biohistoriography - the genealogy of embodied epistemology

(www.geocities.com/biohistoriography)

                        RENE DESCARTES AND HIS MYALGIC ENCEPHALOMYELITIS: IMPLICATIONS
                                FOR MODERN PHILOSOPHY, ITS HISTORY AND HISTORIOGRAPHY

                                                                         Jed Gallagher

                            <Descartes est l'homme qui, enferme dans sa chambre, y a
                              decouvert la clef de tous les mecanismes de la nature.>

                                                                             L'enigme Cartesienne (Frederix 1959)

                           <Descartes, d'une sante tres fragile, recut des son enfance
                             la permission de se lever a 11 heures du matin tous les jours,
                             habitude qu'il conservera toute sa vie. Il confia d'ailleurs                                                               
                             a Pascal en 1647 que, selon lui, il faut etre autorise a se 
                             lever tard le matin si l'on veut faire correctement des
                             mathematiques. Je suggere donc expressement a tous les eleves
                             de France et de Navarre de signer des aujourd'hui une petition
                             envoyee au Ministere de l'Education Nationale pour promouvoir
                             cette idee geniale de Descartes.>

                                                              Lycee Francais de San Francisco website (2000)

These quotations, and inumerable other enigmatic depictions of Rene Descartes (1596-1650)  mode of living, have defined our understanding of him as a person for over 350 years. In the public sphere, his life has in turn helped to establish what it actually means to live the life of a philosopher - a solitary life lived indoors, sedentary, meditative and devoted purely to intellectual pursuits of the highest order - yet somehow self-indulgent and lazy. Descartes life-long practice of sleeping through most of the morning, then lying in bed thinking until noon, has become central to our beliefs about his character. This is reflected in descriptions of him such as "sleepy-head", "un faineant (idler)", and "stay-in-bed scholar". The most revealing contemporaneous image of Descartes shows him seated (always seated) at a desk in an opulent Classical villa, the sun streaming in through the windows, surrounded by numerous objects of knowledge; an honourable image until you realise that he is still in his dressing gown! For teachers of the history of philosophy, these descriptions provide an amusing introduction to his work - by cautioning students against adopting his way of living if they want good grades.

The explanation usually given for Descartes behaviour is that he was a sickly child in which the necessities of his childhood became the habits of a life-time. He was a weak, frail and delicate child, with a pale face and a chronic dry cough. He was excused all formal schooling until the age of eleven when he was sent to board at the newly established Jesuit college at La Fleche in France. He was bullied at La Fleche due to his physical weakness. The teachers at La Fleche were aware that he required much more rest than other boys of his age so they allowed him to sleep in the mornings and join the classes only when he felt able - usually around noon.

From a relatively wealthy family, he left La Fleche to study law and then became a "gentleman" soldier. He developed and matured physically (although he remained short in stature) and appeared to outgrow his poor health. As a philosopher, although he spent every day in bed until noon (sometimes the whole day); by his own admission, he was never ill for a day again until his death. The most charitable explanation of his way of life has been that he was the victim of constitutional weakness - he was just naturally weak.

In this essay I want to propose that Descartes was actually a near life-long moderate case of an acquired chronic disabling disease known as Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) and that it was the pathophysiology of his ME which actually dictated his mode of living, thinking and dying; and, that it has been impossible to understand Descartes life and work without reference to his ME. Even more importantly, I want to propose that Descartes philosophy was derived directly from his experience of ME. Accordingly, I propose that the history of Modern philosophy is actually the historical  development of an idea (the Cartesian soul)  which is literally "pathological" to the normal healthy human. More bluntly, Modern philosophy would literally not exist without the prior existence of ME. 

It is very difficult  for a healthy person who has not experienced ME to fully appreciate just how different the experience of "being human" is in comparison to a non-ME sufferer. Of how restrictive ME can be on everyday activities of daily living. ME can best be understood by a non-sufferer using the concept of a pathological constitution; a constitution that is abnormally weak rather than naturally weak. The symptoms of ME are very numerous and identifiably unique; and manifest, often subclinically, as impairments of every physiological (including neurological) system of the body (see biohistoriography home page: What is Myalgic Encephalomyelitis?). The type and number of ME behavioural patterns found in contemporary Descartes biography and in his personal testimony mean that the only possible explanation is that he was coping with the symptoms of ME (see Appendix 1: Summary of ME diagnostic criteria attributable to Rene Descartes). These behavioural patterns are instantly recognisable and familiar to any ME patient (like myself) or clinical expert. 

What is clear is that both Descartes himself and the people who knew him would not have been able to know that he was actually suffering from ME - for two reasons. Firstly, the symptoms of ME have only been recognised as actually construing a "disease" for around 100 years, with the term ME as a clinical "entity" since 1956 (Acheson 1956). Before 1956, the existence of the condition had been remarked upon all the way back to Hippocrates (460-377BC) , but each period has had its own preconceptions of what it is, how and why it occurred and what to call it (Straus1991). There were some historical periods when it was considered to be medically noteworthy and others where it was just another aspect of human nature. Descartes, and the people who knew him, were obviously not aware of the existence of ME and Descartes himself had no time for medical doctors, intellectually or medically.

Descartes, himself, wrote about his health in letters to Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia (1618-1680) in May 1645. He believed that he had inherited his dry cough and pale colour from his mother, who had died 14 months after his birth, apparently from a disorder of the lungs. The most probable explanation for his dry cough is a relatively minor lung infection which would be quickly treated with antibiotics today. According to Descartes, his dry cough persisted well into his twenties, around which time, he made it gradually disappear through improving his health with rational thoughts of happiness. However, according to Gaukroger (1995), his adult regime of supposedly positive thinking was “characterized by moodiness, misanthropy, and at times what can only be described as paranoia”.

Rodis-Lewis (1999) accepts the standard account of the frail child with the chronic cough but is also aware of the contradictory problem of the adult Descartes, supposedly fully recovered, because, “For a long time, he continued to observe that morning rest period”. Rodis-Lewis alludes to a possible explanation of chronic tuberculosis based on the evidence that Descartes was observed studying in bed, one morning, with the windows open (not closed). However, there is no record of the adult Descartes exhibiting the, then well-known, symptoms and behaviour of tuberculosis.

On Descartes own evidence, Gaukroger (1995)  has pointed out that Descartes probably believed he was suffering from melancholia and that this is the most probable explanation for his ill-health that we have today. Melancholia is an Aristotlean (384-322BC)  medical concept which was revived during the Renaissance. Today, melancholia is most commonly associated with a mood of thoughtful sadness and sombreness. However, during the Renaissance, as well as having this association, it was a concept which also covered a wide range of other behaviour, from clinical depression to everyday sorrow, dejection or despair (Jackson 1986). An unknown medical condition which was easily subsumed within the general category of melancholia at this time was ME (Straus 1991); here, I want to demonstrate that Descartes supposed melancholia was actually a moderate case of ME.

Secondly, it is clear that Descartes acquired ME at a very young age, between five and ten years old, making him too young to realise or understand what had happened  to him. As far as Descartes was concerned, he had experienced  the symptoms of ME for as long as he could remember and so his pathophysiological "constitution" was perfectly normal to him. Descartes simply did not complain about his ME symptoms because he did not know he had any; to him, they were just how his body had always been - he got on with his life and coped with his symptoms as best as he could with the resources available to him.  As we now say, he was “undiagnosed”. It is currently thought that ME can be contracted by children as young as five years old but, in any case, children under the age of ten do not have the cognitive development to be aware of the pathological changes in the functioning of their bodies. It is only adult carers who are in a position to notice such changes (Hyde 1992).

The extent to which Descartes was confused and ignorant of just what he was living with can be found in another revealing letter where he talks about his health in a more unselfconscious manner. In May 1644, he made a trip from his home in the Netherlands to France on family business, staying four months in order to finalise the legalities of his fathers death with his brother, half-sister and half-brother. Eight months after his return home, he writes to Alphonse Pollot (1604-1668)  that, "Since my journey to France, I have aged twenty years, to the extent it is now a greater effort for me to go to the Hague than it used to be to travel to Rome. It is not that I am sick, thank God, but I feel weak and more than ever I need comfort and rest" (quoted in Gaukroger 1995). As we will see, this is a defining statement from an "undiagnosed"  childhood ME patient.

Documentary Sources

The documented evidence of Descartes ME has existed for over 300 years in contemporary letters, writings and biographies. The key secondary document is the magisterial biography of 1691 by Adrien Baillet (1649-1706)  - La Vie de Monsieur Descartes. The first edition, in French, was published in two large volumes of over 500 pages each (Baillet 1691). It is a testament to the huge amount of work Baillet put into recording such a wonderful level of detail on Descartes life from contemporaneous sources. Importantly, Baillet cites his sources in the margin of each page.  Even today, it is still the biographical reference work on Descartes. An abridged one volume edition was also published, in French, in 1693  and this has been reprinted many times since then (Baillet 1693).

There has never been an English translation of the Baillet first edition but subsequent 20th century biographers writing in English (or any language)  have all used the first edition as the secondary source document to write their own interpretations of Descartes life. The 1691  first edition is divided into eight books in chronological order; and each book  is sub-divided into chapters. Volume one contains the first four books; covering the years 1596  to 1638. Volume two contains the other four books; books five to seven cover the years 1638  to 1650 but book eight is a more general book containing those domestic and personal details of how Descartes actually lived his life on a daily basis, including his own opinions on what he thought was the most congenial mode of living. It is in this book, and in particular, in chapter one, that we are able to see and hear Descartes living with his ME on a day-to-day basis.

