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CUMBERLAND, RICHARD (1632-1718)

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Originally appearing in Volume V07, Page 622 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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CUMBERLAND, See also:RICHARD (1632-1718) , See also:English philosopher and See also:bishop of See also:Peterborough, the son of a See also:citizen of See also:London, was See also:born in the See also:parish of St See also:Ann, near Aldersgate. He was educated in St See also:Paul's school, and at Magdalene See also:College, See also:Cambridge, where he obtained a fellowship. He took the degree of B.A. in 1653; and, having proceeded M.A. in 1656, was next See also:year incorporated to the same degree in the university of See also:Oxford. For some See also:time he studied See also:medicine; and although he did not adhere to this profession, he retained his knowledge of See also:anatomy and medicine. He took the degree of B.D. in 1663 and that of D.D. in 1680. Among his contemporaries and intimate See also:friends were Dr See also:Hezekiah See also:Burton, See also:Sir See also:Samuel See also:Morland, who was distinguished as a mathematician, Sir Orlando Bridgeman, who became keeper of the See also:great See also:seal, and Samuel See also:Pepys. To this academical connexion he appears to have been in a great measure indebted for his See also:advancement in the See also:Church. When Bridgeman was appointed See also:lord keeper, he nominated Cumberland and Burton as his chaplains, nor did he afterwards neglect the See also:interest of either. Cumber-See also:land's first preferment, bestowed upon him in 1658 by Sir See also:John See also:Norwich, was the rectory of See also:Brampton in See also:Northamptonshire. In 1661 he was appointed one of the twelve preachers of the university. The lord keeper, who obtained his See also:office in 1667, invited him to London, and soon afterwards bestowed upon him the rectory of Allhallows at See also:Stamford, where he acquired new See also:credit by the fidelity with which he discharged his duties. In addition to his See also:ordinary See also:work he undertook the weekly lecture.

This labour he constantly performed, and in the meantime found leisure to prosecute his scientific and philological studies. At the See also:

age of See also:forty he published his earliest work, entitled De legibus naturae disquisitio philosophica, in qua earum forma, summa capita, ordo, promulgatio, et obligatio e rerum natura investigantur; See also:quin etiam elementa philosophiae Hobbianae, cum moralis tum See also:civilis, considerantur et refutantur (London, 1672). It is dedicated to Sir Orlando Bridgeman, and is prefaced by an " Alloquium ad Lectorem," contributed by Dr Burton. It appeared during the same year as See also:Pufendorf's De jure naturae et gentium, and was highly commended in a subsequent publication by Pufendorf, whose approbation must have had the effect of making it known on the See also:continent. Having thus establisheda solid reputation, Cumberland next prepared a work on a very different subject—An See also:Essay towards the Recovery of the Jewish See also:Measures and Weights, comprehending their Monies; by help of See also:ancient See also:standards, compared with ours of See also:England: useful also to See also:state many of those of the Greeks and See also:Romans, and the Eastern Nations (London, 1686). This work, dedicated to Pepys, obtained a copious See also:notice from Leclerc, and was translated into See also:French. About this See also:period he was depressed by apprehensions respecting the growth of Popery; but his fears were dispelled by the Revolution, which brought along with it another material See also:change in his circumstances. One See also:day in 1691 he went, according to his See also:custom on a See also:post-day, to read the newspaper at a See also:coffee-See also:house in Stamford, and there, to his surprise, he read that the See also:king had nominated him to the bishopric of Peterborough. The bishop elect was scarcely known at See also:court, and he had resorted to none of the usual methods of advancing his temporal interest. " Being then sixty years old," says his great-See also:grandson, " he was with difficulty persuaded to accept the offer, when it came to him from authority. The persuasion of his friends, particularly Sir Orlando Bridgeman, at length overcame his repugnance; and to that see, though very moderately endowed, he for ever after devoted himself, and resisted every offer of See also:translation, though repeatedly made and earnestly recommended. To such of his friends as pressed an See also:exchange upon him he was accustomed to reply, that Peterborough was his first espoused, and should be his only one." He discharged his new duties with See also:energy and kept up his episcopal visitations till his eightieth year.

His charges to the See also:

