Descartes vs Beeckman

Gassendi had not yet returned to France from his trip to the Netherlands, when Father Mersenne set out to make the same trip.

This can be assumed on the faith of a letter that Mr. Gassendi, being in Paris, wrote immediately after his return to Sieur Béeckman, rector or principal of the college of Dordrecht.

The letter is dated September 15, 1629.

Father Mersenne had already seen Sieur Béeckman in Dordrecht, and that he was currently in Gorcum, a city three leagues away from there. Father Hilarion de Coste only marked this trip in the year 1630, because it actually lasted until the month of September of that year, and because this author had not undertaken to enter into the detail of the travels, and of the other actions of Father Mersenne. So that if in the letters that Mr. Descartes and Gassendi wrote during this interval, one imagines seeing Father Mersenne in the middle of Paris, by the way he is spoken of there, it must be attributed to the industry of this father, who knew how to serve his friends everywhere he was with so much activity and success, that one did not notice his absences or his impediments.

This father, being in Dordrecht, had long conversations with Sieur Béeckman on the subject of Mr. Descartes, whom he knew to be his particular friend for several years. The discourse had often fallen on this father’s favorite knowledge, I mean on music, and all that concerns sounds. Béeckman had nothing in his cabinet that could be more agreeable to him than the copy of the small treatise on music that Mr. Descartes had formerly composed in his consideration when he was in garrison in the city of Breda, where they had laid the first foundations of their friendship. The civilities and the testimonies of esteem with which Father Mersenne accompanied the conferences he had with him increased a little the good opinion that Béeckman already had of himself.

Father Mersenne having left Dordrecht continued to treat him with the same civilities in the letters he wrote to him, which made Sieur Béeckman finally believe that he was indeed as this father only depicted him as a compliment. The fear of harming his good fortune prevented him from contradicting this father in his answers: and believing he was putting the finishing touch to his reputation, he insinuated to him in one of his letters that Mr. Descartes had learned a good part of what he knew from him, both on music and on geometry. He colored this vanity as best he could by the plausibility that he established on their old commerce of Breda, and on the double of the age of Mr. Descartes, who could form an exterior of a master for him in relation to the youth of Mr. Descartes. But Béeckman had the misfortune of writing these poor things to a man who knew Mr. Descartes better than him. The sincerity with which Father Mersenne was in the habit of telling Mr. Descartes everything that happened concerning him, did not allow him to hide this trait of the ingratitude of Sieur Béeckman, who owed to Mr. Descartes what he boasted of having given him.

Descartes was not very touched by the conduct of Sieur Béeckman.

But he did not fail to write back to Father Mersenne in the terms of the freedom that one uses with a friend, with whom one has no measures to keep when one writes only for him.

“You have obliged me,” he told him, “to warn me of the impertinence of my friend. The honor you have done him by writing to him has undoubtedly given him so much vanity, that he has been dazzled: and he believed that you would have a better opinion of him, if he wrote to you that he was my master ten years ago. But he is very much mistaken. For there is no glory in having instructed a man who knows nothing, and who confesses it everywhere freely. I will not tell him anything since you do not want me to, although I had enough to shame him, especially if I had his entire letter.”

Meanwhile the commerce of news and sciences always continued between Mr. Descartes and Sieur Béeckman who remained at rest on the discretion of Father Mersenne.

But Descartes having asked him back, as if by occasion of something else, his small treatise on music, of which he had the original for eleven years, that is to say, since the time of its composition, the worry where such an unexpected demand put him made him write three or four times in a row to Descartes to beg him to leave him a work of which he believed he had acquired the property, both by the indifference that he had testified for him after having composed it, and by the length of the time that had elapsed since he had made him a present of it.

His requests were useless to him, and he had to dispossess himself of a good, which Mr. Descartes to amuse himself with him recognized could belong to him, “if ten years are enough for prescription.”