The 1693  abridged edition is structured along the same lines as the 1691  first edition. However, each of the eight books has been abridged to become a chapter (with the original chapter sub-divisions removed); although each chapter is still called a “book”. What is little known is that an English translation of the 1693 abridged edition, from the original French, was also published in London in 1693 - and has never been reprinted (Baillet 1693). Where I quote from the 1693 English abridged edition, the quotations are taken from book (chapter) eight.

In his preface, Baillet (1691)  informs us of the importance of two earlier contemporary biographies for many personal details and Descartes own account of his behaviour and lifestyle: Daniel Lipstorps Specimina Philosophiae Cartesianae (1653)  and Pierre Borels Vitae Renati Cartesii (1656). Lipstorp (1631-1684)  was a student at the University of Leiden, the Netherlands, and became acquainted with another student, van Berhel, who was a disciple of the Cartesian, Professor Johannes de Raey (1622-1707) . Raey became a friend and confidant of Descartes during Descartes stay in Leiden from 1640  to 1643 and Raey, in turn, took Van Berhel into his confidence on the “divers petits memoires curieux” of Descartes. It was Van Berhel who, unwittingly, passed Raeys confidences  to Lipstorp. Borels account is mainly derived from the now lost memoires of another close friend of Descartes, Etienne de Ville-Bressieu (d.1653), who knew him during the 1620s and 1630s. 

The modern standard edition of Descartes life and works is the Charles Adam and Paul Tannery Oeuvres de Descartes in 12 volumes published from 1897 to 1910. Adams own Vie de Descartes was published as volume twelve in 1910. Adams Life is still second only to Baillet as the most most important reference source; it is a commentary on the reliability of Baillet, citing new or additional evidence, and printing the texts of Baillets primary and secondary sources. Basically, Baillet should not be read without reference to Adam. A second edition appeared  in 1974; although reorganised, including newly discovered documents, it was only published in 11 volumes - omitting Adams Life. In this paper I cite the first edition as AT followed by the the volume and page numbers.

In turn, Baillet and AT should not be read without reference to the superb recent biography from Genevieve Rodis-Lewis: Descartes, Biographie. This was first published in French in 1995, with an English translation appearing in 1998. Rodis-Lewis corrects Baillet and AT and updates the evidence appearing over the past 100 years since AT. In this paper I cite the paperback English translation of 1999.

Living

Descartes was born on March 31, 1596, at La Haye (now renamed Descartes in his honour) in France. He was a pale and delicate child from birth and, as Descartes himself describes it, he inherited a dry cough from his mother at an early age. Although he lost his dry cough and palor during his twenties, his frailty and weakness continued for the rest of his life. The explanation given for his life-long poor health in Baillet (1693)  is that “…the weak disposition he brought into the world with him. A dry cough and pale colour were hereditary to him from his mother, which he kept until he was above 20 years of age”. The explanation which I want to propose for Descartes life-long poor health, or "weak disposition", is that he acquired moderate ME at sometime under 10 years of age - probably around 5 years old.

It is unfortunate that  Descartes was a delicate and sickly baby because this has historically diverted attention away from any investigation into the biographical feature of his chronic poor health. The explanation has always appeared to be a simple one - from Baillets interpretation - he was just born that way. The second problem which has indirectly supported this simple explanation is that, as he also acquired ME as a young child, his poor health appears to be just a continuation of his delicate health at birth. This has meant that, although his health was poor for two different reasons during his early life, the change itself went unnoticed.

The facts actually support the idea of a change  in the cause of his poor health during childhood, rather than a continuation of his sickliness from birth. In his early adulthood, he unaccountably lost his dry cough and stopped being so sickly, but he remained frail and weak for the rest of his life. Somehow, according to the simple explanation, he was able to outgrow his susceptibility to infection without outgrowing the frailty and weakness which supposedly caused it. This is plainly illogical but there are behavioural changes in Descartes life, relating to ME, which offer a better explanation of this event. Susceptiblity to infections due to a compromised immune system is one of the symptoms of ME, particularly a child with ME. This ME-related susceptibility is increased by the level of physical and mental stress the child is exposed to. Once Descartes had acquired ME, although he was well cared for, his carers would not have known the type and level of ME care needed to stop susceptibility to stress-related infections. It is only when Descartes reached adulthood and began to learn the types of behaviour best-suited to coping with his ME,  from his own experience of living with ME, that he was able to reduce his physical and mental stress to a level where he could finally rid himself of his dry cough and other infections could be kept at bay. When he takes complete control of his living arrangements in early adulthood - pacing and resting his activities - he never gets a chronic infection again. “He took up a course of life so even and uniform, that he was never [chronically] sick with anything again” (Baillet 1693). Indeed, there is evidence that an unstressed ME patient has a more efficient immune system than a healthy person - this is what we find with Descartes. It is only when he loses this control, thirty years later, on his trip to Sweden, that he gets infected once again - with fatal consequences. 

There is evidence that young children with ME do not physically develop at the same rate as normal children. Nor do they reach the same physique and stature at full growth which they would have done without ME. It is interesting that the undersized Descartes was bullied at school and the adult Descartes was noticeably short in stature - “a dwarf performed the task of a Hercules” (Robinson 1921). He was noticeably upset by the insult of “little man” (homuncio)  from Professor de Herborn (Baillet 1693). His adult body was “very delicate” and his “head seemed too big in proportion to his body.” (Baillet 1693)

There are two key interrelated behavioural traits which Descartes exhibits throughout his whole life which are highly indicative of someone with ME: “resting” and “hiding”. These form two themes which can be traced like threads running through his life. They are classic biological symptoms of animal  sickness behaviour. He spent each morning sleeping and then resting in bed, during his adult life; he used this resting time to think. He regularly required long periods of rest after relatively short periods of work. One of his two mottos, “Bene vixit, bene qui latuit” (To live well, is to hide well), is extremely revealing of his inability to cope with normal levels of activity. His “hiding” behaviour was such that he was nicknamed “D’Escartes”, which translates as “removed” or “at a distance”. Taking up these problematic themes, Rodis-Lewis (1999) asserts that, “We must try to understand Descartes prolonged hesitations before he established the metaphysical principles…Rest was sometimes a necessary relaxation, more often the rejection of everything that turned his attention away from the essential.” To someone coping with moderate ME, like Descartes, hiding oneself away and resting is the only way in which they can live. They are completely unable to cope with any of the physical and mental activities of daily life because of the fatigue and other disabling symptoms they induce. Only by hiding away can the person with moderate ME create the space and time to salvage a few short hours of normal activity from a life requiring lots of time spent resting.

Descartes was born at the house of his maternal grandmother at La Haye where he lived for his first eleven years. When his mother died the following year, he was brought up by his grandmother, the family nurse-maid and a private tutor: 

“The weakness of his disposition, and unconstancy of his health, obliged his father to leave him a long time under the tuition of women. Yet at the [same] time they were but busy about his body, and endeavour to procure him a good strong constitution, he afforded, almost every day, instances of the beautifulness of his genius.” (Baillet 1693)

Descartes was expected to follow his older brother to the nearby Jesuit college at La Fleche at the usual age of 7 years but this was postponed for three and half years, because of his chronic ill-health, to the Easter of 1607; just as he turned 11 years old midway through the academic year. It appears that his father was now so anxious not to waste any more time that, after the winter and Lent, he was unwilling to wait a further six months for the start of the next academic year. The point to bear in mind here is that Descartes would have been extremely vulnerable with his “constitutional weakness” if sent to a boarding school between the ages of 7 and 10 years old. He was unwell, his carers knew it, but they also knew that Descartes himself was too young to understand and had to wait until he did. They also knew he needed lots of rest, particularly in the mornings, so it was arranged with Father Charlet, the headmaster of La Fleche and a relative of the Descartes family, that his resting regime would continue at boarding school: 

“Le Pere Charlet, Recteur de la Maison, qui etoit son directeur perpetuel, luy avoit pratique entre autres privileges celuy de demeurer long-tems au lit les matins, tant a cause de sa sante infirme, que parce qu’il remarquoit en luy un esprit porte naturellement a la meditation. Descartes qui a son reveil trouvait toutes les forces de son esprit recueilles, et tous ses sens rassis par le repos de la nuit, profitoit de ces favourable conjunctures pour mediter. Cette pratique luy tourna tellement en habitude, qu’il s’en fit maniere d’etudier pour toute sa vie: et l’on peut dire que c’est aux matinees de son lit, que nous sommes redevables de ce que son esprit a produit de plus important dans la Philosophie, et dans les Mathematiques.” (Baillet 1:28)

“Father Charlet, rector, and life-time headmaster, allowed him, among other priveleges, to stay in bed all morning, due to his weak health, which he noted naturally opened his mind to meditation. Descartes found, his waking gathered all the forces of his mind, and all his senses calmed by the nights rest, he profited from this favourable set of circumstances through meditation. This practice became a habit, which became his life-long manner of study: and that it was to these mornings in bed, that we are indebted to his mind for producing the most important philosophy and mathematics.” (my translation)

Baillet gives his source as Lipstorp (from Johannes de Raey) in the page margin; AT reprints the actual paragraph in Latin (AT12:20). The most interesting phrase in the Lipstorp text is “qui ipsum familiarus noverunt”, or that all of his “familiars/intimates/household”, basically everyone who had close contact with him, knew about his life-long mornings in bed.

