He drew the six stars of the
Bull, the Pleiades are called,
six, because the seventh
hardly ever appears,
around which another
invisible to the
naked eye, far away
by no more than
just half a degree.
By virtue of his telescope, a very
faithful copy of which I show you here,
obtained with a system
of valuable Dutch lenses,
the Milky Way, which
appeared to us like a cloud,
has been inspected and studied
to such a precise degree that we
can call the countless disputes
that tormented philosophers
for centuries as resolved.
The galaxy, in fact, appeared
clearly like a tannery
of countless stars.
The thing is clear
in whatever region
the observer directs
the telescope at.
Galileo Galilei then divulged
that four planets exist in the skies,
that have never been seen
since the origins of the world
and that he had discovered and observed
their positions, over two months.
They told us that the mathematician
of the Grand Duke of Florence
has also discovered
the secret of sun spots,
what news do you
give us on this point?
At Florence I discovered that Galilei
has studied this point a good deal
but unfortunately he still
cannot give a definitive reply,
or better, if the spots are
really vapours, exhalations,
clouds, or fumes produced
by the solar body.
About the nature of these
spots he is still uncertain
as there could be a thousand
other things we cannot see.
But the thing about the sun,
he believes he can state,
as an absolute certainty,
one of his convictions, agreeing
his studies with those of
the Pole Copernicus is that
the mobility of the earth
is the stability of the sun
around which the planets move
according to fixed orbits.
May I?
Yes go ahead.
If Mr Galilei
insists in his mistake...
It's not a mistake, it's
a reasonable hypothesis.
But he's denying the Bible, Joshua
in fact told the sun to stop
and on his command, the sun,
moving through the skies, stopped.
It is clear that the words
of the Bible must be
interpreted in a different
way. And Galilei...
I am saying that if he continues
to insist in his mistake
I do not see why
you should divulge
his theory to us,
right here at the noble
La Fleche college.
You have talked of Galilei
as if he were a new Aristotle,
his doctrine is mistaken,
an error he has committed
because of his pride which
confuses the faith of the people.
The earth is at the centre of
the universe, all the testimonies
of men , of the humble
just like of the learned,
confirm this truth from
the beginning of time.
I find all your disdain
exaggerated Mr De Bastion.
Our intelligence must
never be subjected
to an unreasonable
fear of an error,
it must confront it and know it,
in order to win over it.
Galilei's hypotheses have raised
numerous criticisms every where,
men of science and of the
church have rushed to warn him,
but as far as we know,
a definitive judgement
has still not been
pronounced about his doctrine.
And if his calculations
prove to be correct,
they will not be able to
contradict the truth in any way.
I think it is important for
all of you to apply yourselves
to studying the information
that Mr De Simone has brought
us from Florence. Deo Gratia.
Deo Gratia.
May the others come forward.
I say that it is absurd
to compare Galileo to Aristotle.
Aristotle constructed his doctrine
on a perfect system
of syllogisms,
while Galileo's science is
born by observing the Universe.
Talking is not allowed
Mr Descartes
Excuse me Gentlemen.
Swords in line. Salute.
On guard.
Knee-flex.
On guard. Knee-flex.
On guard. Knew-flex.
On guard. Second defence.
On guard.
Knee-flex.
On guard. At ease.
Lunge. On guard.
Twirl.
Come forward!
You asked permission to read
Cornelio Agrippa's text
''Natural Magic'' and the one by
Giovanni Battista Della Porta
on the same subject.
Yes, I wish to compare them.
I like curious things.
They say that in ''Natural Magic''
there are the best explanations
about magnetism
that can be read
and the most acute observations
about the obscure chamber.
I give you permission
to read them,
but I must remind you
about what our rule advises.
In these kinds of studies
it opportune to incite, push
and encourage those in need
and it is necessary to slow
down those who run too fast.
And you my dear
Descartes run a lot.
Our purpose is
that of acquiring knowledge
to help souls with the aid of God,
and therefore, in every study we follow
the strictest and most appropriate doctrine
and we adopt the authors who
teach this and an order is followed.
This why only after
having laid down a solid foundation
with a knowledge of Latin,
humanistic arts and logic,
natural and moral philosophy,
metaphysics and theology
can become the object of careful study
I adhere scrupulously to this rule.
But I do not feel any
enthusiasm for these sciences.
I know.
Cornelio Agrippa's book
on natural magic
will certainly give you more pleasure
than a scholastic philosophical text.
Go now.
I thank you Father.
Young Descartes is full of curiosity,
I gave him permission to
read another two books.
His passion for the new
sciences is perhaps excessive.
He is convinced that if the
new sciences lead towards the truth,
they help one to discover and
love God who is the real truth.
Are you still studying?
I asked for permission to be able
to conclude this reading of optics.
I know and tomorrow you
are leaving the college.
Ah, it's Della Porta again.
You love physics very much
But truthfully, have you always
been diligent in every subject?
I was a pupil of this
college for nine years,
and I don't think there is another place
in world, where they teach philosophy better,
but you are correct,
the new sciences
are the ones I loved the most.
You want to become a mathematician,
astronomy, isn't that true?
Yes, but my father ordered
me to take the Diploma in Law
at Poitiers University, and
law doesn't interest me at all.
What are you going to do then?
I don't know yet...
Father, I will try to find out.
Give me your news when you can,
I wouldn't like not
knowing any more about you,
the important thing however,
is for you not to get lost in the world
and to do everything
for the greater glory of God.
Of course.
I'll try not to get lost.
Ah the ''Angelus''.
Let's go.
Straightaway after,
I'll get back to reading.
The King's guards have
killed her husband,
Grand Marshal Dams,
the leader of the government.
The faults of bad
government are his.
She was the black
soul of her husband.
The two Italians, with
the Queen's favour
expected to govern France.
I know that Luigi XIII
has given proof of great ability,
he's got rid of them and
the people are satisfied.
Is Mr Le Vasseur at home?
Yes Sir.
Rene Descartes, Landlord of Peron.
Let him in.
I've been awaiting you for several days.
How's your father?
He wrote to me...
But truly...
I don't know sir,
I come from far away,
from La Turenne.
I haven't seen him
for more than two months.
Unfortunately you have
found much excitement at Paris.
Oh, I don't know the
intrigues of court,
but it seems right to me
that the young king
wants to govern himself
rather than letting
an intriguing courtier do so.
Yes, you're right.
What do you intend to
do now that you're in Paris?
What plans do you have?
I could help you.
I've already told
that to my father.
I would really like no one to help me.
I have decided...
not to start any career.
I need to wait still.
But then if you are undecided,
you'll need some help.
No, because I'm
absolutely not undecided.
I just want to find out by myself,
alone...
how this world is made up.
Paris, for example.
Since I left the college
I've realised
that I've learned nothing
that might be useful to me
in life.
Good God
how I adore your hair,
it's like gentle
waves on your forehead.
and it caresses your beauty gently
and it makes me
jealous when I kiss you.
Your mouth is amber and pink,
but your words will
cut me to the quick
if while you kiss
me you do not tell me
that to love is a sublime thing.
Come with me, the wind is blowing
strong, he certainly can't hear us,
and what we'll do here
will be a very sweet mystery.
Wonderful.
You say that you don't like
law, but you certainly love poetry,
and I am sure that you will soon come to
tell me that you have discovered love in Paris.
I want to discover completely
different things here, at Paris.
That's very uninteresting sir.
Oh no it's not, I can
most absolutely assure you.
Come, I'll accompany
you to your room.
Here's your room ,
I hope you like it.
It'll be fine.
Your father wrote that
you are a little wild,
but here you can feel at home.
I thank you, sir.
Put it down here.
Sir!
Sir!
What's up?
You know I don't want to be disturbed.
Yes I know sir, but it's midday.
A man has been waiting for an
answer to this ticket for two hours.
It is an invitation from Father
Mersenne to the ''Padri Minimi'' convent.
Mersenne is an elderly pupil
of the La Fleche college.
Tell him I'll go.
Go, go.
What do think then,
of these false sciences
that affirm without
ever proving anything.
They invoke the hidden qualities
of the moon and the constellations.
What must we think about the many
who give up praying to God and the saints
to direct magic prayers to the stars.
What must we think
about these astrologers
who dare
to make a horoscope
of our Lord Jesus Christ.
A wise man is neither a
diviner nor even less a magician
he is someone who loves the truth
and like Aristotle believes in nature
and shows it by
studying causes
and the succession
of phenomena.
I certainly do not approve
everything about Aristotle
because almost two thousand
years have passed since his death
and man's science
has progressed a good deal.
But as for the search of the truth,
I repeat again here...
What I've said many other times.
Aristotle is an eagle,
the others are just little chicks.
But Reverend Father
in the search for the truth
Plato says one thing,
Aristotle says another,
Epicure another one again,
Agostino seems to
indicate a different way
to that of Tommaso D'Aquino,
Telesio, Campanella,
Bacon and other innovators
bring still yet more
diverse arguments.
You said that apart from Aristotle,
they are all chicks,
don't you think you're exaggerating.
The sums of the
scholastic philosophers
founded on the doctrines of Aristotle
seem to be perfect constructions
that lead to the truth,
when you study them
remaining enclosed
inside the walls of a library
or of a college...
But they seem very remote
when confronted
with the thousands and
thousands of phenomenon
that are the reality of our world.
Can any of these ever teach us
something with authority
about which there
can be no possible doubt.
You are too young,
you still have much to study.
And you talk in an inconsistent
way, probably about Aristotle
you only know the citations
shown to us in the summae...
And you, you... are
certainly Mr Descartes.
My young La Fleche fellow student.
Father Francoise
of the company of Jesus,
recommended this young man to me,
Mr Descartes
who has a great passion
for mathematical sciences.
You'll be able to get to
know him better later.
Certainly gentlemen ,
but I ask you now to continue
and to excuse my interruption.
Well now...
Let's get back to where we were.
Come and look.
Come.
I've had an idea. I've found the way
of measuring the humidity in the air.
Now, I'll show you
what I've thought up.
Look at these two strips of paper,
the first is in its natural state,
this other one
I moistened previously,
shrinks on drying.
With this method, I believe
that I can measure
different degrees of humidity
like we measure different degrees
of heat with a thermoscope.
It's interesting.
You'll see the effect in a few minutes.
I see that in the scientific field
you don't follow Aristotle
but I don't understand...
if you reject his science,
why ever do you
diffuse the philosophy?