Béeckman finally suspected what Father Mersenne “could have told Mr. Descartes”: and as if shame had prevented him from making excuses, he wanted to resort to clarifications, to make him understand that the work he had attributed to himself was a manuscript of his hand, where the resemblance of things with those of the original of the treatise on music in question had made Father Mersenne believe that it was the work of Mr. Descartes.

This detour displeased Mr. Descartes, who would have wished that everyone had had the same uprightness of heart as him; and who on the exact report of Father Mersenne who had spent more than a day reading this manuscript in Dordrecht, could not doubt that Béeckman was passing himself off as the author of his work. He was truly touched to see that this man boasted of having written such beautiful things on music, at a time when he only knew of it what he had learned from the book of Jacques Le Fèvre d’Etaples. But neither this consideration, nor the other subjects he had to complain of the ingratitude of this man whom he had recognized in many other encounters would have ever attracted an answer to Béeckman, if Mr. Descartes had not found himself in the necessity of putting the honor of Father Mersenne out of his insults. “You are mistaken,” he told him, “and you judge very badly of the honesty of a person as religious as is Father Mersenne, if you suspect him of having made me some report about you. But not to get involved in the justification of either this father or any of those whom you could accuse as unjustly as him: I must tell you that it is neither from him nor from any other, but from your very letters that I have learned what I find to reprehend in you.”

Mr. Descartes coming from France at the end of the winter of the year 1629 to retire to Holland, had gone straight to Dordrecht to see Sieur Béeckman as an old friend with whom he intended to form a closer study society than ever. During the few days he remained in this city, Béeckman far from giving him some lights, and assisting him in his studies, stopped their progress for some time by the impediments he formed there by asking him for help himself. As busy as he was with considerations of which Béeckman recognized himself as incapable, he had to give in to his importunities, and “teach him things that he had left a long time ago as exercises of youth.” Béeckman showed him a book that he had composed under the title of “mathematico-physique.” Mr. Descartes had enough politeness to show him some esteem for his work: and to overwhelm him with his civilities, he told him on leaving him that he would always esteem himself happy to be able to profit from his lights, and that he would be proud to call himself “his student and his servant.”

A French civility of which this good Dutchman was the dupe.

For after a correspondence of more than six months, maintained by very frequent letters, then interrupted by the vanity and indiscretion of Sieur Béeckman, for a whole year, this one, jealous of the reputation of Mr. Descartes, took it into his head to write to him after the return of Father Mersenne to France, and to tell him that if he wanted to watch over the good of his studies he should return to him in Dordrecht, and that he could nowhere profit more than under his discipline. He still held other speeches as frivolous, pretending to be very interested in his advantage, and to have for him all the tendernesses of which a master and a friend can be capable for a beloved disciple. This language made Mr. Descartes believe that Béeckman had composed this letter only to show it to others before sending it to him, and to spread the rumor that he had often received his teachings. This is what led him to answer him on October 17, 1630, by a remonstrance written in the style of a master. He pretended to ask him for the denouement of the intrigue of his letter, testifying that he did not believe him to have fallen from his reason to the point of not recognizing himself with regard to him. He preferred to suspect of artifice than of stupidity a man who boasted outside of having taught him something, when his conscience dictated the contrary inside.

To cure him of his weakness or his malice, he was willing in consideration of their old friendship to make him know the things that one person can learn to another. He made him notice that there are only those who can persuade us by their reasons, or at least by their authority, who deserve to pass for people who “teach others.” If someone without being carried there by the weight of any authority or of any reason that he has learned from others, comes to believe something; even if he had heard several people say it, one must not imagine for that that they have taught it to him. It can even happen that he knows it being pushed by true reasons to believe it; and that the others have never known it although they have been in the same sentiment, because they have deduced it from false principles. On this reasoning he warned Sieur Béeckman that he had learned nothing more from his imaginary physics that he qualified with the name of “mathematico-physique,” than he had formerly done from the Batrachomyomachia of Homer, or from the tales of the stork. His authority had never served as a motive for him to believe any thing, and his reasons had never persuaded him of anything. Mr. Descartes could have approved things that he had heard from Béeckman, as often happens in conversation: but he claims that this had been so rare with regard to him, that the most ignorant of men could have said as much by chance that would agree with the truth: besides that several can know the same thing without any having learned it from the others.

