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CUDWORTH, RALPH (1617-1688)

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Originally appearing in Volume V07, Page 613 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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CUDWORTH, See also:RALPH (1617-1688) , See also:English philosopher, was See also:born at Aller, See also:Somersetshire, the son of Dr Ralph Cudworth (d. 1624), See also:rector of Aller, formerly See also:fellow of See also:Emmanuel See also:College, See also:Cambridge. His See also:father died in 1624, and his See also:mother then married the Rev. Dr See also:Stoughton, who gave the boy a See also:good See also:home See also:education. Cudworth was sent to his father's college, was elected fellow in 1639, and became a successful See also:tutor. In 1642 he published A Discourse concerning the true Notion of the See also:Lord's Supper, and a See also:tract entitled The See also:Union of See also:Christ and the See also:Church. In 1645 he was appointed See also:master of See also:Clare See also:Hall and the same See also:year was elected Regius See also:professor of See also:Hebrew. He was now recognized as a See also:leader among the remarkable See also:group known as the Cambridge Platonists (q.v.). The whole party were more or less in sympathy with the See also:Commonwealth, and Cudworth was consulted by See also:John See also:Thurloe, See also:Cromwell's secretary of See also:state, in regard to university and See also:government appointments. His sermons, such as thatpreached before the See also:House of See also:Commons, on the 31st of See also:March 1647, See also:advocate principles of religious See also:toleration and charity. In 165o he was presented to the college living of See also:North Cadbury, See also:Somerset. From the See also:diary of his friend John Worthington we learn that Cudworth was nearly compelled, through poverty, to leave the university, but in 1654 he was elected master of Christ's College, whereupon he married.

On the Restoration he contributed some Hebrew verses to the Academiae Cantabrigiensis Ewvrpa, a congratulatory See also:

volume addressed to the See also:king. In 1662 he was presented to the rectory of See also:Ashwell, Herts. In 1665 he almost quarrelled with his fellow-Platonist, See also:Henry More, because the latter had written an ethical See also:work which Cudworth feared would interfere with his own See also:long-contemplated See also:treatise on the same subject. To avoid clashing, More brought out his See also:book, the Enchiridion ethicum, in Latin; Cudworth's never appeared. In 1678 he published The True Intellectual See also:System of the Universe: the first See also:part, wherein all the See also:reason and See also:philosophy of See also:atheism is confuted and its impossibility demonstrated (imprimatur dated 1671). No more was published, perhaps because of the theological clamour raised against this first part. Cudworth was installed See also:prebendary of See also:Gloucester in 1678. He died on the 26th of See also:June 1688, and was buried in the See also:chapel of Christ's. His only surviving See also:child, Damaris, a devout and talented woman, became the second wife of See also:Sir See also:Francis See also:Masham, and was distinguished as the friend of John See also:Locke. Much of Cudworth's work still remains in See also:manuscript; A Treatise concerning eternal and immutable Morality was published in 1731; and A Treatise of Freewill, edited by John See also:Allen, in 1838; both are connected with the See also:design of his magnum See also:opus, the Intellectual System. The Intellectual System arose, so its author tells us, out of a discourse refuting fatal See also:necessity," or See also:determinism. Enlarging his See also:plan, he proposed to prove three matters: (a) the existence of See also:God; (b) the naturalness of moral distinctions; and (c) the reality of human freedom.

These three together make up the intellectual (as opposed to the See also:

