It should be added that the modern theory of vortex-atoms (Lord Kelvin's) to explain the constitution of matter has but slight analogy with Cartesian doctrine, and finds a parellel, if anywhere, in a modification of that doctrine by Malebranche.
The chief names in this advanced theology connected with Cartesian doctrines are Ludwig Meyer, the friend and editor of Spinoza, author of a work termed Philosophia scripturae interpres (1666); Balthasar Bekker, whose World Bewitched helped to discredit the superstitious fancies about the devil; and Spinoza, whose Tractatus theologico-politicus is in some respects the classical type of rational criticism up to the present day.
The Chateau of the duc de Luynes, the translator of the Meditations, was the home of a Cartesian club, that discussed the questions of automatism and of the composition of the sun from filings and parings, and rivalled Port Royal in its vivisections.
On his visit to Toulouse in 1665, with a mission from the Cartesian chiefs, his lectures excited boundless interest; ladies threw themselves with zeal and ability into the study of philosophy; and Regis himself .was made the guest of the civic corporation.
From the real or fancied rapprochements between Cartesianism and Jansenism, it became for a while impolitic, if not dangerous, to avow too loudly a preference for Cartesian theories.
