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Princess
Elizabeth Palatine of Bohemia’s Views |
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Selections from her
letters to Descartes relating to the above views: |
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“How
can the soul of man determine the spirits of the body, so as to produce
voluntary actions (given that the soul is only a thinking substance). For it seems that all determination of
movement is made by the pulsion of a moving thing, so that it is pushed by
that which moves it, or, by the qualification (quality) and figure (shape) of
the surface of that thing. For the
first two conditions, touching is necessary, for the third extension. For the one, you exclude entirely the
notion that you have of the soul; the other seems to me incompatible with an
immaterial thing. This is why I ask
you to give a definition of the soul more specific than that in your
Metaphysics, that is to say of its substance, as separated from its thinking
action. For even if we suppose the two
to be inseparable (which anyway is difficult to prove in the womb of the
mother and in fainting spells), like the attributes of God, we can, in
considering them separately, acquire a more perfect idea of them.” (May 1643) |
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“But
I confess that I find the difficulty of separating sense and imagination form
things which are continually represented in conversation and letters such that
I can’t do it without failing in my duty.
I understand well that in taking away from an idea of an affair
everything that makes me angry (which I believe is only represented by the
imagination), I would judge more sanely and would soon find a remedy for my
afflictions. But I have never known
how to practice this except after passion has played its role.” (22 June 1645) |
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“...I find less difficulty in understanding
all that you say about the passions than I do in practicing the remedies that
you prescribe for their excess. For how can one foresee all the accidents
which can take place in life, when they are impossible to count? And how can
we prevent desiring with ardor things which tend necessarily to survival
(like health and the means to live) which never the less do not in fact
depend on free will? Since you have already told me the
principles of a life on one's own, I would still like to know your maxims in
regard to a civil life, a life that makes us dependent on persons who are not
very rational. In such a life, up to now, I have always found that experience
serves me better than reason.” |
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“Since you have already told me the
principles of a life on one's own, I would still like to know your maxims in
regard to a civil life, a life that makes us dependent on persons who are not
very rational. In such a life, up to now, I have always found that experience
serves me better than reason.” |
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“If
my conscience were as satisfied with the excuses that you give for my
ignorance as I am with the remedies for that ignorance, I would be very much
obliged. And I would be exempt from repentance
for having so badly used the time I have for the use of my reason, which for
me is longer than that of others of my age.
Birth and fortune force me to use my judgement promptly in order to
lead a life sufficiently difficult and free of prosperity to prevent me from
thinking of myself, just as if I were forced to trust in the rule of a
governess.” (13 September 1645) |
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“When Epicurus tells a lie at his death bed,
assuring his friends he is well instead of crying out like an ordinary man,
he lives the life of a philosopher not of a Prince, Captain, or
courtier. He knows that nothing
outside prevents him from following his rules and acting like a philosopher. But with a Prince or a Captain, repentance is
inevitable, and one is not able to defend oneself with the knowledge that
failure is as natural for a man as being sick. For one does not know if one can be
exempted from each particular fault.”
(16 August 1645). |
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“The
consideration that we are a part of a whole, whose advantage we ought to
seek, is really the force behind all generous actions; but I find much
difficulty in the conditions that you prescribe. How measure the evils which one gives oneself
for the public against the good which would come of it, without them
appearing more grand, inasmuch as their idea is more distinct. And what rule would we have for the
comparison of things which are not really equally known to us, such as our
won merit, against that of those with whom we live? A natural arrogance would make us always
tip the balance our won way; a natural modestly would always esteem itself at
less than its value.” (30 September 1645) |
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“It
isn’t always prosperity, nor the flattery which accompanies it, which I
believe can decisively keep fortitude of spirit from wellborn souls and
prevent them from bearing changes of fortune philosophically. I am persuaded that the events which surprise
people governing the public who are without the time to find the most expedient
means, carries them (no matter what virtue they have) into actions which
afterwards cause the repentance which you say is one of the principle
obstacles to happiness. It is true
that a habit of valuing goods according to how they contribute to
contentment, and measuring that contentment according to the perfections
which make pleasure remain, and judging without passion is necessary to be completely
acquainted with them and to be acquainted with all those among which we must
choose in a active life would require an infinite science. You say that one must content when one’s
conscience witnesses that one as used all possible precautions. But this never happens, because one does
not simply find one’s history; one always revises things which remain to be
considered.” (13 September 1645) |