ralph cudworthdraft

7/28/2019 Ralph Cudworthdraft

1/28

Osborne on Cudworth 1

Ralph Cudworth's

The True Intellectual System of the Universeand

the Presocratic Philsoophers

Catherine Osborne, University of East Anglia. July 2009. Draft 3.

Abstract:

Ralph Cudworth (1617-88) was one of the Cambridge Platonists. His major work, The True

Intellectual System of the Universe, was completed in 1671, a year after Spinoza published

(anonymously) the Tractatus Logico-philosophicus. It was published a few years later, in 1678. Cudworth

offers a spirited attack against the materialism and mechanism of Thomas Hobbes. His work is

couched as a search for truth among the ancient philosophers, and this paper examines his use of the

Presocratics as a tool for discussing the issues of his day.

1. Ralph Cudworth: life and intellectual milieuRalph Cudworth was born in 1617 in the village of Aller in Somerset, where his father was

Rector.1 He died (at the age of 71) in Cambridge, in 1688. He is generally thought of as one of the

"Cambridge Platonists", and indeed it is true that he spent virtually the whole of his life in Cambridge,

having gone up to Emmanuel College as a pensioner at the age of 13, matriculated at the age of 15,

taken his MA in 1639 (at the age of 22), Bachelor of Divinity in 1644 and being installed as Master of

Clare Hall (that is, what is now Clare College) in 1644 when he was 27. At 28 he became Regius

Professor of Hebrew, took his DD at the age of 34 and at 37 he became Master of Christ's College, a

position he held until the end of his life. The career speaks for itself, insofar as it presents a man of

great learning, highly respected as a theologian, and with some influence in high places.2

1 His father (Dr Ralph Cudworth, formerly a fellow of Emmanuel College Cambridge) died

when Ralph was only seven years old. He was then educated by his step father, the Revd Dr

Stoughton, before being sent to study at Emmanuel College from the age of 13.

2 Cudworth survived through the political turmoil of England in the seventeenth century and

seems to have maintained a judicious position that saw the faults on all sides without losing credibility.

Like Whichcote he was associated with the Puritans during Cromwell's supremacy. Both were


2/28


There is undoubtedly some merit in classifying Cudworth's intellectual stance as a version of

Cambridge Platonism, since this acknowledges the fact that he was profoundly impressed and

influenced by Benjamin Whichcote (1609-83), generally considered the father of that movement. But

the classification can also be misleading in suggesting that Whichcote was the more important and

original thinker. In fact Cudworth's views are importantly distant from those of Whichcote, and

philosophically Cudworth is far more engaged and far more challenging than Whichcote (whose

concerns were more confined to theological debates). Cudworth does have a theological agenda, that

is for sure; but his real opponents are Hobbes, Bacon and Spinoza; his polemic is on behalf of the

corpuscularian hypothesis, teleology and Cartesian dualism, against the Hobbesian world view. It is a

philosophical debate, though with theological ramifications. And Cudworth's position is distinctive and

original as a philosophical stance. It is not just a theological take on an existing philosophical view.

Reading between the lines, it looks as though Ralph Cudworth was one of those people who

has plenty to say but far too little discipline to put it into a suitable form for publication. Early on, he

did publish some works on the nature of the sacraments which established his position somewhere

between catholic and protestant. These included a treatise on the nature of the Eucharist which

identified it not with a sacrifice but with the meal that follows a sacrifice; and a treatise on the nature

of marriage which upheld the higher meaning of marriage that Cudworth argued was lost in the

protestant tradition.3 But it was somewhat later, in the 1660s apparently, that Cudworth blossomed

appointed to positions of Head of House in 1644 when Cambridge came under Parliamentary control

(Whichcote as Provost of King's, Cudworth as Master of Clare), and it was under Cromwell that he

was assigned (in 1654) to the position of Master of Christ's College. But unlike Whichcote, he was

not removed from his position as Head of House on the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660, since

his theological position was one that advocated religious toleration and the rationality of religious

devotion, rather than a narrow-minded Puritanism.

3 Ralph Cudworth,A discourse concerning the true notion of the Lord's Supper, by R.C. (London:

Richard Cotes, 1642); Ralph Cudworth, The union of Christ and the Church; in a shadow, by R.C.

