tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">GENTIAN

GASSENDI1 [Gassend], PIERRE (1592-1655), French philosopher, scientist and mathematician, was born of poor parents at Champtercier, near Digne, in Provence, on the 22nd of January 1592. At a very early age he gave indications of remarkable mental powers and was sent to the college at Digne. He showed particular aptitude for languages and mathematics, and it is said that at the age of sixteen he was invited to lecture on rhetoric at the college. Soon afterwards he entered the university of Aix, to study philosophy under P. Fesaye. In 1612 he was called to the college of Digne to lecture on theology. Four years later he received the degree of doctor of theology at Avignon, and in 1617 he took holy orders. In the same year he was called to the chair of philosophy at Aix, and seems gradually to have withdrawn from theology. He lectured principally on the Aristotelian philosophy, conforming as far as possible to the orthodox methods. At the same time, however, he followed with interest the discoveries of Galileo and Kepler, and became more and more dissatisfied with the Peripatetic system. It was the period of revolt against the Aristotelianism of the schools, and Gassendi shared to the full the empirical tendencies of the age. He, too, began to draw up objections to the Aristotelian philosophy, but did not at first venture to publish them. In 1624, however, after he had left Aix for a canonry at Grenoble, he printed the first part of his Exercitationes paradoxicae adversus Aristoteleos. A fragment of the second book was published later at La Haye (1659), but the remaining five were never composed, Gassendi apparently thinking that after the Discussiones Peripateticae of Francesco Patrizzi little field was left for his labours.

After 1628 Gassendi travelled in Flanders and Holland. During this time he wrote, at the instance of Mersenne, his examination of the mystical philosophy of Robert Fludd (Epistolica dissertatio in qua praecipua principia philosophiae Ro. Fluddi deteguntur, 1631), an essay on parhelia (Epistola de parheliis), and some valuable observations on the transit of Mercury which had been foretold by Kepler. He returned to France in 1631, and two years later became provost of the cathedral church at Digne. Some years were then spent in travelling through Provence with the duke of Angoulême, governor of the department. The only literary work of this period is the Life of Peiresc, which has been frequently reprinted, and was translated into English. In 1642 he was engaged by Mersenne in controversy with Descartes. His objections to the fundamental propositions of Descartes were published in 1642; they appear as the fifth in the series contained in the works of Descartes. In these objections Gassendi’s tendency towards the empirical school of speculation appears more pronounced than in any of his other writings. In 1645 he accepted the chair of mathematics in the Collège Royal at Paris, and lectured for many years with great success. In addition to controversial writings on physical questions, there appeared during this period the first of the works by which he is known in the history of philosophy. In 1647 he published the treatise De vita, moribus, et doctrina Epicuri libri octo. The work was well received, and two years later appeared his commentary on the tenth book of Diogenes Laërtius, De vita, moribus, et placitis Epicuri, seu Animadversiones in X. librum Diog. Laër. (Lyons, 1649; last edition, 1675). In the same year the more important Syntagma philosophiae Epicuri (Lyons, 1649; Amsterdam, 1684) was published.

In 1648 ill-health compelled him to give up his lectures at the Collège Royal. He travelled in the south of France, spending nearly two years at Toulon, the climate of which suited him. In 1653 he returned to Paris and resumed his literary work, publishing in that year lives of Copernicus and Tycho Brahe. The disease from which he suffered, lung complaint, had, however, established a firm hold on him. His strength gradually failed, and he died at Paris on the 24th of