Editing Nicolas Malebranche (section)

===Early years===
Malebranche was born in Paris in 1638, the youngest child of Nicolas Malebranche, secretary to King [[Louis XIII of France]], and Catherine de Lauzon, sister of [[Jean de Lauson]], a [[Governor of New France]]. Because of a malformed spine, Malebranche received his elementary education from a private tutor. He left home at the age of sixteen to pursue a course of philosophy at the [[Collège de la Marche]], and subsequently to study [[theology]] at the [[Collège de Sorbonne]], both colleges from the [[University of Paris]]. He eventually left the Sorbonne, having rejected [[scholasticism]], and entered the Oratory in 1660. There, he devoted himself to [[ecclesiastical history]], [[linguistics]], the Bible, and the works of [[Augustine of Hippo|Saint Augustine]]. Malebranche was ordained a priest in 1664.

In 1664, Malebranche first read [[René Descartes|Descartes]]' ''[[Treatise on Man]]'', an account of the [[physiology]] of the human body. Malebranche's biographer, Father Yves André reported that Malebranche was influenced by Descartes' book because it allowed him to view the natural world without [[Aristotle|Aristotelian]] [[scholasticism]]. Malebranche spent the next decade studying [[Cartesianism]].