For René Descartes, the problem of keeping body and soul together took three forms. First, how did thinking stuff keep company with material stuff? Soul was active, unextended in space and immortal; body was passive, extended and, if it made up the structure of a human being, distressingly mortal. And yet humans were unique hybrids, in which rational minds volitionally moved brute matter, making them something quite different from parrots, apes and 'earthen statues'. In 1643, the young and charming Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia asked Descartes how such a thing was possible and, while Descartes responded by performing some of his fanciest philosophical footwork, he was unable fully to satisfy her on this point, hoping that egregious flattery of both her body and her soul would substitute for substance.

LRB 23 January 2003 | PDF Download