The 3 Dreams of Descartes

Descartes left Frankfurt at the end of September 1619 after attending the coronation of the emperor.

He stopped on the borders of Bavaria in October, and that he began the campaign by putting himself in winter quarters. He found himself in a place so removed from commerce, and so little frequented by people whose conversation was capable of entertaining him, that he obtained a solitude such as his mind could have in his state of itinerant life.

Having thus secured the outside, and fortunately having no other cares or passions within that could disturb him, he remained all day locked alone in a stove-heated room, where he had all the leisure to talk with his thoughts.

At first, they were only preludes of imagination.

He only became bold by degrees by passing from one thought to another, as he felt the pleasure that his mind found in their chain increase.

One of those that presented themselves to him first, was to consider that there is not as much perfection in works composed of several pieces and made by the hand of different masters, as in those to which a single one has worked. It was easy for him to find something to support this thought, not only in what is seen of architecture, painting, and the other arts, where one notes the difficulty there is in making something accomplished by working only on the work of others, but even in the policy that concerns the government of peoples, and in the establishment of religion which is the work of God alone.

He then applied this thought to the sciences, whose knowledge or precepts are found in deposit in books.

He imagined that the sciences, at least those whose reasons are only probable, and which have no demonstrations, having grown little by little from the opinions of different individuals, and being composed only of the reflections of several people of a completely different character of mind, approach less the truth, than the simple reasonings that a man of good sense can naturally make concerning the things that present themselves to him.

From there he undertook to pass to human reason with the same thought.

He considered that for having been children before being men, and for having let ourselves be governed for a long time by our appetites, and by our masters, who have often found themselves contrary to each other, it is almost impossible that our judgments are as pure, as solid as they would have been, if we had had the entire use of our reason from the point of our birth, and if we had never been led but by it.

The liberty that he gave to his genius, meeting no obstacles, led him insensibly to the renewal of all the ancient systems. But he held himself back by the sight of the indiscretion that he would have blamed in a man, who would have undertaken to throw down all the houses of a city, in the sole intention of rebuilding them in another way.

However, as one does not find fault with a private individual having his own knocked down when it threatens him with an inevitable ruin, to re-establish it on more solid foundations: he persuaded himself that there would be temerity in him in wanting to reform the body of sciences or the established order in the schools to teach them; but that one could not blame him with justice for making the test on himself without undertaking anything on others.

Thus he resolved once and for all to get rid of all the opinions that he had received until then; to remove them entirely from his belief, in order to substitute others in their place that were better, or to put back the same ones, after he had verified them, and that he had adjusted them to the level of reason.

He believed he found in this point the means of succeeding in conducting his life, much better than if he only built on old foundations, relying only on the principles that he had let himself be given in his first youth, without ever having examined if they were true.

He foresaw however that a project so bold and so new would not be without difficulties. But he flattered himself that these difficulties would not be without remedy either: besides that they would not deserve to be compared with those that would be found in the reformation of the least things that touch the public.

He put a great difference between what he undertook to destroy in himself, and the public establishments of this world, which he compared to great “bodies, whose fall cannot be but very rough, and which are still more difficult to raise when they are cast down, than to hold back when they are shaken.” He estimated that usage had softened many of their imperfections, and that it had insensibly corrected others, much better than the prudence of the wisest of politicians or philosophers could have done. He even agreed that these imperfections are still more bearable than their change would be: just as the large paths that turned between mountains, become so smooth and so convenient by dint of being beaten and frequented, that one would make oneself ridiculous by wanting to climb on the rocks, or descend into the precipices, under the pretext of going more straight. His design was not of this nature. His views did not then extend to the interests of the public. He did not pretend to reform anything other than his own thoughts, and he only thought of building in a fund that was all his. In case of bad success, he believed he did not risk much, since the worst that would happen, could only be the loss of his time and his pains, which he did not judge very necessary for the good of the human race.

In the new ardor of his resolutions, he undertook to execute the first part of his designs which only consisted in destroying. It was certainly the easiest of the two. But he soon noticed that it is not as easy for a man to get rid of his prejudices, as to burn his house. He had already prepared himself for this renunciation from the time he left college: he had made some trials of it first during his retreat of the Faubourg Saint-Germain in Paris, and then during his stay in Breda. With all these dispositions, he had no less to suffer, than if it had been a question of divesting himself of himself. He believed however to have succeeded.

