Ralph Cudworth was an English

English people

The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...

 philosopher, the leader of the Cambridge Platonists

Cambridge Platonists

The Cambridge Platonists were a group of philosophers at Cambridge University in the middle of the 17th century .- Programme :...

.

Life

Born at Aller, Somerset

Aller, Somerset

Aller is a village and parish in Somerset, England, situated west of Somerton on the A372 road towards Bridgwater in the South Somerset district. The village has a population of 374...

, he was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge

Emmanuel College, Cambridge

Emmanuel College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge.The college was founded in 1584 by Sir Walter Mildmay on the site of a Dominican friary...

, gaining his MA and becoming a Fellow of Emmanuel in 1639. In 1645, he became master of Clare Hall

Clare College, Cambridge

Clare College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England.The college was founded in 1326, making it the second-oldest surviving college of the University after Peterhouse. Clare is famous for its chapel choir and for its gardens on "the Backs"...

 and professor of Hebrew. In 1654, he transferred to Christ's College, Cambridge

Christ's College, Cambridge

Christ's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge.With a reputation for high academic standards, Christ's College averaged top place in the Tompkins Table from 1980-2000 . In 2011, Christ's was placed sixth.-College history:...

, and was master there until his death. His great work, entitled The True Intellectual System of the Universe, was published in 1678. He was a leading opponent of Thomas Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury , in some older texts Thomas Hobbs of Malmsbury, was an English philosopher, best known today for his work on political philosophy...

.

His father Dr. Ralph Cudworth, a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge

Emmanuel College, Cambridge

Emmanuel College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge.The college was founded in 1584 by Sir Walter Mildmay on the site of a Dominican friary...

, was presented to the rectory of Aller, Somerset

Aller, Somerset

Aller is a village and parish in Somerset, England, situated west of Somerton on the A372 road towards Bridgwater in the South Somerset district. The village has a population of 374...

 by his college, which held the advowson, in c.1609 or 1610. On 18 June 1611 at Southwark

Southwark

Southwark is a district of south London, England, and the administrative headquarters of the London Borough of Southwark. Situated east of Charing Cross, it forms one of the oldest parts of London and fronts the River Thames to the north...

 he married Mary Machell of Hackney

Hackney

-Places:* London Borough of Hackney, formed in 1965** Metropolitan Borough of Hackney, formed in 1900 and abolished in 1965** Hackney Central** Hackney Central , a political division of the Council** Hackney Central railway station** Hackney College...

 (who had been a nurse to Prince Henry

Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales

Henry Frederick Stuart, Prince of Wales was the elder son of King James I & VI and Anne of Denmark. His name derives from his grandfathers: Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley and Frederick II of Denmark. Prince Henry was widely seen as a bright and promising heir to his father's throne...

 the son of James I

James I of England

James VI and I was King of Scots as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the English and Scottish crowns on 24 March 1603...

) and their children were christened at Aller over the following decade.

Dr. Cudworth died in 1624 when young Ralph was about 7, and his mother then married John Stoughton

John Stoughton (clergyman)

John Stoughton was an English clergyman, of influential millennial views.-Life:He was baptized at Naughton, Suffolk in 1593. He was one of three sons of the clergyman Thomas Stoughton , who lost his living of Coggeshall, Essex in 1606 as a nonconformist, and his wife, Katherine ; Israel Stoughton...

, who succeeded Dr. Cudworth as rector of Aller until 1632 and gave the boy a good home education. Ralph was sent to his father's college, was elected Fellow in 1639 and became a successful tutor. In 1642 he published A Discourse concerning the true Notion of the Lord's Supper and a tract entitled The Union of Christ and the Church. In 1645 he was appointed master of Clare Hall

Clare College, Cambridge

Clare College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England.The college was founded in 1326, making it the second-oldest surviving college of the University after Peterhouse. Clare is famous for its chapel choir and for its gardens on "the Backs"...

 and the same year was elected Regius professor of Hebrew

Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...

. He was now recognized as a leader among the remarkable group known as the Cambridge Platonists

Cambridge Platonists

The Cambridge Platonists were a group of philosophers at Cambridge University in the middle of the 17th century .- Programme :...

