NIEUWENTYT, BERNARD

(1654–1718)

Physician and mathemati cian. After studying medicine at the University of Utrecht, Nieuwentyt worked as a medical doctor in the small town of Purmerend in Holland. As a mathematician, he had a polemic with the German scientist Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) over the infinitesimal method of calculus. His 1715 book Het regt gebruik der werelt beschouwingen [translated as The Religious Philosopher; or, The Right Use of Contemplating the Works of the Creator] won him fame as a philosopher. The book marked a new anti-Cartesian stage in the process of secularization and in the relationship between science and religion, as did his posthumously published Gronden van zekerheid [Foundations of Certitude, 1720], in which he argued that modern science, or experimental philosophy, is totally in accor dance with biblical revelation as against the views of the atheists and Spinozists.