Visions

On November 10, 1619, Descartes went to bed all filled with:

• his enthusiasm
• the thought of having found that day the foundations of the admirable science

He had 3 consecutive dreams in 1 night that he imagined could only have come from above.

some ghosts that presented themselves to him, and which frightened him in such a way, that believing he was walking in the streets, he was obliged to lean on the left side to be able to advance to the place where he wanted to go, because he felt a great weakness on the right side on which he could not support himself.

Being ashamed to walk in this way, he made an effort to straighten up: but he felt an impetuous wind that, carrying him in a kind of whirlwind, made him make three or four turns on his left foot. This was not yet what frightened him.

The difficulty he had in dragging himself made him believe he was falling at each step, until having perceived an open college on his way, he entered inside to find a retreat there, and a remedy for his evil.

He tried to reach the church of the college, where his first thought was to go say his prayer: but having noticed that he had passed a man of his acquaintance without greeting him, he wanted to retrace his steps to make him civility, and he was violently pushed back by the wind that was blowing against the church. At the same time he saw in the middle of the college courtyard another person who called him by his name in civil and obliging terms: and told him that if he wanted to go find Mr. N, he had something to give him.

Dream 1

Descartes imagined that it was a melon that had been brought from some foreign country.

But what surprised him more, was to see that those who were gathering with this person around him to talk, were straight and firm on their feet: although he was still curved and wavering on the same ground, and that the wind that had thought of overthrowing him several times had diminished a lot. He woke up on this imagination, and he felt at the same time an effective pain, which made him fear that it was the operation of some evil genius who would have wanted to seduce him. Immediately he turned over on the right side, for it was on the left that he had fallen asleep, and that he had had the dream. He made a prayer to God to ask to be guaranteed from the bad effect of his dream, and to be preserved from all the misfortunes that could threaten him in punishment of his sins, which he recognized could be serious enough to attract the thunderbolts of heaven on his head: although he had led until then a life quite irreproachable in the eyes of men.

Dream 2

He fell asleep again after 2 hours of thinkin of the good and evil of this world.

He then dreamt of hearing a sharp loud noise like thunder. This woke him on the spot.

and having opened his eyes, he perceived a lot of sparks of fire spread throughout the room. The thing had already often happened to him at other times: and it was not very extraordinary for him on waking up in the middle of the night to have his eyes sparkling enough to let him glimpse the objects closest to him. But on this last occasion he wanted to resort to reasons taken from philosophy: and he drew favorable conclusions for his mind from them, after having observed by opening, then by closing his eyes alternately, the quality of the species that were represented to him. Thus his fear dissipated, and he fell asleep again in a rather great calm.

Dream 3

A moment later he had a third dream, which had nothing terrible like the first two.

He found a dictionary on his table.

Then a book of poems entitled “corpus poetarum” appeared in his hand.

While reading it, a man came up to him with a piece of verse, beginning with: “est et non” and who praised it to him as an excellent piece.

Descartes told him that this piece was among the idylls of Ausonius in the large collection of poets that was on his table.

He wanted to show it himself to this man.

He began to leaf through the book of which he boasted of knowing the order and the economy perfectly.

While he was looking for the place, the man asked him where he had taken this book.

Descartes replied that he could not tell him how he had got it: but that a moment before he had still handled another one that had just disappeared, without knowing who had brought it to him, or who had taken it back from him.

He had not finished, when he saw the book reappear at the other end of the table.

But he found that this “dictionary” was no longer whole as he had seen it the first time.

Meanwhile, he came to the poems of Ausonius in the collection of poets that he was leafing through: and not being able to find the piece that begins with “est et non”, he told this man that he knew one of the same poet still more beautiful than that one, and that it began with (…) ?

The person asked him to show it to him. Descartes was about to look for it, when he fell on various small engraved portraits in soft-metal: which made him say that this book was very beautiful, but that it was not of the same impression as the one he knew.

He was there, when the books and the man disappeared, and erased from his imagination, without nevertheless waking him up.

What is singular to note, is that doubting if what he had just seen was a dream or a vision, not only did he decide while sleeping that it was a dream, but he also made the interpretation of it before sleep left him.

He judged that:

• the dictionary was all the sciences gathered together
• the collection of poems “corpus poetarum” was philosophy and wisdom joined together

He attributed this marvel to the divinity of enthusiasm, and to the force of the imagination, which makes the seeds of wisdom (which are found in the mind of all men like the sparks of fire in the pebbles) come out with much more facility and much more brilliance even, than reason can do in philosophers.

