Abstract
During de Raey’s professorship at Leiden, the university emerged as an important center for the dispersion of Cartesianism throughout northern Europe, a role that was further enhanced in the 1660’s by the presence at Leiden of Arnold Geulincx.1 A convert from Catholicism, Geulincx had come to Leiden from Lou vain in 1658.2 Supported by the theologian Abraham Heidanus, he was appointed lector in logic in 1662 and three years later acquired the title of professor. Although he held that title ostensibly with the understanding that he would adhere to the peripatetic philosophy,3 he was a dedicated Cartesian whose writings were to have a considerable impact in the following decades. The subjects for which he was formally responsible at Leiden were logic and ethics,4 outside of which his major influence was in the realm of metaphysics. Nonetheless, physics was neglected neither in his writings nor teaching, and he bolstered the dominance that de Raey had already acquired for Cartesian natural philosophy within the university.5
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References
De Raey’s former students were particularly influential in the spread of Cartesianism in Germany. See Heinz Schneppen, Niederländische Universitäten und Deutsches Geistesleben, von der Gründung der Universität Leiden bis ins späte 18. Jahrhundert (Münster, Westfalen: Aschendorff, 1960), pp. 76–8. Bohatec, Die cartesianische Scholastik, pp. 51 and 78. Beck, Early German Philosophy, pp. 183–4.
On Geulincx, see J. P. N. Land, Arnold Geulincx und seine Philosophie (Haag: Martinus Nijhoff, 1895)
On Geulincx, see J. P. N. Land, “Arnold Geulincx te Leiden (1658–1669),” Mededeelingen, Kon. Akademie van Wetenschappen, Amsterdam, Afdeeling Letterkunde, series 3, Vol. Ill (1887), pp. 277–327
On Geulincx, see J. P. N. Land, “Arnold Geulincx and His Works,” Mind, Vol. XVI, pp. 223–42. (1887) Victor Vander Haeghen, Geulincx: Étude sur sa vie, sa philosophie et ses ouvrages (Gand: Ad. Hoste, 1886).
Land, “Geulincx te Leiden,” p. 315.
Bronnen, Vol. III, pp. 179* and 210*; see also the Series Lectionum for the years 1663–9. Land, op. cit., p. 318.
See his Sämtliche Schriften in fünf Bänden, ed. H. J. de Vleeschauwer (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Friedrich Frommann, 1965–68).
The Correspondence of Henry Oldenburg, ed. and trans. A. Rupert Hall and Marie Boas Hall (Madison, etc.: University of Wisconsin Press, 1965), Vol. V, p. 141.
Bronnen, Vol. III, pp. 236 and 245. Sassen, Geschiedenis van de Wijsbegeerte in Nederland, p. 159.
Suringar, “De Leidsehe Hoogleeraren in de natuurkundige Wetenschappen, inzonderheid in de Kruid- en Scheikunde, na den Dood van Sylvius en vóór Boerhaave’s Benoeming tot Professor Chemiae (1672–1718),” in Bijdragen tot de Geschiedenis van het Geneeskundig Onderwijs aan de Leidsche Hoogeschool, p. 18. At Leiden, as at other continental universities, the degree of doctor of philosophy appeared as an equivalent to the master of arts in the course of the seventeenth century; Morison, The Founding of Harvard College, p. 145, n. 5.
See Bohatec, Die cartesianische Scholastik, passim, and Cramer, Abraham Heidanus.
See John B. Wolf, Louis XIV (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., c. 1968), p. 213 ff.
Pieter Geyl, The Netherlands in the Seventeenth Century, Part Two 1648–1715 (London: Ernest Beim Ltd.; New York: Barnes and Noble, Inc., c. 1964), p. 121 ff.
Directly in the path of the French advance, Leiden had distinguished itself among the other cities of the province of Holland by its willingness to accept the humiliating French terms for surrender; Stephen B. Baxter, William III and the Defense of European Liberty, 1650–1702 (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc., c. 1966), pp. 75
Directly in the path of the French advance, Leiden had distinguished itself among the other cities of the province of Holland by its willingness to accept the humiliating French terms for surrender; Stephen B. Baxter, William III and the Defense of European Liberty, 1650–1702 (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc., c. 1966), pp. 77.
