CUDWORTH, RALPH, was born at Aller, in Samersetshire, in 1617. Having been entered at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 1630, when he was but thirteen, he commenced residence in 1632, and became in due course of time, as his father had been before him, a fellow of Emmanuel. He acted for some time as tutor in the college, and had among his pupils the afterwards cele brated Sir William Temple. He had taken the degree of M.A. in 1639 ; he took that of B.D. in 1644, maintaining upon this occasion the two following theses : 1. ' Dantur boni et mali retinues reternse et indispensabiles ; ' 2. ' Dantur substantite incorporeal sod naturti, immortales.' In 1644 he was also appointed master of Clare Hall; and in the succeeding year was elected to the regius professorship of Hebrew. On receiving this appointment he devoted himself with zeal to the subject of Jewish antiquities. He took the degree of D.D. in 1651. Though holding the two situations which have been men tioned, mid besides these the living of North Cadbtiry, in Somerset shire, worth 3001. a year, to which he had been presented by his college shortly after taking his Master's degree, be did not fiud his means sufficient for his support. It does not appear that he was a man extravagant .in his habits; but owing, it is said, to pecuniary difficulties, he now absented himself for some time from Cambridge. He returned in 1654, having been chosen master of Chrisee College. He uow married, and the remainder of his life was spent iu this college. In 1662 he was presented by the then Bishop of London to the vicarage of Ashwell, in Hertfordshire; and in 1678 he was installed Prebendary of Gloucester. In this last-mentioned year appeared his great work, the True Intellectual System of the Universe;' or rather (for though complete iu itself, it is but a fragment of a larger work which he designed), the first part of the 'Intellectual System.' This first part is devoted to the refutation of atheism: The whole work was to consist of three parts ; but the second and third parts, which were to trent respectively of the t nture of moral distinctions and of free will, were, though written, Dever published by hint.
Dr. Birch. in the memoir prefixed to his edition of the ' Intelleetual System,' Laving related the calumnious charges of atheism brought against Cudworth on the appearance of this work, goes on to quote the following remark of \\'arburtuu's :—"'I'lls. Oily calumny was believed ; the much injured author grew disgusted ; his ardour sleckeued ; and the rest and far greatest part of the defence never appenred," (p. 22.) Though this does not necessarily imply that the remainder of the work was not written, the inference would not be a very forced one. Nor does Dr. Birch ever explicitly state that the seeoud and third parts were written, contenting himself with the remark—"Ilo left several poathumons works, most of which seem to be a continuation of his ' Intellectual System,' of which be had given the world only the first part," (p. 31). A reference merely to Dr.
CudwortL'a preface, in which Ile makes n division of his subject, or to the beginning of his first chapter, would have shown that the treatise on Eternal and Immutable Morality, which has been published since his death is the second part, and the treatise on Liberty and Necessity, which is rain in manuscript, is the third hart of the work.
Dr. Cudworth died at Cambridge iu 16S8, in the seventy-first year of his age, and was buried in Christ's College. Ile left one daughter, whoernarricd Sir Francis Maaham, and who is kuowu, under the name of Lady Masher's. as the friend of Locke.
Dr. Cudworth was one of that set of Cambridge divines known as Latitudinarians, on whom Bishop Burnet has passed a high euloAilim in his history of the reign of Charles II. The chief others at this time were Drs. Whitcheot, Wilkins, Henry More, and Worthington.
"Dr. Whitclacut," says Burnet, "set young students much on reading the ancient philosopher, chiefly Plato, Tully, rind Plotin ; and on considering the Christian religion as a doctrine sent from God, both to elevate and sweeten human nature., in which he was a great example,
as well as wise and kind instructor. Cudworth carried this on with a great strength of genius and n vast compass of learning. He was a loan of great conduct and prudence, upon which his enemies did very falsely accuse him of craft and dissimulation." (' IlisL of hie own Time,' vol. L p. 321.) The ' Intellectual System,'or that (properly the first) part of it which now peases under the name, is directed, as has been said, against atheism. This is one of three, as Cudworth conceives, false systems or hypotheses of the universe, or one of three possible modes of fntalisin. They are thus briefly described in the preface :—" Of the three fatalism, or falser hypotheses of the universe mentioned in the ming of this Look, one is absolute Atheism, another immoral Theism. or religion without any natural justice and morality (all just and unjust, according to this hypothesis, being mere thetical or facti tious things, made by arbitrary will and command only), the third and last, tech a Theism as acknowledgea not only a God or omnipotent underetauding Being, bat else natural justice and morality, founded in him, and derived from him; nevertheless, no liberty from necessity anywhere, and therefore uo distributive or retributive justice in the world." Before erectiug the true intellectual system of the universe (the epithet intellectual being used, as he tells us, " to distinguish it from the other, vulgarly so called, systems of the world, that is, the visible and corporeal world, the Ptolemaic, Tyclionic, and Cuperni oar it was his object to demolish these false systems. And the first of them, Atheism, or the Atheistic fate, is ettempted to be demolished In the first part, which is all that we have under the name of Intellectual System. It is a work of great learning, and also of great acuteness. But grave charges have been founded upon this weak. "Thera wanted not country clergymen," nays Warburton, "to lead the cry and tell the world that, under pretence of defending revelation, ho wrote iu the very instanter that an artful infidel might haturally be supposed to 1134 in writing against it ; . . . . that with incredible industry and reading, he had rummnged all antiquity for athei.tical arguments, which he neither knew how, nor intended, to answer; in a word, that he was an atheist in his heart, and an Arian in his book." ('Divine Legation of Moses,' vol. iii., ed. 1765: Preface.) The nscusation alluded to iu these peesingea is made iu a circuitous way by a Mr. dohu Turuer, in a 'Discourse of the :des/dale' lu attaching atheism, or the atheistic fate, Dr. Cudworth describes the atomic physiology which, as held by Democritus, and other ancient philosophers, involved atheism. it being his object to dernulish atheism sander every form, and therefore the atomics atheism, ho yet adopts the atomic physiology, contending that "so far from being Caller the mother or nurse of atheism, or any ways favourable there unto (as Is vulgarly supposed!, it is indeed the moat opposite to it of eity, and the greatest defence wield the same." For the better cow fittation of other forms of atheism, to which ho gives the names I lyloe.oio and Cottnoplastic, Le millets the hypothesis of an "artificial, regular, and plestio nature," working in complete subordination to the Deity. And to an argument brought the oneness of the Deity, from its unnaturalness as shown by the gent tar prevalence of Polythelem among the Pagan nations, he couts lids that "the Vegan theolocers all slung sekuowledged one sovereign and omnipotent Deity. friers %Lich all th le other gods were generated or crested," sad t at their Polytheism e Ill hut a Iedyenynty of Gel.