CALLY, PIERRE, a distinguished French theologian and philosopher, was born at Mesnil Hubert near Argentan, in the department of Orne, about the middle of the seventeenth century. Though destined for the church, he devoted himself at an early age to the study of philosophy, and was the first person in France to adopt in their totality the doctrines of Descartes. The boldness of this step procured for him many enemies, and even interrupted his intercourse with his personal friends, amongst others with Huet, the illustrious bishop of Avranches. When Louis XIV. was organizing the Delphin classics, Cally was appointed to edit the De Consolatione Philosophice of Boethius. His edition of that work appeared in 1680, and has now become extremely rare. In 1674 he published his Institutio Philosophica, which he subsequently enlarged and republished about twenty years after, and in the following year became principal of the college of arts at Caen. In 1684 he became curate of the church of St Martin, and ingratiated himself with the Protestants of that city so successfully, that he converted many of their number. His enemies, however, jealous of his increasing fame, revived against him the old charge of Cartesianism, and procured his banishment. He then settled at Moulins, where he remained for two years. Finding that his popularity with the Protestants of Caen had not been diminished by his absence, he wrote them a letter on the Harmony of Theology with Philosophy, a work which was publicly condemned, apparently with such good reason, that he himself made an open retraction of it, and caused it to be suppressed. Shortly after this event he died in 1709.