clergy are described as See also:plain and unambitious, the See also:earnest breathings of a pious mind. When Dr See also:Wilkins (See also:David Wilke) published the New Testament in Coptic he presented a copy to the bishop, who began to study the See also:language at the age of eighty-three. " At this age," says his See also:chaplain, " he mastered the. language, and went through great See also:part of this version, and would often give me excellent hints and remarks, as he proceeded in See also:reading of it." He died in 1718, in the eighty-seventh year of his age; he was found sitting in his library, in the attitude of one asleep, and with a See also:book in his See also:hand.' His great-grandson was Richard Cumberland, the dramatist. Bishop Cumberland was distinguished by his gentleness and humility. He could not be roused to anger, and spent his days in unbroken serenity. The basis of his ethical theory is Benevolence, and is the natural outcome of his temperament. He was a See also:man of a See also:sound understanding, improved by extensive learning, and See also:left behind him several monuments of his talents and See also:industry. His favourite See also:motto was that a man had better " See also:wear out than See also:rust out." The See also:philosophy of Cumberland is expounded in the See also:treatise De legibus naturae. The merits of the work are almost confined to its speculative theories; its See also:style is destitute of strength and See also:grace, and its reasoning is diffuse and unmethodical. Its See also:main See also:design is to combat the principles which See also:Hobbes had promulgated as to the constitution of man, the nature of morality, and the origin of society, and to prove that self-See also:advantage is not the See also:chief end of man, that force is not the source of See also:personal See also:obligation to moral conduct nor the See also:foundation of social rights, and that the state of nature is not a state of See also:war. The views of Hobbes seem ' The care of his See also:posthumous publications devolved upon his domestic chaplain and son-in-See also:law, Squier See also:Payne, who soon after the bishop's See also:death edited " Sanchoniato's Phoenician See also:History, translated from the first book of See also:Eusebius, De praeparatione evangelica: with a continuation of Sanchoniato's history of Eratosthenes Cyrenaeus's See also:Canon, which See also:Dicaearchus connects with the first See also:Olympiad. These authors are illustrated with many See also:historical and See also:chronological remarks, proving them to contain a See also:series of Phoenician and See also:Egyptian See also:chronology, from the first man to the first Olympiad, agreeable to the Scripture accounts " (London, 1720).

The See also:

preface contains an See also:account of the See also:life, See also:character and writings of the author, which was likewise published in a See also:separate See also:form, and exhibits a pleasing picture of his happy old age. A See also:German translation appeared under the See also:title of Cumberlands phonizische Historie See also:des Sanchoniathons, iibersetzt von Joh. Phil. See also:Cassel (See also:Magdeburg, 1755). The sequel to the work was likewise published by Payne—Origines gentium antiquissimae; or Attempts for discovering the Times of the First Planting of Nations: in several Tracts (London, t724). to Cumberland utterly subversive of See also:religion, morality and See also:civil society, and he endeavours, as a See also:rule, to establish directly antagonistic propositions. He refrains, however, from denunciation, and is a See also:fair opponent up to the measure of his insight. See also:Laws of nature are defined by him as " immutably true See also:pro-positions regulative of voluntary actions as to the choice of See also:good and the avoidance of evil, and which carry with them an obligation to outward acts of obedience, even apart from civil laws and from any considerations of compacts constituting See also:government." This See also:definition, he says, will be admitted by all parties. Some deny that such laws exist, but they will See also:grant that this is what ought to be understood by them. There is thus See also:common ground for the two opposing See also:schools of moralists to join issue. The question between them is, Do such laws exist or do they not? In reasoning thus Cumberland obviously forgot what the position maintained by his See also:principal antagonist really was.

Hobbes must have refused to accept the definition proposed. He did not deny that there were laws of nature, laws antecedent to government, laws even in a sense eternal and immutable. The virtues as means to happiness seemed to him to be such laws. They precede civil constitution, which merely perfects the obligation to practise them. He expressly denied, however, that " they carry with them an obligation to outward acts of obedience, even apart from civil laws and from any See also:

consideration of compacts constituting governments." And many besides Hobbes must have See also:felt dissatisfied with the definition. It is ambiguous and obscure. In what sense is a law of nature a " proposition "? Is it as the expression of a See also:constant relation among facts, or is it as the expression of a divine commandment? A proposition is never in itself an ultimate fact although it may be the statement of such a fact. And in what sense is a law of nature an " immutably true " proposition? Is it so because men always and every-where accept and See also:act on it, or merely because they always and everywhere ought to accept and act on it? The definition, in fact, explains nothing.

The existence of such laws may, according to Cumberland, be established in two ways. The inquirer may start either from effects or from causes. The former method had been taken by See also:

Grotius, See also:Robert Sharrock (163o–1684) and John See also:Selden. They had sought to prove that there were universal truths, entitled to be called laws of nature, from the concurrence of the testimonies of many men, peoples and ages, and through generalizing the operations of certain active principles. Cumberland admits this method to be valid, but he prefers the other, that from causes to effects, as showing more convincingly that the laws of nature carry with them a divine obligation. It shows not only that these laws are universal, but that they were intended as such; that man has been constituted as he is in See also:order that they might be. In the See also:prosecution of this method he expressly declines to have recourse to what he calls " the See also:short and easy expedient of the Platonists," the See also:assumption of innate ideas of the laws of nature. He thinks it See also:ill-advised to build the doctrines of natural religion and morality on a See also:hypothesis which many philosophers, both See also:Gentile and See also:Christian, had rejected, and which could not be proved against Epicureans, the principal impugners of the existence of laws of nature. He cannot assume, he says, that such ideas existed from eternity in the divine mind, but must start from the data of sense and experience, and thence by See also:search into the nature of things discover their laws. It is only through nature that we can rise to nature's See also:God. His attributes are not to be known by See also:direct See also:intuition. He, therefore, held that the ground taken up by the Cambridge Platonists could not be maintained against Hobbes.

