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The burgomafter and his Syndic attended, and took the depofitions of the family, rélative to this affair. The bodies were buried in a crofsroad, and a stone erected over their giave, with this infcription: Here lies the wretched carcafes of four unknown ruffians, who defervedly lost their lives in an attempt to rob or murder a worthy woman and her fa mily. A ftranger who flept in the houfe, to which Divine Providence undoubtedly directed him, was the principal inftrument in preventing the perpetration of fuch horrid defigns, which justly entitles him to a lafting memorial, and the thanks of the pub

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lic. John Adrian de Vries, a difcharged foldier, from the regiment of Diefbach, a native of Middleburgh, in Zealand, and upward of feventy years old, was the David who flew two of thefe Goliahs; the reft being killed by the fon of the family. In honorem, et gratitudinis ergo, Dei Optimi Maximi, pietatis et innocentia, fummi protectoris -- Magiftratus et Concilium Civitatis Dortrechienfis hoc Signum poni curavere XX. Die Nov. Annoque Salutaris humani, 1785.'

The widow prefented the foldier with one hundred guineas, and the city fettled a handfome penfion on him for the reft of his life.

MEMOIRS of the LIFE of M. DESCARTES: With a Portrait of that celebrated Philofopher..

RENE' DESCARTES, an eminent launch into extravagance, or plunge

philofopher and mathematician, was defcended from an ancient and noble family of Touraine in France, and younger fon of Joachin Defcartes, counsellor in the parliament of Rennes, by Jane Brochard, daughter of the lieutenant-general of Poictiers. He was born at La Haye in Touraine, March 31, 1596. His father ufed to call him, when a child, the philofopher, on account of his curiofity to know the reafons of things. In 1604, he was fent to the Jefuitscollege, at La Fleche, where he made great progress in the Latin and Greek tongues; and to poetry he difcovered, when very young, a particular affection. The fables of the ancients afforded him alfo a particular pleafure, by the agreeable turns of fancy in their texture. As a reward for his exact difcharge of his duty, he was difpenfed with attending fo clofely to the lectures as his companions; and this liberty he made ufe of, to read over all the rare and valuable, books he could procure. He left the college in Auguft 1612, his father defigning him for the army; but being then too young and weak to bear the fatigues of war, he was fent to Paris the following fpring. Though he did not

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into debauchery, yet, as he had no governor, he fometimes gamed very high, but had very great fuccefs. At Paris he renewed his acquaintance with many, whom he had known at college, and who induced him to retire from the world to pursue his ftudies without interruption: which he did for two years; but, in May 1616, at the repeated folicitation of his friends, he fet out for Holland, and entered himself a volunteer under the prince of Orange. He turned foldier, according to Baillet, that he might have a better opportunity to obferve the different difpofitions of men, and to fortify himself against all the accidents of life, That he might not be uneafy under the power of any fuperior, he refufed upon his firft entrance all command and all engagements, and fupported himself at his. own charge; but, merely for form, and to keep up the custom, he once received his pay, and preferved that: piece of money all his life, as a testimony of his having ferved in the army.

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While he lay in garrifon at Breda, during the truce between the Spaniards and Dutch, an unknown perfon caufed a problem in mathematics, in

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the Dutch language, to be fixed up in the ftreets; when Defcartes feeing a concourfe of people stop to read it, defired one who flood near him to explain it to him in Latin or French. The man promifed to fatisfy him, upon condition that he would engage to folve the problem; and Defcartes agreed to the condition with fuch an air, that the man, though he little expected fuch a thing from a young cadet in the army, gave him his addrefs, and defired him to bring him the folution. Defcartès returned to his lodging, and next day vifited Beekman, principal of the college of Dort, who was the perfon that had tranflated the problem to him. Beekman feemed furprised at his having folved it in fuch a fhort time; but his wonder was much increased to find, upon talking to the young gentleman, that his knowledge was much fuperior to his own in thofe fciences, wherein he had employed his whole time for feveral years. Defcartes, during his ftay at Breda, wrote in Latin a treatife of mufic, and laid the foundation of feveral of his works. In October 1619, he entered himself a volunteer in the army of the dake of Bavaria. In 1621, he made the campaign in Hungary, under the count de Bucquoy; but the lofs of his general, who was killed at a fege that year, determined him to quit the army. Soon after he began his tra vels into the north, and viited Silefia, the utmost parts of Poland, Pomerania, the coafts of the Baltic, the marquifate of Brandenburgh, Holftem, Eat Friefland, and West Friesland, in his paffage to which last place he was in danger of being murdered. The failors imagined him to be a merchant, who had a large fum of money about him; and perceiving him to be a foreigner who had little acquaintance in the country, and a man of a mild difpofition, they refolved to kill him, and throw his body into the fea. They difcourfed of their defign before his face, not knowing that he underfood any language except Fre..ch, in 5