It is important to note here (for the first time, as far as I can ascertain) that it appears Descartes made these detailed reflections on  the life-long behavioural consequences of his chronic ill-health to Johannes de Raey and not, as is widely believed (for example, in the introductory quotation to this essay), to Blaise Pascal (1623-1662).  Descartes met with Pascal in Paris on Monday and Tuesday, the 23rd and 24th  of September 1647. Pascal was sick and confined  to bed at home. On the Tuesday, their conversation about Pascals sickness was recorded by his sister, Jacqueline, in a letter to her married older sister Madame Gilberte Perier. In the letter, dated 25th September 1647, Jacqueline recorded Descartes advice to Pascal on recovering from his sickness but he does not refer to his own chronic illness:

“Mr Descartes venoit icy en partie pour consulter le mal de mon frere, sur quoy il ne lui dit pourtant pas grand chose; seulement il lui conseilla de se tenir tout la jour au lit, jusqu’a ce qu’il fut las d’y etre, et de prendre force bouillons.” (AT 5:73)

“Mr Descartes came here in part to consult on my brothers sickness, on which nevertheless he did not say much; he advised him only to stay in bed all day, until he was weary/tired of being there, and to take strong broths.” (my translation)

There is an allusion here to Descartes own sickness behaviour of staying in bed until he felt sufficiently rested to be able to rise but this meeting is clearly not the source of Descartes testimony on the matter. There appears to be a myth at work here, but it is the myth of the “great” meeting with Blaise Pascal over his more mundane friendship with Johannes de Raey, rather than any doubt about  the substance of Descartes testimony itself. Baillet makes no reference to the conversation in his account of the meeting (Baillet 2:328); neither does Le Tenneur, who was also at the meeting, in his account made in a letter to Mersenne of 8th January 1648 (AT 5:103).

AT provides further details about Descartes priveleges at the college of La Fleche:

“On fit mieux pour Descartes, on le laissa se reveiller tout seul et se lever a son heure: il ne couchait pas au dortoir commun, mais il avait sa chambre, etant de ces eleves appeles chambristes…Et nous savons, par temoignages surs, que Descartes (pour son malheur, lorsqu’il fut en Suede) garda toute sa vie l’habitude de se lever tard” (AT 12:20).     

It was better for Descartes, he was allowed to awake himself and get up when he was able: he did not sleep in a shared dormitory, but in his own bedroom, such pupils were called “chambristes”…And we know, from the surest of evidence, that Descartes (for his misfortune, when he died in Sweden) guarded all his life the habit of getting up late.” (my translation)

Descartes was fortunate to have the interest of Father CharIet, who Descartes himself described in a letter to Charlet as like a “second father”.  Baillets description is a classic depiction of a young boy struggling with ME - a boy who is chronically fatigued, fatigues very easily, and requires lots of rest. A full nights sleep and he is still too fatigued and debilitated to rise in the morning. Bedtime at the college was 9.00pm with a wake up bell at 5.00am. Prayers, individual study and breakfast until 7.30am. Then classes and tutoring until 10.00am. Then mass, followed by lunch, with classes resuming at 1.30pm until 5.30pm (Rodis-Lewis 1999). According to Rodis-Lewis, Descartes might have received breakfast in his room around 8.00am, then attended mass at 10.00am, had lunch and then two hours of personal work. However, this contradicts AT above, “he was allowed to wake himself”, which is consistent with his adult morning regime (and the regime of a moderate ME case). This entailed a slow self-awakening around 10.00am, breakfast in bed, two hours of resting and thinking, before rising around midday. This regime fits the school timetable closely; he was probably brought his breakfast just before mass, when he was awake. It is unlikely that Descartes would be woken at 8.00am or be compelled to attend mass (rather than classes).

This level of weakness and fatigue, requiring at least 12 hours in bed each day, defines a moderate case of ME. Even with the domestic and personal support of the school, he is unable to undertake full-time study (or full-time work later in adulthood); but if he sleeps and rests for most of the day then he is able to study part-time. It is significant that, if he sticks to this pattern of behaviour, then it appears that he does not have any illness at all - he is able to lead a “normal” life but at a reduced capacity - and he can do this for forty years without any significant deterioration of his symptoms or morbidity. There is no other medical condition which has these fluctuations between severe disablement and “normal” physical and mental capacity within each day.

Having acquired a mild case of ME by the age of ten myself, and then deteriorating to a moderate case in adulthood, I now have exactly the same behaviour patterns as Descartes, so I can fully recognise and understand what is happening to him. To an even greater extent - I was also educated at a Jesuit college - the historical irony is not lost on me that I am writing this essay about a boy who was in exactly the same circumstances over 400 years ago. Unfortunately, I did not have a Father Charlet, and my mild ME condemned  me to attending classes in a complete daze of physical and mental fatigue every morning of my school life; and, like Descartes, in complete ignorance that there was anything abnormal about my health. Descartes moderate ME does not mean that it was impossible for him to wake early and leave his bed on some mornings, but it does mean  that he would suffer physically and mentally much more than I did; and the Jesuits recognised this. Only very intelligent ME patients can actually salvage an education under  these circumstances; that is, because school education is not too great an intellectual effort for someone of high intelligence. As such, Descartes would have been able to leave La Fleche well-educated even with moderate ME.

Another example of the sure evidence to which AT refers is a letter from Descartes to Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac (1595-1654)  of 15 April 1631 concerning his adult mode of living and thinking in Amsterdam:

“Je dors icy dix heures toutes les nuits, et sans que jamais aucun soin me reueille, apres que le sommeil a longtemps promene mon esprit dans des buys, des jardins, et des palais enchantez, ou j’eprouue tous les plaisirs qui sont imaginez dans les Fables, je mesle insensiblement mes reveries du jour avec celles de la nuit; et quand je m’apercoy d’etre eueille, c’est seulement afin que mon contentement soit plus parfait, et que mes sens y participent.” (AT 1: 199)

“ I sleep here for ten hours every night, and without anyone ever caring to wake me, after which the sleepiness casts my mind for a long time through the woods, gardens and enchanted palaces, where I experience all the pleasures imagined in the Fables, I mingle insensibly my daydreams with those of the night; and when I percieve myself to be fully awake, it is only then that my contentment is most perfect, and that my understanding takes part.” (my translation)

From the testimony in this letter, the adult Descartes probably went to sleep around midnight - because of his ME. Medical researchers have shown that, in ME patients, the blood level of the sleep hormone, melatonin, remains high in the evenings for much longer - preventing sleep - even if the ME patient is very fatigued. In fact, the more fatigued an ME patient is then the more difficult sleep is. Still, Descartes would probably wake around 10.00am - giving him ten hours of sleep - but he still wakes up relatively fatigued with a feeling much like a bad hangover - depending on how much physical and mental exertion he had done on the previous day. If his exertion of the previous day has been kept within his limits, then he finds - once he is fully awake and rehydrated by a morning drink and breakfast - that this is the least fatigued two hours of his day. This is the time when he acknowledged that his thoughts were least laboured and he was able to think “clearly and distinctly”. This is the time an ME patient is least physically fatigued so short-term memory and concentration are at their best. This is a time when he is able to solve problems which he encountered the previous day. As soon as he gets out of bed after mid-day, he would begin to feel more and more physically and mentally fatigued by basic daily living tasks. I propose that he kept this behaviour pattern through his life - not because it was a habit from childhood - but because it was dictated by his ME. One beneficial consequence  being that it was his most ideal “thinking” time.

When Descartes left La Fleche in September 1615, aged 19, he followed the traditional career path of his family and studied law at the University of Poitiers, taking rooms at the house of a tailor. He took his baccalaureate and licence in civil and canon law in October 1616; but he did not take up a career in law. He went back to living with his family at their houses in Rennes and Suce until the end of 1617. He rejected everything he had been taught at La Fleche and also had no interest in practising law. His law thesis had more in common with poetry: “Through this flood of words, is he seeking to drown his lack of interest in the law?” (Rodis-Lewis 1999). Although being a law student is a sedentary occupation, with moderate ME, Descartes would have found the long hours of study to be mentally fatiguing and physically demanding. Nor did he now have the care and support he relied on at La Fleche. There is also a psychological component at play here. Descartes was a person of high intelligence and intellect - yet he only had a relatively few productive hours in a day. If these few hours were taken up in dry and unstimulating legal studies then this left him no time to expand his personal intellectual interests or enjoy a social life. This extremely frustrating situation would have had a rapidly disheartening and disillusioning effect on what he thought he was doing and why he was doing it. The idea of any career would appear to be pointless to Descartes because of the restrictions of his ME - he would never be in a position to have any time to himself. A career would leave him too fatigued to do anything else; even if he had been able to hold down a full-time professional career with moderate ME.

In early 1618 he left home, moving to Breda, the Netherlands, with his valet, to become a voluntary (gentleman) soldier in the army of Count Maurice of Nassau (1567-1625), Prince of Orange, in the Netherlands, in support of the Dutch struggle for independence  from Spain. On the 10th November 1618, he meets Isaac Beeckman (1588-1637)  who re-orientates his thinking towards “mathematical physics”. In his first letter to Beeckman, of 24th January 1619, he admits that for  the past year in Breda he had been completely “idle” and “unoccupied , as was [his] habit” (AT 10:151). Only in a letter to Beeckman of 23rd March 1619, do we read that, “You alone have shaken off my indifference” (AT 10:162).  The following week was one of intense thought which left him completely exhausted. This was effectively his first week as an adult philosopher. Yet, after one week, he needs to rest!

