He became professor at the
Academy of Saumur in 1617. In 1644, he was in
London, where he engaged in propaganda for the
Presbyterians against the
Independents. The first attack on the
Apologeticall Narration of the Five Dissenting Brethren was Steuart's. The
Second Part of the Duply to M. S. alias Two Brethren addressed the issue of
religious tolerance, which he classed with depravity. It was answered by
John Goodwin. Steuart is mentioned (as A. S.) in
John Milton's poem
On the New Forcers of Conscience under the Long Parliament, a
caudate sonnet, along with
Samuel Rutherford and
Thomas Edwards (and, implicitly,
Robert Baillie). In 1644 he took up a position as Professor of Physics at the
University of Leiden . With
Jacobus Triglandius and
Jacobus Revius he attacked
Cartesianism there. In what is now known as the Leiden Crisis, coming to a head in 1647, he opposed
Adriaan Heereboord, over whom he had been brought in, and presided at a rowdy debate with the Leiden Cartesian
Johannes de Raey.
René Descartes himself commented on Steuart, in
Notae in Programma Quoddam (1648), to which Steuart replied in
Notae in notas nobilissimi cujusdam viri in ipsius theses de Deo (1648). Steuart's party, the proponents of continuing to teach along the lines of
Aristotelian philosophy, won a temporary victory. He was attacked by the theologian
Samuel Maresius, during further controversy, as heterodox. He died in
Leiden. ==Notes==