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If such a coterie existed at this time in Paris, of which the “hasty and jealous Roberval” was the centre, and which delighted in “abusing Descartes, and attacking him on all sides,” Jacqueline’s frank and lively letter seems enough to show that while Roberval was Pascal’s friend and Descartes’s disputant, there was nothing in the meantime between Descartes and Pascal but courteous friendliness and a cordial feeling of mutual respect.
That letter was immediately communicated to Pascal by Carcavi, who was his intimate associate no less than Roberval. But it seems to have elicited no reply. It would ill become any admirer of Pascal to detract from the glory of Descartes. But it must be held no less firmly, that in the personal question raised by Descartes’s letter, the balance of evidence is all in favour of Pascal.
Nor is he pleased with Descartes’s appeal to consciousness to prove the doctrine of liberty. In reply to this appeal, he says: “The chain of causes connected one with another reaches very far. Wherefore the reason alleged by Descartes, in order to prove the independence of our free actions, by a pretended vigorous internal feeling, has no force.
Descartes’s name is not mentioned in his correspondence with M. Périer, nor in any of his writings on the subject; and the delay in making the experiments is sufficiently explained by the facts stated by himself, that they could only be made effectually at some place of greater elevation than he could command—such as “Clermont, at the foot of the Puy de Dôme”—and by some person, such as M. Périer, on whose knowledge and accuracy he could rely.
His silence when Descartes’s accusation was communicated to him indicates the same somewhat lofty reserve and confidence in the independence of his own researches, rather than any contempt.
Descartes’s incredulity was not without reason; but there is no room to doubt the fact. The little treatise, ‘Pour les Coniques,’ still survives.
It was on the twenty-fifth of this month that Jacqueline writes from Paris of Descartes’s memorable visits.
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