In April 1619, he leaves the army of Count Maurice and travels to Germany to join the army of Maximillian I (1573-1651), Duke of Bavaria. On the 10th November of 1619 (exactly one year after meeting Beeckman), while wintering at Neuberg, he has what has been called a “nervous breakdown” ; from this arises a “wonderful invention”, from which all of his subsequent thought will be derived,  and the famous three dreams which he says legitimated his “wonderful invention” as divine “Truth” on Earth. This is Descartes world-changing, ME-induced “nervous breakdown”. The event forms the basis of Descartes seminal Discours de la Methode (1637). It is described most completely by Baillet from fragments of Descartes own, now lost, notes of the event, known as the Olympica (1619).

Descartes says that he found himself alone for a few days in a very warm room (poesle) in Neuberg and used the time for philosophical contemplation. He began to believe that a “malus spiritus” (evil spirit) was tormenting his thoughts and inducing an inspirational ecstacy (enthousiasme):

“Il ajoute que le Genie qui excitoit en luy l’enthousiasme dont il se sentoit le cerveau echaffe depuis quelques jours, luy avoit predit ces songes avant que de se mettre au lit, et que l’esprit humain n’y avoit aucune part.” (Baillet 1:85)

“He adds that the evil spirit, which was exciting the enthousiasme in him by which he had been  experiencing  an over-heated brain for a few days, had prophesised the dreams before he went to bed, and that he had no part in it.” (my translation)

Baillet states that Descartes provided a little more explanation of what happened:

“Il nous apprend que le dixieme de Novembre mil six cent dix-neuf, s’etant couche tout rempli de son enthousiasme, et tout occupe de la pensee d’avoir trouve ce jour la les fondemens de la science admirable, il eut trois songes consecutifs en une seule nuit, qu’il s’imagina ne pouvoir etre venus que d’enhaut.” (Baillet 1:81)

“He tells us that on the 10th November 1619, going to sleep full of this enthousiasme, and completely occupied with the thought of having found that day the foundations of a wonderful science, he had three consecutive dreams that night, which he imagined could only have come from heaven." (my translation)

Rodis-Lewis (1999) reminds us that Gottfried Wilhelm Liebniz (1646-1716) , having read the Olympica himself, remarked that he believed that Baillet had understood nothing of the discovery, and therefore had misinterpreted what Descartes actually meant in his translation of Latin into French. In the quotation above, Baillet translates “scientiae” as “la science” not “les sciences”, when it is clearly plural. “Scientiae” correlates with “fundamenta” , translated as “foundations”,  which is also clearly plural. Baillet incorrectly places the emphasis of the discovery on “a wonderful science” , not on the “the foundations”, which has created a blind alley of historical speculation of exactly what this new “science” was. And, in the process obscuring the importance of Descartes discovery. Descartes had actually made a discovery which could be used as a basis for all sciences (something he had previously not thought possible): a single, unifying concept. 

The “wonderful invention” had come to him during that day,10 November 1619. Fortunately, on this most important point, Baillet quotes Descartes in Latin directly from the Olympica.

“X Novembris 1619, cum plenus forem Enthousiasme, et mirabilis scientiae fundamenta reperirem, etc.” (Baillet 1:51)

“10 November 1619, I was filled with enthousiasme, and discovered the foundations of wonderful sciences, etc.” (my translation)

Exactly one year later (and exactly two years after he had first met Beeckman!), Descartes refers back to his original discovery and made a note next to this entry in the Olympica, where he describes his original discovery as “the wonderful invention”:

“XI Novembris 1620, coepi intelligere fundamentum inventi mirabilis.” (Baillet 1:51)

“11 November 1621, I began to understand the foundation of the wonderful invention.” (my translation)

Baillet notes that Descartes may appear to have had too much alcohol over these few days but Descartes assures us that he had had no alcohol for many months. Baillet makes the obvious suggestion that it was not the enthousiasme of an evil spirit, but rather the fatigue of too much thinking, in a very warm room, over a number of days that had actually induced a state of delerium. It is obvious to Baillet because it fits with his awareness of Descartes poor health and weak constitution; and, more specifically here, with ME-induced  fatigue:

“La recherche qu’il voulut faire de ces moiens, jetta son esprit dans la violentes agitations, qui augmenterent de plus en plus par une contention continuelle ou il le tenoit, sans souffrir que la promenade ni les compagnies y siffent diversion. Il le fatigua de telle sorte, que le feu lui prit au cerveau, et qu’il tomba dans une espece d’enthousiasme, qui disposa de telle maniere son esprit deja abatu, qu’il le mit en etat de recevoir les impressions des songes et des visions.” (Baillet 1:81)

“The search that he was making by these means, threw his mind into violent disturbances, which were increased more and more by a continuous problem that possessed him, without his walks nor company to divert them. He fatigued himself to such an extent, that the fire affected his brain, and he fell into a sort of delerium, which disposed his already impaired mind in such a manner, that he entered a state of receiving dream-like images and visions.” (my translation)

Rodis-Lewis (1999) has pointed out that Baillets use of the word “visions” has led to a large number of lazy supernatural misinterpretations of this natural event. Baillet explains, however, that Descartes himself wrote that these “dream-like images and visions” were actually a dream (AT 10:184). As Rodis-Lewis reiterates, “That is, it was a natural phenomenon , which ought to have ruled out all the “mystical” speculations for which Baillets use of the term “visions” is responsible.”

What is clear is that Descartes will have pushed his mental effort beyond his daily limits - spending many hours reading and concentrating. The heat of the room would exacerabate the body temperature dissociation of ME. Each additional day, the physical and mental exhaustion of his ME would compound itself. He would find it more and more difficult to actually read and write coherently and he would become almost delerious with mental fatigue. When combined with the intellectual frustration of his task, this situation can lead very easily to what might be percieved as a “nervous breakdown”, and panic attacks, in a person with ME. However, this was literally a neurological (nervous) breakdown from the pure mental fatigue of creating original ideas with ME, and unlike a general psychological breakdown, Descartes would recover within the week when fully rested.

Baillet goes on to say that the “enthousiasme” left Descartes after a few days; again, a suprisingly quick time period if it was a “true” nervous breakdown. Again, this very intense neurological disturbance is only compatible with the experience of the pathological mental fatigue of ME and its much shorter recovery period. It is clear that Descartes must have been pushing himself to the physical and mental limits of his ME at this time - Baillets “natural” explanation of the episode is therefore sensible. In order to experience such hallucinatory dreams, he was certainly in a state of delerium with the fatigue of ME. Mental activity would be more and more difficult as he tried to work on. Vivid dreams and nightmares are commonly associated with such desperate fatigue in ME.

However, we must take Descartes own explanations and beliefs of what he thought had happened to him at face value. He believed the evil spirit had actually been sent by God to torment his thoughts and test him on the enormous responsibility he had been given for the “wonderful invention”:

“Il attribuoit cette merveille a la divinite de l’enthousiasme, et a la force de l’imagination, qui fait sortir les semences de la sagesse.” (Baillet 1691; v1, 84)

“He attributed this marvel to the divinity of the enthousiasme, and the force of the imagination, which sowed the seeds of wisdom.” (my translation)

What was this “wonderful invention”? Although Descartes uses the setting of his experience at Neuberg as a general introduction to his philosophy in the Discourse on Method (1637), there is no mention of his enthousiasme, the evil spirit or his dreams and visions. It is in the Meditations on First Philosophy (1641), in the last two paragraphs of Meditation One, that an evil spirit (the evil genius) reappears; however, the spirit now has a different role as a “genius”. In Meditation Two (On the nature of the human soul; and that it is more easily known than the body), the evil spirit and dreams are now used as thought experiments to reveal the “wonderful invention”: the Cartesian soul (l’ame). Descartes radical redefinition of the soul became “the human mind” in the Anglo-Saxon philosophical tradition, but in the mainland European philosophical tradition, “the human spirit”; for example, “l’esprit” in France and “Geist” in Germany. In this paper, I have decided to use Descartes original term, the soul (qualified as the Cartesian soul), in order to encompass both traditions of Modern Western philosophy.
   
Descartes realised that his (re)invention of the soul was so powerful that it would change the world forever and obviously needed  direction and approval from God; he received this in his three dreams. Although aware of just how radical his invention was; what if he was “wrong”, or it was incorrect, it could do great damage to Gods world. Understandably then, he was full of doubt, fear and anxiety; he was literally frightened out of his wits by his invention. The dreams that were presented to him that night were understood by him as prophesy and the necessary legitimation for what he was about to unleash.

In Meditation Two, an evil genius deceives us in our “belief”  that we have a body; all our experience of the world is mediated by the body so it is theoretically possible that our bodies are only a “belief”. From this, it is clear that the body and the soul can no longer be the same “thing” by the Aristotlean definition - the soul is no longer part of the world of matter. The Aristotlean “world soul” no longer animates all living “things”; not just plants and animals, but humans too. All living matter is deemed autonomous. And only humans “have” souls: Cartesian souls. As Rodis-Lewis (1999) points out, “Descartes was not just another scientist but already a thinker aiming to situate man between God and the animals.” Now, everything mediated through the human body is merely “presented” to the human soul. These bodily sensations may affect the Cartesian soul, in some inexplicable way, but they are not part of the Cartesian soul. The only activity of the Cartesian soul which is found not to be bodily is thinking (which includes perceiving, understanding, reasoning, doubting, imagining, believing, etc): the Cartesian soul is a thinking “thing” not a bodily “thing”. The definition of the Cartesian soul implies that it is a new kind of substance, different to the substance constituting the world, which later gave rise to the philosophical concept of Cartesian dualism. (Although Descartes, himself, had no interest in the relationship between these two substances).   

