His account of the dreams is on record, but is not very easy to follow; nor is it likely that a man should be able to convey to others any adequate idea of the deepest spiritual or mental agitation which has shaken him to his foundations.
His associates in Paris were now abandoned, and he withdrew, after some wanderings, to Holland, where he abode the best part of his life and did his real work.
Even now, however, he took life easily. He recommends idleness as necessary to the production of good mental work. He worked and meditated but a few hours a day: and most of those in bed. He used to think best in bed, he said. The afternoon he devoted to society and recreation. After supper he wrote letters to various persons, all plainly intended for publication, and scrupulously preserved. He kept himself free from care, and was most cautious about his health, regarding himself, no doubt, as a subject of experiment, and wishful to see how long he could prolong his life. At one time he writes to a friend that he shall be seriously disappointed if he does not manage to see 100 years.
Fig. 53.—Descartes.
This plan of not over-working himself, and limiting the hours devoted to serious thought, is one that might perhaps advantageously be followed by some over-laborious students of the present day. At any rate it conveys a lesson; for the amount of ground covered by Descartes, in a life not very long, is extraordinary. He must, however, have had a singular aptitude for scientific work; and the judicious leaven of selfishness whereby he was able to keep himself free from care and embarrassments must have been a great help to him.
And what did his versatile genius accomplish during his fifty-four years of life?
In philosophy, using the term as meaning mental or moral philosophy and metaphysics, as opposed to natural philosophy or physics, he takes a very high rank, and it is on this that perhaps his greatest fame rests. (He is the author, you may remember, of the famous aphorism, "Cogito, ergo sum.")