Miscellaneous Essays | Page 8

life attempted, rest assured there is nothing in him; and against
Locke's philosophy in particular, I think it an unanswerable objection
(if we needed any), that, although he carried his throat about with him
in this world for seventy-two years, no man ever condescended to cut it.
As these cases of philosophers are not much known, and are generally
good and well composed in their circumstances, I shall here read an
excursus on that subject, chiefly by way of showing my own learning.
The first great philosopher of the seventeenth century (if we except
Galileo) was Des Cartes; and if ever one could say of a man that he was
all but murdered--murdered within an inch--one must say it of him. The

case was this, as reported by Baillet in his _Vie De M. Des Cartes_,
tom. I. p. 102-3. In the year 1621, when Des Cartes might be about
twenty-six years old, he was touring about as usual, (for he was as
restless as a hyæna,) and, coming to the Elbe, either at Gluckstadt or at
Hamburgh, he took shipping for East Friezland: what he could want in
East Friezland no man has ever discovered; and perhaps he took this
into consideration himself; for, on reaching Embden, he resolved to sail
instantly for West Friezland; and being very impatient of delay, he
hired a bark, with a few mariners to navigate it. No sooner had he got
out to sea than he made a pleasing discovery, viz. that he had shut
himself up in a den of murderers. His crew, says M. Baillet, he soon
found out to be "des scélérats,"--not amateurs, gentlemen, as we are,
but professional men--the height of whose ambition at that moment was
to cut his throat. But the story is too pleasing to be abridged; I shall
give it, therefore, accurately, from the French of his biographer: "M.
Des Cartes had no company but that of his servant, with whom he was
conversing in French. The sailors, who took him for a foreign merchant,
rather than a cavalier, concluded that he must have money about him.
Accordingly they came to a resolution by no means advantageous to his
purse. There is this difference, however, between sea-robbers and the
robbers in forests, that the latter may, without hazard, spare the lives of
their victims; whereas the other cannot put a passenger on shore in such
a case without running the risk of being apprehended. The crew of M.
Des Cartes arranged their measures with a view to evade any danger of
that sort. They observed that he was a stranger from a distance, without
acquaintance in the country, and that nobody would take any trouble to
inquire about him, in case he should never come to hand, (_quand il
viendroit à manquer_.") Think, gentlemen, of these Friezland dogs
discussing a philosopher as if he were a puncheon of rum. "His temper,
they remarked, was very mild and patient; and, judging from the
gentleness of his deportment, and the courtesy with which he treated
themselves, that he could be nothing more than some green young man,
they concluded that they should have all the easier task in disposing of
his life. They made no scruple to discuss the whole matter in his
presence, as not supposing that he understood any other language than
that in which he conversed with his servant; and the amount of their
deliberation was--to murder him, then to throw him into the sea, and to

divide his spoils."
Excuse my laughing, gentlemen, but the fact is, I always do laugh when
I think of this case--two things about it seem so droll. One, is, the
horrid panic or "funk," (as the men of Eton call it,) in which Des Cartes
must have found himself upon hearing this regular drama sketched for
his own death--funeral--succession and administration to his effects.
But another thing, which seems to me still more funny about this affair
is, that if these Friezland hounds had been "game," we should have no
Cartesian philosophy; and how we could have done without that,
considering the worlds of books it has produced, I leave to any
respectable trunk-maker to declare.
However, to go on; spite of his enormous funk, Des Cartes showed
fight, and by that means awed these Anti-Cartesian rascals. "Finding,"
says M. Baillet, "that the matter was no joke, M. Des Cartes leaped
upon his feet in a trice, assumed a stern countenance that these cravens
had never looked for, and addressing them in their own language,
threatened to run them through on the spot if they dared to offer him
any insult." Certainly, gentlemen, this would have been an honor far
above the merits of such inconsiderable rascals--to be spitted like larks
upon a Cartesian sword; and therefore I am