You're not telling me that you too
belong to the innovators,
and reject all kinds of philosophy.
No, I don't reject philosophy at all,
but the doctrines appear
to me constructed
on not very safe bases,
such as sand.
I would be displeased
if through this way
you were to reach scepticism,
this is a danger you know well.
What do you do to avoid it?
I do not look for any other science
that I can't check out
by myself
and...
I draw my lessons from life,
rather than from the books.
But if the authority of the
philosophers makes you gloomy
Who else do think may guide you?
The conviction, Father,
that in the natural condition,
in our soul,
there are seeds of truth
and that it is precisely these seeds
that can give us the ability
to distinguish what is true,
from what is false.
The seeds of truth.
You should write your
observations down
about the philosophy of our times,
a very useful discussion
could be born out of it.
Write?
Ah no. I can't do that Father,
I still haven't reflected enough.
I hope at least you'll come
and find me from time to time
to speak with me
and with my gifted friends
if that would please you.
Of course, I'll be around.
I thank you.
There, did you see?
One day, the old
Marshall of Roclair,
took me to visit a certain Guglielmetta
to ascertain that she could speak
in very different languages
whilst she was possessed by the devil.
I approached her and
began to talk to her in five
or six different languages,
without having any reply
other than incomprehensible
words and horrible swearing in Gascon.
At a certain moment
a priest entered the room
and she came back to normal.
A deception, gentlemen ,
nothing more than a deception.
It is my duty to warn you
that by trying not to believe
in the devil , you'll end up
not believing in God anymore.
And this is why I believe in the devil.
Double six, I've won.
Lord of Candal
permit me to present
my friend Rene Descartes
to you, Landlord of Peron.
You are welcome. Mr Descartes
would you like to taste some tea,
the drink the Dutch
ships bring us back from China
Thank you.
It's also said to be very healthy.
Oh Yes. In fact my doctor
recommended me to drink some
At least 50 cups a day.
Too many perhaps. Please.
I always carry the Santum Regnum,
a precious book, in my pockets
one of the scientific proofs
of the ignorance and hypocrisy
of our century. Were you not
friends, I would be careful
to show it to you because there are
still many in France
who amuse themselves setting up
pyres for heretics and witches.
Ah I see that you're afraid.
Well, that makes me happy.
People who know fear are wise.
Listen, it's a scientific book.
A person who longs to make a pact with
hell, chooses which devil to call up
It's not right to disturb Satan ,
if a lesser infernal power
is sufficient to satisfy your desires.
There, as you see, discretion
is a necessary virtue,
even in hell.
For the evocation the
following is prescribed.
A blood stone
sold at the chemist's
and two blessed wax candles.
There is also a prayer
of certain effect.
Oh Lord Lucifer,
lord of the rebel spirits,
I beg for your help,
and I call your Minister
Lucifugero to
stipulate a contract with him.
Make me appear in human form
and without a bad smell.
Well, don't you think
it's just mad exaggeration
which even the court,
unfortunately worries itself about
and about which the Sorbonne
holds theological debates.
It's absurd.
It's nothing to be amazed about.
At Paris everything is discussed.
You can't peacefully
use your own reason
because you always find someone
willing to demonstrate
that there exists a truth more true
than another with a thousand quibbles.
We should free ourselves
from the Advisors of the Crown,
the Members of the Curia,
the Jesuits and the Dominicans,
the learned men of the Sorbonne and
the influential courtiers.
And also Mr Diluinne,
the king's favourite.
Right.
Don't be amazed Sir,
they are honoured gentlemen,
but they cannot stand neither priests,
nor the Spanish party nor Jesuits,
which are in fact the same thing.
Above all, they want to be free.
Mr De Someuse knows them
well, he's one of them.
I'm Guez De Balzac.
I congratulate you Mr Descartes,
I listened to you at
the Minimi convent
and I must acknowledge your courage.
Mr De Clave was condemned
for having said things
much less prudent than
your speech in public.
I wouldn't have imagined it.
Gentlemen!
Will you not also toast
Maurizio of Nassau.
And why should we?
He prepares a new army,
he freed Holland from prejudices,
brought it to trade
and kicked out the
pedantic priests,
his is the only land on
earth where Calvinists
and Catholics live together, without
giving each other too much irritation.
Don't take any notice
of what he's saying.
Everybody knows that
our great Teofilde Dio,
the poet of liberty
gets fired up easily.
To tell the truth,
very few Catholics have
remained in Holland.
I am happy to toast
Maurizio of Nassau with you
but above all I toast you
because I appreciate and
love your splendid poetry.
I thank you for the compliment
but I warn you that
adulation bothers me.
What I would really like
is to find a true friend,
ready to drink with me.
Do you also intend to enroll
among the Catholics of
the Prince of Nassau.
The best of the youth of Paris,
wants nothing else today,
than to go to the Low Countries
and to fight under his flags,
but I prefer to
remain here in Paris,
I wouldn't know how to
live without her salons.
Mr Descartes has come a long way
from the teaching he received
from the reverend Fathers
from the company of Jesus.
Rebellion against the teaching
of the ancients frees the world.
But the way the ancients
mapped out in the search for
the truth seems to me ever more
full of confusion with every day.
We need to write new books,
to raise men up with poetry,
which is freedom because of its nature.
We must try to prevent falsehoods
coming to us
from the books of the ancients.
Often when the ancients
were faced with problems
they didn't know
the answers to
they demonstrated an
error as the truth,
sustaining their theses with
highly subtle arguments.
I want to come and listen to you and to
be able to put these questions to you
if you would honour me with
giving me your address.
I live in Rue Du Foulle
at Mr Le Vasseur's house.
I thank you.
Find a place at the table for
Mr Descartes and let him play.
Mr De Balzac loves
liberty so much
that he even cannot
stand his garters.
I have heard that
you do not intend
to serve under Maurizio
of Nassau, it that true?
Indeed.
You're making a
bad mistake sir.
The only European countries
where there is still
a residue of liberty
are Venice and Holland.
Venice is a Republic
where trade happens
and they certainly do not discuss
the creeds of their customers,
like in the Low Countries
where Maurizio of Nassau
crushed the Spanish
Inquisition enjoying the help
of the most valorous
soldiers of France,
who were mainly Catholics
D o you want to start to play?
Messrs. Balzac and Someuse
have come to visit you.
Let them come in.
Please excuse this
interruption sir,
but we know that Descartes
lives in your home.
Mr Descartes has
hidden himself,
he left me without
saying anything to me.
His servant came to find
me in great secret.
He said that his master
had gone to hide himself
in some suburb
and that he hadn't come out
of his room for many days.
I confess that I 'm worried.
A kind of fire must
have invaded his brain.
Because of the friendship that ties me
to his father, I believe I am authorised
to violate his retreat, and was
precisely just going to do that.
Would you like to accompany me?
Be careful down there!
We've been walking for more than
half an hour, without ever arriving.
This is the place.
Here. You've made us
cross Paris to find him.
Who is it?
Your friend Le Mersenne
in the company of Mr
De Balzac and Mr Someuse.
Ah come in!
Dear friend, I confess that
having remained for so long
without any news from you,
I feared you were ill.
We met your servant by chance
who led us all the way to
you, unwittingly, I must say.
I am moved by your concern ,
but don't be alarmed,
I'm very well.
I closed myself into this
room alone for many days
and reflected
on every moment of my
life that I can remember
and have reached this conclusion.
I absolutely must free
myself from my infancy
if I want to succeed
in knowing
what human reason
is capable of.
I want to give you a piece of news sirs,
and you are the first to hear it.
I have decided to abandon my books
and to go to Holland,
to enroll in Maurizio
of Nassau's army
like many other young Frenchmen.
What do say gentleman?
Are you really convinced
that you'll succeed in leaving
that part of yourself in France
that keeps your reasoning prisoner?
Well I've got to do something
to free myself from the prejudices
I grew up and was educated in.
Incredible...
Admitting to having prejudices.
It's a rare thing in our times
for someone to recognize this.
When we were little
we learned that with
tantrums and tears
we could make our nurses obey us
and thus also reached the conclusion
that the world was at our disposal.
And in the same way
since ancient times,
humanity's infancy,
man persuaded himself that the
earth was flat and not round
and that it remained immobile
at the centre of the universe.
Also, many other
false opinions were
formed about reality
that are still very difficult
to get rid of today.
Our masters covered these
archaic opinions
with wise words
and in doing so have
strongly rooted
the force of the error
they contain in us.
And you think that
by going to Holland
You'll succeed in freeing yourself
from the contagion of these errors?
I need to remove myself
from the air of this city,
from the noise the words and
opinions of its learned men make
to succeed in making my
reasoning to work freely.
I have decided to refuse
all opinions, even my own,
as if they were all false
and I have decided
that I will not accept
them before carefully examining
them carefully with my reasoning,
only accepting the ones I
reach absolute certainty about.
I will behave like an apple seller,
who empties the whole basket,
fearing the presence
of a few bad pieces
and puts back only the sound fruit.
But I always thought that Paris
was the city most capable
of stimulating the
intellect and of giving
reasoning the greatest liberty.
I believed that too, but...
by travelling in the world
I'll be able to know the
truth much better,
than through the debates
of wise Parisians.
I see that you've already
made your decision,
have you written to tell your father?
Of course I'd never set off on a
journey without letting him know.
And when are you leaving?
Straightaway with little luggage
in which there will not be
enough room for even one book.
Men who love liberty must
follow it every where
because they believe it lives there.
And I see that you believe
that liberty lives in Holland.
If you really do find it,
write to me.
I'll write to you sir.
Bring us some beer.
It seems...
that only traders and sailors
live in this country.
Do you mind?
We would like to talk to you.
Take a seat.
Almost every morning,
at this time,
I see you come here to drink
your customary beer.
Do you find it good?
What do you want from us sir?
We know that you can
handle a sword well.
Anyone who is adept, is a swordsman
But we have been told that
you are very skilled,
and we have been observing
you for several days.
You are never drunk.
I already asked you sir,
what do you want from us?
I'm offering you recruitment.
Two thousand florins per year
as masters of arms
two ships sailing
for the West India Company.
We are cadets without pay sir,
each of us has enough to live on.
But if you love adventure
and like liberty,
there is nothing better for you
than to take to the sea life.
We are offering you positions
on two new merchant ships
- 600 toners -
that have just been armed.
They are ships that look like palaces,
have thirty cannons
and holds larger than
the warehouses of Mr
Van Cliff of Amsterdam.