which he spoke to his valet de cham bre. Defcartes ftarted up of a fudden; and drawing his fword, spoke to them in their own language, in fuch a tone as ftruck a terror into them. Upon this they behaved very civilly. The year following he went to Paris, where he cleared himfelf from the imputation of having been received among the Roficrufians, whom he looked upon as a company of impoftors and vifionaries.

Dropping the study of mathematics, he now applied himself again to ethics and natural philofophy. The fame year he took a journey through Swisferland to Italy. Upon his return he fettled at Paris, but his ftudies being interrupted by frequent vifits, he went in 1628, to the fiege of Rochelle. He came back to Paris in November ; and a few days after, being present at a meeting of men of learning, at the houfe of M. Bagni, the pope's nuncio, he was prevailed upon to explain his fentiments with regard to philofophy. The nuncio afterward urging him to publifh them, he retired to Amfterdam in March 1629, and thence to a place near Franeker in Friefland, where he began his metaphyfical meditations, and spent fome time in dioptrics. He alfo wrote, at this time, his thoughts upon meteors, In about fix months he left Franeker, and went to Amfterdam. He ima gined that nothing could more promote the temporal felicity of mankind, than a happy union of natural philofophy with mathematics. before he should fet himself to relieve men's labours, or multiply the conveniences of life by mechanics, he thought it neceffary to difcover fome means of fecuring the human body from disease and debility. This led him to study anatomy, in which ho employed all the winter at Amfterdam; and to the ftudy of anatomy he joined that of chemistry. He took a thort tour about this time to England, and made fome obfervations near London, concerning the declinations of the magnet. In the fpring of

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1633, he removed to Deventer, where he completed feveral works left unfinished the year before, and refumed his studies in aftronomy. In the fummer he put the last hand to his Treatife of the World.' The next year he came back to Amfterdam, and foon after took a journey into Denmark, and the lower parts of Germany. In autumn 1635, he went to Lewarden in Friesland, where he remained till 1637, and wrote his Treatife of Mechanics. In 1637, he published his four treatifes concerning method, dioptrics, meteors, and geometry. About this time he received an invitation to fettle in England from fir Charles Cavendish, brother to the earl of Newcastle, with which he did not appear backward to comply, efpecially upon being affured that Charles the firit, was a Catholic in his heart: but the civil wars breaking out in England, prevented this journey. At the end of 1631, Lewis XIII of France invited him to his court, upon very honourable conditions; but he could not be prevailed with to quit his retirement: this year he publifhed his meditations concerning the existence of God, and the immortality of the foul. In 1645, he applied with freth vigour to anatomy, but was a little diverted from his study, by the question concerning the quadrature of the circle at that time agitated. During the winter of that year, he compofed a small tract against Gaffendus' Inftances, and another of the Nature of the Paffions. About this time he carried on an epiftolary correfpondence with the princefs Elifabeth, daughter of Frederick V, elector palatine, and king of Bohemia, who had been his fcholar in Holland. A difpute arifing between Chriftina, queen of Sweden, and M. Chanut the refident of France, concerning this question; when a man carries love or hatred to accefs, which of these two irregularities is the worft? The refident fent the queftion to Descartes, who upon that occafion drew up the differtation upon love, published in

the firft volume of his letters, which proved highly fatisfactory to the queen. In June 1647, he took a journey to France, where the king fettled on him a penfion of 3oco livres; and returned to Holland about the end of September. In Novem ber he received a letter from M.. Chanut, defiring, in queen Chriftina's name, his opinion of the fovereign good; which he accordingly fent hei, with fome letters upon the fame fubject formerly written to the princess Elifabeth, and his Treatife of the Paffrons. The queen was fo highly pleafed with them, that she wrote him a letter of thanks with her own hand, and invited him to come to Sweden. He arrived at Stockholm, in October 1648. Her majefty engaged him to attend her every morning at five o'clock, to inftru& her in his philofophy; and defired him to revife and digeft all his unpublished writings, and to draw up from them a complete body of philofophy. She purposed likewife to fix him in Sweden, hy allowing him a revenue of 3000 crowns a year, with an eftate which fhould defcend to his heirs and affigns for. ever, and to eftablish an academy, of which he was to be director: but these defigns were broke off by his death,' which happened February 11, 1650, aged fifty-four. His body was interred at Stockholm; and feventeen years after removed to Paris, where a magnificent monument was erected to him in the church of St. Genevieve du Mont.

