Knowledge was something entirely different in the seventeenth century to what it is understood to be at present. Knowledge had to have undisputed authority, preferably not be exposed to criti- cism but corroborated over and over through human reason. In the seventeenth century knowledge based on criticism and expe- rimental research began to break through cautiously as well, but it was not customary as yet.
Knowledge was built up around a specific dogma, a doctrine. For the artes, the founding principle of all knowledge, that was Aristotle. For medical doctors, Hippocrates – the Greek physician from the fourth century before Christ – was the great authority. The wisdom of jurists went back to the Corpus Juris, the collection of laws and commentaries on them that was put together on the authority of Emperor Justinian in the sixth century after Christ. And the theologians had the Bible, of course.
With time it was indeed the case – as a result of the voyages of discovery and the observations of astronomers – that the author -
Jacobus Arminius (1560-1609), professor of theology from 1603 to 1609
Franciscus Gomarus (1563-1641), professor of theology from 1594 to 1611 TH E S EV EN TE EN TH C EN TU R Y 61
ity of Aristotle, above all, began to falter. And with that, then, the entire edifice of knowledge faltered. Alternative propositions and systems were brought to the fore and that often yielded trenchant debates that were not always conducted in scholarly Latin, or kept within the walls of the university.
This situation proved to be the case in the altercation between the adherents of Gomarus and Arminius, two Leiden theologians who had a difference of opinion concerning a teaching central to theology, namely, predestination. The question, that is, was whether God had determined everything, and therefore also who would go to heaven or not. Was humankind, as Gomarus said, al- ways inclined toward evil or, as Arminius maintained, did huma- nity also desire good as well? Were there persons who knew good
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but did evil, or could they conquer evil as a result of knowing good?
Debates of this kind were partly the consequence of the ap- pointment policy of Leiden University. Governors did their best to find a balance between the various philosophical and scientific trends of their era. In this way, in the arena of theology and philos- ophy specifically, dogmatic differences could cause fierce debates and even political unrest. Nevertheless, governors preferred to appoint representatives of opposing systems.
Thus, whenever they installed a ‘moderate’ individual (a follow- er of Arminius, say), they additionally sought a ‘stricter’, dogmatic thinker (a follower of Gomarus). In the case of philosophy, that led in the first instance to the appointment of representatives of vari- ous versions of Aristotelianism. Later on it meant that an adherent of Aristotle was appointed alongside a follower of Descartes. Later, then again, an adherent of Descartes was combined with a follower of Newton.
This practice did not mean that the university was out looking for trouble, for in general it succeeded in controlling the struggles these opponents had with one another. Even where schools of thought were irreconcilably opposed toward one another, know- ledge itself at university still proved to be above all a question of finding a safe middle ground or a gradual transition. And if schol- ars did not conform of their own volition to that convention, they were sometimes encouraged heavy-handedly by governors to do so.
In the long term this custom had major consequences, though, for the subjects that were taught and the way in which that in- struction occurred. Initially logic was the most important subject in the artes, yet it gradually made room for something called natu- ral philosophy, the description of the world on the basis of a mixture of reasoning and observing. Not ‘deductive reasoning’
The ‘Arminian Trash-Wagon’ (1618), a caricature of the Arminians TH E S EV EN TE EN TH C EN TU R Y 63
– which reasons from proposition to conclusion – but compari- son, that is ‘reasoning by analogy’ – a specific form of ‘inductive’ reasoning – got the upper hand.
Now, whether a culture was compared to a language, the polli- nation of plants to human sexuality, chemical processes to human feelings or differences in local law to Roman law, analogy proved to be a handy tool everywhere. Thus, for example, the unfamiliar was traced back to the familiar and reality elucidated by using ra- tional models.
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useful. In this way fundamental scientific questions came up for discussion, such as the difference between systematic versus em- pirical knowledge or between a mechanical and a biological ex- planation. Secondly, because they almost always exerted their influence in theological and political problems, these discussions were a kind of lightning rod. The debate remained within the walls of the university. And, as a result, the university became a kind of information service, translating the major topics of the era for the public and making them accessible.
These debates also show the importance of the university in the formation of social and political opinion. Religious debate – with Jews or with Catholics – was seen as an essential part of the work of theology professors, just as was giving advisory opinions about certain books or controversial topics. The law faculty was consult- ed regularly in all manner of situations, from marriage between members of the same family to matters such as usury, disturbing the peace, tenancy, last wills and testaments, property rights, piracy and hijacking.
Providing comparable services was also expected of the other faculties. So, for instance, the faculties of medicine and philoso- phy jointly responded to a question the Court of Holland had put before them in 1594. The Court wanted a pronouncement con- cerning the so-called ‘ordeal by water’. If a woman was thrown into the water and she continued to float, was it then proved that she was a witch? Both faculties concluded that unless the woman could swim, she would always drown, and that the test did not furnish the slightest legal proof.