Ralph Cudworth


Ralph Cudworth was an English Anglican clergyman, Christian Hebraist, classicist, theologian and philosopher, and a leading figure among the Cambridge Platonists. From a family background embedded in the early nonconformist environment of Emmanuel College where he studied, he became 11th Regius Professor of Hebrew, 26th Master of Clare Hall, and 14th Master of Christ's College. He was a leading opponent of Thomas Hobbes's political and philosophical views, and his magnum opus was his The True Intellectual System of the Universe.

Family background

Ancestry

Cudworth's family reputedly originated in Cudworth, Yorkshire, moving to Lancashire with the marriage of John de Cudworth and Margery, daughter of Richard de Oldham, lord of the manor of Werneth, Oldham. The Cudworths of Werneth Hall, Oldham, were lords of the manor of Werneth/Oldham, until 1683. Ralph Cudworth ’s father, Ralph Cudworth was the posthumous-born second son of Ralph Cudworth of Werneth Hall, Oldham.

The Rev. Dr Ralph Cudworth Snr (1572/3–1624)

The philosopher's father, The Rev. Dr Ralph Cudworth, was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he graduated BA. Emmanuel College was, from its inception, a stronghold of Reformist, Puritan and Calvinist teaching, which shaped the development of puritan ministry, and contributed largely to the emigrant ministry in America.
Ordained in 1599 and elected to a college fellowship by 1600, Cudworth Snr was much influenced by William Perkins, whom he succeeded, in 1602, as Lecturer of the Parish Church of St Andrew the Great, Cambridge. He was awarded the degree of Bachelor of Divinity in 1603. He edited Perkins's Commentary on St Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, with a dedication to Robert, 3rd Lord Rich, adding a commentary of his own with dedication to Sir Bassingbourn Gawdy. Lord Rich presented him to the Vicariate of Coggeshall, Essex to replace the deprived minister Thomas Stoughton, but he resigned this position, and was licensed to preach from the pulpit by the Chancellor and Scholars of the University of Cambridge. He then applied for the Rectoriate of Aller, Somerset and, resigning his fellowship, was appointed to it in 1610.
His marriage to Mary Machell, brought important connections. Cudworth Snr was appointed as one of James I's chaplains. Mary's mother was the sister of Sir Edward Lewknor, a central figure among the puritan East Anglian gentry, whose children had attended Emmanuel College. Mary's Lewknor and Machell connections with the Rich family included her first cousins Sir Nathaniel Rich and his sister Dame Margaret Wroth, wife of Sir Thomas Wroth of Petherton Park near Bridgwater, Somerset, influential promoters of colonial enterprise in New England. Aller was immediately within their sphere.
Ralph Snr and Mary settled at Aller, where their children were christened during the following decade. Cudworth continued to study, working on a complete survey of Case-Divinity, The Cases of Conscience in Family, Church and Commonwealth while suffering from the agueish climate at Aller. He was awarded the degree of Doctor of Divinity, and was among the dedicatees of Richard Bernard's 1621 edition of The Faithfull Shepherd. Ralph Snr died at Aller declaring a nuncupative will before Anthony Earbury and Dame Margaret Wroth.

Children

The children of Ralph Cudworth Snr and Mary Cudworth were:

Education

The second son, and third of five children, Ralph Cudworth was born at Aller, Somerset, where he was baptised. Following the death of his father, Ralph Cudworth Snr, The Rev. Dr John Stoughton,, succeeded as Rector of Aller, and married the widow Mary Cudworth. Dr Stoughton paid careful attention to his stepchildren's education, which Ralph later described as a "diet of Calvinism". Letters, to Stoughton, by both brothers James and Ralph Cudworth make this plain; and, when Ralph matriculated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, Stoughton thought him "as wel grounded in Schol-Learning as any Boy of his Age that went to the University". Stoughton was appointed Curate and Preacher at St Mary Aldermanbury, London, and the family left Aller. Ralph's elder brother, James Cudworth, married and emigrated to Scituate, Plymouth Colony, New England. Mary Machell Cudworth Stoughton died during summer 1634, and Dr Stoughton married a daughter of John Browne of Frampton and Dorchester.

