Gassendi,[1] from 1633 Provost of Digne, later for a short period professor
of mathematics at Paris. His renewal of Epicureanism, to which he was
impelled by temperament, by his reverence for Lucretius, and by the
anti-Aristotelian tendency of his thinking, was of far more importance for
modern thought than the attempts to revive the ancient systems which have
been mentioned above (p. 29). Its superior influence depends on the fact
that, in the conception of atoms, it offered exact inquiry a most useful
point of attachment. The conflict between the Gassendists and the
Cartesians, which at first was a bitter one, centered, as far as physics
was concerned, around the value of the atomic hypothesis as contrasted with
the corpuscular and vortex theory which Descartes had opposed to it. It
soon became apparent, however, that these two thinkers followed along
essentially the same lines in the philosophy of nature, sharply as they
were opposed in their noëtical principles. Descartes' doctrine of body is
conceived from an entirely materialistic standpoint, his anthropology,
indeed, going further than the principles of his system would allow.
Gassendi, on the other hand, recognizes an immaterial, immortal reason,
traces the origin of the world, its marvelous arrangement, and the
beginning of motion back to God, and, since the Bible so teaches, believes
the earth to be at rest,--holding that, for this reason, the decision must
be given in favor of Tycho Brahé and against Copernicus, although the
hypothesis of the latter affords the simpler and, scientifically, the more
probable explanation. Both thinkers rejoice in their agreement with the
dogmas of the Church, only that with Descartes it came unsought in the
natural progress of his thought, while Gassendi held to it in contradiction
to his system. It is the more surprising that Gassendi's works escaped
being put upon the Index, a fate which overtook those of Descartes in 1663.

[Footnote 2: Pierre Gassendi, 1592-1655: _On the Life and Character of
Epicurus_, 1647; _Notes on the Tenth Book of Diogenes Laërtius, with a