Descartes also uses “dreaming” as a thought experiment in a similar way to the evil genius: reality could also be a dream. This is where Descartes demonstrates the real power of the concept of the Cartesian soul. It is now irrelevant even whether a soul is dreaming “reality” or not. What is important is that the soul must exist as a thinking “thing” in order to “have” these dreams. Dreams are not therefore not part of the Cartesian soul, they are “presented” to the Cartesian soul. Or, the Cartesian soul is a thinking “thing”, but not a dreaming “thing”. The idea that dreams were no longer an integral part of the soul but generated by the body (brain), and presented to the Cartesian “thinking” soul, is an extremely potent change and would appear  to go against actual human experience. This is the thought experiment which truly strips the Cartesian soul bare.  

From 1620 Descartes begins to produce the body of work on which his reputation rests. However, his writing from 1620 to 1625  is very sporadic. He remained in Germany until the spring of 1621 and then returned to France, staying in Paris until the autumn of 1623. He then appears to have spent two years in Italy, from 1623  to May 1625, then returned to France. Descartes says, in the Discours, that he made a conscious decision to travel, socializing, and learning as much as he could about the way people thought and lived. It is clear that Descartes was unconsciously aware that he could not cope with physical and mental activity at the same time. He had now also made the intellectual breakthrough he needed;  so, he could take his time in developing his ideas. With much less mental activity, he would have the time to travel and socialize; however, he would take care to pace himself on the amount of activity which he undertook each day while maintaining his regime of sleep and rest.

On his return to France, he first went to see his family in Poitiers, who were still expecting him to continue the family traditions. As Rodis-Lewis (1999) points out, “But no one has really clarified Descartes true intentions and what really happened. His family was certainly expecting him finally to take on a practice. Several scientists of the age - Mydorge, Fermat, the elder Pascal - easily reconciled such a post with their research.” Unfortunately, for someone of Descartes intelligence with ME, there is no possibility that he would be able to cope physically or mentally with a full-time career in addition to his own research. Of course, he would reconcile this refusal with the justification that he needed to spend all of his time on his research. It is important to note here that there was absolutely no suggestion from Descartes or his family that he was not fit or well enough to attempt a full-time career. He had a “weak constitution” but he was not thought to have any disease.

When Descartes returned to Paris in July 1625, there is important eyewitness evidence of him sleeping late, remaining in bed all morning, and rising after midday. On his return, in 1625, he moved into a house owned by a family friend, Monsieur Le Vasseur, taking servants, and limiting his social circle to a small number of old friends. Over the next 3 years, he established such a reputation that the house became the equivalent of an informal academy for Parisian gentlemen, and he was plagued by its distractions (Baillet 1:152). In 1628, he finds he could no longer cope or work under  these circumstances so he flees to a different quarter of town where he can hide away - only a very small number of friends know of this location. Le Vasseur was anxious to know of his whereabouts and, by chance, he spotted Descartes valet in the street five or six weeks later. The valet told him that Descartes had the habit of staying in bed every morning. As it was nearly 11.00am, the valet took Le Vasseur to Descartes bedroom door:

“M. le Vasseur s’etant glisse contre la porte de la chambre de M. Descartes se mit a regarder par le trou de la serrure, et l’appercut dans son lit, les fenetres de la chambre ouvertes, le rideau leve, et le gueridon avec quelques papiers pres du chevet. Il eut la patience de le confiderer pendant un tems considerable, et il vid qu’il se levoit a demy-corps de tems en tems pour ecrire, et se recouchoit ensuite pour mediter.” (Baillet 1:154)

“Mr Le Vasseur crept towards Descartes bedroom door to enable himself to watch through the keyhole, and saw him in bed, with the bedroom windows open, the curtain up, and the pedestal table with some papers next to the sick-bed. He had the patience to spy on him for a considerable time, and he saw that he lifted himself upright from time to time in order to write, and laid back down again in order to contemplate.” (my translation) 

At the end of 1628, he leaves Paris to go into hiding for the next 20 years at numerous locations around the Netherlands, including Amsterdam. His address is always a secret. He brings his servants from Paris to deal with his domestic chores and frees himself from all distractions. Descartes has now made the decision to change emphasis from physical to mental activity - again unconsciously aware that he can not do both, as he attempted to do in Paris. In fact, he now spends many of his days without getting out of bed at all. This is the behaviour of a person with ME who has decided that the only way he can find the time and space to pursue his work is to disappear from the fatiguing demands of a social life. His determination to free himself from the many who sought him out by reputation was such that he moved house regularly to preserve his necessary quiet restive routine. Even with complete leisure over this 20 years, he had periods of intense productive activity (such as 1640-1642)  but other periods when he was much less productive (such as 1630-1633).  This long-term cycle of on-off activity is indicative of a lack of pacing of his ME over longer time periods. 

There is new evidence that he rode to the hounds in the Netherlands and the report of a fencing master that he often fenced  with Descartes. He may even have written a book on fencing which is now lost (Dear 1998). So, it appears that he did keep some of the personal interests of his social class while in the Netherlands. Again, these short periods of activity are not incompatible with a “gentleman”  at leisure who has a moderate case of ME. I think we can assume, where Descartes is concerned, that these activities rarely took place in the mornings. Rodis-Lewis (1999) points out that, “Descartes often spoke of this “desert” [the Netherlands], which was indispensable if he was to absorb himself totally in the loftiest meditation, as solitaries had done in the past.” 

From this time, we now start to get a picture of the personal behaviour and way of life of someone living daily with the effects of moderate ME.

“The trade of a solitary life cost him but a few months apprenticeship to learn, because the inclination he had to it, was seconded by his temper and constitution, and a particular humour of his. The habit of meditation that he had got ever since he had left college, made him mighty reserved and sparing of his tongue. But although he spoke very little at any time, yet he always spoke to purpose and very naturally.” (Baillet 1693). 

“The tone of his voice was pleasant between base and treble; yet too feeble to carry on any long discourse.” (Baillet 1693).

Here we have two separate references to his problem with the act of speaking and a reference to  his "natural" inclination to a solitary life. One of the most tiring activities for a person with ME - combining mental and physical activity in real-time  - is speaking and, especially, conversing. ME patients are not necessarily “quiet” personalities but they are often described as “quiet” because of the effort involved in talking. This is a major constraint on a social life and conversing with anybody rapidly assumes the role of a tiresome chore. Descartes would have found it very difficult to maintain social friendships with this disability and this is what we find in Baillet.

“He followed less the mode, then he suffered himself to be drawn into it; he stayed till it became common that he might not affect singularity [aloofness]” (Baillet 1693). This is another social problem of someone unknowingly afflicted with ME - they feel wearied and tired by even a short social gathering so they wish to leave but are aware of how anti-social this appears to be. Descartes appears to have been quite a gregarious man and tried to develop a good social life a number of times during his life but he eventually had to give up completely and devoted his little energies to his intellectual interests.

“Sobriety was natural to him. He drunk little wine, and was sometimes a whole month without drinking a drop, yet seeming very jocund and pleasant at table, his frugality not burdensome to his company” (Baillet 1693). This is a key piece of evidence supporting Descartes ME. People with ME are hypersensitive to alcohol; they are greatly affected by very small amounts, getting drunk more quickly, with more impaired functioning, and with after-effects lasting many days. People with ME learn to avoid alcohol completely or to take only small amounts occasionally. 

“He was neither nice nor difficult in the choice of his victuals, and he had accustomed his palate to everything that was not prejudicial to the health of the body. His diet did not consist in eating seldom, but to discern the quality of the victual. His judgement was that, it was good always to keep the stomach and other viscera a doing, as we do to horses, but that it ought to be with such things that afford small nourishment, as roots and fruits, which he believed were proper to prolong the life of men, than the flesh of animals” (Baillet 1693).  Here we have the type of concern with diet for Descartes as found in those with ME. Firstly, the person with ME has a sensitive stomach, similar to the condition known as Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), which means that food quality is paramount to avoid an upset stomach. Secondly, persons with ME have an increased food requirement even though they spend most of their time resting and sleeping. They use up food very quickly on even minor exertions - so they are always in danger of being hungry. There is also a problem with rapid drops in blood sugar levels - and Descartes has learned to avoid this with regular fruit intake. He also eats little and often - a classic ME food strategy which avoids the bloating associated with ME and the sleepiness of too high sugar levels by pacing food intake.

“He observed that he eat more greedily and slept sounder when he was sad and melancholy, or in some iminent danger, than he did at any other time” (Baillet 1693). Persons with ME are susceptible to low mood and have a much higher sensitivity to stress. Again, with Descartes, we have the reference to the central importance of food and sleep in mitigating some of the symptoms of his ME. We also get some idea of the fragility of his physical and mental existence with ME.

