t is manifestly untrue.

This elaborate deference to the powers that be did not indeed save the
work from being ultimately placed upon the forbidden list by the Church,
but it saved himself, at any rate, from annoying persecution. He was
not, indeed, at all willing to be persecuted, and would no doubt have at
once withdrawn anything they wished. I should be sorry to call him a
time-server, but he certainly had plenty of that worldly wisdom in which
some of his predecessors had been so lamentably deficient. Moreover, he
was really a sceptic, and cared nothing at all about the Church or its
dogmas. He knew the Church's power, however, and the advisability of
standing well with it: he therefore professed himself a Catholic, and
studiously kept his science and his Christianity distinct.

In saying that he was a sceptic you must not understand that he was in
the least an atheist. Very few men are; certainly Descartes never
thought of being one. The term is indeed ludicrously inapplicable to
him, for a great part of his philosophy is occupied with what he
considers a rigorous proof of the existence of the Deity.

At the age of fifty-three he was sent for to Stockholm by Christina,
Queen of Sweden, a young lady enthusiastically devoted to study of all
kinds and determined to surround her Court with all that was most famous
in literature and science. Thither, after hesitation, Descartes went. He
greatly liked royalty, but he dreaded the cold climate. Born in
Touraine, a Swedish winter was peculiarly trying to him, especially as
the energetic Queen would have lessons given her at five o'clock in the
morning. She intended to treat him well, and was immensely taken with
him; but this getting up at five o'clock on a November morning, to a man
accustomed all his life to lie in bed till eleven, was a cruel hardship.
He was too much of a courtier, however, to murmur, and the early morning
audience continued. His health began to break down: he thought of
retreating, but suddenly he gave way and became delirious. The Queen's
physician attended him, and of course wanted to bleed him. This, knowing
all he knew of physiology, sent him furious, and they could do nothing
with him. After some days he became quiet, was bled twice, and gradually
sank, discoursing with great calmness on his approaching death, and duly
fortified with all the rites of the Catholic Church.

His general method of research was as nearly as possible a purely
deduct