Born the only son of Arnoldus Senguerdius, a theology and philosophy professor at Utrecht and later at Amsterdam, Wolferdus Senguerdius studied law and philosophy at Leiden University starting in 1667.
He obtained a PhD doctorate thrice: firstly in 1666 at the Athenaeum Illustre of Amsterdam with the thesis Compendium physicae and as advisor his father Arnold Senguerdius, secondly in 1667 at Leiden University with Disputatio philosophica inauguralis de tarantula on tarantism related to the wolf spider Lycosa tarantula, with an unknown advisor. His third doctorate was in law at the University of Harderwijk in 1681. In 1669 Senguerdius obtained the right to teach and hold disputations at Leiden University. There he was appointed professor of natural philosophy in 1675.
Later, Senguerdius was rector magnificus of Leiden University in the years 1685–1686, 1691–1692, 1701–1702, and 1715–1716. In 1701 Senguerdius was appointed university librarian as the successor of Friedrich Spanheim the Younger, and remained in function up to his decease in 1724.
Arnoldus Senguerdius (Amsterdam, 1610 - Naarden, 12 March 1667), father and Amsterdam PhD advisor of Wolferdus Senguerdius. Around 1660.
Science and education
Senguerdius rejected Copernicus' heliocentrism, instead opting for the solar system according to Tycho Brahe (Tychonic system) with still a stationary earth at the centre. The absence of a measurable stellar parallax was a crucial argument to reject a moving earth. Like Newton, Senguerdius also rejected the Cartesian solar vortex pushing the planets, because it was contradicted by the actual behavior of swirling liquids. However, Senguerdius preserved the immobility of the earth in a Cartesian celestial fluid.
He agreed with the atomists and Descartes that natural phenomena are caused by particles in motion, including gravity up to the Moon. But superlunary gravity was deemed impossible to investigate. He also denied the infinity of the universe and rejected the relativity of motion, but affirmed the existence of empty space. According to him, weight of air could not explain the effect of Otto von Guericke's Magdeburg hemispheres.
Senguerdius was a staunch promotor of experimental natural science: according to him human reason by itself cannot understand nature, input from the senses is crucial.
An experiment can imitate nature, also living bodies such as the breathing lung.
Although Senguerdius kept objecting to the Copernican system, he nevertheless as the librarian installed a Sphaera automatica in the university library in 1711. This was a heliocentric planetarium built in 1672 by Steven Tracey in Rotterdam, and Senguerdius encouraged its use in demonstrations. The planetarium was publicised in a special pamphlet, included in Senguerdius' 1716 university library catalogue, to promote Leiden University.
Senguerdius' efficient new design of the air pump caused this instrument to become widespread in Europe with production ongoing into the 1770s.
Senguerd improved on the air pump designs of Von Guericke, Huygens, Hooke/Boyle and Papin, resulting in a simple single barrel pump, which was initially produced by both Samuel and Johannes Joosten van Musschenbroek at Leiden, and later imitated in Britain, France and Germany. Jacob Leupold started a workshop in Leipzig and described his Senguerd air pump in his book Antlia pneumatica illustrata (1707).
Students
Senguerdius' doctoral students, all at Leiden University, include:
De aëris praesentia in humoribus animalibus (About the presence of air in animal bodily fluids), with co-advisor Herman Boerhaave
1715
2914
Quote
(Latin) Quum autem multo sit facilius, inventis Aliorum aliquid adjicere, quam primo invenire, Experimenta dum ipse tentarem, haec quandoque occasionem mihi praebuerunt, Experimentis ab Aliis excogitatis nova adjiciendi, nonnulla Rerum Naturalium phaenomena detegendi, & ad suas revocandi causas.
Factum hinc quod ad multorum rogationem Physica Collegia Experimentalia in hac Universitate primus instituerim privatim: in quibus exercitium fuit quotidianum, Experimentorum Physicorum, Mechanicorum, &c. demonstratio, eventuum observatio, eorum ad principio revocatio, usus enarratio, per ratiocinia illustratio, adeoque Rationis atque Experientiae Conjugium consummare.
—Wolferdus Senguerdius, Rationis atque Experientiae Connubium...Consummatum (1715, The Marriage of Reason and Experiment... Comsummated), Ad lectorem auctor (Foreword, p. 5.)
