticed it, and without wanting to go to the root cause, he advised him to use the present time without trusting too much in the future. He told him clearly that he would never advance if he always delayed from three months to three months until his domestic affairs were in better condition. He also gave him other particular advice on various instruments he had to make, and especially on the lenses he was to grind. He even wanted to send him the models of what he had thought about this, and he promised him that he would lack nothing that could depend on him, no more than if he were in Paris.

Mr. Ferrier had for all these kindnesses of Mr. Descartes all the feelings of gratitude of which he was then capable, and he wrote back to him on the 26th of the same month to thank him and to ask for clarification of some difficulties on what he had sent him. He expressed his desire to put himself in a position to work on his instructions without delay, both for the models and machines he had described to him and for the grinding of the lenses for which he had prescribed the method. But his bad fortune formed various obstacles to these beautiful plans as soon as he showed some good resolution. The cooling he found in the affection with which Mr. Mydorge, as a friend of Mr. Descartes, had honored him until then also contributed to disheartening him, and it seemed to subject him so much to following his orders and his lights in his work that it did not leave him the freedom to follow those of Mr. Descartes.

This is at least what Mr. Ferrier wanted to insinuate in his letter to Mr. Descartes, that he perhaps would not have been sorry to have a falling out with Mr. Mydorge and to get ahead of him, in the thought of drawing some advantage from the mutual suspicions of these two old friends.

Mr. Descartes pretended to listen to his complaints, and insisting on all things to make him use the “present time without delay at any cost,” he advised him to change his residence and to suffer all sorts of inconveniences elsewhere, provided he could have time to work on what he told him. In case he could not move, he persuaded him to openly tell Mr. Mydorge his plan rather than to delay working; to let him know, even on his behalf if it was needed, that it was impossible to succeed in the way he had prescribed.

Ferrier only suffered with difficulty, especially since Mr. Descartes’s departure, the assiduity with which Mr. Mydorge pressed and examined his work.

He found it a little strange that he so often taxed him with ignorance, slowness, and clumsiness without teaching him anything, whereas Mr. Descartes, not content with always treating him with gentleness and much politeness, had also had the kindness to instruct him in all things and to guide his hand. Ferrier claimed to owe everything to Descartes and nothing to Mr. Mydorge.

He even had the indiscretion to publish that Mr. Mydorge passed himself off as the first author of various secrets, the knowledge of which he held only from Mr. Descartes. But Mr. Descartes, without dwelling on his small resentments, wanted to give him an example of his disinterestedness by pointing out to him in general that the vanity of people who attribute to themselves the glory of a thing to which they have contributed nothing makes no impression on those who are only attentive to their duties. It appears that Mr. Ferrier found his domestic affairs in bad shape only for having wanted to distinguish himself too much from the artisans of his profession and for having become engrossed in the theory of mechanics to the detriment of his work. He had been sure of his subsistence as long as Mr. Descartes had been in Paris. His retirement should have opened his eyes to the necessity of working to live, after having lost a patron whose like was no longer found among the scholars of Paris with regard to him. But the sweetness he had found in meditation and in the conversations of mathematicians had greatly diminished in him the habit of work. So, Mr. Descartes believed himself obliged to strongly exhort him to resume the manufacture of common instruments and other things that brought present profit according to his profession. If he had time left over to work in the hope of a greater profit in the future, he advised him to use it for the lenses.

To succeed surely in this last occupation, he had to prepare all the machines at leisure, because this would be the way to be able to grind each lens in a quarter of an hour afterwards. But that for the rest, he should not hope to do wonders at the first attempt with these machines. This is a warning he gave him so as not to let him feed on false hopes and not to get him to work on it unless he was resolved to spend a lot of time on it. But he made him hope that “if he had a year or two to be able to set up everything that was necessary, they would manage to see by his means if there are animals on the moon.”

Descartes was not content with raising his courage with his exhortations; he also gave him all the clarifications he had asked for, with new instructions in a long letter he sent him shortly after. As he no longer thought of attracting him to Holland, he took care to particularly recommend him to Father Mersenne, to whom he wrote to ask him to look for a place more convenient for him than the one he was in, both for living and for working.

“I am sure,” he said to this father, “of the execution of Mr. Ferrier’s lenses, provided he works alone and that he is at peace. This is certainly something of greater importance than one imagines. There are so many people in Paris who lose money making quacks blow: would there not be someone who would want to keep Mr. Ferrier for six months or a year to do nothing else in the world but that? For he would need time to prepare his tools; and it is the same as in printing where the first sheet costs more time to make than several others.”

This concern and this ardor that Mr. Descartes showed in the eagerness with which he embraced Ferrier’s interests well deserved that this man, for his part, take some steps to help himself and correspond to so much care. Nevertheless, Mr. Descartes did not receive a response to the letter he had taken the trouble to write to him on the thirteenth of November, and he heard no more from him for the rest of the year.