These are probably chosen as representative names, without any special reference to their views. We have already found how numerous are Swift's citations from Descartes, in whose system he seems to have been interested, although his way of speaking of it is occasionally half-sarcastic. Gassendi (1592-1655) was a devout French Churchman, who held a leading place amidst the mental and physical philosophers of his day. He wrote against the scholastic Aristotelianism; against the Cabalists; and was so sharply divided from some of Descartes' views, that his own followers formed a school of philosophy as distinguished from the Cartesians. Curiously enough, although his views were essentially different from those of Hobbes, with whom Swift now ranges him, the two had a mutual respect for one another, and occasionally corresponded. Hobbes is named by Swift as frequently as Descartes.