The point of the book seems to be to describe life in the 17th century in western Europe. There is very much in here about warring Christian sects. Jansenists (anti-science), Thomism (from Thomas Aquinas, seeing God in all things), Augustinians (who think people are basically corrupt). Pascal was...
Set against the backdrop of the witchcraft trial of his mother, this fascinating biography of Johannes Kepler, "the Protestant Galileo" and 16th century mathematician and astronomer who discovered the three basic laws of planetary motion, reveals the surprisingly spiritual nature of the quest of ...
KEPLER TOOK TO THE ROAD once again, but this time there was no Tycho Brahe waiting at the other end to welcome him. Where would he find a home this time? How would he live? How would he raise his children? Where would he find a place to work in peace? All of Europe was at war it seemed, and where...
—ANTOINE ARNAULD, The Art of Thinking: Port-Royal Logic The youngest of the Arnauld clan was named after his father, Antoine, and was born in 1612. His father died in 1619, when he was only seven. And so, like Blaise Pascal, he too had lost a parent in childhood. He was, by almost every account, ...