Pensioner, Student and Fellow of Emmanuel College (1630–45)

A diligent student, Cudworth was admitted to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, matriculated, and graduated ; MA ). After some misgivings, he was elected a Fellow of Emmanuel, and became a successful tutor, delivering the Rede Lecture. He published a tract entitled The Union of Christ and the Church, in a Shadow, and another, A Discourse concerning the True Notion of the Lord's Supper, in which his readings of Karaite manuscripts were influential.

11th Regius Professor of Hebrew (1645) and 26th Master of Clare Hall (1645–54)

Following sustained correspondence with John Selden, he was elected as 11th Regius Professor of Hebrew. In 1645, Thomas Paske had been ejected as Master of Clare Hall for his Anglican allegiances, and Cudworth was selected as his successor, as 26th Master. Similarly, his fellow-theologian Benjamin Whichcote was installed as 19th Provost of King's College. Cudworth attained the degree of Bachelor of Divinity, and preached a sermon before the House of Commons of England, which was later published with a Letter of Dedication to the House. Despite these distinctions and his presentation, by Emmanuel College, to the Rectoriate of North Cadbury, Somerset, he remained comparatively impoverished. He was awarded the degree of Doctor of Divinity, and, in January 1651/2, his friend Dr John Worthington wrote of him, "If through want of maintenance he should be forced to leave Cambridge, for which place he is so eminently accomplished with what is noble and Exemplarily Academical, it would be an ill omen."

Marriage (1654) and 14th Master of Christ's College (1654–88)

Cudworth was elected and admitted, as 14th Master of Christ's College. His appointment coincided with his marriage to Damaris, daughter of Matthew Cradock, first Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Company. Hence Worthington commented "After many tossings Dr Cudworth is through God's good Providence returned to Cambridge and settled in Christ's College, and by his marriage more settled and fixed."
In his Will, Matthew Cradock had divided his estate beside the Mystic River at Medford, Massachusetts into two moieties: one was bequeathed to his daughter Damaris Cradock, ; and one was to be enjoyed by his widow Rebecca, and afterwards to be inherited by his brother, Samuel Cradock, and his heirs male. Samuel Cradock's son, Samuel Cradock Jnr, was admitted to Emmanuel, graduated ; MA ; BD ), was later a Fellow, and pupil of Benjamin Whichcote. After part of the Medford estate was rented to Edward Collins, it was placed in the hands of an attorney; the widow Rebecca Cradock, petitioned the General Court of Massachusetts, and the legatees later sold the estate to Collins.
The marriage of the widow Rebecca Cradock, to Cudworth's colleague Benjamin Whichcote laid the way for the union between Cudworth and her stepdaughter, Damaris, thereby reinforcing the connections between the two scholars through a familial bond. Damaris had married, firstly, Thomas Andrewes Jnr of London and Feltham, son of Sir Thomas Andrewes,, which union had produced several children. The Andrewes family were also engaged in the Massachusetts project, and strongly supported puritan causes.

Commonwealth and Restoration

Cudworth emerged as a central figure among that circle of theologians and philosophers known as the Cambridge Platonists, who were in sympathy with the Commonwealth: during the later 1650s, Cudworth was consulted by John Thurloe, Oliver Cromwell's Secretary to the Council of State, with regard to certain university and government appointments and various other matters. During 1657, Cudworth advised Bulstrode Whitelocke's sub-committee of the Parliamentary "Grand Committee for Religion" on the accuracy of editions of the English Bible. Cudworth was appointed Vicar of Great Wilbraham, and Rector of Toft, Cambridgeshire Ely diocese, but surrendered these livings when he was presented, by Dr Gilbert Sheldon, Bishop of London, to the Hertfordshire Rectory of Ashwell.
Given Cudworth's close cooperation with prominent figures in Oliver Cromwell's regime, Cudworth's continuance as Master of Christ's was challenged at the Restoration but, ultimately, he retained this post until his death. He and his family are believed to have resided in private lodgings at the "Old Lodge", and various improvements were made to the College rooms in his time.