You would have a
cabin and the sole task
of instructing the sailors and
of commanding the ship's guard.
How many months
would the job be for?
Just one voyage sir, 12 months.
You would find yourself with the tidy amount
of two thousand Florins in your pocket,
because on the voyage
you'd have little to spend.
Please realise that
this is an excellent deal ,
the ships will land at the
Dutch colony of New Holland
at the mouth of the
river piloted by Hudson
in which you navigate
like in a vast sea.
As far as I 'm concerned, I 'm not
interested in your offer at all.
I couldn't take my servant
with me on your ship
and I wouldn't have any comforts
which are indispensable
for me to live and think.
It's strange for a soldier to be
so attached to his comforts.
And you sir, do you refuse the offer?
Unfortunately I must return
to Paris at the end of the year,
otherwise I'd accept.
I come to this tavern every
morning to drink a glass of beer
If you should change you mind...
Just let me know.
Don't hold out any hope for me sir.
This problem has been put
up here for two days now
and no one has yet come
forward with the solution.
Go then friend and good luck.
Good-bye and thanks.
Excuse me sir,
I heard you speaking my language,
could you please translate the
text for me to be more certain?
I haven't understood
some of the details.
My pleasure sir.
Here is a mathematical problem
for an illustrious mind.
A stone falls
from A to B in one hour.
It is perpetually attracted
by the earth with the same force,
without losing any of the speed
imparted to it
by the previous attraction.
Well, what moves in
space moves eternally.
The question is
how long will the stone take
to cross a given space.
Well the solution is simple.
Simple. But...
Why yes...
But I'm the person who posted
this puzzle, despairing of ever
finding an answer to the problem,
and I'm a mathematician.
I'm ready to give you an
explanation whenever you like.
I'll wait for you at my house sir.
I'm anxious to hear you.
Here at Breda, everyone knows where
Isaac Beckman of Middle Border lives.
Here.
In this triangle rectangle
ABC represent the space,
in other words the movement.
The disparity of the space
from point A to the base
BC represents the disparity
of the movement.
Consequently AD will
be covered in the time
represented by ADE and DB in
the time represented by DEBC.
Therefore, AB will be reached
three time more slowly than AD.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Do you know what a scholastic
learned man would have replied
to me in your place?
''Everything present in the universe
belongs in a place that
is natural for it.
The place that is most suitable for it.
We can say that weight
is no more than the appetite
that things have for
finding that blessed place''
''Mr Beckman'' would have told me,
''Your problem is simply
badly expressed.
just tell me first
which body is falling
and I will tell you straightaway
where its preferred place is''.
But all this is simply absurd.
I see sir,
that you are refusing to explain
the physical phenomena to me
by attributing qualities to bodies
that belong only to the spirit.
This is why I love mathematics
but practice medicine.
You're right.
Mathematics
is the only discipline
certainty comes to
us from.
Mathematical sciences teach us
the enumeration and calculation
of any movement,
the relationships, the proportions,
of everything that
exists, of light and of sound.
Mathematical operations always express
evident and concrete logic.
For example, as you know,
the equal sign is fundamental.
Mathematics demonstrates
all the possible disparities to us
in a strictly certain and exact way
and permits us to defend ourselves
from the tricks of appearances.
What I like about you sir,
is the fact that you
don't speak the language
of Scholars
and that you discuss science
in a way that none of my fellow
citizens would be capable of.
Do you know that almost all the
good Calvinists go and listen to
the sermons and don't talk of anything
else except business and theology.
You're not a Catholic are you?
No indeed not sir.
And you are certainly a Roman Catholic.
I'm French, sire
and... Catholic.
But I am sure this
will not impede me from
conversing with you.
I like you sir.
I confess that I would never have believed
in finding a mathematician and a philosopher
hidden in a soldier's uniform.
I hope you'll return to
visit me, sir, and often
as long as you are
staying here at Breda.
It would be a great honour for me.
Sir,
you didn't go to the cavalry practice
this morning,
do you also want to miss the
appointment with Mr Beeckman?
No.
These Dutch beds have made me
lose my taste for sleeping.
No, no that one.
Give me civilian clothes.
And so gentlemen
the soul of this animal,
is an inferior soul to that of man,
which is a superior soul,
and makes this stomach digest,
by extracting the juices
from the foods necessary
to maintain life.
The doctor is attributing functions
to the soul which belong to the body.
It's an ancient prejudice,
a false infantile sensation
like all sensations
and a source of ruinous errors.
Excuse me if I intervene.
Go ahead.
You are wrong in believing
sensations to be false.
When a boy dips a stick into a brook
he may believe it to be broken
when looking at it,
but if he closes his eyes
and feels the stick
along its entire length,
both in and out of the water,
he will realise that his stick is straight.
He will then have corrected the
visual sensation by touching
and will have re-established the truth
without leaving the world of sensations.
No sir.
Because in our case
the boy's reason intervened
that makes him check the touch
sensation after the visual one.
It is reason that leads
him to correct his error.
Without the control of reason,
all sensations are false.
Here is the heart of this animal
that the soul moved thanks to
the pulsing faculty
it possesses.
The doctor is making
affirmations the truth of which
he wouldn't know how to demonstrate.
He cannot tell us how
the inferior soul of this animal
acts directly on our heart.
What do you those
gentlemen object to?
Why don't they speak up
if they have something to say?
I say that to justify your
affirmations you are repeating
ancient Aristotelian theories about
the soul and that you trust in
your personal sensations.
What I teach sir, is the clear truth.
For the majority of men evidence
is what they have always seen
from infancy, when adults
offered their simple minds
an explanation
for everything,
whilst in order to discover
the nature of things
with absolute certainty,
we have to free ourselves
from the vision of the world
we were given, handed down from
father to son down the centuries
and we must rid ourselves
of the tricks of sensations
and learn to use our reason better.
That is what I have to say.
And what vision of the world do you have
to offer us in exchange my dear sir,
seeing that you deny what is handed down to
us, the centuries of experience of the ancients.
A vision of the world
that proves to be evident,
such as the one that comes to
us from numbers, from mathematics.
So what you are claiming is
to replace the teachings
of philosophy and the sciences,
we have from such a long
tradition of learned men, with the
mathematical teaching of our times.
But reality is not made of quantity,
there are qualities in things
and these are picked
up through sensations,
those sensations you fear so much.
Permit me sir, to put you
on guard against your claims,
because you could risk losing your mind
in a dark forest of numbers.
My young friend is an able
and profound mathematician
and I hope you will
understand his perhaps
slightly excessive enthusiasm
for the clarity that
comes from numbers.
Yes, certainly sir.
I apologise for interrupting
you gentlemen.
Please continue your dissertation.
Gentlemen.
I do not know if in two years time
- in other words when
the twelve year truce ends -
the war against the
Spanish will continue.
In any case, the glorious army
of the United Provinces
of the Low Countries must by
that time have an artillery
still more powerful
than the Spanish knew
to their cost, before the truce.
This therefore is your
task for today's lesson.
You must calculate the firing
height of three canons,
and this in relation to the
height of the bastions defending
the city of Ostende to effect
a range that is as safe
and as powerful as possible.
Here are the distances of
the canons from the bastions.
The first is found at 1000 feet,
the second at 750
and the third at 5000.
In 1603 the conquest
of this port by our
troops cost a good four million Florins,
but it would certainly
have cost much, much more
if Prince Maurizio of Nassau
had not been able to count
on the best artillery in the world.
Firing height calculations
are fundamental for artillery
and this is why I recommend
more careful application
in studying this problem.
Good day gentlemen.
As usual, our friend D escartes
will do the calculations.
Will he really do them?
Here are your calculations, gentlemen.
But be certain that
when the war comes,
I will not be here to help you.
Don't worry the war is still
resting for the moment.
And prince Maurizio of Nassau
is only keeping an army armed
to sustain his political struggle
against Van Oldenbarneveldt.
They fought together against
the Spanish at the head of
the Federate Provinces for the
freedom of Holland and they now fight
against each other
like worst enemies.
Oldenbarneveldt is the more elderly,
and wise; he is he public's favourite.
Because he wants
Holland to be a Republic.
And above all he does not want Maurizio
of Nassau to become the King of Holland.
Do you think that Prince Maurizio will
use the army against Oldenbarneveldt?
He has no need.
Prince Maurizio has already
accused Oldenbarneveldt
of heresy for the support he gave
to a faction of Calvinists
and Armenians.
Even among the Calvinists, the
accusation of heresy can destroy a man
better than an entire army.
But if they condemn Oldenbarneveldt
his partisans will rise up.
Whatever happens, in one month
I will no longer be here.
In a month I'll be in Germany.
Duke Massimiliano of Baviera
is recruiting troops.
and certainly with the
license of our Academy,
I think I will be able to find
a good officer post with him
and with pay.
And who will this war be against?
Against the Bohemians, rebelling against
their King and Emperor Ferdinand II.
My uncle wrote to me from Ulma.
After the noble Calvinists
the Bohemians have thrown
the imperial messengers and their
secretaries out of Prague Castle window
with whom they should have
negotiated the terms of an agreement.
In many parts of Germany
troops are being armed.
The imperial Catholics are preparing
to attack and destroy
the Bohemian protestants led by
the Elector Prince of the Palatinate.
In Germany, a year doesn't pass
when an army isn't armed.
It's always been that way.
There have always been some highly
advantageous recruiting moments.
And there is also the excellent beer
and the very beautiful women.
Mr Beeckman.
Good morning Mr Descartes.
I finally see you awake
at an early hour.
Oh yes. I have great nostalgia
for our good French beds.
I received your card.
Why do you want to abandon the Army?
I didn't come to stay.
I'm a soldier to study
men and to confront
myself against life.
Now, I'm going to Denmark,
and then, perhaps to Germany,
I don't know well yet.
And so you are abandoning
your projects.
Sometime ago, you had promised
to publish a Treatise
on Mechanics and Geometry,
but since you've been at Breda
I haven't seen you write
even one line on this subject.
Naturally that doesn't mean that I didn't
appreciate that excellent musical compendium
you sent me as a Christmas
present, but I confess
that I expected more from
your mathematical mind.
I will write, I will keep faith
with all my projects, don't worry.
But I still need to reflect.
I have understood that men,
when assailed by curiosity,
run the risk of pushing intelligence
in ways unknown to them ,
staying without a precise aim ,
without a reasonable hope,
like by chance, as if guided
just by imagination.
