David van Goorle

David van Goorle (also known under his Latinized name David Gorlaeus) (15 January 1591, Utrecht – 21 April 1612, Cornjum) was a Dutch philosopher and theologian, and one of the first modern atomists.

Van Goorle was the son of David van Goorle Sr., a Protestant refugee from Antwerp, who at the time of his birth was treasurer for stadtholder Adolf van Nieuwenaar. His uncle was Abraham Gorlaeus. His mother was a Frisian noblewoman, the daughter of admiral Doecke van Martena, known for his role in the Dutch and Frisian wars of independence. Although he called himself Ultrajectinus (after his birthplace Utrecht), he grew up with his maternal grandparents in their stins in the Frisian village of Cornjum.

In 1606 he enrolled in arts at the University of Franeker; there the anti-Aristotelian professor Henri de Veen, better known under his latinized name of Henricus de Veno (c. 1574-1613), was going to have a "decisive influence" on him. From April 1611, he studied theology at the University of Leiden; he also expressed his views on atoms in his book Idea Physicae, where he disputes the theories of Aristotle and claims that there is something as a "smallest, undevidable, particle".

For the early seventeenth century these were revolutionary thoughts, and Van Goorle is regarded as one of the founders of the particle-atom theory, together with Daniel Sennert and Pierre Gassendi, to name just a few. He died at the early age of 21; on his tombstone in the church of Cornjum he is remembered as an "erudite and very intelligent young man." His larger work, Exercitationes philosophicae, was printed posthumously in 1620. It is thought that this last work influenced Henricus Regius and René Descartes.

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