Later life

In 1665, Cudworth almost quarrelled with his fellow-Platonist, Henry More, because of the latter's composition of an ethical work which Cudworth feared would interfere with his own long-contemplated treatise on the same subject. To avoid any difficulties, More published his Enchiridion ethicum, in Latin; However, Cudworth's planned treatise was never published. His own majestic work, The True Intellectual System of the Universe, was conceived in three parts of which only the first was completed; he wrote: "there is no reason why this volume should therefore be thought imperfect and incomplete, because it hath not all the Three Things at first Designed by us: it containing all that belongeth to its own particular Title and Subject, and being in that respect no Piece, but a Whole."
Cudworth was installed as Prebendary of Gloucester. His colleague, Benjamin Whichcote, died at Cudworth's house in Cambridge, and Cudworth himself died, and was buried in the Chapel of Christ's College. An oil portrait of Cudworth hangs in the Hall of Christ's College. During Cudworth's time an outdoor Swimming Pool was created at Christ's College, and a carved bust of Cudworth there accompanies those of John Milton and Nicholas Saunderson.
Cudworth's widow, Damaris Andrewes Cudworth, maintained close connections with her daughter, Damaris Cudworth Masham, at High Laver, Essex, which was where she died, and was commemorated in the church with a carved epitaph reputedly composed by the philosopher John Locke.

Children

The children of Ralph Cudworth and Damaris Andrewes Cudworth were:
The stepchildren of Ralph Cudworth Andrewes and Thomas Andrewes were:

Sermons and Treatises

Cudworth's works included The Union of Christ and the Church, in a Shadow ; A Sermon preached before the House of Commons ; and A Discourse concerning the True Notion of the Lord's Supper. Much of Cudworth's work remains in manuscript. However, certain surviving works have been published posthumously, such as A Treatise concerning eternal and immutable Morality, and A Treatise of Freewill.

''A Treatise concerning eternal and immutable Morality'' (posth.)

Cudworth's Treatise on eternal and immutable Morality, published with a preface by Edward Chandler, is about the historical development of British moral philosophy. It answers, from the standpoint of Platonism, Hobbes's famous doctrine that moral distinctions are created by the state: 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 have "a constant and never-failing entity of their own" ; but, unlike Plato's ideas, 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. Cudworth 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" of the concepts of geometry. Henry More's 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.

''A Treatise of Freewill'' (posth.)

Another posthumous publication was Cudworth's A Treatise of Freewill, edited by John Allen. Both this and the Treatise on eternal and immutable Morality are connected with the design of his magnum opus, The True Intellectual System of the Universe.

''The True Intellectual System of the Universe'' (1678)

In 1678, Cudworth 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, which had been given an Imprimatur for publication.

The Intellectual System arose, so Cudworth informs us, from a discourse refuting "fatal necessity", or determinism. Enlarging his plan, he proposed to prove three matters:
These three comprise, collectively, the intellectual system of the universe; and they are opposed, respectively, by three false principles: atheism, religious fatalism, and the fatalism of the ancient Stoics. The immense fragment dealing with atheism was all that was published, perhaps because of the theological clamour raised against this first part.
Cudworth criticizes two main forms of materialistic atheism: the atomic ; and the hylozoic. Atomic atheism is by far the more important, if only because Hobbes, is supposed to have held this view. It arises from the combination of two principles, neither of which is, individually, atheistic. The example of Stoicism, as Cudworth suggests, shows that corporealism may be theistic.
Cudworth plunges into the history of atomism with vast erudition. It is, in its purely physical application, he holds that atomism was taught by Pythagoras, Empedocles, and was only perverted to atheism by Democritus. Cudworth believes that atomism was first invented before the Trojan war by a Sidonian thinker named Moschus or Mochus. In dealing with atheism, Cudworth's method was 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, he confutes the arguments with all the reasons that his reading could supply. A subordinate matter in the book which attracted much attention at the time was the conception of the "Plastic Medium", which occasioned a long-drawn controversy, between Pierre Bayle and Le Clerc, that the Plastic Medium is favourable to atheism.

Commentary on Cudworth

wrote in his A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom :

In 1678 Ralph Cudworth published his Intellectual System of the Universe. To this day he remains, in breadth of scholarship, in strength of thought, in tolerance, and in honesty, one of the greatest glories of the English Church... He purposed to build a fortress which should protect Christianity against all dangerous theories of the universe, ancient or modern....while genius marked every part of it, features appeared which gave the rigidly orthodox serious misgivings. From the old theories of direct personal action on the universe by the Almighty he broke utterly. He dwelt on the action of law, rejected the continuous exercise of miraculous intervention, pointed out the fact that in the natural world there are "errors" and "bungles" and argued vigorously in favor of the origin and maintenance of the universe as a slow and gradual development of Nature in obedience to an inward principle.

Arms

Ancestry