And yet, on more than one occasion ,
I've heard you formulate
some precise hypotheses
and exact calculations.
I still need to reflect.
Well then, before setting off,
you must promise me, at least,
that you'll send me a copy
of everything you write.
Yes dear friend, I promise.
You here at Breda have awakened
me from an old inertia
I was carrying around, you have
brought back my misguided mind
to the serious study of mathematics.
How could I ever forget you.
In Germany at the start
of the winter season,
the forced quartering of the army
obliged me to stay in a house
in which not having
any cares or passions
to disturb my spirit,
I remained completely alone all day,
in a well heated room ,
where I could entertain myself
with my thoughts in complete peace.
In this way, after a
few days of reflection
a new basis of knowledge
came to me, as clear
as a wonderful science
from which it is possible to produce
order in all the thoughts
that can enter the human spirit.
Just like a natural order
exists between all numbers.
The night in which I saw this
new principle, I had three dreams,
the first two, I must
confess, mortally scared me,
the third however, was
very sweet and pleasant,
it was the one in which
I seemed to see the birth
of a new hope for the future.
Tell me your dreams.
Well, I saw myself
walking along a road,
oppressed by a frightening
vortex of wind,
with the impression
of falling at each step.
Then, I saw a college
and it was there I took refuge,
trying to reach the
Church of that college
to pray,
when in the windy courtyard I saw
a man I knew,
who I 'd overtaken without greeting.
I wanted to retrace my
steps to apologise for my
lapse, but it was impossible
as I was pushed back
with unheard of violence by the wind.
Whilst that person,
and the others around him
were upright and stable on their feet.
I on the other hand was
bent over and shaking,
as if that vortex of wind
was blowing just for me.
When I awoke I was
afflicted by a great pain.
I prayed to God
to defend me from evil
and after the passing
of two hours
in profound meditation on the good
and evil things of this world
I went back to sleep again.
And straightway, I had another dream.
I heard a great thunder
and fear awoke me once again
and after opening my eyes
I saw the room
completely invaded by sparks on fire,
something that had happened
to me on other occasions.
Marvelous, fire and light
are important signs.
In a short time, by opening and
closing my eyes alternately,
everything dissipated and I
went back to sleep with great calm.
A moment later, I had the third dream.
Tell me, tell me.
I found a poetry
collection in my hands,
the ''Corpus poetarum''.
I opened it and read this verse:
Quod vitae sectabor iter
Which road
will I choose for my life
A man I had never seen
presented me at that same moment
with a text in verses
that began like this:
''Est et non''
''Yes and no''.
These are very curious
dreams and seem to hide
some important revelations
Have you discovered the meanings?
I examined them carefully.
My first dream
Indicated the errors, the fears,
the doubts of my past life.
The second one could only
have been the evident sign
of the spirit of truth
that came down on me.
The third indicated the future.
''Est et non''
is the ''yes and no'' of Pythagoras,
a future in which
the truth will be revealed to me
and at the same time,
the falsity of human knowledge
and of the profane sciences.
I do not know what destiny
awaits you Mr Descartes,
but I highly recommend you to
pray to God to keep you humble,
because wisdom gets
lost through science,
the absolute truth, namely God,
remains a mystery for all men.
Your advice
is always full of...
wisdom.
You are always so disturbed, unstable.
It's incredible
you will never arrive at any result,
if you do not once and for all choose
a fixed abode, in which
to study and write.
You are right.
But when I stop in a city,
after seeing how the people live
and after talking with all those
I judge worth talking to
I'm taken by a great desire
to start travelling again.
And how long do you
intend to stop in Paris?
For a very short time Father.
I have seen Mr Le Vasseur
who talked to me of your dreams.
He told me that you believe
that you have reached a new basis
for knowing the truth
with absolute certainty.
Mr Le Vasseur exaggerated.
I must still reflect on what
is still an intuition.
But you doubt everything.
To many you appear to be a sceptic,
but it has also been said that
you intend to repudiate
all our old beliefs.
But not that of the faith,
my Father, relax,
because the heavens are open to ignorant
persons as they are to learned ones.
And as for me doubting
everything, don't worry.
I have nothing in
common with the sceptics,
I only want to build my convictions
on rock and not on sand,
as I have no intention of
imitating those travellers
who when lost in a forest
start to turn and wander
around without any direction.
I cannot stop myself from
suspecting that there is
some pride in your affirmations.
Corruption lies there Doctor.
I'm having a comfortable
trunk made for my travels.
Observe how the blacksmith works well.
Our Aristotelians maintain
that the hammer must be swung
fast so that nature
is surprised by the speed
and is not left any time
to gather it forces in
to resist the impact of the hammer.
Don't you think their theory is absurd?
Absolutely.
It'll be ready soon.
I'll come back this evening.
I believe that a method of overcoming
doubt and of producing certainty,
should mirror the mechanical arts,
that contain the principles according
to which it is necessary to fabricate
the instruments necessary for them.
What a noise.
Yes, deafening, we'd best leave.
I must hurry to leave.
When are you leaving?
And where are you going?
Perhaps to Italy.
But before departing I 'm going
to visit my countryside at Turenne
to sell the part
of my maternal inheritance
in land and herds,
but I will not sell
before putting aside
a little butter from my cows for you.
I thank you and don't
forget to write to me.
No.
May God help you.
Requiem eternam...
Here are the two deeds of sale.
Mr Rene Descartes will receive
two thousand
pounds from Mr Dielefis
for the purchase of the Gran
Maison and Marchais estates,
another three thousand
will be paid by Mr Chatillon
for the landed estate of Peron,
and Mr Pierre Descartes,
the brother of Mr Rene
Descartes has no objection?
No none.
I want it to be clear that
purchase of the noble rights
over the Bonvenier land
is part of the same transaction.
This appears in the contract
according to the terms you
agreed at the time with Mr Descartes.
Very good, all you have
to do now is to sign.
According to the terms, the contract
will come into force in eight days time.
- Gentlemen.
- Gentlemen.
- Good-day.
- Good-day.
And so you want to free yourself
of part of the inheritance.
This displeases me because
I realise that you have decided
that you don't want to come
back and live with us.
You don't love France.
I wish to live in a place
useful to me,
that I like, where I can
discover something,
where only a few people know me
and where I can reflect in peace.
When will I be able
to see you again?
I don't know. Certainly
when I return from Italy.
You've sold some good rich land.
But I did so with good profit.
Theophile de Vian is an
unpunished libertine atheist,
what malice to have had
the impudence of writing
horrible blasphemies against God.
With his disgusting verses he has
turned our Paris into a Gomorrah.
He has fled and we burn his effigy,
and together with his effigy,
his writings and the writings
of all other libertines burn.
The prince of darkness must
be hunted down in his realm.
In the eternal flame to which
God has condemned him.
Burn him!
God will punish these libertines.
Also on this earth he will punish them.
Intolerance is like the plague.
I've been away for three years,
but every time I return to Paris
I always find something
that upsets me
and that makes me want to
leave as soon as possible.
You certainly wouldn't have been able to enjoy
such an exciting spectacle as that in Italy.
So much barbarism and so much
vulgarity amazes and upsets me.
Parliament has exiled the
authors of the theses against
Aristotelian philosophy from Paris,
it has forbidden them from divulging
and teaching under the pain of death
and has condemned Teophile together
with many more of our libertine friends.
... who taught their vices and
made even the
candid paper on which
they wrote blush ...
A good job Teophile Vian
managed to flee Paris,
so that now they have to content
themselves with burning his effigy.
... but fire purifies the earth from their
pride and will render justice to God.
The product of proud
minds must be destroyed.
It is like the discord that
suffocates the souls of simpletons.
They will be thrown into hell.
They will tell Father Mersenne
that if I didn't go to see him
it's because I haven't left
the house for a long time.
The air of Paris has
become stifling for me.
Tell him however that I shall certainly
be at the meeting he has prepared for me.
Thank you, sir, there are
many of us would like to know
the fruit of your reflections
Father Mersenne has talked
to us often about you.
Sirs, in bending in to
Father Mersenne's insistence,
I wish to report to you what I have
undertaken to write on this subject,
after two long years of reflection.
The twenty one rules for
guiding intelligence.
It seems incredible to me that
a great number of persons research
the customs of men,
the virtues of the plants,
the motions of the stars,
the transformation of metals and many
other similar disciplines with such fervour
and that no one takes the trouble
of researching man's mind,
about how it may work correctly.
About the human mind, which is a
wonderful and universal source of wisdom
and without which there
would be no knowledge.
The first rule.
The aim of study must be that of
guiding the mind to certain and true
judgements concerning
everything presented to it
If someone seriously wants to find the
truth, he must not just apply himself
to one particular science, because
the sciences are all connected
and dependent on each other
in the unity of knowledge.
The second rule.
We should only concern
ourselves with those objects
that we think we can reach
certain and safe knowledge of
through our intelligence.
On this subject, you need to know
that among the sciences known today,
only arithmetic and geometry are
free from falsity and uncertainties
because they consist entirely of logically
deducing a series of consequences,
concern a pure and simple subject
and their existence is not based
on anything that concrete
experience has made uncertain.
With their aid,
man can fall into mistakes
only by a lack of attention.
The third rule.
We must not stop at studying
the opinions and conjectures
of others or ourselves,
we must try to perceive
the real content of things,
with the clarity of the evidence.
To this end, we use
intuition and deduction.
By intuition, I do not mean the
inconstant fruit of sensations
or of our imaginations,
but the concept that flows
from a pure and attentive mind,
so clear and distinct
that no doubt can remain about it.
For example, two and two are the
same quantity as three and one,
in other words four.
As for deduction, this is
everything that we do not accept
as necessarily true in the
light of previous knowledge
obtained with absolute certainty.
All the other rules are born
from these rules and above all
the fourth one that I deduce
from the previous ones.
A method is necessary for
the search for the truth,
a method that leads
thoughts with order,
by proceeding from the objects that
are the simplest and easiest to know,
and by gradually progressing
to the more difficult ones.
After we have intuited a certain
number of simple arrangements
we pass on to reflecting on
their reciprocal relationships
if clear and distinct
concepts result from them,
with a continuous movement of thought.
In this methodical search for
the truth, we use the intellect,
imagination, the senses
and the memory,
both to distinctly sense
the simple prepositions,
and to correctly compare the researched
things with ones already known.
