GEULINCX, ARNOLD. - Philosopher, born in Antwerp on 31 January 1624, died of plague in Leiden in November 1669. He studied and was a professor at Louvain; then, having converted to Calvinism, he became a professor at the University of Leiden. His most important work is *Ethica*, published in part in Leiden in 1665 (*De virtute... Tractatus ethicus primus*), and appearing in its complete form, under this title, posthumously (Leiden 1675). The occasionalist doctrine, which, combined with rigorous rationalism and lively mysticism, constitutes the hallmark of G.’s philosophy—already present as a backdrop in the *Ethica*—is expounded at length in the *Metaphysica vera* (posthumous, Amsterdam 1695).
Like Descartes, G. seeks the essential attribute of corporeal substance in extension. Space is not a sum but a unity; it grounds the possibility of division and motion, yet is itself neither divided nor moved. Just as the point stands to the line, the line to the surface, and the surface to the solid, so the body stands to space; that is, space and the individual body are posited in the relation of a logical *prius* and *posterius*. The concept of body is contained within the concept of space; physics is deducible from geometry. The corporeal world, the passive object of motion propagated through impact and pressure, cannot be a cause in itself; it requires God as its cause. Yet even its motion, which makes of space the plurality of bodies, is not, in its reality, deducible from the essence of the corporeal world; it therefore points back to a cause beyond it, namely God.
Sensory perception yields only a confused image; it is fundamentally a modification of our consciousness, conditioned by the external world. The office of knowledge is to replace sensory perceptions with a clear and distinct concept of the intellect. Hence G.’s notable idea that even intellectual knowledge of an object contains subjective factors, additions which science must eliminate in order to know the object as it is in itself. The rapprochement with Kant becomes more pronounced when he declares it impossible to free ourselves from the forms of the intellect: *«solare homines illos modos suarum cogitationum in res obiectas transfundere»* (Opera, II, p. 204).
The soul does not act upon the body, nor the body upon the soul; the apparent causal connection arises from the fact that God has so arranged the manifestations of soul and body that, on the occasion of one, the other necessarily presents itself (cf. *Ethica*, I, sect. 2, § 2). An interaction between soul and body is impossible, since body and soul are two entirely different substances, and we do not know how to produce such activity («*Quod nescis quomodo fiat, id non facis*»).
The attribution of all efficacy and causality to God logically implies pantheism. Traces of it are not infrequent in G. and recall Malebranche and Spinoza: now the relation of God to the human spirit is compared to that of space to individual bodies («*Sumus modi mentis, non mentes, ut corpora particulari sunt modi corporis. Si auferes modum, remanet ipse Deus*»); now mathematical concepts are explained as something in the divine mind which we intuit in God («*Tu et tria sunt quinque sunt in mente divina, non in nostra, cum itaque nos consideramus ideas istas, consideramus eas in Deo et sic ipsum Deum*»).
With occasionalism is connected the thought that, since we have no power to act in the external world, we ought not to set ourselves such ends: «*ubi nihil vales, ibi nihil velis*», hence resignation: «*ita est, ergo ita sit*». The inner disposition is «*despectio sui*», founded on «*inspectio sui*». We must abandon ourselves to the divine reason, free from all selfishness.
Among G.’s remaining works are to be noted: *Quaestiones quodlibeticae* (Antwerp 1653); *Logica...* (Leiden 1662); *Annotata praecurrentia ad R. Cartesii principia* (Dordrecht 1690); *Annotata maiora ad principia philosophiae R. Cartesii* (ibid. 1691).
. - ENCICLOPEDIA CATTOLICA. - VI.