Abstract
One of the more difficult tasks that Clerselier faced in bringing out his 1664 edition of the Traité de l'homme was securing the illustrations, eventually composed by La Forge and Gutschoven. After considering the chronology of this frustrating process, which is interesting in its own right, I will examine the illustrations themselves, comparing them with Schuyl’s illustrations for his 1662 Latin edition, and especially in the light of what Clerselier says were the intended purpose of such illustrations.
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- 1.
See Clerselier’s chronology leading up to the publication of his edition of the Traité de l’homme in his preface to the 1664 volume: L’Homme de René Descartes et un traitté de la formation du foetus du mesme autheur, avec les Remarques de Louis de la Forge (Paris: Charles Angot, 1664; henceforth, “Preface”).
- 2.
In fact, there is reason to believe that, despite what he says, Clerselier did not have an autograph original of the Traité de l’homme; see Sylvain Matton, “Un témoignage oublié sur le manuscrit du Traité de l’homme de Descartes”, Bulletin Cartésien XXXVI, in Archives de Philosophie 71 (2008): 148–9. Theo Verbeek has suggested to me that what Clerselier possessed was a copy that was no less removed from an original than the copy used by Florent Schuyl for his 1662 Latin translation. For the provenance of Descartes’s posthumous papers, including those found in the “Leiden suitcase” and those listed in the Stockholm inventory, see the “Introduction” by Verbeek and Erik-Jan Bos in The Correspondence of René Descartes, 1643, eds. Theo Verbeek, Erik-Jan Bos, and Jeroen van de Ven (Utrecht: Zeno Institute, 2003), xvi-xxiii. See also Franco Aurelio Meschini, “Filologia e scienza. Note per un’edizione critica de L’Homme di Descartes”, in Franco Aurelio Meschini, Le opere dei filosofi e degli scienziati. Filosofia e scienza tra testo, libro e biblioteche (Florence: Olschki, 2011), 165–204; and the review of Meschini’s book by Matthijs van Otegem, Bulletin cartésien XLII, 3.1.65. Meschini and Van Otegem seem to leave open the possibility that Clerselier did have an autograph original.
- 3.
For the dramatic but unconfirmed story of their delivery in Paris, see Adrien Baillet, La Vie de Monsieur Descartes, 2 vols. (Paris: Daniel Horthemels, 1691), II.428.
- 4.
Lettres de Mr. Descartes (Paris: Charles Angot, 1659), xii.
- 5.
Lettres de Mr. Descartes (Paris: Charles Angot, 1667), i.
- 6.
It is not entirely clear how Clerselier came into possession of the Traité de l’homme. It may have been among the items conveyed to him by his brother in-law, Descartes’s friend, and French ambassador to Sweden Pierre Chanut (who in turn got it from either (a) the Leiden or Stockholm inventories of Descartes’s effects, although it is not listed in the latter [see AT X.5–12]; or (b) some other source, as the document published by Matton [“Un témoignage oublié”] implies). Or, as Verbeek and Bos suggest (The Correspondence of René Descartes, xxi–xxii), the manuscript may have been given to Clerselier by Tobias Andreae. Or perhaps he received several copies of the manuscript, from these different sources.
- 7.
To Mersenne, 8 October 1629, AT I.23.
- 8.
To Mersenne, Nov. or Dec. 1632, AT I.263. Clerselier would not publish the first part, the Traité de la lumière, until 1677, when he brought out both parts of Le Monde together in a single volume.
- 9.
“Preface”, v-vi (there is no pagination in the original text, but these are the page numbers that would be there).
- 10.
If Huyberts did in fact produce illustrations for L’Homme, he must have had access to one of several manuscript copies of the treatise that were apparently circulating in the Netherlands among a small coterie of Cartesian devotés.
- 11.
“Preface”, xvii.
- 12.
“Preface”, vi.
- 13.
“Preface”, vii–viii.
- 14.
Whether Clerselier did in fact receive the manuscript from Chanut (or exclusively from Chanut) is open to question; see note 6 above.
- 15.
“Preface”, xi.
- 16.
“Preface”, xi.
- 17.
We have a letter from Clerselier to La Forge in December 1660 (it appears as the final entry in Clerselier’s third volume of Descartes’s correspondence, published in 1667), in response to at least one letter from La Forge, and so their arrangement must have been concluded before that.
- 18.
“Preface”, iv.
- 19.
See the final paragraph of Schuyl’s “Ad Lectorem”, in Renatus Des Cartes De homine figuris et latinatate donatus a Florentio Schuyl (Leiden: Franciscus Moyardus, 1662; henceforth, De homine), n.p. : “Additis duabus figuris a Des Cartes rudi Minerva exaratis”.
