Merseme

Merseme, MARIN, a constant friend of Descartes, was born in 1588, and died at Paris in 1648. He was a fellow-student of Descartes at the Jesuit college of La Flèche, and took the habit of a Minim Friar in 1611; his life thereafter was spent in study, teaching in convent-schools, and travel. He did valiant battle with numerous clerical controversialists on behalf of the orthodoxy of the philosophy of Descartes, and wrote vigorously against atheists and other unbelievers. His profound knowledge of mathematics is seen in a number of books, and in his Harmonie Universelle (1636), an invaluable contribution to the science of music.