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Revisions of Descartes's Matter Theory in Le Monde

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Rosaleen Love
Rosaleen Love
Affiliation:
Swinburne College of Technology, John Street, Hawthorn 3122, Victoria, Australia.
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Extract

There are several differences between the theories of matter published by René Descartes in 1637 and 1644 which deserve attention. The differences follow from Descartes's well-known identification of substance with spatial extension, and his consequent rejection of the void. Since there was no void space, Descartes argued, a very finely divided subtle matter must extend throughout the universe in order to fill all space not otherwise occupied by the less finely divided ordinary matter. In the 1637 treatises La dioptrique and Les météores Descartes described only one kind of subtle matter, the primary function of which was to transmit the action of light. Yet when he came to write Principia philosophiae (1644), he believed that the subtle matter was divided into two separate elements. One of these remained an aether for light transmission, but the other had lost this property and was believed instead to be active in magnetic effects and in the electrification of glass, and to form part of the substance of flame.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 8 , Issue 2 , July 1975 , pp. 127 - 137
Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 1975

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References

1 Oeuvres de Descartes, ed. Adam, C. and Tannery, P., (13 vols., Paris 1897–1913), i. 119, 140.Google Scholar

2 The evidence that a treatise was compiled between 1629 and 1633 is based upon Descartes's correspondence with Marin Mersenne; see Descartes, , Oeuvres, i. 285Google Scholar, and Kenny, Anthony (ed.) Descartes' philosophical letters (Oxford, 1970), p. 25Google Scholar. Those who assign the date 1633 to Le monde include: Alquié, Ferdinand, La découverte métaphysique de l'homme chez Descartes (Paris, 1950) p. 379Google Scholar; Multhauf, Robert P., The origins of chemistry (London, 1966), p. 249Google Scholar; Partington, J. R., A history of chemistry (4 vols., London, 1961–1970), ii. 431Google Scholar; Rodis-Lewis, Geneviève, Descartes. Initiation à sa philosophie (Paris, 1964), p. 50Google Scholar; Sabra, A. I., Theories of light from Descartes to Newton (London, 1967), p. 18Google Scholar; Scott, J. F., The scientific work of René Descartes (1596–1650) (London, 1952), p. 4Google Scholar; Smith, Norman Kemp, New studies in the philosophy of Descartes (London, 1963), pp. 25, 352.Google Scholar

3 Descartes, , Discourse on method, optics, geometry, and meteorology, trans. Olscamp, Paul J. (Indianapolis, 1965), p. 66.Google Scholar

4 Ibid., p. 67.

5 Ibid., p. 265.

6 Ibid., pp. 267–8.

7 Ibid., p. 336.

8 Adam, Charles, Vie et oeuvres de DescartesGoogle Scholar, in Descarta, , Oeuvres, xii. 246.Google Scholar

9 Ibid., xii. 247.

10 Ibid., ii. 145.

11 Ibid., ii. 437.

12 Ibid., ii. 203.

13 Ibid., i. 545: ‘Et quand vous voudriez dire que la matière subtile contenue en vn de ces pores, ou interuales, seroit composée de parties rondes ainsi que de petites boules, puisque deux boules ne se touchent qu'en vn point mathématique, il s' ensuiuroit qu'entre ces parties de la matiere subtile contenue en vn pore de l'air ou de la terre, il y'auroit encore d'autres pores, qui seroient vuides … Et neantmoins il n'y a rien de vuide dans la Nature.’

14 Ibid., ii. 207: ‘Icy vous prouuez fort bien que les parties rondes de la matiere subtile ne peuuent remplir exactement tous les pores des corps terrestres, ce que l'auoue; mais si vous inferez de la que ce qu'elles ne remplissent pas soit donc vuide, vous me permettrez, s'il vous plaist, de dire en termes d'Ecole: nego consequentiam; car il peuuent bien estre remplis de quelquautre chose que ie n'ay pas icy pour cela besoin d'expliquer.’

15 Ibid., ii. 292.

16 Olscamp, , op. cit., (3), p. 69Google Scholar. The emphasis is mine. In a letter to Mersenne in 1634 (Descartes, , Oeuvres, i. 295Google Scholar) Descartes had simply described the parts of the subtle matter as ‘ronde’.

17 Olscamp, , op. cit., (3), p. 336.Google Scholar

18 Ibid., p. 266

19 Descartes, , Oeuvres, i. 545–6.Google Scholar

20 Ibid., ii. 207: ‘car chaque cors peut auoir diuers mouuemens, & estre poussé par vne infinité de diuerses forces en mesme temps.’

21 Ibid., ii. 292.

22 Ibid., ii. 483; translated in Kenny, A., op. cit. (2), pp. 62–3.Google Scholar

23 Descartes, , Oeuvres, i. 556.Google Scholar

24 Ibid., ii. 219–20.

25 Ibid., xi. 102.

26 Ibid., vi. 88; Olscamp, , op. cit., (3), p. 70.Google Scholar

27 Descartes, , Oeuvres, ii. 300Google Scholar: ‘si le rayon tend de 4 a 5, le mouvement sera interrrompu, ou ne sera pas rectiligne, mais se continuera par les boules contigues.’

28 Ibid., ii. 370.

29 Ibid., ii. 414.

30 Ibid., xi. 100.

31 Ibid., iii. 233.

32 Ibid., iii. 520; trans. Kenny, A., op. cit. (2), p. 131.Google Scholar

33 On this subject, see Haberer, Joseph, Politics and the community of science (New York, 1969), p. 61.Google Scholar

34 Descartes, , Oeuvres, i. 285, 559.Google Scholar

35 The outline of Le monde that Descartes published in the Discours de la méthode could be interpreted as being consistent with an unacknowledged three-element theory, though the reference is too vague to support a definite conclusion. Descartes wrote: ‘I showed how the greatest part of the matter of this chaos must, according to these laws, become disposed and arranged in a certain way, which would make it similar to our heavens; how, meanwhile, some of its parts must compose an earth, some compose planets and comets, and some others a sun and fixed stars’; Olscamp, , op. cit. (3), p. 36Google Scholar. If we compare the division of matter among the heavens, the earth, the planets, and the sun, with the later three-element theory, we do not find a complete parallelism. According to both Le monde and the Principia, the heavens were composed of both kinds of subtle matter mixed together, the earth and the planets largely of the parts of ordinary gross matter (called the third element in the Principia) but with a mixture of the two kinds of subtle matter filling the pores between these, while the sun was made up of the very finest part of the subtle matter (the first element of the Principia).

36 Mersenne was continually writing to Descartes asking him to give more details about the nature of the subtle matter; see Descartes, , Oeuvres, i. 120Google Scholar; 139–140. Descartes's invariable reply was to tell him to wait until the publication of Le monde.

37 A survey of Descartes's explanations of hardness provides another excellent example of the gradual development (or disclosure) of his ideas. In La dioptrique Descartes spoke of the relative hardness or softness of the particles of a transparent body, when compared with the soft particles of air; see Olscamp, , op. cit. (3), p. 82Google Scholar. In a subsequent letter to Mersenne, (15 11 1638)Google Scholar he said that the parts of the subtle matter were as hard and as solid as bodies of their size could be; see Descartes, , Oeuvres, ii. 440Google Scholar. In both Le monde and the Principia, however, Descartes carefully argued that concepts such as the ‘hardness’ or ‘softness’ of matter had no objective reality, being directly attributable to the relative motions of parts of a homogeneous matter (Oeuvres, xi. 12Google Scholar; ix. B. 94).