James, a celebrated Cartesian philosopher, was the son of a merchant of Amiens, where he was born in 1620. He became well skilled in the mathematics, and taught them at Paris. He died at Paris in 1675. He wrote in French, 1. A Treatise on Natural Philosophy; 2. The Elements of Mathematics; 3. A Treatise on Mechanics, which is very curious; 4. Philosophical Conversations, and other works. His Physics have been translated into Latin by Dr Samuel Clarke, with notes, in which the Cartesian errors are corrected upon the Newtonian system.