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Between the years 1629 and 1633 Descartes worked on a book which he called, in his correspondence, The World (Le Monde). In 1633, however, he decided to suppress the book, and he did not publish it later in his life. He used some of its materials in his Discourse on the Method and in the first two of its three accompanying Essays (Optics and Meteorology, the third essay being the ">Geometry, 1637). Later again, in 1644, some of the materials of The World were published, revised and reworked, in the Principles of Philosophy. And some of The World's materials can also be found in Descartes' The Passions of the Soul (Les Passions de l"Ame), the last book he published during his life (1649).

DOI: 10.1057/9781137512024_2

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