- 20.
“Preface”, v.
- 21.
La Forge was, in fact, completing Descartes’s project, since the discussion of the human body in the Traité de l’homme was, as Descartes says in the opening paragraph of the treatise, supposed to be followed by a description of “l’âme aussi à part” and then an account of “comment ces deux natures doivent être jointes et unies.” In 1661, however, Clerselier felt that there was enough work to be done on L’Homme without taking on the project of publishing La Forge’s treatise as well. Moreover, he felt that La Forge’s work was not quite ready, that it needed a bit more work (“il luy faut encore quelques coups de lime pour la mettre à sa perfection” [“Preface”, xii]).
- 22.
Clerselier says in his preface to the 1664 edition that if not for Gutschoven’s delay, Descartes’s Traité de l’homme could have been published two years earlier.
- 23.
Clerselier had Gutschoven’s illustrations before Schuyl’s book appeared in 1662, because he says that he when he received “le présent que Monsieur Schuyl m’avoit fait de son livre”, presumably just after the book’s publication, he already possessed “toutes les figures de ce Traité, que chacun de ces Messieurs avoit faites” (“Preface”, v).
- 24.
AT XI.31.
- 25.
AT XI.119–20.
- 26.
“Preface”, xv.
- 27.
AT XI.201.
- 28.
Claus Zittel, “Conflicting Pictures: Illustrating Descartes’ Traité de l’homme”, in Sven Dupré and Christoph Lüthy, eds., Silent Messengers: The Circulation of Material Objects of Knowledge in the Early Modern Low Countries (Münster: LIT Verlag, 2011), 217–60, p. 221.
- 29.
“Preface”, xx-xxi.
- 30.
“Preface”, xiii-xiv.
- 31.
“Preface”, xx.
- 32.
“Preface”, xxv.
- 33.
“Preface”, xviii.
- 34.
“Conflicting Pictures”, 221.
- 35.
“Preface”, xxv.
- 36.
“Preface”, xvii-xviii.
- 37.
“Preface”, xxv. Clerselier notes that the reader’s imagination is especially required both when it comes to filling in the details that cannot be captured in woodcut printing and for supplying the motions that are to take place in the body, “lequel on ne sçauroit representer” (xxvi).
- 38.
“Preface”, xx.
- 39.
“Preface”, xiv-xv.
- 40.
“Preface”, xix-xx.
- 41.
“Preface”, xv.
- 42.
See the insert following AT XI.634.
- 43.
“Preface”, xviii.
- 44.
“Preface”, xviii.
- 45.
“Preface”, xviii.
- 46.
“Preface”, xviii.
- 47.
I am grateful to Annie Bitbol-Hespériès for sharing her insights on this with me through correspondence. She is skeptical about the discovered “brouillon”, especially given that what Clerselier says about this alleged autograph drawing (“je le garde pour le faire voir à ceux qui en auront la curiosité” [“Preface”, xviii]) is just like what he says about the autograph original of L’Homme he claims to have possessed (“l’original que j’ay, et que je feray voir quand on voudra” [“Preface”, iii]), a claim about which many scholars are dubious (see note 2 above). Her view is that when Clerselier re-drew Descartes’s drawing, he was influenced both by the crude figure by Descartes published by Schuyl and by Gutschoven’s rendering.
- 48.
“Preface”, xix.
- 49.
Rebecca M. Wilkin has argued, on the other hand, that these items in fact play a role in the overall philosophical message conveyed by Schuyl’s illustrations, although she claims that, with their realism and worldliness, they function as a kind of memento mori and reminder of the transience of things human and thereby undermine Descartes’s dualist project; see “Figuring the Dead Descartes: Claude Clerselier’s Homme de René Descartes (1664)”, Representations 83 (2003): 38–66.
- 50.
“Preface”, ii.
- 51.
“Preface”, iv.
- 52.
“Preface”, ii.
- 53.
“Preface”, xiv.
- 54.
In fact, the resulting image appears to be a side-angle view of the figure produced by Schuyl for the same text, suggesting that either Clerselier or Gutschoven referred to Schuyl’s work for guidance; compare the figure in De homine, p. 14 with the figure in L’Homme, p. 9.
- 55.
“Preface”, xix.
- 56.
Here is how Clerselier’s describes La Forge’s various contributions: “Il n’y a point de difficultez qu’il n’ait resolües, point de scruples qu’il n’ait levez, point d’obscuritez qu’il n’ait éclaircies” (“Preface”, xxiii-xxiv).
