Arnold (or Aernout) Geulincx, the Flemish metaphysician and moralist, was born in Antwerp. He studied philosophy and theology at Louvain and in 1646 was made professor of philosophy, a position he held for twelve years. Although information about his life at Louvain is limited and his important works date from a later period, it appears that as a student he was influenced by the Cartesian Guillaume Philippi, that in his teaching, as later, he attacked scholastic physics from a Cartesian point of view, and that he was also attracted by the doctrines of Cornelis Jansen.

In 1658, on charges that were not made public but that may have been prompted by his criticisms of scholasticism and accepted religious practices, he was deprived of his professorship and left Louvain for Leiden. At the same time, he renounced Roman Catholicism and became a Calvinist. Arriving in Leiden in...