This last imagination has assuredly a touch of enthusiasm in it, and might lead us to believe that M. Descartes may have been drinking in the evening before retiring. It was, in fact, St. Martin's Eve, on which evening it was customary in the place where he was, as in France, to indulge in heavy drinking. But he assures us that he had passed the evening and the whole day in a condition of complete sobriety, and that for the three whole proceeding months he had drunk no wine. He adds that the Genius which had been exciting in him the enthusiasm with which, as he felt, his brain had been inflamed for several days had predicted these dreams to him prior to his retiral to rest, and that the human mind had no share in them.

However that may be, the impression left by these agitations led him on the morrow to make diverse reflections on the course which he should take. In his distress and trouble he turned to God, praying to have His will revealed to him and that He would deign to enlighten and guide him in the search for truth. He next addressed himself to the Holy Virgin that he might commend to her this matter which he judged to be the most important in his life. And that he might the more urgently enlist the favor of the blessed Mother of God, he seized the opportunity given by the journey which he proposed making in Italy in the course of a few days, to vow a pilgrimage to our Lady of Loreto. His zeal went even further, and he vowed to her that when he reached Venice he would set forth by land to make the pilgrimage on foot all the way to Loreto; and that if his strength proved unequal to the fatigue of such a made of journey, he would, to acquit himself of his vow, at least assume the most devout of and the lowliest garb he possibly could. He meant to set out on this journey before the end of November. It seems, however, that God here dealt with him in a fashion which he had not foreseen. Being obliged to postpone his Italian journey for reasons not known to us, and subsequent to this resolution, he had to deter the accomplishment of his vow to another time. In a few days his enthusiasm had left him; but though he was thus restored to his customary attitude of mind, and was in a state of unimpassioned quietude, he did not on that account become clearer and more decided as to what precise form his resolutions should take.