- 57.
“Preface”, xx. La Forge explains his departure from Descartes on this point in his commentary on L’Homme (228). His commentary (as well as Clerselier’s preface) is also accessible in a modern edition: see L’Homme de René Descartes et Un Traité de la Formation du Foetus du Mesme Autheur, Avec les Remarques de Louys de la Forge (Paris: Fayard, 1999; henceforth, L’Homme de René Descartes), 230. Interestingly, the crude and barely understandable drawing by Descartes that Schuyl used (fig. 4), unlike the one reproduced by Clerselier, seems to show the nerves discharging the animal spirits into the muscle, as La Forge’s illustration does.
- 58.
As far as I can tell, this is the only instance in which one of the illustrations “corrects” Descartes’s text. Thus, Zittel’s claim may be a bit of an exaggeration when he says that Gutschoven and La Forge, as trained medical doctors, made an effort “to bring Descartes’s book up to date with the latest scientific knowledge. As a consequence, their main objective in drawing the images was often not the exact reconstruction of what Descartes might have intended, but the reflection of current scientific knowledge” (“Conflicting Pictures”, 221).
- 59.
L’Homme de René Descartes, 227.
- 60.
AT VI.106.
- 61.
Van Schooten’s image is at AT VI.135–6. On this borrowing from Van Schooten, see Annie Bitbol-Hespériès, “Introduction” to René Descartes, Le Monde, L’Homme, eds. A. Bitbol-Hespériès and Jean-Pierre Verdet (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1996), iii–liii (p. xlviii).
- 62.
“Preface”, ii.
- 63.
Bitbol-Hespériès, “Introduction”, xxiv–xxvii; and Le Principe de vie chez Descartes (Paris: J. Vrin, 1990).
- 64.
“Preface”, xxvi.
- 65.
Interesting and compelling analyses of the illustrations for L’Homme, especially comparing Gutschoven and La Forge vs. Schuyl, are offered by Zittel (“Conflicting Pictures”) and Wilkin (“Figuring the Dead Descartes”). In fact, Zittel and Wilkin disagree on a central issue. According to Wilkin, Schuyl’s worldly illustrations subvert Descartes’s scientific project, and especially the mind-body dualism, by underscoring human mortality and the transience of bodily things, whereas the more abstract and spare figures by Gutschoven and La Forge figures “perpetuate the philosopher’s project of postponing death by diverting the reader’s attention from the corruptible nature of the body” (45). Zittel, on the other hand, insists that Gutschoven’s and La Forge’s illustrations go beyond Descartes’s own project by prioritizing “the reductionist notion of man as a machine”, and represent Clerselier’s ideal (and that of other latter-day Cartesians) more than Descartes’s. Zittel insists that “from the point of view of Descartes’s supposed intentions, … the arguments in favour of Schuyl’s visual language would definitely be stronger” (230).
- 66.
For a discussion of the relative advantages and disadvantages of woodblock-print illustrations vs. engravings in early modern texts, see Sachiko Kusukawa, Picturing the Book of Nature: Image, Text, and Argument in Sixteenth-Century Human Anatomy and Medical Botany (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012), pp. 29–34; and “Illustrating Nature”, in Marina Frasca-Spada and Nick Jardine, eds., Books and the Sciences in History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 90–113.
- 67.
Journal des sçavans, 5 January 1665, 9–11 (11). Accessible online: (http://gallicalabs.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k56523g/f13.image)
- 68.
My work on this essay was made possible by a senior fellowship at the Institute for Research in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and greatly facilitated by a Residency at the American Academy in Rome (April 2015). My thanks to Margaret Maida for her bibliographic suggestions. I am also indebted to Robin Rider, Special Collections, Memorial Library, Univexrsity of Wisconsin-Madison, and to Micaela Sullivan-Fowler and Joanna Baisch, Rare Books and Special Collections, Ebling Library, University of Wisconsin-Madison, for their help.
The images from Schuyl’s edition of De Homine are courtesy of the Daniel and Eleanor Albert Collection, Department of Special Collections, Memorial Library, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The images from Bauhin’s Theatrum Anatomicum are courtesy of Ebling Library, Rare Books & Special Collections, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
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Nadler, S. (2016). The Art of Cartesianism: The Illustrations of Clerselier’s Edition of Descartes’s Traité de l’homme (1664). In: Antoine-Mahut, D., Gaukroger, S. (eds) Descartes’ Treatise on Man and its Reception. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, vol 43. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46989-8_12
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