See Bohatec, Die cartesianische Scholastik.
Sassen, Geschiedenis van de Wijsbegeerte in Nederland, pp. 141–2. Cramer, Abraham Heidanus, p. 120; but see also pp. 43 and 76.
Bronnen, Vol. III, pp. 271 and 274–8.
Suringar, “Invloed der Cartesiaansche Wijsbegeerte op het natuur- en geneeskundig Onderwijs aan de Leidsche hoogeschool,” p. 29.
Bronnen, Vol. III, pp. 278 and 290–1.
Ibid., pp. 280 and 291–3.
Ibid., pp. 307, 319, 321, and 259*–60*. Sassen, Geschiedenis van de Wijsbegeerte in Nederland, p. 160. Concerning Wilhelmius, see also the Nieuw Nederlandsch Biografisch Woordenboek, Vol. V, 1125–6.
Bronnen, Vol. III, pp. 314–5.
Ibid.
Ibid., pp. 312–3.
Nieuw Nederlandsch Biografisch Woordenboek, Vol. VIII, 888–9; Vol. X, 955.
Bronnen, Vol. III, pp. 317–21 and 259*.
Cramer, Abraham Heidanus, pp. 124–5.
Ibid., p. 153 and passim.
Ibid., pp. 153–4. Sassen, Geschiedenis van de Wijsbegeerte in Nederland, p. 162. Thijssen-Schoute, “Le cartésianisme aux Pays-Bas,” p. 208.
Dibon, “Notes bibliographiques,” p. 269, n. 18.
Cramer, Abraham Heidanus, pp. 153–4.
Charles Borgeaud, Histoire de l’Université de Genève: L’Académie de Calvin, 1559–1798 (Genève: Georg et Co., 1900), pp. 406–12.
Bronnen, Vol. III, p. 245. Senguerdius was offering lectures and experimental demonstrations pertaining to physics at least by 1681; see the Series lectionum for that year, Ibid., p. 269*.
Ibid., pp. 306* and 228.
Philosophia naturalis, quatuor partibus primarias corporum species, affectiones, differentias, productiones, mutationes, et interitus, exhibens (2nd ed.; Lugduni Batavorum: Apud Danielem à Gaesbeeck, 1685), “Ad lectorem.”
All references will be to the second edition, cited immediately above.
Philosophia naturalis, p. 7 ff. and 20 ff.
Ibid., p. 160 ff.
Ibid., p. 174 ff.
When de Volder was presiding in the lecture hall, however, a moving earth — or Descartes’ non-moving earth borne about by celestial currents — was also still openly and firmly defended at Leiden. See in particular the disputation of Gysbertus Henricus Casembroot, Disputatio philosophica quae est de mundi systemate, sub praesidio D. Burcheri de Volder (Lugduni Batavorum: Apud Abrahamum Elzevier, 1694).
Also Samuel Koleseri’s Disputatio philosophica inauguralis de systemate mundi, pro gradu doctoratus et liberalium artium magisterio (Lugduni Batavorum: Apud Viduam et Haeredes Johannis Elsevirii, 1681); “that system of the world delineated by the most noble Descartes,” reads one of the Annexa philosophica at the end, “is not to be held as a mere hypothesis, but as the truth of the matter itself.”
Philosophia naturalis, p. 76 ff.
Ibid., p. 80.
Disputationes philosophicae sive cogitationes rationales de rerum naturalium principiis (Medioburgi: Typis Remigii Schreverii, 1681), p. 54.
Quaestiones academicae de aëris gravitate (Medioburgi: Typis Viduae Remigii Schreverii, 1681), p. 39.
Henricus van Bronchorst, Disputatio philosophica de vera gravitatis causa, sub praesidio Dni. Burcheri de Volder (Lugduni Batavorum: Apud Abrahamum Elzevier, 1685), p. VI.
Ibid., p. V.
