The Abbé de Saint-Pierre and the Emergence of the 'Quantifying ...

Abbé Saint-Pierre and the “Quantifying Spirit” 8
mentions reading Malebranche’s work during these years and then meeting with him to “express
some objections to certain parts.” He goes on to mention that he also had several “comrades”
with which he would “walk and dispute on these matters,” and these reminisces offer a
suggestive window upon Saint-Pierre’s entrée into the precise intellectual circles that would be
most formative for him. 18
Malebranche’s Recherche, the third and expanded 1678 edition of which Saint-Pierre
read in the 1680s, was a characteristically Baroque treatise in its topical sweep and eclectic
erudition. Yet among its many arguments was a presentation of natural philosophy rooted deeply
in the new mathematical thought of the seventeenth century, especially the new analytics of
Descartes, Pascal, and Fermat. Drawing out the prevalence of this mathematical thought in
Malebranche’s thought, one scholar has even gone so far as to suggest number as the core idea
that unifies all of his philosophy. 19 Be that as it may, it is clear that Malebranche’s philosophy
was steeped in the newest mathematics of the period, and that any student of it would have been
exposed to these ideas as well. Based on his interest in mathematics and on his notoriety more
generally, Malebranche also played a crucial role in bringing together a circle of French thinkers
at the cutting edge of seventeenth-century mathematics. 20 How closely Saint-Pierre was
associated with the actual work of the “Malebranche Circle” is not clear, but what is certain is
that he was intimately connected with two of its most important and influential members.
Both shared with Saint-Pierre ties to Normandy, and especially to its premiere Jesuit
school, the Collège de Caen. 21
The first, Pierre Varignon, was Saint-Pierre’s classmate at Caen
even though each came from a very different place in Norman society. Varignon and Saint-Pierre
first met in the classroom where they became allies in their increasing disillusionment with the
clerical careers they were pursuing. They quickly became roommates, and when Saint-Pierre