I believe that all the things
that may be within the reach
of the knowledge of man follow
each other in the same way
as the long chains of simple
and easy reasoning
geometricians usually use
to reach their most
difficult demonstrations.
This, sirs, is some of the reasoning
by which I sustain the twenty one rules
that I have established for
the correct use of the human mind
Excuse me sir,
as you were talking,
I felt a great desire
to read your reasoning.
Tell me when you are
going to publish it.
I cannot tell you when
I'll publish it sirs,
those who know me, know well that
I am like a pilgrim , I love
travelling in my thoughts
just as I love travelling
across Europe
with the purpose of
observing men and things,
to be able to better discover
the infinite faces of the truth
and those of error.
Sir.
Yes, my dear Bretagne,
what's going on this morning?
An excellent day, sir.
I see that you consumed
many candles last night,
did you work late?
Sir, sir, it's almost midday.
Midday?
Yes, and there's already someone who's
been waiting for you for more than an hour.
Oh, send him away.
He's certainly a barbarian if he
comes to tire me at this time of day.
He's a merchant, he comes from Paris.
He says he has a letter for you from Father
Mersenne, do you want me to send him away?
Don't talk nonsense.
Go, tell him I 'm getting dressed
and will receive him straightaway.
Ah, tell the kitchen to
prepare lunch for two.
- Yes.
- And tell the kitchen I want it rich and succulent.
Very good sir.
He must be a really important
guest if your boss
ordered buying the most
expensive fruit in the market.
This way.
Come.
Do I really have to tell our
Paris friends, that for the moment
you have no intention
of returning to France?
Absolutely.
It's really incredible that
you prefer to live in this city
of merchants and sailors,
instead of at Paris, which
is the city of learned men.
Since I established myself here
at Dordrecht, I haven't desired
to return to Paris even once
and to tell you the truth,
I prefer this retreat.
I prefer it, not only for the
silence of the convents
of the Carthusians and
of the hermitages,
but also to the privacy of
certain towns of France and Italy
to which one normally takes
refuge in order to study in peace.
I n the towns many of the
comforts are always missing
that are found in cities like these.
But Paris is a great city.
But I'm too well known ,
here instead there
is no one, me excepted
who does not perform trade
and everyone is so taken up
by his own interests that
I could stay here all my life
without ever being disturbed by a sole.
There is a school of Latin
letters and in this school,
apart from my only friend Beeckman,
there is no one else
that I know of interested in the
things that concern my mind.
I walk every morning in the
middle of the confusion
of a great people with the
same freedom and peace
that you can find in a country town,
and I look at the men I meet
as I would look at trees
and animals in a forest.
The noise of their traffic
does not succeed in interrupting
my fantasising any more than
the babbling of a brook would.
And you who travel,
can you tell me
any other country
in the world in which you
can you en joy such complete
liberty as in Holland.
But the climate?
The winter here is very hard,
the humidity of the fog
corrodes your bones.
It's enough to have
a good stove,
and not to leave home
if the weather's bad.
Ah, ah, ah, you are
an unbeatable hardhead.
In two weeks you could pass
by to collect my reply
to Father Mersenne's letter
you brought to me,
I hoped you would give it
to me straightaway.
No, the reply to Father Mersenne
requires much reflection
and I cannot interrupt
a new difficult study
I am performing on optics right now.
I will only return to Dordrecht at the
end of my journey, in thirty days time.
I'll leave the folder for
you with the tavern owner,
as in a month I will
no longer be here.
And where will you be?
I still don't know yet.
I on the other hand am persuaded
that you know very well,
but don't want to tell me.
It is said that when you
write to friends in Paris,
you mysteriously date your letters,
not from the place where you living,
but from other places,
Amsterdam, Leida or any way
places in which it is certain
you are not to be found in.
It is very difficult to find fruit
as good as this in Paris,
here in Holland, an infinite amount
arrives from the West Indies.
Are you certain it doesn't
harm the intestines?
Absolutely, it is much less indigestible
than the discourses of certain doctors.
Ah, ah, ah, ah.
I thank you , I thank you infinitely
for sparing me from
your point of view hyperbole,
but at the same time, I regret
that you also came to tell me
that you have decided to leave again.
You are as fidgety as no
other man I have ever known,
tell me at least where you're going.
I'm going to Franeker.
So I'll lose you once again.
Ten years ago, when you
left Breda, you promised me
that you wouldn't ever
have left me without your news,
but instead you've been
quiet for ten years.
And I waited in vain for your
texts on mechanics and those
about algebra, and I'm still waiting
because you haven't written them.
You're right to chide me.
Your mind was created
suitable for mathematics
and I think you're doing
a bad thing wasting your time
and talents in disciplines
that don't suit you.
My mind is attracted by mathematics,
I've repeated that to
you many times, I think,
only because it is executed,
in my opinion , with procedures
capable of demonstrating
metaphysical truths,
with greater evidence than
that usually reached
using philosophical demonstrations.
It is precisely your certainty
that seems excessive to me.
You think it possible to
apply it to metaphysics...
It is possible. Have you read
what I demonstrated in this sheet?
The rays, as you see, hit the
lens in a parallel position,
the lens deviates them
and they converge
perfectly at one point.
Everything appears clear,
simple, evident.
And you would claim to
bring the same clarity
and simplicity in
philosophical demonstrations
using only mathematical procedures?
My dear friend, perhaps you
are losing sight of the fact
that philosophy does not only
consider what material
realities are,
but through the ways
of reason it guides
man towards the contemplation of God.
Are you sure that mathematical
procedures are suitable
by their own nature for
approaching man's mind
to such a subtle
reality as God is?
Dear Beeckman ,
I wrote this to Father Mersenne
and I repeat it to you
and I will repeat it to all those
who raise objections on this point.
I will never talk about
theological things, never.
They depend on the truths revealed
through the word of Jesus Christ
and his prophets, but as
for questions of philosophy,
I say that these must all
be examined by human reason.
It is through this path that I
proved the foundations of physics
and through the same path
- beyond the physical sciences -
I am firmly convinced
that I can demonstrate
philosophical and
metaphysical questions.
Now, as for the
question you asked me,
if by their nature mathematical
procedures are suitable by their nature
for approaching man's mind
to the mystery of God,
I reply that everything
created is His work
and that mathematical
truths that depend on Him
are His work,
as is the rest
of creation.
To say that these truths are
uprooted and independent of Him,
would be like comparing
God to a Jupiter or a Saturn,
it'd be like wanting to subject God
to a reality external to him
and independent of him.
The clarity of mathematics, its rules,
come from God and
are subjugate to him.
Why should we be afraid
then for them to be used
by we men as an instrument
to know all the truths.
As always, your arguments
are exact and acute,
and I regret that your departure
will deprive me in the future
of the consolation I derive
from listening to them.
I'll write to you.
That I don't believe at all.
You know me little, dear Beeckman ,
the thought of your friendship
will always be of great
comfort to me.
The blood of all living
beings pulses in the veins
and is moved and pushed from
all parts at the same time,
and so the veins all pulse
at the same instant
because they all depend on the
heart that moves them continuously
This is what Aristotle taught us,
who like all the
ancients called veins,
what we today call arteries.
The heart is the cause
of this movement.
The heart of an eel for example,
once extracted
and placed on a table or on a
hand clearly behaves like this,
and the same is true for
the hearts of small fishes
and of all cold-blooded beings.
Even if in fish and in
all cold-blooded beings,
such as snakes and the frog ,
the heart is paler when it moves,
it returns to its bright red
colour during moments of stasis.
These observations,
sirs, are not my own,
I can only say that I have
confirmed them with my experience
as I have performed many vivisection operations
and dissections on land and sea animals.
These observations were written
for the first time in a book
the typographer Wilhelm Frietzer
printed at Frankfurt
with the title ''De motu cordis
et sanguinis in animalibus'',
written by a man that I repute
to be among the greatest
men of science in the world,
Sir William Harvey.
In 1628 he presented the unbiased
and indomitable Charles,
King of Great Britain, with this book.
Harvey wrote:
The heart of living beings
is the basis of life,
the lord of everything connected
with life, the sun of the microcosm.
All vital acts
depend on the heart,
energy and all vigour
come from the heart,
in the same way in which the king
is the basis of his realm
the sun of the state.
Blood succeeds in reaching the
most extreme parts of the body
through the arteries
and ever finer conduits,
and by entering the
tissues it waters them
with vigour and makes them live.
The veins in their turn,
collect and return it to the heart
and this determines
a perennial circuit.
What you maintain is that blood
is alive in the bodies of animals,
of fish and men without
any external influence.
Do you deny the influence of the stars?
Certainly, certainly.
When we dissect the
bodies and see life
pulsing inside an organism,
we are convinced that many
doctrines sustained until our times
by the men of science preceding
us, are pure fantasies.
Discovering nature's secrets imposes
a long struggle on the scholar.
It is necessary to observe, calculate,
compare, for days and days and if this
is not enough, for years and years.
It is necessary to humbly
correct one's own mistakes
and if necessary to go back to the
start, without any presumption.
The road to knowledge is terribly slow
and has nothing to do with the
illusory excitement of fantasy.
Your words sir, are
illuminated and too rarely
do we find this today
among learned men.
They prefer to believe
that the fables
written by the ancients about the
nature of the world are infallible.
Do you share the
doctor's doctrine then?
I agree with it, certainly.
I also have dissected fish
and many other animals
and I too an convinced
that blood circulates
in the way Dr Harvey
has taught and add
that in my opinion,
blood is effervescent
by its own nature
and that its continuous
re-boiling in the heart
is the cause of the pulsing found
in all living bodies.
In this, sirs, I agree
with Aristotle's doctrine.
The heart is a very hot vessel
and this easily explains
the mechanism of cardiac motion.
It is hearth in which the matter
and the principle of innate heat
are contained and conserved
from where it is transmitted
to all the other organs.
On this point,
I don't agree with you.
As Dr Harvey says,
the movements of the heart
consist of very rapid beats
and of instantaneous stokes
produced as by a muscle,
whilst this boiling
process you talk of
has no relation to all this.
In a boiling process, as you
know, you can only notice
a slow rising and a gradual descent
whilst on the contrary,
in the heart of whatever
species of animal,
we have extremely
rapid beats instead.
I still need to reflect on this point.
I hope that you will
come every day here,
to this university to compare
your reflections with ours.
I deeply regret that I cannot
return here among you,
because I greatly
appreciate your doctrine,
but in coming days
I 'm going to Amsterdam,
to meet other learned men.