His sympathies, however, were all on their See also:

side, and he would do nothing to diminish their chances of success. He would not even oppose the See also:doctrine of innate ideas, because it looked with a friendly See also:eye upon piety and morality. He granted that it might, perhaps, be the See also:case that ideas were both born with us and afterwards impressed upon us from without. Cumberland's ethical theory (see See also:ETHICS) is summed up in his principle of universal Benevolence, the ohe source of moral good. " No See also:action can be morally good which does not in its own naturecontribute somewhat to the happiness of men." The theory is important in comparison (I) with that of Hobbes, and (2) with See also:modern See also:utilitarianism. 1. Cumberland's Benevolence is, deliberately, the precise See also:antithesis to the See also:Egoism of Hobbes. To this fact it owes its existence and also its extravagance. Feeling that the most forcible method of attacking Hobbes was to assert the opposite in the same form, he maintained that the whole-hearted pursuit of the good of all contributes to the good of each and brings personal happiness; that the opposite See also:process involves misery to individuals including the self. If, then, Hobbes went to the one extreme of postulating selfishness as the See also:sole See also:motive of human action, Cumberland was equally extravagant as regards Benevolence. The testimony of history shows, prima facie at least, that both motives have operated throughout, and just as self-interest has been increasingly modified by conscious benevolence, so benevolence alone does not explain all personal virtue nor love to God. But it is essential to notice that Cumberland never appealed to the See also:evidence of history, although he believed that the law of universal benevolence had been accepted by all nations and generations; and he carefully abstains from arguments founded on See also:revelation, feeling that it was indispensable to establish the principles of moral right on nature as a basis.

His method was the See also:

deduction of the propriety of certain actions from the consideration of the character and position of rational agents in the universe. He argues that all that we see in nature is framed so as to avoid and reject what is dangerous to the integrity of its constitution; that the human See also:race would be an See also:anomaly in the See also:world had it not for end its conservation in its best See also:estate; that benevolence of all to all is what in a rational view of the creation is alone accordant with its 'See also:general See also:plan; that various peculiarities of man's See also:body indicate that he has been made to co-operate with his See also:fellow men and to maintain society; and that certain faculties of his mind show the common good to be more essentially connected with his perfection than any pursuit of private advantage. The whole course of his reasoning proceeds on, and is pervaded by, the principle of final causes. 2. To the question, What is the foundation of rectitude ?, he replies, the greatest good of the universe of rational beings. He may be regarded as the founder of English utilitarianism, but his utilitarianism is distinct from what is known as the selfish See also:system; it goes to the contrary extreme, by almost absorbing individual in universal good. Nor does it look merely to the See also:lower pleasures, the pleasures of sense, for the constituents of good, but rises above them to include especially what tends to perfect, strengthen and expand our true nature. Existence and the See also:extension of our See also:powers of body and mind are held to be good for their own sakes without respect to enjoyment. Cumberland's views on this point were See also:long abandoned by utilitarians as destroying the homogeneity and self-consistency of their theory ; but J. S. See also:Mill and some See also:recent writers have reproduced them as necessary to its See also:defence against charges not less serious than even inconsistency. The See also:answer which Cumberland gives to the question, Whence comes our obligation to observe the laws of nature ?, is that happiness flows from obedience, and misery from disobedience to them, not as the See also:mere results of a See also:blind See also:necessity, but as the expressions of the divine will.

See also:

Reward and See also:punishment, supplemented by future retribution, are, in his view, the sanctions of the laws of nature, the See also:sources of our obligation to obey them. To the other great ethical question, How are moral distinctions apprehended ?, he replies that it is by means. of right See also:reason. But by right reason he means merely the See also:power of rising to general laws of nature from particular facts of experience. It is no See also:peculiar See also:faculty or distinctive See also:function of mind; it involves no See also:original See also:element of See also:cognition; it begins with sense and experience; it is gradually generated and wholly derivative. This doctrine lies only in germ in Cumberland, but will be found in full See also:flower in See also:Hartley, See also:Mackintosh and later associationists. See also:Connor, A Treatise of the Laws of Nature (London, 1727), and John Towers (See also:Dublin, 175o) ; French translation by can See also:Barbeyrac (See also:Amsterdam, 1744) ; See also:James See also:Tyrrell (1642-1718), grandson of See also:Archbishop Ussher, published an abridgment of Cumberland's views in A Brief Disquisition of the Laws of Nature according to the Principles laid down in the Rev. Dr Cumberland's Latin Treatise (London, 1692; ed. 1701). For See also:biographical details see Squier Payne, Account of the Life and Writings of R. Cumberland (London, 1720); Cumberland's See also:Memoirs (1807), i. 3-6; Pepys's See also:Diary. For his philosophy, see E.

Albee,'Philosophical See also:

Review, iv: 3 (1895), pp. 264 and 371; F. E. Spaulding, R. Cumberland als Begriinder der englischen Ethik (See also:Leipzig, 1894) ; and See also:text-books on ethics.

End of Article: CUMBERLAND, RICHARD (1632-1718)

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