“He slept much, or at least his waking was never forced; so soon as ever he perceived himself disengaged from sleep, he studied, meditating in bed, and raised but half his body now and then, to commit his thoughts to writing. This is the reason why he often continued ten hours, nay, sometimes twelve, in his bed. His condescension to the necessities of his body never proceeded to an apathy, or so far as insensibility to them. He knew Nature must be supplied. He laboured hard and long. He delighted pretty much in bodily exercise, and indulged himself therein at his time for recreation;  till at length, his sedentary life broke him off that custom” (Baillet 1693). 

Here we have further  references to the amount of time Descartes spent sleeping and resting in bed; a defining behaviour of ME. It appears to have been an effort just to sit up in bed even though he had just spent the night there. It is clear from the text that this was not something Descartes did out of choice; he was struggling with the “necessities of his body”. Again, this is a reference to the generally accepted explanation that  he was born with the poor health which afflicted his adult life. Paradoxically, Descartes attempted to sustain some kind of regular physical exertion for the good of his health. This is classic behaviour for someone who is unaware he has ME. Here, he thinks that his constant resting and sleeping, or lack of fitness, is the cause of his poor health rather than its symptom. However, once he had embarked on a dedicated life of thought, he quickly learned to avoid the mental fatigue and disorientated thinking produced by physical exertion with ME. He laboured “hard and long” but only after twelve hours in bed every day, sat up in bed, with the support of servants and no other physical or mental activities! Mental tasks just take much longer to complete with ME.

“His conversing was neither starcht or affected, never troublesome or uneasie. He shunned above all to appear learned or a philosopher in discourses. He was as little inclined to commit his speculations to writing, as to vent them by word of mouth. He was pretty much indisposed to write, but his small, close, straight, regular way of writing is sufficient evidence that he had conquered his idleness by a long habit, yet for all he relapsed into it from time to time, as appears not only from the general repugnance he testified in composing his works, but also from his usual negligence to answer his friends….He had not doubtless, so much listlessness and aversion for reading, as he showed for writing. We must nevertheless grant you, that he did not read much, and that he had a small parcel of books” (Baillet 1693).

Here we have an excellent description of how the restrictions of Descartes ME affected the production of his work. He was over 40 years old before his first book was published. Although he wrote around ten books and a large number of letters, this was relatively small quantity of work for someone who did little else supposedly but write. In this passage, we find that his aversion to writing and reading is explained by his idleness, rather than poor health. We find that it is very difficult for him to sustain his interest in writing, even though he is obviously full of new ideas. The daily physical and mental fatigue from just sitting and writing with ME can become extremely dispiriting and it is difficult to motivate oneself in such circumstances; particularly as Descartes is financially independent.

“How you must not ascribe Mr Descartes his being rich and contented, to his modest revenue, that seemed competent; nor yet to his frugality: it was his choice of solitary life that rendered him so. He admitted of very few visits at any time, and returned yet less; yet he was neither a misanthrope, nor morosely melancholy: he carried along with him to the very recesses of his solitide, that pleasant humour and natural briskness, that was observed in him from his tender years; his usual cheerfulness made him do things without training; and if we credit him, facilitated their success; yea, and contributed not a little to his health; for without it he could not have sustained the weight of his retirement with so much perseverance: that was it, that changed his inclination for retirement, into a real doting upon a confined Secret Life.” (Baillet 1693). 

This is a fascinating passage about the complexity of Descartes personality and the way it interacts with the burden of living with his ME. He exhibits the attributes of a positive-thinker and excellent adaptive skills. He turns a negative neccessity of “confinement” to his advantage. He copes admirably with a high level of disability at such a young age. His good motivation, self-esteem and appreciation of life excludes a differential diagnosis of clinical depression; with its typical symptoms of apathy and anhedonia (Tyrell 1994). Without such a strong and well-balanced mental state Descartes would not have shouldered the imposition of this depressing way of life with such cheerfulness. And, conversely, without such single-mindedness, out of enforced confinement, would he have found the dedication necessary to completing an intellectual revolution.

Thinking

Only very recently has the central importance of the relationship between the body and the "body of knowledge"  begun to receive some long overdue attention (Lawrence 1998). The relationship concerns, “What possible connection can there be between the highly valued products of the mind - disembodied ideas - and the physical characteristics and private habits of the persons who produce such ideas?”. What I want to demonstrate for Descartes ideas is that the “connection”  is the chronic medical condition known as ME. I want to take my suggestion that Descartes who life was dictated by his ME much further - I want to suggest that, without his ME, he would not have become the thinker he did, or made the discoveries he did in mathematics and science, or most importantly of all, redefine the human soul to create Cartesianism and found Modern philosophy.

Firstly, I have already given details of why Descartes became the thinker he did. For an extremely intelligent person, with moderate ME, the life of an independent (natural) philosopher was just about the only life chance open to him. And, as we have seen, his life established much of what it means to live the life of a philosopher. It was not that he was uniquely able to see the flaws in the logic of the Schoolmen and the science of Aristotle; many other intelligent people had been just as able to criticize the old systems of thought. What they were not able to do was understand why these systems were flawed and, most importantly of all, to create a complete thought system which could overthrow and take the place of these old systems. Only Descartes could do this - because, physically, his ME forced him to live the life of a philosopher and, mentally, his ME caused him to create solutions totally outside the possible thought processes of his healthy contemporaries.

Secondly, Descartes did not develop or “think up” his system of thought logically as “b” follows “a”. It was only in the delerium of his fatigue that he was actually able to make the new neural connections, previously unthought and unthinkable to anyone without ME, which formed the foundation of his whole system of thought.  Once the system was established as the core of his thinking, only then was he, and only he, able to understand why the old Aristotlean system of thought was fatally flawed.  After this philosophical breakthrough, from someone with such formidable intelligence, came an absolute torrent of original ideas on mathematics and every kind of natural phenomenon. Nobody could shut themselves away today, and come up with what Descartes did, including Descartes, unless they had ME.

I am saying nothing new in attributing creative breakthroughs to fatigue; this is a well documented phenomenon  amongst scientists, artists, writers and composers. The creative person will often work on a problem for many days and nights without sleep before giving up and falling into a deep sleep. Only then is the brain able to form the new connections from all the information previously presented to it in the problem. On waking, the problem is easily solved. What is new is that, in the person with ME, this cycle of creativity moves into a more powerful mode altogether; a mode which is completely outside the experience of those without the disease. The person with ME will experience an intensity of mental fatigue at the end of each short day of mental work which would take a healthy person many sleepless nights to achieve. The person with ME will then experience an intensity of sleeping and dreaming which can only be described as the sleep of “the other”: it is the sleep of a diseased brain. Then, every morning, while resting and meditating, the person with ME can wake to solutions for the most intractable problems. Something which Descartes exploited every morning of his life in his new mathematics and natural philosophy.

Thirdly, I want to suggest that the origin of Descartes radical redefinition of the soul, the Cartesian soul, is a direct consequence  of his physical and mental experience of ME. His physical experience of ME led him to his new definition of the (human)  soul as a non-extended substance; in direct opposition to the (world) soul as a (non-matter) extended substance. However, he kept the old philosophical distinction of matter as a second, extended, substance. This meant that he could treat the world purely as matter without the hindrance of the complications that an extended (world) soul entailed. The human soul was now the only soul, somehow, “in”  the world but not “of” the world - a very difficult distinction which Descartes did not feel needed explanation or investigation. The questions arising from the new Cartesian soul were instead those taken up by a new “episteme” of philosophers: Modern philosophers.

The explanation of why the physical experience of ME would lead Descartes to the non-extended soul is not easy for a non-ME sufferer. The ME patient is under constant siege from every system of their body: the muscles, the blood, the organs, the senses. Every function is impaired but not completely lost. Every movement of the body is an effort. There is no experience of the unity of body and soul for  the ME patient; the body is a ball and chain. It is this experience of lack of unity which would lead Descartes to believe that his soul did not “extend”  into body. His body and his experience of that body are totally dissociated. His body was the enemy: souless matter. If his soul did not extend into his body then he extrapolated that there was no world soul and that the human soul  was non-extended. The ME meant that he felt like a small “point” trapped inside his own body. Descartes perfectly describes the soul of the person with ME:

“whose entire nature or essence is simply to think, and which needs no space to exist in, and does not depend on any material thing. Thus this me, that is to say this soul by which I am what I am, is altogether distinct from the body; it is more easily known, and it would be exactly what it is even if the body had never existed.” (Discours IV; AT 6:33; Ree 1974)

Descartes mental experience of ME led to the second innovation of the Cartesian soul - although the Cartesian soul is a single substance, a “thinking” substance, the thoughts are divided into two principal kinds: actions and passions (emotions). In Les Passions de L’Ame (The Passions of the Soul) (1649), Descartes makes his most startling thought experiment for defining the Cartesian soul:

“17. The functions of the soul.
Having thus considered all the functions belonging solely to the body, it is easy to recognise that there is nothing in us which we must attribute to our soul except our thoughts. These are of two principle kinds, some being actions of the soul and others its passions. Those I call its actions are all our volitions, for we experience them as proceeding directly from our soul and as seeming to depend on it alone. On the other hand, the various perceptions or modes of knowledge present in us may be called our passions, in a general sense, for it is often not our soul which makes them such as they are, and the soul always receives them from the things that are represented by them.” (Cottingham 1985: v1, 335)