Translation:
(Translation) But because it is much easier to add something to what others invented than to invent it first, when I attempted experiments myself, these sometimes provided me the opportunity to add new things to the experiments thought out by others, to discover some phenomena of natural things, and to explain them by their causes.
It so happened that, at the request of many, I was the first to establish privately the Experimental Physics Colleges in this University: in which the daily exercise was the demonstration of experiments in physics, mechanics, &c., the observation of the results, their reference to the principle, the description of their applications, the illustration by reasonings, and thus to consummate the marriage of reason and experience.
Senguerdius, Wolferdus (1667). Disputatio philosophica inauguralis de tarantula (in Latin). Leiden (Lugdunum apud Batavos): Heirs J. Elsevirius. OCLC458796388.
Senguerdius, Wolferdus (1687). Ars argumentandi: in qua argumentationis natura, varii ejus modi, ac leges, nec non sophistarum strophae, ad rectae rationis normam revocantur, ea confirmantur, ac deteguntur (in Latin) (2nded.). Leiden: Felix Lopez. OCLC65236376.
Senguerdius, Wolferdus (1690). Inquisitiones Experimentales Qvibvs Naturæ operandi ratio in nonullis detegitur, & Mechanicè proponitur, Effectus ex eà resultantes exhibentur, ad Causas revocantur, Experimentis & Ratiociniis illustrantur .[Experimental inquiries, in a few of which by which reason of nature's operation is detected and mechanically proposed, the effects are shown, reduced to the causes, illustrated by experiments and explanations] (in Latin). Leiden (Lugdunum Batavorum): Felix Lopez. OCLC253672082. 58 pages.
Senguerdius, Wolferdus (1715). Rationis Atque Experientiae Connubium, Continens Experimentorum Physicorum,... Consummatum[The marriage of reason and experiments, containing ..., consumed]. Rotterdam: Bernardus Bos. OCLC488980468. Rationis Atque Experientiae Connubium at Google Books 328 pages. Includes Disquisitio de tarantula. Also "Wolferd Senguerdius (1646-1724)". prdl.org. Post-Reformation Digital Library. Junius Institute for Digital Reformation Research. 2014. Retrieved 4 November 2025.
Berkvens-Stevelinck, Christiane (2012). Magna commoditas: Leiden University's great asset: 425 years library collections and services. Translated by UvA Talen, Amsterdam. Leiden: Leiden University Press. pp.114–117, 121 (portrait p. 114). ISBN9789087281656. OCLC794706996.
Crommelin, C.A. (1925). Instrumentmakerskunst en proefondervindelijke natuurkunde[The Art of Instrument Making and Experimental Physics] (in Dutch). Leiden: IJdo. OCLC14558589.
de Hinojosa, Adriaen Pieter (1690). Dictata in Renati Des-Cartes Principia Anno 1690.. Unpublished notes of Senguerdius' lectures by a student. Manuscript at Koninklijke Bibliotheek, The Hague. 105 pages.
Ducheyne, Steffen (2025). "5 Herman Boerhaave, the Introduction of Newton's Natural Philosophy at the University of Leiden, and the Unshackling 'the Bondage of Sectarianism'". Physics in Minerva's Academy. Scientific and learned cultures and their institutions. Vol.37. Leiden: Brill. pp.143–228. doi:10.1163/9789004716162_006. ISBN9789004716155. OCLC1472773150. Retrieved 4 November 2025. 460 pages.
Ruestow, Edward Grant (1973). Physics at seventeenth and eighteenth-century Leiden: philosophy and the new Science in the University. Archives internationales d'histoire des idées. Vol.11. Den Haag: Nijhoff. ISBN9024715571. OCLC905449654.
↑van Helden, Anne C. "The age of the air-pump"(PDF). Gewina. Just as Papin's air pump was popular in France, Senguerd's design dominated the production of pumps on the rest of the continent. It was produced in large numbers by the Van Musschenbroek workshop and from around 1700 onwards by Jacob Leupold of Leipzig. Even as late as the 1770s instruments following this design were produced by Georg Friedrich Brander of Augsburg. pp. 163, 165-166, with as illustration on p. 165 Senguerd's 1679 airpump design in his Philosophia naturalis (1685).
↑Leupold, Jacob. Antlia pneumatica illustrata: das ist eine deutliche Beschreibung der so genandten Lufft-Pumpe, darinnen zwar kürtzlich, doch ausführlich... (in German). Leipzig: Author. OCLC163350518. 36 pages.
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