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Descartes on the Heartbeat: the Leuven Affair

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Descartes on the Heartbeat: the Leuven Affair Descartes on the Heartbeat: The Leuven Affair Lucian Petrescu Ghent University This paper presents the reactions to Descartes’ account of the heartbeat expressed by the Leuven professors Fortunatus Plempius and Libertus Fromondus, reactions that also involved the Utrecht professor Henricus Regius. I show that the letters exchanged between Descartes and the two Leuven professors in 1637–1638 stirred a continuous debate, followed through a series of publications, up to the condemnations of Cartesianism in 1662–1663. I investigate the extent to which the reception of Descartes’ ac- count of the heartbeat contributed to the initial rejection of Cartesianism in Leuven and how physiological arguments were motivated by theological con- cerns throughout these exchanges. 1. Introduction There is an interesting historical detour in the dissemination of one of the seventeenth century’s most praised discoveries: the reception of Harvey’s account of the circulation of the blood is closely intertwined, especially in the Low Countries, with Descartes’ account of the origin of the heartbeat. Descartes was one of the ªrst ªgures to support the circulation of the blood and to give credit to Harvey for it, although he presumably arrived at the same conclusion independently through his own anatomical experi- ments. He did so while vocally rejecting Harvey’s views on the muscular nature of the heart and his explanation of cardiac motion, to promote his own mechanistic solutions instead. Although Descartes’ mechanical physiology had been generally well received, particularly in the Northern I owe thanks to Maarten Van Dyck, Sven Dupré, Charles T. Wolfe, and anonymous review- ers for comments, to Barnaby Hutchins for having corrected my English, and to Thomas Gariepy for having kindly provided me with a copy of his dissertation. Research for this ar- ticle was ªnanced by the Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek Vlaanderen (FWO). Perspectives on Science 2013, vol. 21, no. 4 ©2013 by The Massachusetts Institute of Technology doi:10.1162/POSC_a_00110 397 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/POSC_a_00110 by guest on 01 October 2021 398 Descartes on the Heartbeat Netherlands, and had quickly become a vehicle for Harvey’s account of the circulation, this reception was not at all linear; it also generated contro- versy among the more theologically minded physicians.1 I present here a sustained exchange over Descartes’ account of the heartbeat that had its epicenter in Leuven and that, I argue, is not disconnected from the events that led up to a famous series of condemnations of Cartesianism in 1662– 1663. The events leading up to these condemnations are more complex and had multiple motivations, but I hope that the re-examination of the controversy generated by Descartes’ account of the heartbeat will shed more light on the extent to which his physiology contributed to the initial reception (and rejection) of Cartesianism in the Southern Netherlands. The history of the propagation of Harvey’s medical discovery and its connection to Descartes has been explored in a number of works. Recep- tion studies tell us how conservative or progressive these physiological ideas were on one side of the English Channel or the other. The greater success of Descartes’ mechanism of the heart, as compared to Harvey’s ac- count, has been reported to parallel the success of mechanism vs. vitalism, with the complexities that this entails.2 More recently, Marjorie Grene has suggested that Descartes’ account of the heartbeat amounts to “a conser- vative innovation,” when compared to Harvey’s. That is, “his position proved more acceptable also because, in its medical details, it was more conservative.”3 This is one side of the story; Descartes’ physiological infor- mation and his scientiªc results may have been more traditional. But the philosophy behind it certainly was not, and perhaps this weighed more for his readers. It is true that Descartes retains a number of “conservative” facts in his study of the heart, and most strikingly the Galenic thesis of the 1. Scholars tend to acknowledge that Descartes’ account of the motion of the heart was more successful than that of Harvey. Fuchs (2001), p. 2: “Harvey’s discovery, as well as Harvey himself, was and is seen chieºy from a perspective that was determined to a great extent not by him, but by Descartes.” French (1989), p. 47: “The doctrine of the circula- tion of the blood had its greatest impact in the Low Countries in conjunction with Carte- sian mechanism.” Grene (2005), p. 93: “as the idea of the circulation came to be accepted, it was in fact Descartes’ view of the heart’s motion that was, in many cases, accepted as the more persuasive account.” 