Action and the emotions (passions) are the two “thoughts” of the Cartesian soul - integrated but, again unexplainably, seperate. Descartes uses this indefensible philosophical device to maintain the unity of the Cartesian soul as a single “thing”; in the same way that he maintains the body as only extended matter yet, somehow, at the same time with a non-extended soul too. But, as I have already said, Descartes was not interested in the “philosophy” of these positions; such impossibilities were a matter for God. Still, by integrating thought and the emotions within the Cartesian soul, Descartes instituted radical change. In the old Aristotlean system, the emotions were one of the separate and autonomous faculties of the soul and this meant that all thoughts, actions and decisions would always be affected and distorted by them. Humans have no control over their God-given inbuilt emotions, passions and prejudices. Thoughts could not be “protected” from the emotions in any way. This is common (sense) experience - we are mostly blind and helpless to the effects of our emotions on our  supposedly objective and rational thoughts, actions and decisions. In the Cartesian soul, the thoughts are subject to the same deceptions and distortions from the emotions, but because they are integrated and accessible to identification and control:

“19. Perception.
Our perceptions are likewise of two sorts: some have the soul as their cause, others the body. Those having the soul as their cause are the perceptions of our volitions and of all the imaginings or other thoughts which depend on them. For it is certain that we cannot will anything without thereby perceiving that we are willing it. And although willing something is an action with respect to our soul, the perception of such willing may be said to be a passion in the soul. But because  this perception is really one and the same thing as the volition, and names are always determined by whatever is most noble, we do not normally call it a “passion”, but solely an “action”.” (Cottingham 1985: v1, 336)

In ME, the emotions and rational thinking are highly amplified and polarised against each other. People with ME are extremely sensitive to the effects that emotions can have on the functioning of thought processes. And, conversely, their emotions are very sensitive to their rational thoughts; this is what makes them so emotionally labile. For Descartes, with his ME, the rational thought of the thinking “thing” was readily distinguishable from the emotions - in a way that is not accessible to people without ME. We have already read how he believed his thinking was affected by melancholia and sadness (tristesse). He believed that the emotions were the cause of melancholia and how positive thinking could control the emotions and cure the melancholia and its attendant diseases. He suffered from a pathological sensitivity to his emotions and he knew how much they affected his thinking. He also knew that the emotions were a key obstacle to “reason” in the Aristotlean system. However, by combining both of these “realities”  in the Cartesian soul he was able to overcome both problems with a single solution, even if this meant an unexplainable single substance with two types of thought (actions and emotions).

ME patients avoid intensely emotional situations due to the physical and mental stress they induce. Such emotional stresses cause serious relapses of physical and mental functioning, and Descartes was no exception: 

“The love he bore all his life long for peace and tranquility, caused him by times to undervalue calumny and forget injuries. He was naturally an enemy to dispute, especially that which is mixed with wrangling, contestations and troublesome heats.” (Baillet 1693)

“He took up a course of life so even and uniform, that he was never sick with anything. The two grand remedies were his spare regular diet and moderation in his exercise: yet he preferred before them, those of the Mind and the Spirit, that have a mighy influence on the body; as plainly appeared by the great change Anger, Wrath, Fear and other passions did excite in him.” (Baillet 1693)

We can see from these two quotations that Descartes was averse to any kind of emotional upset. He was aware just how much he was sensitive to emotional stress of any kind. With ME, not only would this make him mentally fatigued but physically fatigued too. From the effects of his emotions on his ability to think, but also with his ability to control them by managing his ME, he would also deduce  that the emotions were an integrated aspect of the soul and not an autonomous faculty. For Descartes, the Cartesian soul was already a reality, he felt it, he experienced  it, it was (patho)physiological : it was ME.

Although, in his books, Descartes offers a number of philosphical and theological reasons why the Cartesian soul is purely a “thinking thing” and separate (but integrated) with the body, it is from his subjective experience of ME that he actually "knows" that the Cartesian soul is “real” and “true” for him. And, if it is real and true for him, it must be self-evident to everyone else too, because he is the same as everyone else, right? Wrong: he has ME and he experiences "being human" in a completely different way to everyone else. They do not experience the same physical and mental “truth” of the Cartesian soul with their own bodies. Descartes must convince everyone else with his intellectual arguments alone, against their own subjective experience, that the Cartesian soul is “real”. For everyone else, their thoughts, emotions and physical experiences are all one undifferentiated thing: their body. The concept of the Cartesian soul is totally alien; nothing like it was even possible before Descartes; it was from the realm of the unthought and the unthinkable. The Cartesian soul could literally be renamed the "ME soul" and Modern philosophy as “ME philosophy”. Only someone with ME could have initially introduced the Modern philosophy of Cartesianism to an unsuspecting European population.

It is not a coincidence that Descartes most popular book among the general population, rather than philosophers and academics, was Les Passions de L’ame (The Passions of the Soul), published in French in November 1649. It was reprinted seven times in two years (Guibert 1976). An English edition was also published in 1650. It became the handbook of French society in the salons of Paris (Lanson 1896). Any intelligent person understands that there is no intellectual merit in Descartes philosophical and theological explanations of the Cartesian soul. It was only when Descartes explained the Cartesian soul in relation to the emotions that the intelligent general reader found his work to be accessible and, more importantly, useful in day to day life. Although his ME-derived experience was plainly against common sense (experience)  for everyone else, it was possible to train oneself in seperating emotions from thought to become a Cartesian:

“For since we are able, with a little effort, to change the movements of the brain in animals devoid of reason, it is evident that we can do so still more effectively in the case of men. Even those who have the weakest souls could acquire absolute mastery over all their passions if we employed sufficient ingenuity in training and guiding them.” (Cottingham 1985: v1, 348)

True thought therefore excludes emotion: there is no emotional (human)  dimension to reason, it is “pure” thought. Cartesian reason is instrumental; it is not a means to an end, it is an end in itself. The Cartesian stance first became fashionable  (particularly with women), among the aristocracy, upper social classes and well read of Europe, then replicating like a virus throughout each country, becoming the operating mode of institutionalised power, where it still resides to this day. The Cartesian stance was very appealing to the Modern elite social classes as it appears to legitimate arbitrary and democratic/liberal power by giving it an objectivity it does not intrinsically possess. As such, it allows “cold” manipulation and exploitation of other human beings by rational “objective” power with no necessity for reference to the human (emotional) dimension; it strips the powerless of an “end”  to the power and so also the possibility of obtaining power. It is also useful for power relations, both professional and personal, within social elites, for example, in the Laclos play, Les Liaisons Dangereuses (1782).  

It is a universal truism that Descartes was the "father" of Modern philosophy. Why? Because all of Modern philosophy is, either explicitly or implicitly, based on Cartesianism:

“Now, nothing is more untimely than the inaugural, nothing is more decisive than the foundation: if the relevance of Cartesianism does exist, it is the true one, the original one. So, even nowadays, we cannot philosophize without Descartes (even though some people would like to philosophize against Descartes).” (Carraud 1987) 

It is based on the idea that the human soul is an individual “point” of presence “in” but not “of” the world. In the, non-historical, Anglo-Saxon tradition it is questions of how the Cartesian soul (Mind) can “know”  the world of matter. In the, historical, Continental tradition it is questions of how the Cartesian soul (Spirit) can “be” in the world of matter. We are now faced with the logical conclusion that the whole edifice of Modern philosophy is built on an abnormal or "pathological" idea. On an idea which is "foreign" or "alien" to nearly all of humanity. We are faced with two new historiographical approaches to the history of Modern philosophy. On the one hand, the very "artifice" of Modern philosophy forms the basis for its "truth". The idea that Modern philosophy is a universal truth that was always "there" but could only be revealed to the world through the diseased insight of an "enigmatic" philosopher with ME. On the other hand, the whole of Modern philosophy is a complete falsehood - it is nothing but an "inhuman" artificial construct - created by a "freak of nature". And, that its legitimacy rests purely on its adoption by a European elite who understood its suitability for justifying their power in the Modern period.

Dying

One of the most fascinating, and still unanswered, questions about the life of Descartes is why and how he died. At the end of February 1649, Descartes was invited to live at the court of Queen Christina of Sweden (1626-1689)  in Stockholm, as a personal tutor.  His reluctant acceptance was an enormous lapse of judgement after 20 years of carefully managing his ME and it was to cost him his life. He left the Netherlands in August 1649 but by 11 February 1650 he was dead from pneumonia. However, the details of his death offer a more accurate and complex explanation within the context of his ME. Although Descartes did contract pneumonia that winter, it was not the ultimate cause of his death. The full horror of the train of events leading to his death is irresistible:
 
“La reine avait enfin pris jour pour se faire expliquer par Descartes lui-meme sa philosophie: elle lui donnait rendezvous dans son cabinet d’etude, trois fois par semaine, a cinq heures du matin. Christine, avec sa jeunesse et sa belle sante, supportait sans peine cette heure matinale, hiver comme ete; encore Chanut ne l’approuvait-il pas en cela, et souhaitait fort que le mariage vint bientot y mettre ordre. Mais notre philosophe n’etait plus d’age a affronter ainsi, bien avant le jour, la gelee et la neige au dehors, lui surtout si frileux et qui jamais ne s’etait leve-tot. Au college meme, ses maitres le laissaient au lit le matin autant qu’il voulait; plus tard, il continua d’y rester jusqu’a une heure assez avancee. Il y travaillait d’ailleurs, ou plutot, comme il le disait lui-meme, il laissait insensiblement les reveries du jour (ainsi appelait-il ses meditations) se meler aux derniers reves de la nuit.” (Adam 12:459)

