The foundation of René Descartes's mechanics was torn asunder during early-18th-century debates in the Paris Academy of Sciences. The Cartesians constructed intuitive mechanical descriptions of the universe based on the three elements of primitive matter as devised by Descartes. One was the “subtle minute matter” constituting the Sun and the stars. Capable of moving at great speed, that form of matter permeated all space not occupied by the two other, denser elements. The second and principal form of celestial matter, spherical ether particles, moved in large vortical structures and transmitted force as an instantaneous impulse. The coarsest and most lethargic element composed planetary bodies, including Earth.
In the Cartesian view, the mechanics of the solar system was controlled by the action of the ether particles, through their impulsive coupling to planetary bodies. In Descartes’s cosmogony, the guiding hands of vortices set in motion by the creator continually returned bodies to...
