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Categories: Humour

Although "I Think, Therefore I Am" was the line on which Descartes achieved his meteoric rise to stardom, that was not the line he actually wrote. So I can't tell you how much pleasure it gives me to put the record straight, if only for poor Rene's sake.

You may well wonder how it was that Rene managed to reach Number One among philosophy's all-time chart-toppers. Well, as I've indicated, it was all due to the widespread misunderstanding about his line "I Think, Therefore I Am". And to trace the EXACT origin of that I must take you, by the magic of radio, back to the New Year's Eve party which Madame Descartes threw to celebrate the advent of 1636.

She'd decided that as it was to be an informal affair what she'd serve would be a "buffet" (a French word meaning "we've got more people than chairs"). As she also intended it to be a late do, with the guests not arriving until around 11 o'clock, she ran up an enormous bunch of that Gallic imitation of bacon-and-egg flan they call "Quiches".

However, Madame made it clear to Rene that although the quiches would be put out on the sideboard in advance -- "what I DON'T want is people helping themselves all evening and treading their crumbs into the Aubusson. So I'm relying on you to see to it that nobody starts digging into them until at least an hour after we've seen the New Year in. Then they can take plates and eat properly!"

Ironic, isn't it? The founder of the Cartesian School relegated to the position of Securicor for bacon-and-egg flans. As he said to Father Dinet -- I haven't mentioned him, but he was a Jesuit priest who was about Rene's only real mate at that time -- as he said to him, "I can't think this is in any way advancing my career. Being sat down here at the sideboard till one o'clock in the morning, no way will there be any philosophising done tomorrow. I'll be like a limp rag."

To which the good Father rejoined an extremely practical rejoiner. "Then why don't you use this as WORKING time? Take a pen and write while you're sitting here, set your mind for lofty thoughts and if any arrive, jot them down ona paper serviette.

"Not a bad idea at all," said Descartes. "Give us a borrow of your quill."

So it was that for the next hour or so, there by the sideboard the two friends sat and Descartes was able to get off quite a few zingers relating to corporeal rationality. It was while he was putting into shape an eternal verity on adventitious volition that he glanced up and, to his horror, saw that Father Dinet had absent-mindedly helped himself to a quiche and was quietly munching it.

About to open his mouth and exclaim "watch it!" They're not supposed to be eaten yet," he became aware of something else. There, not two yards away -- well within earshot -- stood his wife!!

There was only one thing to do. Stealthily, Descartes took another serviette, scribbled out his warning, then equally furtively, pushed the serviette under Father Dinet's nose.

So it was that the whole 300-year-old misunderstanding originated. That message -- the one which Father Dinet was later to publish to the world as "I Think Therefore I Am" -- all it referred to was the time-ban on the bacon-and-egg flans.

The truth is, what Descartes actually wrote was I THINK THEY'RE FOR 1 A.M.

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