Note 780 — Chapter XXIX
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Baillet, in his Life of Descartes, would lead us to think that Gassendi was too much influenced by personal motives in writing against Descartes, who had mentioned the phenomena of parhelia, without alluding to a dissertation of Gassendi on the subject. The latter, it seems, owns in a letter to Rivet that he should not have examined so closely the metaphysics of Descartes, if he had been treated by him with as much politeness as he had expected. Vie de Descartes, liv. vi. The retort of Descartes, O caro! (see chap. xx. of this work, p. 497) offended Gassendi, and caused a coldness; which, according to Baillet, Sorbière aggravated acting a treacherous part in exasperating the mind of Gassendi.