INSTANTANEOUS PROPAGATION OF LIGHT

His reaction was typical of him?“ he felt that in order to explain

this Particular phenomenon he had ‘to examine methodically
[par ardre] all the Meteors’.51 By October of the same year he
believed himself to be ready to give a satisfactory explanation of
atmospheric phenomena and had therefore decided to write ‘a little
Treatise which will contain the explanation of the colours of the
rainbow, which have given me more trouble than all the rest, and
generally of all the sublunar Phenomena’.$2 He asked his confidant
Mersenne not to mention this planned treatise to anyone ‘for I have
decided to present it to the public as a sample of my Philosophy, and
to hide behind the work to hear what will be said about it.’ 53
We have already quoted Descartes' statement of 1638 in which he
made it quite clear that when he published his 1637 volume he was
not aiming either to teach ‘the whole of my method’ in the Discaurse
or to show how he actually employed it to arrive at the results
contained in the three treatises that followed.“ At the same time,
however, he described his explanation of the rainbow which he
presented in the eighth chapter of the Meteors, as ‘a sample’ of the
method outlined in the Discourse. Indeod, the opening sentence in
that chapter contains the only reference to ‘the method’ in all three
treatises: ‘The rainbow is a marvel of nature that is so remarkable,
and its cause has always been so eagerly sought by men of good
sense and is so little understood, that I could not choose a subject
better suited to show how, by the method which I employ, we can
arrive at knowledge Which has not been attained by those whose
writings we have.’55 It will be noted that when, in 1629, Descartes
had not yet thought of writing a methodological preface to the

‘9 Expressing to Menenne his opinion of Galileo’s Dialoguts Descartes first remarke‘i’,

rather condescendingly, that Galileo ‘philosophe bmwoup mieux que le vulgaire, en ce qu‘il
quitte le plus qu'il pent les erreurs de l’Esdiole, & tasche a examiner Ies matieles physiques
par des taisons mathematiques’. Then he added the following reservation, indicating how in
his view one should go about explaining particular phenomena: ‘Mais iI me semble qu'il
manque beauconp en ce qu’il £ait continuellemmt d: digmsions 6: ne s'axcstc point a
expliquer tout a fait vne matiete; c: qm' monstn qu’il ulna paint exuminles par mire, Er 1114:.
Ian: uuair consider! 1:: premieres muses dz In nature, 1'! a seulemen: thank! les mimns dc quelquzx
{fleets particulx'crs, 8 ainsy qu’x’l a bani sansflmdement’ (Lettet to Mersenne, u Octobex 1638,
D, II, p. 380, my italics; see also similar remarks on Galileo's Chief Systems, D, I, pp. 30445).
“ Descartes to Mcrsennc. 8 October 1629, D, I, p. 23.
5' Ibid. 5‘ Ibid. “ See above, p. 17, n. a. ‘5 D, VI, 9. 325.

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