The Cartesians, of course, were hardly willing to concede this. De Volder’s student van Bronchorst also claimed in disputation that no objections could be raised against Descartes’s attribution of terrestrial gravity to the secondary vortex about the earth itself and the pressures resulting within the celestial fluid; this promised the clearest and easiest explanation, van Bronchorst declared (Ibid., p. VIII). This was, however, only one of at least three possible explanations that Descartes had considered. Compare articles XIX–XXIII, “Pars quarta,” of the Latin Principia philosophiae in the Opera philosophica (fourth edition) of Descartes published in Amsterdam in 1664 with the equivalent passages in the French edition of 1681, reproduced in Oeuvres de Descartes, ed. Victor Cousin (Paris: F. G. Levrault, 1824), Vol. III.
Sämtliche Schriften, Vol. II, p. 493.
Ibid., pp. 495–6.
Ibid., p. 496.
Exercitationes academicae, quibus Ren. Cartesii philosophia defenditur adversus Petri Danielis Huetii Episcopi Suessionensis Censurant philosophiae Cartesianae (Amstelaedami: Apud Arnoldum van Ravestein, 1695), p. 89 ff. in the second series of the pagination.
Ibid., pp. 90–1.
Philosophia naturalis, pp. 12–3.
Edward Grant, “Medieval and Seventeenth-Century Conceptions of an Infinite Void Space beyond the Cosmos,” Isis, Vol. LX (1969), pp. 48–51.
Institutiones physicae, Vol. I, pp. 59 and 306 ff.
Disputationes philosophicae de rerum naturalium principiis, p. 141.
Ibid., p. 145.
Ibid., pp. 119–20.
Philosophia naturalis, pp. 152–3.
Ibid., pp. 156–7.
Grant, “Medieval and Seventeenth-Century Infinite Void Space,” passim.
Philosophia naturalis, p. 49 ff.
Inquisitiones experimentales (2nd ed.; Lugduni Batavarum: Apud Cornelium Boutesteyn, 1699), p. 15; Rationis atque experientiae connubium (Roterodami: Apud Bernardum Bos, 1715), passim.
Institutiones physicae (rev. ed.; Lugduni Batavorum: Excudebat Vidua Ioannis Patij, 1624), p. 92.
… conjunctio viciniae atque distantiae ejusdem ad idem (Sämtliche Schriften, Vol. II, p. 496).
Ibid., p. 498.
The potential relationship between the relativity of motion and concepts of full or empty space was first suggested to me by Richard S. Westfall.
loc. cit.
Ibid., p. 390.
Ibid., p. 371.
Philosophia naturalis, pp. 34–5.
Ibid.
Johannes Bruno, Disputatio physica de motu, tertia et ultima, sub praesidio D. Burcheri de Volder (Lugduni Batavorum: Apud Viduam et Haeredes Joannis Elsevirii, 1675), pp. II—V.
Philosophia naturalis, pp. 29–31.
Ibid., p. 29.
Ibid., pp. 37 and 43 ff. Senguerdius argued that since the quantity of motion lost by one body which moved another would be acquired not only by the body moved but by its neighboring bodies as well, twice as much motion would result.
Sämtliche Schriften, Vol. II, pp. 513–5.
Jacobus Erckelens, Exercitationum philosophicarum tertia et vicesima, quae est de corpore, sub praesidio D. Burcheri de Volder (Lugduni Batavorum: Abrahamum Elzevier, 1692), corollary II.
See Hermannus Schuyl, Disputatio philosophica inauguralis de vi corporum elastica (Lugduni Batavorum: Apud Abrahamum Elzevier, 1688); this pro gradu disputation is dedicated to de Volder as the “principal founder of my studies.” See also Senguerdius, Philosophia naturalis, p. 42 ff. It has been observed that Descartes’ laws of impact were incorporated into the traditional physics with comparative ease
Pierre Boutroux, “L’Enseignement de la mécanique en France au XVIIe siècle,” Isis, Vol. IV (1921–2), pp. 286–7.
D. van Arkel, “Leids Studentenleven in de 16e, 17e, en 18e Eeuw,” in Geschiedboek van het Leidsche Studenten Corps (Leiden: H. E. Stenfert Kroese, 1950), p. 28.
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Ruestow, E.G. (1973). Passing Crises, Enduring Disagreement. In: Physics at Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century Leiden: Philosophy and the New Science in the University. Archives Internationales D’histoire des Idees / International Archives of the History of Ideas, vol 11. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-2463-1_5
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