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Dr. Barrow in his Opufcula' tells, us, that Defcartes was undoubtedly a very ingenious man, and a real philofopher, and one who feems to have brought thofe affiflances to that part of philofophy, relating to matter and motion, which perhaps no other had done: that is, a great fkill in mathe-. matics; a mind habituated, both by nature and cuftom, to profound meditation; a judgment exempt from all prejudices and popular errors, and furnished with a confiderable number of certain and felect experiments; a U u 2

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great deal of leifure; an entire difengagement, by his own choice, from the reading of useless books, and the avocations of life; with an incomparable acuteness of wit, and an excellent talent of thinking clearly and diftinctly, and of expreffing his thoughts with the utmost perfpicuity. Dr. Edmund Halley, in a paper concerning optics, communicated to Mr. Wotton, and published by the latter in his ReHections upon ancient and modern Learning,' writes as follows: As to dioptrics, though fome of the ancients mention refraction, as a natural effect of tranfparent media; yet Defcartes was the firft, who in this age has difcovered the laws of refraction, and brought dioptrics to a fcience.' Mr. John Keil, in the introduction to hisExamination of Dr. Burnet's Theory of the Earth,' tells us, that Defcartes was fo far from applying geometry and obfervations to natural philofophy, that his whole fyftem is but one continued blunder upon the account of his negligence in that point; which he could cafily prove, by fhew ing that his theory of the vortices, upon which his fyftem is grounded, is abfolutely false; and that fir Ifaac Newton has fhewn, that the periodical times of all bodies, which fwim in vortices, must be directly as the fquares of their distances from the center of them; but it is evident from obfervations, that the planets, in turning round the fun, obferve quite another law from this; for the fquares of their periodical times are always as the cubes of their diftances, and therefore fince they do not obferve that law, which of neceffity they muft, if they fwim in a vortex, it is a demonstration, that there are no vortices, in which the planets are carried round the fun. Nature,' fays Voltaire, had favoured Defcartes with a fhining and ftrong imagination, whence he became a very fingular perfon, both in private life, and in his manner of reasoning. This imagination could not conceal itself, even in his philofophical works, which are every where adorned with very fhining, in

genious metaphors. Nature had almoft made him a poet; and indeed he wrote a piece of poetry for the entertainment of Chriftina queen of Sweden, which however was fuppreffed in honour of his memory. He extended the limits of geometry as far beyond the place where he found them, as fir Ifaac Newton did after him; and firft taught the method of expreffing curves by equations. He applied this geometrical and inventive genius to dioptrics, which when treated by him became a new art; and if · he was mistaken in fome things, the reafon is, that a man who discovers a new tract of land, cannot at once know all the properties of the foil. Thofe who come after him, and make these lands fruitful, are at least obliged to him for the difcovery.' Voltaire acknowledges, that there are innumerable errors in the reft of Defcartes works; but adds, that geometry was a guide which he himself had in fome measure formed, and which would have fafely conducted him through the feveral paths of natural philofophy: nevertheless, he at laft abandoned this guide, and gave entirely into the humour of framing hypothefes; and then philofophy was no more than an ingenious romance, fit only to amufe the ignorant. pushed his metaphyfical errors fo far, as to declare that two and two make four for no other reafon but because God would have it fo. However, it will not be making him too great a compliment, if we affirm, that he was valuable even in his mistakes. deceived himself, but then it was at leaft in a methodical way. He deftroyed all the abfurd chimæras, with which youth had been infatuated for two thousand years. He taught his contemporaries how to reason, and enabled them to employ his own weapons against himself. If Defcartes did not pay in good money, he however did great fervice in crying down that of a bafe alloy.' He was never married, but had one natural daughter, who died when he was but five years old.

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