ABSTRACT
Gorlaeus died in the spring of 1612. We do not know where and why he died, nor whether he had been ill for some time before passing away; perhaps he had contracted malaria, as presumably did his father, who also died in 1612. 1 All we have is his tomb and his two posthumous publications, the Exercitationes philosophicae (published in 1620) and the Idea physicae (published in 1651). From the unfinished state of the concluding part of the Exercitationes, we may conclude that Gorlaeus was still working on his longer treatise when he died. One in fact senses that his decision to deviate from his standard type of exposition and to jot down a paraphrase of a number of positionSs defended in a recent theological disputation at Leiden concerning the origin of the soul and the transmission of evil must have been due to his wish to conclude his manuscript before it was too late. 2