2. See Fuchs (2001). Fuchs speaks of “the vital aspect of the circulation” (Part C, “Harvey”) and of “the mechanical aspect of the circulation” (Part D, “Descartes and his fol- lowers”). The classic study of Étienne Gilson (1930) is the ªrst to have explored the issue in depth. Weil (1957) contains a useful list of early works referencing Harvey’s De Motu. For more recent studies, see French (1989, 1999); Grene (1993, 2005); Gorham (1994); Anstey (2000); Aucante, “Appendice 6” in Descartes (2000). For recent studies on Des- cartes’ physiology in general, see Bitbol-Héspèries (1990) and Aucante (2006). 3. Preface to Fuchs (2001) xiii, a thesis developed in Grene (2005). Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/POSC_a_00110 by guest on 01 October 2021 Perspectives on Science 399 simultaneity of the systole and the diastole in the heart and the arteries. However, Descartes’ mechanical explanations and the conceptualization of the “ªre without light,” which is the core of the Cartesian account, appeared to be unheard of: “nova est ac inaudita, et prorsus absurda [opinio],” cried a scandalized reader.4 My revision of the Leuven affair concentrates on the philosophical is- sues that determined the reception of the Cartesian account of cardiac mo- tion. It supports the view that Descartes’ account of the heartbeat, given the philosophical and theological implications of its medical details, was to a great extent contrary to the medical tradition established in the uni- versity; that this tradition reacted strongly against it, largely on theologi- cal grounds; and that the same medical establishment preferred Harvey’s physiology as the more conservative one, against Descartes. The circula- tion of the blood is in itself metaphysically neutral; it can be taken to appeal both to an Aristotelian and an anti-Aristotelian.5 Descartes’ expla- nation of cardiac motion is not. The Leuven reception will show that Des- cartes’ account of the heartbeat was read and discussed not simply as a medical explanation, but as committing one to particular Cartesian theses on the nature and functioning of the soul, even before Descartes developed these theses in his later works, like the Meditations or the Passions of the Soul. I start by brieºy recalling the physiological matter at hand in Harvey and Descartes, and then explore the ªrst reactions to Descartes’ physiology of the heart from 1637–1644. In doing so, I follow a debate on the heart- beat between Descartes, Plempius and Regius, and I analyze it as moti- vated by commitments over the nature of the soul. In the third part I look at the theological reactions stirred by Descartes’ account of the heartbeat from Fromondus and follow the development of Plempius’ campaign against Cartesianism up to the 1662–1663 condemnations. Monchamp’s Histoire du cartésianisme en Belgique remains an unrivalled source for the events leading up to the condemnations, which have not been explored ex- tensively since (Monchamp 1886). Armogathe and Carraud document the Leuven condemnations of Cartesianism of 1662–1663 through a pre- sentation of the relevant texts, together with previously unedited ones (Armogathe and Carraud, 2001). Ariew has brought forward a number of arguments related to the extension of the universe in the Leuven condem- 4. Riolan (1649), p. 44, inGilson (1930), p. 96. 5. I use “Aristotelian” as a label much in the loose sense that the seventeenth- century anti-traditionalist rhetoric used it; here it should pick up authors adhering to the Aristotelian-inspired doctrine of the tripartite function of the soul. Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/POSC_a_00110 by guest on 01 October 2021 400 Descartes on the Heartbeat nations (Ariew 1994 and 2011, pp. 241–267). The texts of 1662–1663 condemn, among other things, Descartes’ physiology: the motivations and context of this historical detail will be explored here. 2. Descartes on the heartbeat Evidence that Descartes read Harvey’s De Motu appears in his correspon- dence in late 1632.6 For Harvey, the heart is an empty contracting muscle, which stirs the blood into motion by its beating and pushes it in and out.7 Descartes’ expressed dissatisfaction with Harvey’s account is that it does not explain the origin of the beating of the heart, so that we would need a “pulsiªc faculty” to account for the beating.8 In Descartes’ account, the bedrock of the explanation is moved from a pulsiªc faculty of the muscle to the innate heat within the heart.9 While praising publicly Harvey on the matter of the circulation itself, Descartes maintained his own explana- tion of the heartbeat throughout his career, from the Treatise of Man (writ- ten in 1632), through the Discourse, in his correspondence and until as late 6. Gassendi read Harvey and wrote about it to Mersenne, who then asked Descartes what he thought of it (AT I 264). Descartes responded in November or December 1632: “J’ai vu le livre de motu cordis dont vous m’aviez autrefois parlé, et me suis trouvé un peu différent de son opinion, quoique je ne l’aie vu qu’après avoir achevé d’écrire de cette matière” (AT I 263).
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