You do well sir, very well,
and I envy you.
In our century it is no longer
possible to acquire a doctrine
other than by visiting the
universities and by comparing
the opinions of different
learned men;
it is necessary, as Bacon wrote,
to free ourselves
from the idols of false philosophy
and to construct a new science.
On this point, we all agree sir.
I n the same year in which Cardinal
Richelieu set siege to La Rochelle,
Wallenstein, set siege to Strapsunt
in Germany at the mouth of the Oder.
Richelieu, won at Rochelle however,
and the Huguenots were defeated,
whilst Wallenstein was forced to
abandon the siege and to retreat.
Yes that was a fatal year for him.
Yes, he had to bend before
the Swedes and his child died.
His heir, the sole hope
for continuing his line.
Three years ago, in 1630, I found
myself at Ratisbona for trade
and precisely during those days,
the Diet of the German nobility
requested and obtained the sacking
of Wallenstein from the Emperor,
who had any way been one
of his great fighters.
His troops were hated
throughout all Germany.
Never had such arrogant and violent
soldiers ever been seen. Ever.
And I remember that
no one could be found
with the courage to
take him the news
of his destitution,
but once destitute,
they had to clamorously
recall him when
after so many defeats there
was no longer any one else
capable of leading the
Catholic Imperial troops
against the army of
Gustavo Adolfo of Sweden
who had reached as far as the Danube.
Wallenstein was able
to stop Gustavo Adolfo
only because Gustavo Adolfo
died on the battlefield.
This was the fortune of the
Hapsburgs and of the Catholic League.
Didn't you return any
longer to Bavaria?
Just once, to Munich, to sell
a large batch of spices,
but since the struggle
between the armies
of the Catholic princes against the
Protestant princes started again,
I have preferred to send my agents.
The roads are not very safe
and then there are entire regions
afflicted by famine and plague,
every where,
from Augusta to Wurttemberg,
from Turingia to the Palatinate.
One of my agents told me that
he had seen wolf-packs
in Bohemia advancing right
inside the cities.
It is incredible that such terrible
wars are fought here in Europe
right when the world is
becoming ever larger
and when there would be
more space for everyone.
The West and East Indies
regurgitate wealth
we could all profit from.
The fortune of we Dutch ,
is that the European princes
while warring among each other,
failed to notice that,
the East Indies Company and
the West Indies Company
have brought us in the
last thirty years
so much business and money
that the safes of our banks
are much richer than those
of the King of Spain.
The English have noticed this too.
Our fleet is much more
powerful than their fleet
and our sailors are
certainly much better.
Come, I want to present a friend to you
who arrived yesterday from the East Indies.
They are the models of the
ships my husband has constructed.
This is the Beatrice weighing
one thousand tons,
one of the largest ships
built in Holland
and carrying my daughter's name.
Ah.
This, instead is the second,
the Muyden, which now finds
itself in the East Indies.
The ships slip between the sea
and the fluid of the skies
following the curve of the
terrestrial spheres.
Mr Descartes, I am certain that you
would very much like an automaton
my husband bought from a
Bohemian mechanic.
Certainly.
Sirs, do you already
know my automaton.
Yes.
Sirs, would you like to
come and see my automaton?
Ah.
See, Mr Descartes,
it's almost magic.
It doesn't spill even one drop.
Everyone who has seen it says
that such a perfect automaton
doesn't exist any where
else in the world.
What do you say about
it Mr Descartes?
Ah, I wouldn't dare
to contradict you Madam.
It's a perfect mechanism.
By using weights, counterweights,
levers, joints, gears,
wheels of different
dimensions and tie-bars
it can impress even any movement
on an inanimate material
by making it perform
gestures similar
to those of men or animals.
But the bones and muscles
of a man are a real machine.
The largest machine however,
is the heavens.
Mr Descartes certainly
agrees with me.
Astronomer Ciprus and
Costantino Wigens.
Do you know each other?
- Yes, Yes, of course.
- Oh Yes, we know each other.
You are right, the entire
universe is a large machine.
Excuse me if I interrupted you,
but I wanted to advise Mr Descartes
that I am going to begin my new
astronomical observations tomorrow.
Oh, you are very kind.
And you would do me a great
honour in assisting me.
I will certainly do so, I thank you.
In fact, I'm very interested
in the mechanics of the skies.
Observe.
This is a very delicate
instrument and it can be moved
in any direction without
any oscillation.
When the sun falls,
I will begin my observations.
Gentlemen.
The telescope has revealed
the movements of the skies.
As Bacon says, man is the
minister and interpreter
of nature and he can understand
it only by observing its
order through experience
and intellect.
Man doesn't know better
and couldn't know better.
Nothing , truly nothing.
And it is ignorance of the causes that
removes from us knowledge of the effects
and impedes us from acting on
nature according to its laws,
and this therefore prevents
us from subjugating it.
This is also one of Bacon's thoughts
Because the only way to win
over nature is by obeying her,
and when we ignore the
causes our explanations
of natural phenomenon are
born from our imagination
and God knows how
false our fantasy is.
Every century has its fashions,
but then fashions pass,
and the world remains
always the same.
I admire you greatly
astronomer Ciprus,
you are the most expert
astronomer I know,
but if you permit me to say,
at the moment you are following
a pernicious fashion,
incited by the madness
of certain innovators
who I do not approve of at all.
Well, don't you think you're
exaggerating a little?
I esteem your doctrine,
but I cannot approve
when you expect to go and
discover new planets in the skies
with your new instruments
that we do not know to be
more or less false
than the human eye,
and above all when you claim
to add new planets
to the already existing
ones without any prudence.
I cannot understand
how discovering a new planet
could be an imprudence.
It's very serious imprudence,
because it is by acting like this
that those such as yourself
have ruined astrology and have
destroyed all its connections
with medicine.
They have added new stars
to the patterns of the skies
without thinking of
the consequences.
They have ruined the
order of the Zodiac,
they have upset the known
qualities of the fixed stars,
the calculation of the
formation of the embryo,
the influence and the motives of the
stars during the critical days,
and other innumerable
truths that all depend,
on the septenary number
of the planets.
In your opinion therefore,
we should stop
all scientific progress just
because it is irksome to some
to re-order their old manuals?
We should not be afraid
of writing new treatises
new summae, new explanations
of the structure of the world.
Otherwise we reach the
paradox of Martin Forkey.
I've never heard this
gentleman spoken of.
He is a presumptuous man because
when through the telescope he saw
the real pattern of the
skies he was disturbed
because what he saw didn't correspond
to the patterns of the stars
he had studied in the manuals.
So, he then wrote to Keplero
that when the telescope is aimed at
terrestrial things it performs wonders,
it enlarges objects
and succeeds in discovery
everything that can be
seen with the naked eye,
but when aimed at
the sky it is useless.
I approve of Keplero's theories,
I have checked many
of his observations
and have re-done
many of his calculations.
If he hadn't died two years ago, I would
have gone to find him at Lisbon,
where he had taken refuge
due to the wars of religion,
to receive his approval.
The orbits of the planets are ellipses,
of which the sun occupies
one of the two focuses.
When Keplero made
his first calculations,
drawing on the observations
of his master Tico Brahe,
he made just one error
which he any way corrected:
he had taken ellipses
for ovals.
Keplero's highly original
idea was that of representing
the observations about
the paths of the stars
as if they had been observed
by watching them from the sun ,
rather than from the earth.
He calculated the revolution of Mars
along its ellipsis around the sun ,
to be a full distance of six
hundred and eighty seven days.
Resolving, revolutionising,
means continuously returning
to the starting point.
At the end of each ellipsis in fact,
the planet returns to the
identical place in the sky,
this place and the Sun's place
are the two fixed points
he referred to in order to determine
the position of the Earth.
With this kind of triangulation
of the skies, Keplero
succeeded in calculating the path of
all the other planets around the sun.
the speed and the distances
between the planets
These studies are of
extremely great importance.
For example, the Earth
appears to us much larger
than all the other celestial
bodies and the Moon and the Sun
appear to us to be larger
than all the stars,
but if we correct the
defect in our sight
by means of geometric reasoning ,
which is the only
infallible reasoning,
we realise that the Moon
is far away from us, let's say...
at around thirty times
the diameter of the earth,
and the sun six or seven
hundred diameters,
and by comparing these distances
with the what is the apparent
diameter of the sun and the moon,
we find that the moon
is smaller than the Earth and
that the sun is much , much larger.
Have you too ever had
the intention of adding
a few new planets to the
already known ones?
I see that you too have let yourself become
excited by the fashions of the innovators.
I am not an innovator.
I am simply trying to succeed
in discovering the true
face of the universe
with absolute certainty.
I hope that you have at least
realised that the universe is immense
and that its true face
is very far from you.
While waiting for dark, let's warm
ourselves up again with some chocolate.
And now gentlemen, I'll show
you something marvelous.
I will direct the telescope
towards the Pleiades.
I 'm switching off the lamp.
There you are gentlemen.
Admire the Pleiades.
I have to admit that it works.
The wonders of the skies.
How vast the sky is.
Please do not move gentlemen.
Excuse us.
Have you finished your
studies on meteors?
I've almost finished.
When are leaving for Dventer?
Tomorrow.
- Sir.
- Excuse me.
Dr Gerolamus will be here
in a minute with the letter
I asked you to deliver
to Mr Reigne at Dventer.
Yes, I know him.
Dr Gerolamus is a great
devourer of books,
I don't believe that any book exists
in Amsterdam that he hasn't read.
A respectable man is not obliged
to have read all the books,
there are many other
things to do in life
and knowledge does not depend
on what a man has read,
but also on what he has seen.
You are right.
Sir.
You too are right.
Ah, here's the theologian Gerolamus.
Come forward doctor.
Mr Wigens told me notable
things on your account.
I t seems that you have read
all the books in this city.
No, not all, and this displeases me.
I have not been able however,
to find any of your books.
I have written little.
My works are not yet diffuse.
I regret that, because I
learned from Mr Wigens
your doctrines about the
correct use of intelligence
and I find them very practical.
I appreciate Mr Reigne
at Dventer very much.
And do you appreciate them sir?
Tell the truth to Mr Descartes,
repeat to him what you told me.
I'm embarrassed.
I don't see why.
They seem to me to be the fruit
of immeasurable arrogance.
It is as if you want to
free human reason
from its dependence on its
creator and on the Bible
to which you make
absolutely no reference.