physical) system of the universe; and they are opposed respectively by three false principles, atheism, religious See also:fatalism which refers all moral distinctions to the will of God, and thirdly the fatalism of the See also:ancient See also:Stoics, who recognized God and yet identified Him with nature. The immense fragment dealing with atheism is all that was published by its author. Cudworth criticizes two See also:main forms of materialistic atheism, the atomic, adopted by See also:Democritus, See also:Epicurus and See also:Hobbes; and the hylozoic, attributed to Strato, which explains everything by the supposition of an inward self-organizing See also:life in See also:matter. Atomic atheism is by far the more important, if only because Hobbes, the See also:great antagonist whom Cudworth always has in view, is supposed to have held it. It arises out of the See also:combination of two principles, neither of which is atheistic taken separately, i.e. atomism and corporealism, or the See also:doctrine that nothing exists but See also:body. The example of Stoicism, as Cudworth points out, shows that corporealism may be theistic. Into the See also:history of atomism Cudworth plunges with vast erudition. It is, in its purely physical application, a theory that he fully accepts; he holds that it was taught by See also:Pythagoras, See also:Empedocles, and in fact, nearly all the ancient philosophers, and was only perverted to atheism by Democritus. It was first invented, he believes, before the Trojan See also:war, by a Sidonian thinker named See also:Moschus or Mochus, who is identical with the See also:Moses of the Old Testament. In dealing with atheism Cud-See also:worth's method is to See also:marshal the atheistic arguments elaborately, so elaborately that See also:Dryden remarked " he has raised such objections against the being of a God and See also:Providence that many think he has not answered them "; then in his last See also:chapter, which by itself is as long as an See also:ordinary treatise, he confutes them with all the reasons that his See also:reading could See also:supply. A subordinate matter in the book that attracted much See also:attention at the See also:time is the conception of the " Plastic See also:Medium," which is a See also:mere revival of See also:Plato's " See also:World-Soul," and is meant to explain the existence and See also:laws of nature without referring all to the See also:direct operation of God. It occasioned a long-See also:drawn controversy between See also:Pierre See also:Bayle and Le Clerc, the former maintaining, the latter denying, that the Plastic Medium is really favourable to atheism.

No See also:

modern reader can endure to toil through the Intellectual System; its only See also:interest is the See also:light it throws upon the state of religious thought after the Restoration, when, as See also:Birch puts it, " irreligion began to lift up its See also:head." It is immensely diffuse and pretentious, loaded with digressions, its See also:argument buried under masses of fantastic, uncritical learning, the work of a vigorous but quite unoriginal mind. As See also:Bolingbroke said, Cudworth " read too much to think enough, and admired too much to think freely." It is no calamity that natural procrastination, or the clamour caused by his candid treatment of atheism and by certain heretical tendencies detected by orthodox See also:criticism in his view of the Trinity, made Cudworth leave the work unfinished. A much more favourable See also:judgment must be given upon the See also:short Treatise on eternal and immutable Morality, which deserves to be read by those who are interested in the See also:historical development of See also:British moral philosophy. It is an See also:answer to Hobbes's famous doctrine that moral distinctions are created by the state, an answer from the standpoint of See also:Platonism. Just as knowledge contains a permanent intelligible See also:element over and above the See also:flux of sense-impressions, so there exist eternal and immutable ideas of morality. Cudworth's ideas, like Plato's, have " a See also:constant and never-failing entity of their own," such as we see in geometrical figures ; but, unlike Plato's, they exist in the mind of God, whence they are communicated to finite under-standings. Hence " it is evident that See also:wisdom, knowledge and understanding are eternal and self-subsistent things, See also:superior to matter and all sensible beings, and See also:independent upon them "; and so also are moral good and evil. At this point Cudworth stops; he does not See also:attempt to give any See also:list of Moral Ideas. It is, indeed, the See also:cardinal weakness of this See also:form of intuitionism that no satisfactory list can be given and that no moral principles have the " constant and never-failing entity," or the definiteness, of the concepts of See also:geometry. Henry More, in his Enchiridion ethicum, attempts to enumerate the " noemata moralia "; but, so far from being self-evident, most of his moral axioms are open to serious controversy. The Intellectual System was translated into Latin by J. L.

See also:

Mosheim and furnished with notes and See also:dissertations which were translated into English in J. See also:Harrison's edition (1845). Our See also:chief See also:biographical authority is T. Birch's " See also:Account," which appears in See also:editions of the See also:Works. There is a good chapter on Cudworth in J. See also:Tulloch's Rational See also:Theology, vol. ii. Consult also P. See also:Janet's Essai sur le mediateur plastique (1860), W. R. See also:Scott's Introduction to Cudworth's " Treatise," and J. See also:Martineau's Types of Ethical Theory, vol. ii. (H.

End of Article: CUDWORTH, RALPH (1617-1688)

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