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...