Antoine Arnauld was born in
Paris to the
Arnauld family. The twentieth and youngest child of the original
Antoine Arnauld, he was originally intended for the bar, but decided instead to study
theology at the
Sorbonne. Here he was brilliantly successful, and his career was flourishing when he came under the influence of
Jean du Vergier de Hauranne, the spiritual director and leader of the convent of Port-Royal, and was drawn in the direction of
Jansenism. His book,
De la fréquente Communion (1643), was an important step in making the aims and ideals of this movement intelligible to the general public. It attracted controversy by being against
frequent communion. Furthermore, in the frame of the controversy around
Jansenius'
Augustinus, during which the
Jesuits attacked the Jansenists claiming they were heretics similar to
Calvinists, Arnauld wrote in defense the
Théologie morale des Jésuites (Moral Theology of Jesuits), which would put the base of most of the arguments later used by
Pascal in his
Provincial Letters denouncing the "relaxed moral" of Jesuit
casuistry. Pascal was assisted in this task by Arnauld's nephew
Antoine Le Maistre. The Jesuit
Nicolas Caussin, former penitentiary to
Louis XIII, was charged by his order of writing a defense against Arnauld's book, titled
Réponse au libelle intitulé La Théologie morale des Jésuites (1644). Other libels published against Arnauld's
Moral Theology of Jesuits included the one written by the Jesuit polemist
François Pinthereau (1605–1664), under the pseudonym of the abbé de Boisic, titled
Les Impostures et les ignorances du libelle intitulé: La Théologie Morale des Jésuites (1644), who was also the author of a critical history of Jansenism titled
La Naissance du Jansénisme découverte à Monsieur le Chancelier (The Birth of Jansenism Revealed to Sir the Chancellor, Leuven, 1654). During the
formulary controversy which opposed Jesuits to Jansenists concerning the orthodoxy of Jansenius' propositions, Arnauld was forced to go into hiding. In 1655 two very outspoken
Lettres à un duc et pair on Jesuit methods in the
confessional brought a motion of
censorship voted against him in the Sorbonne, in quite an irregular manner. This motion prompted Pascal to anonymously write the
Provincial Letters. For more than twenty years Arnauld dared not appear publicly in Paris, hiding in religious retreat. Pascal, however, failed to save his friend, and in February 1656 Arnauld was ceremonially degraded. Twelve years later the so-called "peace" of
Pope Clement IX put an end to his troubles; he was graciously received by
Louis XIV, and treated almost as a popular hero. He now set to work with
Pierre Nicole on a great work against the
Calvinist Protestants: ''La perpétuité de la foi de l'Église catholique touchant l'eucharistie''. Ten years later, however, persecution resumed. Arnauld was compelled to leave France for the
Netherlands, finally settling down at
Brussels. Here the last sixteen years of his life were spent in incessant controversy with Jesuits, Calvinists and heretics of all kinds. Arnauld gradually evolved away from the rigorous
Augustinianism professed by Port-Royal and closer to
Thomism, which also postulated the centrality of the "
efficacious grace," under the influence of Nicole. His inexhaustible energy is best expressed by his famous reply to Nicole, who complained of feeling tired. "Tired!" echoed Arnauld, "when you have all eternity to rest in?" His energy was not exhausted by purely theological questions. He was one of the first to adopt the philosophy of
René Descartes, though with certain orthodox reservations relating to
Meditations on First Philosophy; and between 1683 and 1685 he had a long battle with
Nicolas Malebranche on the relation of theology to
metaphysics. On the whole, public opinion leant to Arnauld's side. When Malebranche complained that his adversary had misunderstood him,
Boileau silenced him with the question: "My dear sir, whom do you expect to understand you, if M. Arnauld does not?" Next Arnauld was engaged in an extensive correspondence with
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, regarding the latter's views detailed in his "
Discourse on Metaphysics" (1686). Arnauld died, aged 82, in
Brussels. Popular record for Arnauld's penetration was much increased in his ''L'Art de penser
, commonly known as the Port-Royal Logic'', which kept its place as an elementary text-book until the 20th century and is considered a paradigmatical work of
term logic. Arnauld came to be regarded as important among the mathematicians of his time; one critic described him as the
Euclid of the 17th century. After his death, his reputation began to wane. Contemporaries admired him as a master of intricate reasoning; on this,
Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, the greatest theologian of the age, agreed with
Henri François d'Aguesseau, the greatest
lawyer. However, his eagerness to win every argument endeared him to no one. "In spite of myself," Arnauld once said regretfully, "my books are seldom very short." . Despite Arnauld's achievements in various fields, his name is mostly known because of Pascal's acclaimed writings, which were more fit for the general public than Arnauld's technical essays. Boileau wrote for him a famous
epitaph, consecrating his memory as “Au pied de cet autel de structure grossière Gît sans pompe, enfermé dans une vile bière, Le plus savant mortel qui jamais ait écrit;” ... (“At the foot of this rough structure altar Lies without pomp, locked in a vile casket, The most learned mortal who ever wrote;”) … Antoine Arnauld's complete works (thirty-seven volumes in forty-two parts) were published in Paris, 1775–1781. There is a study of his philosophy in
Francisque Bouillier,
Histoire de la philosophie cartésienne (Paris, 1868); and his mathematical achievements are discussed by
Franz Bopp in the 14th volume of the
Abhandlung zur Geschichte der mathematischen Wissenschaften (Leipzig, 1902). ==Principal works==