. The whole party was more or less in sympathy with the Commonwealth, and Cudworth was consulted by John Thurloe

John Thurloe

John Thurloe was a secretary to the council of state in Protectorate England and spymaster for Oliver Cromwell.-Life:...

, Cromwell's secretary to the council of state, in regard to university and government appointments.

In 1650 he was presented to the college living of North Cadbury, Somerset. From the diary of his friend John Worthington

John Worthington

John Worthington was an English academic. He was closely associated with the Cambridge Platonists. He did not in fact publish in the field of philosophy, and is now known mainly as a well-connected diarist.-Life:...

 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. In 1662 he was presented to the rectory of Ashwell, Herts. In 1665 he almost quarrelled with his fellow-Platonist

Platonism

Platonism is the philosophy of Plato or the name of other philosophical systems considered closely derived from it. In a narrower sense the term might indicate the doctrine of Platonic realism...

, Henry More

Henry More

Henry More FRS was an English philosopher of the Cambridge Platonist school.-Biography:Henry was born at Grantham and was schooled at The King's School, Grantham and at Eton College...

, because the latter had written an ethical work which Cudworth feared would interfere with his own long-contemplated treatise on the same subject. To avoid clashing, More brought out his book, the Enchiridion ethicum, in Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

; Cudworth's never appeared. Cudworth was installed prebendary of Gloucester in 1678. He died on the 26th of June 1688, and was buried in the chapel of Christ's. His only surviving child, Damaris, a devout and talented woman, became the second wife of Sir Francis Masham. The Lady Masham was distinguished as the friend of John Locke

John Locke

John Locke FRS , widely known as the Father of Liberalism, was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers. Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social...

 and exchanged letters with Gottfried Leibniz

Gottfried Leibniz

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was a German philosopher and mathematician. He wrote in different languages, primarily in Latin , French and German ....

.

Works

His sermons, such as that preached before the House of Commons, on 31 March 1647, advocate principles of religious toleration and charity. In 1678 he published The True Intellectual System of the Universe: the first part, wherein all the reason and philosophy of 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. Much of Cudworth's work still remains in manuscript; A Treatise concerning eternal and immutable Morality was published in 1731; and A Treatise of Freewill, edited by John Allen

John Allen

-Politicians:*John Allen , U.S. Representative from Connecticut*John B. Allen , first U.S. Senator from Washington*John Clayton Allen , U.S. Representative from Illinois...

, in 1838; both are connected with the design of his magnum opus, the Intellectual System.

The Intellectual System arose, so its author tells us, out of a discourse refuting "fatal necessity," or determinism

Determinism

Determinism is the general philosophical thesis that states that for everything that happens there are conditions such that, given them, nothing else could happen. There are many versions of this thesis. Each of them rests upon various alleged connections, and interdependencies of things and...

. Enlarging his plan, he proposed to prove three matters: the existence of God

Existence of God

Arguments for and against the existence of God have been proposed by philosophers, theologians, scientists, and others. In philosophical terms, arguments for and against the existence of God involve primarily the sub-disciplines of epistemology and ontology , but also of the theory of value, since...

; the naturalness of moral distinctions; and the reality of human freedom

Free will

"To make my own decisions whether I am successful or not due to uncontrollable forces" -Troy MorrisonA pragmatic definition of free willFree will is the ability of agents to make choices free from certain kinds of constraints. The existence of free will and its exact nature and definition have long...

.

These three together make up the intellectual (as opposed to the physical) system of the universe; and they are opposed respectively by three false principles, atheism, religious fatalism which refers all moral distinctions to the will of God, and thirdly the fatalism of the ancient 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 main forms of materialistic atheism

Atheism

Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities...

, the atomic, adopted by Democritus

Democritus

Democritus was an Ancient Greek philosopher born in Abdera, Thrace, Greece. He was an influential pre-Socratic philosopher and pupil of Leucippus, who formulated an atomic theory for the cosmos....

, Epicurus

Epicurus

Epicurus was an ancient Greek philosopher and the founder of the school of philosophy called Epicureanism.Only a few fragments and letters remain of Epicurus's 300 written works...

 and Hobbes; and the hylozoic

Hylozoism

Hylozoism is the philosophical point of view that all matter is in some sense alive. This may include the view that "inanimate" matter has latent powers of abiogenesis, a widely held position in the scientific community...