“The queen finally took the time to have Descartes himself explain his philosophy to her: she met him in her study, three times each week, at five o’clock in the morning. Christine, with her youth and good health, kept this morning hour without effort, winter come summer; still Chanut [Descartes friend] did not approve of it, and strongly desired that the meeting be put in order before too long. But our philosopher was no longer of an age to face in this way, well before daybreak, the frost and the snow outside, especially if it chilled him and he was never an early-riser. It was the same at college, his teachers left him in bed as much as he wanted; later, he continued to rest there until an hour  had passed. He was at work somewhere else, or rather, as he used to say, he was left to mix insensibly day dreams (which he calls his meditations) with his recent night dreams.” (my translation)

Under this extremely stressful morning regime, at times which Descartes had never seen during his whole chronically-ill life, he quickly became infected, developed pneumonia, and died within 10 days. The Queens chief physician, Mr Du Reyer, a fellow Frenchman, was away and he was attended to by Mr Weulles, a Dutchman, who was his enemy from the theological disputes he faced in Leyden and Utrecht. Mr Weulles prefered treatment for Descartes fevered condition was “bleeding”. Whether Mr Weulles animosity towards Descartes influenced his choice of treatment is not clear but it is certain that Mr Du Reyer would have advocated the same: “c’etait le grand remede de Du Reyer” (AT 12:551). From either physician, Descartes was instinctively aware that this common practice could be a false remedy. In a letter dated 11th February 1650, Mr Weulles informs a friend that when he entered Descartes sick-room he was met with the cry, “Gentlemen, spare the French blood”  (AT 5:477). However, in his typical manner, Descartes later decided by himself that “bleeding” should be carried out on the eighth day; paradoxically, when he appeared to be improving:

“Il conclud que puisque Dieu luy rendoit l’usage libre de sa raison, il luy permettoit par consequent de suivre ce qu’elle luy dictoit, pourvu qu’il s’abstint de vouloir penetrer trop curieusement dans ses decrets, et de faire paroitre de l’inquietude pour l’evenement. C’est pourqouy il se fit saigner de son propre mouvement par le chirurgien de M. l’Ambassadeur vers les huit heures du matin. Une heure apres, lorsque le medicin etoit dans la chambre de M. Chanut, et qu’ils consultoient ensemble sur l’etat du malade, il envoya dire a M. Chanut qu’il souhaiteroit de reiterer la saignee, sur ce que M. Picques Secretaire de l’Ambassade, et M. Belin Secretaire de M. l’Ambassadeur luy avoient dit que le sang qu’on luy avoit tire n’etoit que de l’huile.” (Baillet 2:420)

“He [Descartes] concluded that since God had returned the free use of his reasoning, He consequently permitted to follow the way it was taking him, provided that he refrained from wanting to fathom too inquisitively into His orders, and the anxiety of the event was clear. This is why he was bled on his own decision by the ambassadors surgeon around eight o’clock in the morning. An hour later, while the doctor was in Mr Chanuts room, and they consulted together about his condition, he sent word to Mr Chanut that he would like the bleeding to be repeated, due to Mr Picques, and Mr Belin, telling him that the blood which had already been taken from him was not running smoothly.” (my translation)

His previously improved condition now deteriorated markedly and he did not survive much longer:

“L’apres midy du huitieme jour, six heures apres la seconde saignee il s’eleva un sanglot, qui ne luy laissa plus qu’une respiration entre-coupee jusqu’au lendemain: il ne crachoit plus qu’avec difficulte, et les flegmes qu’il tiroit de sa poitrine n’etoient qu’un sang noiratre et corrompu.” (Baillet 2:421)

“The afternoon of the eighth day, six hours after the second bleeding, he raised a sob, which left him with breathing difficulties into the next day: he was no longer able to spit without difficulty, and the phlegm which remained on his chest was no more than rotten blackish blood.” (my translation)
     
Firstly, this was the first time Descartes had become sick with an infection for over 20 years. Only with tight control over any possible stresses in their life can an ME patient maintain a resistance to infection. Once that control is lost, as with Descartes in Sweden, then infections begin to appear. The stresses of his new environment and duties mean that his immune system would become compromised very quickly. Waking at five o’clock would have been extremely detrimental to his need for long hours of sleep and rest. Then, having to rise and move around in the depths of winter would have stretched his physical and mental capabilities to the limit of his ME. ME patients have problems with body temperature regulation - overheating and overcooling very easily and quickly - which Descartes would find highly stressful in a Swedish winter.

Secondly, as to the treatment for his infection, Descartes made a fatal mistake of heeding the physicians treatment of “bleeding” , astonishingly, not once but twice, compounding his ill-judged decision in coming to Sweden with a second mistake. It is almost certain that he would have recovered from the infection without any medical intervention; in fact, he appeared to be recovering then his own misconceived confidence  got the better of him. This meant that his undiagnosed  ME finally caught up with him. If he had been healthy, that is, without ME, then he would have probably have been able to survive the two episodes of venesection. His friend Chanut had survived exactly the same pneumonia and bleeding in the previous weeks. However, with ME, there was no possibility he would be able to survive these bleedings. Why?

One of the most startling facts about ME pathophysiology is that blood volume is significantly reduced; on average blood volume is only 70% of normal and in some cases only 50% of normal (Streeten 2000). Basic theoretical physiology dictates that most ME patients should be dead with this level of reduced blood volume but the blood vessels in ME are tightly constricted to maintain a living blood pressure. In these circumstances, there is little possibility for an ME patient to cope with the loss of even small amounts of blood. Descartes was subjected to two bleedings. I want to suggest here that Descartes actually died of a fatal loss of blood, due to his ME-related low blood volume. 

APPENDIX 1: Summary of ME Diagnostic Criteria Attributable to Rene Descartes 
  
                                                                    ME Symptom                Evidence of symptom
Criteria                                                       Frequency (%)                in Rene Descartes 

No differential diagnosis                                       100                                 yes
(all symptoms are “constitutional”)

Rapid physical & mental fatigue                          100                                 yes
(daily capacities less than 50% normal)

Disabling fatigue over many days                        100                                 yes
(following normally trivial tasks)

Exercise intolerance                                              100                                 yes
(post-exertional malaise)

Daily fluctuation of fatigue                                    100                                 yes 
(relapsing course)

Lack of strength/physical weakness                   100                                 yes
 (loss of stamina in repetitive tasks)
 
Slow physical & mental development                  100                                 yes
in young children (lack of stature)

Difficulty with concentration                                 100                                 yes                       
(prolongation of mental tasks)
  
Short-term memory deficits                                    100                                 yes
(“slow”/difficulty with word recall)

Prolonged daily periods of sleep/rest                    100                                 yes

Insomnia/daytime sleeping                                      100                                 yes

Emotional lability                                                       100                                 yes
 
“Quiet”/withdrawn/socially retiring                        100                                 yes

Alcohol intolerance                                                   100                                yes

“Hypochondria” /constitutional symptoms           100                                 yes

Obsession with diet/food                                          100                                 yes
(irritable bowel-type syndrome) 
                                            
Heat/cold intolerance                                               100                                yes
(body temperature dissociation)

Fatigue-induced stress reactions                           100                                yes 
(anxiety/panic disorder/low mood/melancholic)

Good motivation/self-esteem/life appreciation     100                               yes
(no clinical depressive illness)

Vivid dreams/nightmares/day-dreaming                 100                               yes
(fatigue-induced)

Source: Tyrell D (1994) Report from the national task force on chronic fatigue syndrome, post viral fatigue syndrome and myalgic encephalomyelitis. Bristol UK: Westcare.

REFERENCES

Adam C & P Tannery (1897-1910)  Oeuvres de Descartes. 12 vols. Paris: Leopold Cerf.

Baillet  A (1691) La vie de Monsieur Descartes. 2 vols. Paris. (Facsimile reprint published by Georg Olms Verlag, 1972). 

Baillet  A (1693) The life of Monsieur Descartes, containing the history of his philosophy and works: as also, the most remarkable things that befell him during the whole course of his life. Translated from the French by SR. London. (British Library shelfmark: 1201.b.10)

Carraud V (1987) The relevance of Cartesianism. In: Contemporary French Philosophy / A Phillips- Griffiths. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Cottingham J (1985) The philosophical writings of Descartes. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 

Dear P (1998) The mechanical microcosm: bodily passions, good manners and Cartesian mechanism. In: Lawrence C & S Shapin (1998) Science incarnate: historical embodiments of natural knowledge. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Frederix P (1959) Monsieur Rene Descartes en son temps. Paris: Gallimard. 

Gaukroger S (1995) Descartes: an intellectual biography. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Guibert A J (1976) Bibliographie des oeuvres de Rene Descartes publiees au 17e siecle. Paris: Editions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. 

Jackson S W (1986) Melancholia and depression: from Hippocratic times to Modern times. New Haven, Conneticut: Yale University Press. 

Lanson G (1896) Histoire de la litterature francaise. Paris: Hachette.

Lawrence C & S Shapin (1998) Science incarnate: historical embodiments of natural knowledge. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
(http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/WritingScience/etexts/Shapin/SCIENCE_INCARNATE.html)

Ree J (1974) Descartes. London: Allen Lane.

Robinson V (1921)  Rene Descartes. Medical Life 28:111-132.

Rodis-Lewis (1999) Descartes: his life and thought. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Copyright: Jed Gallagher 2001. No copying of this work, in any media, without permission of the author.