Many people have chided me for
this, and yet I can assure you
sir, that I work in all humility,
looking inside things,
because I believe things
to be the creatures of God
and that they bring the sign of
truth , whilst the wild fantasies
of the men from whom so many
obscure doctrines are born
are the fruit of arrogance.
When I wrote my treatise
on dioptrics,
I did not trust in fantasy,
I cut open and examined
the eyes of animals
and with suitable authorisation,
also those of dead men.
I observed for example
that the optic nerve,
is comprised of a great
number of small filaments
and that this is one of the
material means for the formation
of the image whose
nature remains any way
a mysterious gift
of divine goodness.
It now seems to me that
this research procedure
subjected to the sole
control of reason,
that puts together simple
data and precise deductions
is a humble work.
Dr Gerolamus certainly
appreciates your defence.
I appreciate it greatly, sir, but I didn't
wish to put you under accusation.
You certainly work humbly,
but without wanting it
you tempt the arrogance of men
who find the reasons for limitless
independence in your doctrine,
but I'm certain that you will
give much consolation
to Mr Reigne and his pupils -
these persons will unfortunately hail
you, given their excessive passion
for sciences which I will
never fail to rebuke them for.
This is what I have
written to Reigne.
As for your excessive
love for knowledge,
I remind you of the words
of our father Calvin
A man's desire
to know the truth
is a spark of light,
but this desire degenerates
into vanity because the human
spirit is so obtuse and weak
that alone he cannot maintain the right
road in the search for the truth
and that most often, he is
incapable of discerning the object
he must apply himself to
in order to find true knowledge.
Man's spirit with its
impoverished integrity,
even though blessed with excellent
gifts from God is too infirm,
as the scriptures say, to guide us
on every occasion in our lives
if not helped
at every instant,
by the light of
divine grace.
I would be grateful to you,
if you would take this letter
To Mr Reigne with my best
regards and I assure you
that I esteem your
passion for the truth,
which I also feel,
but at the same time fear.
Bretaigne, it's late.
Can't you manage
to get up even today.
Since you arrived,
the fever has never left me.
My dear Elena
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,
Father Mersenne asked me
to call on you to collect
your new treatise that
you had promised him to...
I haven't finished it sir,
tell Father Mersenne...
Tell Father Mersenne that I'm working
day and night on the new text,
and that on a coming occasion, before
Christmas I hope, I'll send it to him.
Good bye Gentlemen
Oh good God!
Oh, no. Do you already
want me to get up?
The hours of the morning
are worth gold.
It's frightening.
I don't understand what are you looking
for in the innards of animals?
You do know that making
magic is forbidden?
It's a mortal sin.
I'm not making magic, don't worry.
What then?
You're always doing strange things, but
remember that one sin attracts another.
Really, why did you take
me into your service,
to drive me crazy with your mess?
I've never seen you so angry.
Turn round, I want to get up.
When pushed to the extreme,
patience becomes fury.
This house is too small for you - you
look like a crane in a pigeon loft,
you've filled everywhere with a thousand
pieces of paper and strange instruments,
a man of your standing
and in your condition
who lives like the lowest tramp,
nobility can be little appreciated
without refinement.
You complain of what
poor Bretaigne did.
Any way it's useless, he who talks
sows and he who listens reaps.
Should reap.
I'm sorry that Bretaigne is dead,
not to have him with me any more.
A stroke of the tongue is
worse than a blow from a lance.
Bretaigne never got
so angry as you do,
but you are certainly prettier...
I'm not angry at all, the moon
never worries about a barking dog,
but Bretaigne was right
to grumble at you
because in the end, talking about
your troubles is already consolation.
Are you philosophising?
Philosophy?
What is philosophy?
I am a philosopher, I love wisdom.
You? You are mad, I 'm wise.
Maybe.
We need a larger house,
you're right there, Elena.
In that way you won't be troubled when
I dedicate myself to certain works.
Good save our poor hens, when a sly
old fox starts giving moral lessons.
No Elena, I'm talking seriously,
we'll live at Amsterdam.
Once you've given your word,
you can't take it back. Remember,
that he who promises
has an obligation.
The wisest man yields.
Do you forgive me?
Admiral Potterbacker
and general Van Eyck,
two tulips that today are worth
four-thousand-four-hundred
Florins each.
Really?
My lady succeeded in procuring an
extremely precious bulb for herself,
its the ''Semper augustus'' - she paid
five-thousand-five-hundred Florins
but it's the most beautiful
tulip in the world,
she could re-sell it immediately for
six thousand Florins or even more.
Your Lady is rich and those
who have money, have courage.
Have you ever seen it bloom?
No, not yet, but in my
Lady's colour album,
it's painted so well
that it seems real.
The flower-cup is a beautiful pure white,
slightly tinged with blue at the base,
with a strip of flame red that
runs along each petal, a wonder.
I could never buy such patterns,
they're too expensive for me.
If you hadn't shown them to me,
I would know very little about tulips.
I'm telling you , even though
I know it's completely useless,
that you don't want
to risk even one Florin.
People with nothing like
me cannot take risks.
You're losing a fortune
by being too prudent.
Our farrier, Jacob Darik,
remember him,
went up to his knees in debt
to buy the general of generals.
If he did so, that means he's sure
of good earnings, isn't that right?
And Mr Gut has sold his
house for five rare bulbs
and he is someone who
understands good deals.
Yes, but I'm a housewife.
And you know now, don't you,
that painter Jan Van Goyen,
has himself paid in
bulbs for his pictures
rather than in Florins?
My grandfather told me
that his father,
just like everyone else at the time
paid for purchases with herrings,
that really was a safe currency,
because it fed people,
but this mania for tulips
is really silly.
Oh, you are silly.
Everyone speculates in them, especially the
great gentlemen who know what they're doing.
In fact, it's the king of France
who makes the largest requests.
Oh, may God forgive me, I 'm late,
I've got to run away.
Thank you dear.
Oh listen up a little, how much
could my red-yellow be worth today.
Be happy, a lot, no less than
two-thousand-five-hundred Florins.
I'll go and open.
No, you've got dirty hands,
I'll go and open.
It's true that you can't
eat tulips, but their beauty
is very valuable today.
We all know that a good plumage
makes a beautiful bird.
Who do you desire?
I'm Janmaire, the printer,
Mr Descartes had me called.
Come in.
Your clothes have an
unbearable odour.
They are the odours of my craft,
aniline and the lead of the inks,
I'm very sorry, do you feel ill?
It's nothing.
Wait a minute.
- The printer.
- Let him enter.
Come in.
Hello sir, I've come
to give you my reply,
I agree, I will print
your treatise.
I thank you, I hope to finish
it in the next few days.
- Elena!
- It's your odour, excuse me.
We need a little vinegar
to get her back on her feet.
It's easier to advise than to act.
Jan, Jan.
- Sir.
- Go and call Dr Plempius.
- Run.
- Ok.
- I have examined the patient.
- What did you find?
The patient is well , very well I'd say.
And so? How do you
explain the fainting?
I don't know if you will
judge the news to be good or bad,
but the patient has no illness.
I don't understand.
She's expecting a child.
- A child?
- Yes, a child.
Elena.
You shouldn't be ashamed.
This is the most beautiful
present you could've given me.
Don't be afraid.
I'll never abandon you.
After the damage the
madman recovers his wits.
Rest.
Thank you.
Tranquility is born of sleep.
Come, come into my study.
I thank you for hurrying
straightaway doctor,
and above all for telling me the
good news that I'll be a father.
Jan, some wine.
A child, my good doctor,
merits a good glass of wine.
Do me this honour.
- Do you acknowledge the child?
- Certainly.
Even though I would like the thing
to remain a secret, for the moment.
Not because of shame, but
only because, as you know,
I fear everything that may
disturb my tranquility.
Will you keep the
mother with you?
I'll write to my friend Reigne
at Dventer and I'll ask him
to find a discreet refuge,
so that Elena can wait all the
months necessary, in peace.
If you need any care during
these days, I'll be available.
I would only trust you.
I admire your ability as a doctor
very much, even if I confess
I don't share your
criticisms of Dr Harvey.
Why can't Dr Harvey be wrong?
Excuse me, but I really can't
understand that with your knowledge
of human physiology,
he has not convinced you
of the evidence of his doctrine.
Blood circulation
driven by pulses
would lead to suppose
that for every pulsation
the heart receives a drop of blood,
but considering that there are around
two thousand pulses every hour,
in such a short period of time,
a certainly incredible quantity of blood,
goes though the heart in this way.
The difficulty is truly insurmountable,
even though I have to admit that
Harvey's hypothesis is interesting.
We'll discuss it again , however
if the doctrine divides us,
friendship unites us.
- Cheers.
- Cheers.
Mr Descartes.
Dear Descartes.
Illustrious friend.
I've come to return the
treatise of Golius to you.
I'm always pleased to see you ,
you could have sent it with you servant,
without disturbing yourself.
Walking by the streets of your
country always pleases me.
You only meet people intent
on their own work.
as if they were executing the most
serious of duties in the presence of God.
Even the really rich,
who could live on income,
often work all the same.
The Spanish, Italian and French
nobles of the thirteenth century,
just three hundred years ago,
were captains, land owners,
administrators and sometimes
men of letters at the same time.
In effect, they didn't know how
to do any of these things well,
and if they lived on income it's
above all because they enjoyed
the work performed by the others,
by the peasants, the craftsmen
the only ones at the time faithful
to a profession out of need.
A century ago, the humanists.
knowledgeable in the tongues of the
ancients, claimed to talk of everything,
from astronomy to architecture
and to medicine,
not to mention then the
scholastic philosophers,
ready to resolve any
scientific problem,
with the principles of Aristotle,
with the only
effect of exciting
man's presumption.
Our people are far removed
from all that.
Their book is the bible,
their master is Calvin.
- Listen.
- Calvin's heresy is unacceptable.
Listen to what he wrote
one hundred years ago,
even if you believe him to be a heretic,
and I assure you that you'll understand.
God commands everyone to
follow his own vocation
though life's work.
But unfortunately, man, because
his nature burns with restlessness
and often because of irresponsibility,
ambition and greed
is led to lose
his vocation
and to embrace different
works that confuse him
and the madness of the world
is born in this way.
Out of a fear that our rashness
may drag us far from him
God permitted the collapse,
the end of states,
of the customs, of the eras
in past history,
and so that man does not get lost
completely he has established
what everyone one must do
for each of us.