, attributed to Strato of Lampsacus

Strato of Lampsacus

Strato of Lampsacus was a Peripatetic philosopher, and the third director of the Lyceum after the death of Theophrastus...

, which explains everything by the supposition of an inward self-organizing life in matter. Atomic atheism is by far the more important, if only because Hobbes, the great antagonist whom Cudworth always has in view, is supposed to have held it. It arises out of the combination of two principles, neither of which is atheistic taken separately, i.e. atomism and corporealism, or the doctrine that nothing exists but body. The example of Stoicism, as Cudworth points out, shows that corporealism may be theistic.

Into the 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 Pythagoras

Pythagoras

Pythagoras of Samos was an Ionian Greek philosopher, mathematician, and founder of the religious movement called Pythagoreanism. Most of the information about Pythagoras was written down centuries after he lived, so very little reliable information is known about him...

, Empedocles

Empedocles

Empedocles was a Greek pre-Socratic philosopher and a citizen of Agrigentum, a Greek city in Sicily. Empedocles' philosophy is best known for being the originator of the cosmogenic theory of the four Classical elements...

, 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 war

Trojan War

In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, the king of Sparta. The war is among the most important events in Greek mythology and was narrated in many works of Greek literature, including the Iliad...

, by a Sidon

Sidon

Sidon or Saïda is the third-largest city in Lebanon. It is located in the South Governorate of Lebanon, on the Mediterranean coast, about 40 km north of Tyre and 40 km south of the capital Beirut. In Genesis, Sidon is the son of Canaan the grandson of Noah...

ian thinker named Moschus or Mochus

Mochus

Mochus a Phoenician, is listed, along with Zalmoxis and Atlas, by Diogenes Laërtius as a proto-philosopher. Athenaeus claimed that he authored a work on the history of Phoenicia. Strabo, on the authority of Posidonius, speaks of one Mochus or Moschus of Sidon as the author of the atomic theory and...

, who is identical with the Moses

Moses

Moses was, according to the Hebrew Bible and Qur'an, a religious leader, lawgiver and prophet, to whom the authorship of the Torah is traditionally attributed...

 of the Old Testament

Old Testament

The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...

. In dealing with atheism Cudworth's method is to marshal the atheistic arguments elaborately, so elaborately that Dryden remarked "he has raised such objections against the being of a God and Providence that many think he has not answered them"; then in his last chapter, which by itself is as long as an ordinary treatise, he confutes them with all the reasons that his reading could supply. A subordinate matter in the book that attracted much attention at the time is the conception of the "Plastic Medium," which is a mere revival of Plato

Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...

's "World-Soul," and is meant to explain the existence and laws of nature without referring all to the direct operation of God. It occasioned a long-drawn controversy between Pierre Bayle

Pierre Bayle

Pierre Bayle was a French philosopher and writer best known for his seminal work the Historical and Critical Dictionary, published beginning in 1695....

 and Le Clerc, the former maintaining, the latter denying, that the Plastic Medium is really favourable to atheism.

A much more favourable judgment must be given upon the short Treatise on eternal and immutable Morality, which deserves to be read by those who are interested in the historical development of British moral philosophy. It is an answer to Hobbes's famous doctrine that moral distinctions are created by the state, an answer from the standpoint of Platonism. Just as knowledge contains a permanent intelligible element over and above the flux of sense-impressions, so there exist eternal and immutable ideas of morality. Cudworth's ideas, like Plato's, have "a 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 understandings. Hence "it is evident that wisdom, knowledge and understanding are eternal and self-subsistent things, superior to matter and all sensible beings, and independent upon them"; and so also are moral good and evil. At this point Cudworth stops; he does not attempt to give any list of Moral Ideas. It is, indeed, the cardinal weakness of this 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 geometry (these attacks are not uncontested — see, for example, the "Common Sense" tradition from Thomas Reid to James McCosh and the Oxford Realists Harold Prichard and Sir William David Ross). 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.

External links

• The True Intellectual System of the Universe on Google Books http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=B9YpAAAAYAAJ