He found Béeckman quite ridiculous to amuse himself with so much care in distinguishing in the possession of the sciences what was his from what was not, as if it were a question of the possession of a land or of some sum of money. Béeckman was well persuaded that what he knew was entirely his, although he had learned it from another: so it was by a strange jealousy that he pretended to prevent the others who would have known the same thing, from saying that it belonged to them. This is what led Mr. Descartes to consider him like these mentally ill people whom madness makes happy, and to believe him as opulent as that man who imagined that all the vessels that came into the port of his city belonged to him. But he judged him too blinded by his good fortune when he wanted to be the only possessor of a common good, and not to suffer that the others attributed to themselves not only what they knew and what they had never learned from him, but also what he himself confessed to have learned from them. This is an injustice of which he convicted him without difficulty with regard to him.

Béeckman pretended that the algebra that “Mr. Descartes had formerly put in his hands had become so proper to him,” that Mr. Descartes did not even have the freedom to say that he was the author of it. He had also written to him before in similar terms concerning the treatise on music. But it was not enough for him to have the copy of his algebra and the original of his music, to be able to call himself the first inventor of both. He had also had the assurance to ask him for the first drafts he had made of it, so that his usurpation would no longer encounter any obstacle to the frivolous glory he was seeking: as if the memory that Mr. Descartes had of these writings would not have been capable besides of discovering to the public what they contained.

Béeckman had had the foresight to mark in the register, or the manuscript that he had shown to Father Mersenne, the time at which he pretended to have thought each thing; but the very worry that appeared in this vain precaution was what made Father Mersenne doubt the truth of these remarks, and the fidelity of the manuscript. This is what made Mr. Descartes say that Sieur Béeckman was unhappy in the middle of so much wealth which feared thieves, and which demanded so much care to be preserved. But in order to still serve him, despite his rudeness, in the passion he had to acquire glory, he was willing to teach him the three kinds of things that one can find, to make him judge if he had ever invented anything that truly deserved some praise.

“The first kind,” he says, **“of things that one can invent is of those that we can find by the sole force of our mind, and by the conduct of our reason. If you have any of this kind that are of some importance, I admit that you deserve praise: but I deny that for that you should fear thieves. Water is always similar to water; but it has a whole other taste when it is drawn at its source, than when it is taken in a jug or in a stream. Everything that is transported from the place of its birth to another, is sometimes corrected: but most often it is corrupted, and it never so much preserves all the advantages that the place of its birth gives it, that it is not very easy to recognize that it has been transported from elsewhere. You publish that you have learned many things from me. I do not agree with that. But I allow you to use the things that you believe you have learned from me, and to attribute them to yourself, if you judge it appropriate. I have not written them on registers, and have not marked the time at which I could invent them. I am nevertheless very sure that when I want men to know what the background of my mind is, however small it may be, it will be easy for them to know that these fruits come from my background, and that they have not been picked in that of another.

There is another kind of inventions which does not come from the mind, but from fortune: and I admit that it requires some care to be guaranteed against thieves.

For if you find something by chance, and by a similar chance another comes to hear that from you: what he will have heard will be as much his, as what you will have found will be yours; and he will have as much right to attribute it to himself as you. But such inventions do not deserve much praise, especially when they are of as little consequence as all that is in your manuscript, where I am sure that one will not find the slightest thing of yours that is worth more than its cover.

The third kind of inventions is that of things which, being only of very little value or despicable in themselves, do not fail to be esteemed by their inventors as things of great price. But these people instead of praise attract only the ridicule and the compassion of those who recognize their blindness.”**

Sieur Béeckman boasted of having taught Mr. Descartes mainly two things, “the trembling of strings, and the hyperbola.” Mr. Descartes showed him that the first of these two pieces of knowledge had come to him from Aristotle; but that he did not swear that Aristotle who had stolen so many philosophers was not also the thief of Sieur Béeckman, to whom in that case he advised to call this ancient in judgment to have him condemned to restore his thought to him.