Without even going
to far beyond his own limits,
every man should live
his own vocation
obedient to his nature,
remembering that he lives
in the misery of sin
and that he can do nothing,
without the aid of God.
It's true, they are wise words.
They educated a people.
I too follow my vocation faithfully.
But you burn with restlessness and
you have a greed for knowledge,
that will lead you to embrace
different works together.
There is absolutely no
straying in my work.
All the parts of my new book
that seem to deal with
different subjects are on the
contrary tied together.
All philosophy is like a tree
the roots of which
are metaphysics, the trunk
is physics and the branches
all the other sciences that are
reduced to three main principles,
or better, medicine,
mechanics and moral philosophy,
I mean the highest and most
perfect moral philosophy
which presupposes a perfect
knowledge of the other sciences,
and the highest degree of wisdom.
When are you going to publish it?
Before Christmas.
You have an acute and clear mind,
but I don't know how you'll fair
with the authorities of the Roman Church,
if by bad luck they investigate you.
Your doctrines are a curious mixture.
I don't see why the Roman
Church should investigate me,
what I write never invades
the theological field.
Perhaps Galileo Galilei
thought in the same way,
but he was mistaken ,
more or less on this point.
I'm sure that your treatise will
not fail to attract the curiosity
of the Roman theologians,
but you have nothing to fear.
Here, you are far from Rome.
The first three chapters.
I still have to make
a few corrections.
I'll be the most important work of
the century, equal to those of Bacon,
Copernicus or Galileo.
It'll be a work different to theirs
because many of my hypotheses
are completely new,
above all concerning
the structure of the universe.
Are you going to say anything
about the movement of the skies?
I don't know yet.
I do however have an original
hypothesis also on this subject.
The ancients always
believed the earth
to be at the centre of the universe,
Tolomeo taught this hypothesis,
but it was proved false
after the observations
made in recent centuries
by the astronomers.
Then Copernicus made an
interesting hypothesis.
According to him, the Earth with
its planets, rotate around the Sun.
The third of the hypotheses
is by the Dutchman Brahe,
according to which around
the immobile Earth,
the Moon and the Sun rotate and the
planets and comets
rotate around the sun.
I shall promote my hypothesis
of the movement of the Earth
with more shrewdness than Copernicus
and with greater truth than Brahe.
I shall explain that the
matter of the skies is fluid,
just like that comprising
the Sun and the fixed stars,
that when the skies move, they transport
all the bodies they contain with them.
The Earth is therefore
surrounded like this on all sides,
by an extremely fluid sky in which it
rests without any propensity to move,
it is carried in its sky like a
vessel moved by the tides
of the seas, and because
the other planets
are similar to the earth,
we have reason to believe
that they also remain at rest
in the skies that contain them.
When will you give me the
definitive manuscript?
Very soon I hope,
I'm working day and night.
The wind is piercing today.
What good things are you preparing?
Sprouts and pork.
Ah, good, do you like them?
Yes, but ''rich cooking,
poor testament''.
Dr. Ogelham, I'm always
grateful for the hospitality,
but I would be even more grateful
if you would read me this letter
written to me by Mr Descartes,
I cannot read.
As you know, seeing and not understanding
is like returning from hunting
with the meat bag empty.
Dear Elena, I congratulate you on
the good health you are enjoying,
I pray to God that it'll remain
with you until the end of your wait,
as for me, I'm thirty now, and
thanks to God have no illness,
and I seem now to be
further away from death
than I was in
my youth.
You will be pleased to know that during
these days I have concerned myself
with obtaining a pardon for the life
of Joakin from the judges of this city,
the peasant who was unjustly
accused of homicide.
I'm doing it to do a good deed,
above all for his family.
A good conscience is a good pillow.
Among the teachings of Christ
we should, above all practice
the rule of love
which is the only sentiment
that can make man's journey
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
come when I can live with Francine
and you as a family, just
like every other man does.
I pray to God every day for this.
Mr Descartes, your servant
has prepared the horses.
You should come to
Dventer more often.
I know. I thank you for
what you're doing for Elena.
I'll come back soon.
She's a really beautiful
creature, because she's perfect.
For me, it's like a miracle.
She's not a miracle, she's one
of nature's perfect machines,
her eyes, the pupils...
I'm going.
May God bless you.
Wave goodbye to dad.
Wave, wave.
But you talked to me
about a different title:
The project of a universal science.
At Paris and elsewhere scholastics are
ready to accuse all novelty as heresy.
A good friar advised me to be prudent.
This time again it was
your friend Father Mersenne.
He must be a very prudent man.
I'll begin to compose the reasoning
on the method straightaway,
it'll be ready quickly, very quickly.
Tomorrow I'll bring you the dedication which
you must print on the first three copies.
The first I shall address
to the Prince of Orange,
the sovereign of this country, the
second to Luigi XIII, king of France,
and the third to his prime
minister, Cardinal Richelieu.
Gentlemen.
I thank you for coming.
I admire you greatly, my dear Rene.
Will you accompany me home
at the end of the debate?
No, I can't madam , I must
leave straightaway for Samport.
Are to going to find
your daughter Francine?
Yes, I 'm going back to her.
Go, they're waiting for you.
There are numerous
objections to your treatise.
Then tell me your
objections, gentleman.
You have affirmed that you can be
certain about one single point:
that of being a thing that thinks,
but you still haven't told us
what this thing that thinks is for you.
You cannot say if the thing
that thinks is an entity
which through different and
secret movements produces that action
which we call
thought
You say, I am a thing that thinks,
I think, I am a thinking thing,
therefore I exist, therefore I am a
spirit, a soul an intellect a reason.
In my opinion, the
deduction is not exact,
it's as if you said, I'm a thinking
thing, therefore I'm a thought.
Or, I'm intelligent,
therefore I am an intellect.
It'd be like saying ,
I'm someone on a walk,
therefore I am a walk.
We cannot perceive any
act without its subject.
A thought without a thing that thinks,
science without a thing that knows
and a walk without a walker
and from this I seem to be able to
reach that something thought of
is also a bodily thing.
You sustain that the
idea of a sovereign being
cannot be born from itself,
but that it must have been infused
in you and in all men from outside,
but do you really believe that this idea
would ever have been born in your spirit
if you had spent all
your live in a dessert
and not in the company
of learned persons?
The Canadians, the Hurons and other
savages do not have this idea inside them.
Your idea of God is no different
by nature than the idea
of a number or of a line
that you say is infinite.
We do not find a single
word in your writings
concerning the immortality
of the human soul
that I believe you shouldn't
have overlooked demonstrating
to confound all those who
are unworthy of immortality
because they deny it,
perhaps because they fear it.
Mr Descartes, you have written
a subtle logical work,
the perfect mechanics of reason,
without ever referring to feelings
to passion, the heart of man,
you have never cited the Bible,
and in writing of God, you have never
revealed that his nature is a mystery,
from which the need for
faith is born in us.
By its nature,
faith is an impulse of the soul
that lives beyond reason
and illuminates it.
With your writings however, you have
demonstrated that there is nothing,
beyond reason capable of
leading man to the truth.
Gentlemen, I have listened to your
objections with great satisfaction,
because they have made me realise
your kindness towards me
and your piety to God.
So, I can only be happy,
not only because you
have judged my reasoning
worthy of your censure, but also
because you do not object to anything
about it, that I cannot
reply rather easily to.
Concerning the things that
belong to the spirit
until today we have
only had ideas.
Very confused ones and mixed up with the
ideas that come to us from sensitive things.
This is the first and main reason
that has impeded us from clearly
understanding everything
we can about God and the soul
and I think it no small
thing if I firstly show you
in which way it is necessary
to distinguish the properties,
and qualities of the spirit,
from those of the body
and how they can be recognised.
Gentlemen , this will be
a considerable enterprise.
Have you got the drafts
of the dedication?
Here they are.
Mr Descartes would never
forgive us if we leave
Any printing errors in his new book:
''Le Meditationes
de prima philosofia''.
Mr Descartes is very careful,
even about spelling and commas.
But aren't you coming back to
Paris for the end of the work.
No, I'm going to stay
in the Low Countries still.
To the Deacon and Professors
of the holy faculty of theology of Paris.
Mr Descartes is very prudent.
Certainly.
As a wise man knows how to be,
but ever since I've known him,
he's always sincerely said and
written everything he thinks.
He has written about geometry and
mathematics, optics and physiology
to find a new way to philosophise
in which no reason
is permitted that does not
possess absolute
mathematical evidence.
This has been his
research since childhood.
Gentlemen, however strong
my reasoning may be,
I cannot hope that it will
have a great effect on spirits
if you do not take it
into your protection,
and I have no doubt that you will do
me the honour of taking such good care
of this text, and to correct
it first and foremost.
After this the reasons by
which I prove that God exists
and that the human soul
differs from the body
will be absolutely
clear and evident
and then I hope that you will declare
all this and testify this in public.
Truth will lead all
men of culture and intelligence
to subscribe to
your judgement.
When I say God,
I mean an infinite substance
from which I and all other
things have been created
and produced and I being a finite entity, could
not have the notion of an infinite substance,
if such notion had not
been inculcated in me
by a really
infinite substance.
Mr Wigens has arrived.
Let him in.
Rene!
Costantino.
See?
Praise, objections, accusations.
It's success, but together with success,
God has given me the greatest of pains.
My father died in France
and no one told me
for fear of disturbing me,
as my brother wrote to me,
and Francine is also dead.
The light of my eyes,
who came to live
in this house
together with Elena.
I lived a short time,
too short a time with Francine.
Science has prevented
me from living.
We all have our own vocations
and must live them faithfully.
Everything we have comes
from God and his bounty.
Yes.
I will certainly continue
to live and to think
But now I will close
my eyes and plug my ears,
I will switch off my senses.
I wish to cancel all
images of bodily
things from my thoughts
and to entertain myself,
only with myself and to
live enclosed inside myself.
And perhaps, by searching
inside myself, I will succeed in
slowly placating the pain
and confusion of these days.
I shall prove to myself
that a thing, a soul that thinks,
means that it doubts, affirms,
denies and knows few things
and that is ignorant of many
things, that loves, hates and wants,
wants no more, remembers,
imagines and feels.
I shall try to extend my
knowledge through pain,
I shall carefully consider
if I can't still discover
some other thing that I haven't
perceived until this moment inside me.
I have the certainty of
being something that thinks,
but where does this
certainty come from.