Descartes continued to interpret his dream in sleep. He estimated that the piece of verse on the uncertainty of the kind of life one should choose, and which begins with (…), marked the good advice of a wise person, or even moral theology.

On this, doubting if he was dreaming again or if he was meditating, he woke up without emotion. He continued with his eyes open, the interpretation of his dream on the same idea.

By the poets gathered in the collection he understood revelation and enthusiasm, of which he did not despair of seeing himself favored.

“Est et non” was the yes and the no of Pythagoras.

Descartes interpreted it as the truth and falsity in human knowledge, and profane sciences.

Seeing that the application of all these things succeeded so well to his liking, he was bold enough to persuade himself, that it was the spirit of truth which had wanted to open the treasures of all the sciences to him by this dream.

And as he had only the small portraits in soft-metal left to explain that he had found in the second book, he no longer sought the explanation of it after the visit that an Italian painter paid him the next day.

This last dream, which had had nothing but what was very sweet and very pleasant, marked the future according to him: and it was only for what was to happen to him in the rest of his life.

But he took the 2 preceding ones as threatening warnings concerning his past life, which might not have been as innocent before God as before men.

He believed that this was the reason for the terror and the fright with which “these two dreams were accompanied.”

The melon that one wanted to give him in the first dream, meant, he said, the charms of solitude, but presented by purely human solicitations.

The wind that was pushing him towards the church of the college, when he had a pain in his right side, was nothing other than the evil genius who was trying to throw him by force into a place, where his intention was to go voluntarily.

This is why God did not permit him to advance further, and that he let himself be carried away even in a holy place by a spirit that he had not sent: although he was very persuaded that it would have been the spirit of God who had made him take the first steps towards this church.

The fright with which he was struck in the second dream, marked, in his sense, his synderesis, that is to say, the remorse of his conscience concerning the sins he could have committed during the course of his life until then.

The thunder of which he heard the éclat, was the signal of the spirit of truth who was descending on him to possess him.

This last imagination certainly held something of enthusiasm: and it would willingly lead us to believe that Mr. Descartes would have drunk the evening before going to bed.

In fact, it was the eve of Saint Martin, on the evening of which they were accustomed to carousing in the place where he was, as in France.

But he assures us that he had spent the evening and the whole day in a great sobriety, and that it had been three entire months since he had drunk wine.

He adds that the genius that excited in him the enthusiasm of which he felt his brain heated for some days, had predicted these dreams to him before going to bed, and that the human spirit had no part in it.

Be that as it may, the impression that remained with him from these agitations, made him make the next day various reflections on the side he should take.

The embarrassment in which he found himself, made him resort to God to pray to him to make his will known to him, to want to enlighten him and guide him in the search for truth. He then addressed himself to the Blessed Virgin to recommend this affair to her, which he judged the most important of his life.

To try to interest this blessed mother of God in a more pressing way, he took occasion from the trip he was meditating on to Italy in a few days, to form the vow of a pilgrimage to Our Lady of Loreto.

His zeal went even further, and he made her promise that as soon as he was in Venice, he would set out by land, to make the pilgrimage on foot to Loreto: that if his forces could not provide for this fatigue, he would at least take the most devout and most humbled exterior that he could to acquit himself of it.

He pretended to leave before the end of November for this trip. But it appears that God disposed of his means in another way than he had proposed them.

It was necessary to postpone the fulfillment of his vow to another time, having been obliged to postpone his trip to Italy for reasons that were not known, and having undertaken it only about four years after this resolution.

His enthusiasm left him a few days later.

The time of his winter quarters was flowing little by little in the solitude of his stove-heated room: and to make it less boring, he began to compose a treatise, which he hoped to finish before Easter of the year 1620.

From February, he thought of looking for booksellers for printing this work.

But there is a lot of appearance that this treatise was interrupted then, and that it has always remained imperfect since that time.

It has been ignored until now, what this treatise could be that perhaps never had a title.

The Olympics are from the end of 1619, and the beginning of 1620.

• It is unfinished like the treatise

But there is so little order and connection in what composes these Olympics among his manuscripts, that it is easy to judge that Descartes never thought of making a regular and continuous treatise of them, much less of making it public.