Malebranche, Nicolas(1638–1715)
Early Life and Recherche
One of the major figures in post–René Descartes Cartesianism, Nicolas Malebranche was one of many children born to his mother, Catherine de Lauzon, the sister of a viceroy of Canada, and his father, also Nicolas Malebranche, a secretary to Louis XIII. As in the case of Descartes and Blaise Pascal, Malebranche was born in frail health. His particular afflictions were a severe malformation of the spine and weak lungs, and because of these conditions he needed to be tutored at home until the age of sixteen. Subsequently, he was a student at the Collège de la Marche, and after graduating he went to study theology at the Sorbonne. His education left him with a dislike of a scholasticism that focused on the work of Aristotle. Thus, in 1660 he decided to leave the universities and enter the Oratory, a religious congregation founded in Paris in 1611 by the Augustinian theologian Pierre Bérulle. At the Oratory Malebranche studied ecclesiastical history, linguistics, and the Bible, and with his fellow students he also immersed himself in the work of St. Augustine. Though judged to be merely a mediocre student, he was ordained a priest on September 14, 1664.
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