On what he alleged of the “hyperbola” that he pretended to have taught him, there was only compassion that prevented Descartes from laughing, remembering that Béeckman did not even know what “hyperbola” is, and that he could at most speak of it only as a grammarian.

Descartes had reported some of the properties of the “hyperbola,” particularly that it has of diverting the rays, the demonstration of which had escaped his memory, and which did not present itself then to his mind on the spot. But he had demonstrated to Sieur Béeckman his converse in the “ellipse,” and he had explained to him at the same time certain theorems from which it could be so easily deduced, that with a little attention, one could not fail to meet it.

That is why he had exhorted him to seek it by himself; which he would never have done, after Béeckman had admitted to him that he knew nothing of conics, if he had not judged that this search was very easy.

Béeckman therefore sought this converse of the “hyperbola” on his advice. He found it, and showed it to Mr. Descartes, who testified to be happy about it: and told him that he would use this demonstration, if ever he wrote on this subject. Béeckman took him at his word, without considering that Descartes had used it as a master, who, teaching his student to make verses, would give him an epigram of which he would dictate to him the sense and the matter in such a way, that there would only be a word or two to transpose to put the epigram in its perfection; and who would testify to his joy seeing the student succeed in thus transposing these few words.

But Béeckman acted with regard to Mr. Descartes, just as if this student believed himself a great poet, and wanted to regard his master as his disciple, under the pretext that the master to encourage him would have added that if ever he had to compose an epigram on the same subject, he would not want to use other verses than his own.

But the evil that made Sieur Béeckman cry out mainly, was the pain of seeing that having often given praises to Mr. Descartes, the latter had not returned him any. He complained of it as an injustice. But Mr. Descartes, who was of a character of mind very opposed, wrote back to him “that he himself had to complain of these praises, and that he had not treated him as a friend all the times he had undertaken to praise him.”

“Have I not begged you several times,” he told him, **“not to treat me in this way, and even to abstain from speaking of me in any way. Does the conduct that I have always kept until now not show enough that I am an enemy of these praises? It is not that I am insensitive: but I esteem that it is a greater good to enjoy the tranquility of life and an honest leisure, than to acquire a lot of fame; and I have a hard time persuading myself that in the state where we are, and in the way that one lives in the world, one can possess these two goods together.

But your letters clearly show the reason that led you to praise me. For after all your beautiful praises, you do not fail to say freely that you are accustomed to preferring your “mathematico-physique” to my conjectures, and that you let our friends know it. Do you not show by that that you only seek to praise me to draw more glory from this comparison; and that you only raise the seat that you want to tread on, in order to raise the throne of your vanity all the higher?”**

A remonstrance so little expected somewhat inhibited Sieur Béeckman, who perhaps did not yet know how far the duties of friendship extend, or who did not believe Mr. Descartes capable of fulfilling them with so much force and freedom. He appeared to be all the more vividly touched, as he had recognized at all times the humor of Mr. Descartes less vindictive and more indifferent to reputation and glory.

He communicated the subject of his sorrow to the one who shared with him the rectorship of the college of Dordrecht, and he wanted to unload a part of his pains in his bosom. This colleague tried to help his friend, and took the liberty of writing to Mr. Descartes to prevent the rupture or the cooling of the friendship he had maintained with Sieur Béeckman.

Descartes to not refuse him this satisfaction, wanted to make him know that he was using this occasion as a touchstone to make him test the sincerity and the solidity “of the friendship he had for him.” He was willing to excuse his imperfections on the lack of education and the little politeness he had always noticed in him; and to preserve his friendship under the same conditions as before. But their commerce of letters and news did not resume so soon: so that Mr. Descartes was for some time in the thought that he would no longer write to him in his life.