rs, he was roaming as an
observer of men and nature in Germany, Belgium, and Italy, afterward
sojourning in Paris about three and a half years. In 1629 he began
twenty years of study and authorship in practical seclusion in Holland.
His little work, 'Discours de la Methode' (Leyden, 1637), is often
declared to have been the basis for a reconstitution of the science of
thought. It would now perhaps be viewed by the majority of critics
rather as a necessary clearing of antiquated rubbish from the ground on
which the new construction was to rise. Next to it among his works are
usually ranked 'Meditationes de Prima Philosophia,' and 'Principia
Philosophiae.'

The long sojourn in Holland was ended in September 1649, in response to
an urgent invitation from the studious young Queen Christina of Sweden,
who wanted the now famous philosopher as an ornament to her court. After
some hesitancy he sailed for Stockholm, where only five months afterward
he died.

It has been said of Descartes that he was a spectator rather than an
active worker in affairs. He was no hero, no patriot, no adherent of any
party. He entered armies, but not from love of a cause; the army was a
sphere in which he could closely observe the aspects of human life. He
was never married, and probably had little concern with love. His
attachment to a few friends seems to have been sincere. For literature
as such he cared little. Erudition, scholarship, historic love, literary
elegance, were nothing to him. Art and aesthetics did not appeal to him.
Probably he was not a great reader, even of philosophic writers. He
delighted in observing facts with a view to finding, stating, and
systematizing their relations in one all-comprehending scheme. He never
allowed himself to attack the Church in either its doctrine or its
discipline. As a writer, though making no attempt at elegance in style,
he is deemed remarkably clear and direct when the abstruseness of his
usual themes is considered.

Descartes's method in philosophy gives signs of formation on the model
of a process in mathematics. In all investigations he would ascertain
first what must exist by necessity; thus establishing axioms evidenced
in all experience, because independent of all experience. The study of
mathematics for use in other departments drew him into investigations
whose results made it a new science. He reformed its clumsy
nomenclature, also the algebraic use of letters for quantities; he
intr