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order and intellectual standards of the whole people. Qucen Christina,
the gifted daughter of the great Gustavus Adolphus, adorned her court
by inviting to it many learned and talented men from the Continent,
among them the philosopher Descartes. But for the premature death
of Descartes, the Queen would have established an Academ}’’ of Sciences
at Stockholm, which might have ameliorated the severity of the
intellectual changes whose advent during the latter half of the seventeenth
century was accompanied by so much controversy and animosity at the
University of Upsala. The final outcome was the establishment of
phi-losophical freedom and of untrammeled scientific research. Strangely
enough, Charles XI., whose political power was well nigh absolute, a
power built upon the ruins of the authority of the nobles, exercised a
determining iufluence upon the great controversy at Upsala in the
direc-tion of increased freedom of discussion and liberty of teaching. The
occasion of the difficulty was the entering of Cartesianism into the
Fac-ulty of Medicine, but as the discussion proceeded its scope extended,
involving the remaining Faculties of Philosophy, Law and Theology
in a general controversy concerning the relationship of theology,
philosophy and the Sciences.
It appears improbable that the short residence of Descartes at the
Swedish Capital was accompanied by any events which were directly
connected with the subsequent controversy at Upsala, although it is
known that the learned were opposed to the foreigner Descartes, just as they
were opposed to the other foreigners at the court. Queen Christina
was so much affected by the philosophy and personal history of
Descartes that not long af ter his death she ordered that no priest should
be granted a professorship in the Faculty of Philosophy at Upsala;
Descartes had recently suffered from persecutiou in Holland.
especially a newly discovered portrait by David Beck». The account of the Cartesian
Controversy and its influence upon the founders of the Scientific Society at Upsala
and upon Swedenborg, furnished in the present Introduction, is based in part upon
the author’s investigations and in part upon the admirable works of Dr. Claes
Annerstedt, former librarian of Upsala University. See his »Bref af Olof Rudbeck
den äldre», Upsala, 1893—1905, and »Upsala Universitets Historia», Vol. II., 1908—
1909. The valuable article of Svedelius in the periodical »Frey», 1842, as also
Baili.et’s »La Vie de M. Descartes», besides many other sources, have been consulted.
More detailed information, with full references to the literature illustrating the
Cartesian Controversy and its effect upon the intellectual atmosphere at Upsala will, it
is hoped, appear in a monograph to be published at Stockholm.
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