ABSTRACT
Life. The Frenchman René Descartes (1596–1650) studied scholastic philosophy at the Jesuit school at La Flèche, but he soon began to doubt the value of learning: most disciplines were without a firm foundation, according to Descartes. He abandoned his books and began to wander. For a time he fought on the Protestant side in the Thirty Years' War. At his winter quarters in Germany in 1619, he developed the basic ideas of the method he was to use. He was then 23 years old. Ten years later he moved to the Netherlands to live and study in peace. In 1649, he went to stay with Queen Christina in Stockholm. He could not adjust to the harsh climate in Sweden and died in February 1650.