(London: Richard Bishop, 1642). Among other works that made it into print in Cudworth's lifetime

we should also mention the sermon delivered before the House of Commons after the first Civil

War, published in Cambridge in 1647 (Ralph Cudworth, A sermon preached before the Honourable

House of Commons at Westminster, March 31, 1647 by R. Cudworth (Cambridge: Printed by Roger

Daniel, 1647)), and some Latin verses congratulating King Charles II on his restoration to the throne,

published in Cambridge in 1660.


3/28


as an original philosopher, and from this period little made it actually into print in his life time. We

have only three philosophical works currently circulating under his name, and of these two were

published posthumously, namelyA treatise concerning eternal and immutable morality,4 andA treatise on

Free Will.5

Cudworth also left at his death a wealth of other manuscript material that was clearly

intended for publication but never made it, and the curious events surrounding his dispute with Henry

More over the latter's intention to publish a work on morality in 1664-5 suggests that even his friends

were exasperated by his failure to put anything out in print.6

4 This work was published in 1731 in an edition prepared by Dr Edward Chandler, Bishop of

Durham (Ralph Cudworth A treatise concerning eternal and immutable morality, ed. Edward Chandler

Bishop of Durham, (London: printed for James and John Knapton, 1731)

5 This work was published in 1838 in an edition prepared by John Allen. It is available in a

reprint published by Thoemmes Press (Ralph Cudworth, A treatise of freewill, edited by John Allen, and

An introduction to Cudworth's treatise by W.R. Scott (17th and 18th Century British Philosophy,

Thoemmes reprints; London: Routledge/Thoemmes Press, 1992)) and in a modern edition in the

Cambridge texts in the History of Philosophy (Ralph Cudworth A Treatise Concerning Eternal and

Immutable Morality with A Treatise of Freewill, ed. Sarah Hutton, (Cambridge Texts in the History of

Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).

6 It looks as though More was hoping to get some of Cudworth's ideas into print by

producing a work under his own name, but Cudworth was irritated since he had what he considered

to be a work already written on the subject (though it did not in fact ever reach the publisher despite

his promises). More's work was eventually published in Latin in 1668, as Henry More, Enchiridion

ethicum : praecipua moralis philosophiae rudimenta complectens, illustrata utplurimum veterum monumentis,

& ad probitatem vitae perpetu accommodata / per Henricum Morum (London: Excudebat J. Flesher,

venale autem habetur apud Guilielmum Morden, 1668). The details and some of the correspondence

relating to the dispute over this publication is given by Birch in his account of the life and writings of

Cudworth (this can be found in Ralph Cudworth The true intellectual system of the universe : the first

part; wherein all the reason and philosophy of atheism is confuted, ... With A discourse concerning the true

notion of the Lord's supper; ... / By Ralph Cudworth. Part 1., ed. Thomas Birch, 2 vols. (Second edition

edn., London: printed for J. Walthoe, D. Midwinter, J. and J. Bonwick, W. Innys, R. Ware [and 17

others in London], 1743 and many later editions of the work of Cudworth.) The relevant letters are

also available in The Diary and Correspondence of Dr John Worthington in vols 13, 36 and 114 of the

Proceedings of the Chetham Society, Manchester.


4/28


The remaining work, the one major piece of philosophy that Cudworth did publish, in 1678,

is the one we are interested in here.7 It introduces itself as "The True Intellectual System of the

Universe, Part One". That description, "Part One", promises more to come, and doubtless much of

the unpublished manuscript materials (including the posthumous works on morality and freewill

mentioned above) were intended to go into later parts of the True Intellectual System. But no further

parts ever came, and although Cudworth had been so keen to stop More from pre-empting him in

print on the subject of morality, the sections on morality were never submitted to the publisher.

Before we launch into the details of this work, however, we should stop to place it in the

context of European philosophy of the time. We are talking, of course, of the middle of the

seventeenth century. Cudworth was born when Ren Descartes was 21. Descartes's Meditations was

published in Latin in 1641, two years after Cudworth took his MA. Cudworth was one of the first

English philosophers to read and respond to Descartes: indeed Cudworth is deeply Cartesian both in

his substance dualism and in his views on innate knowledge. Four years older than Descartes, and 25

years senior to Cudworth, was Pierre Gassendi, whose first published work on Epicurean atomism

began to appear in 1649 (a commentary on Book 10 of Diogenes Laertius), with further publications

on the same theme in the 1650s and 1660s.8 Gassendi's work on Epicurus was clearly one of the

principal targets of Cudworth's attack on mechanistic atomism, and on the implicit atheism that goes

with materialism of that kind, in the True Intellectual System.

7 Ralph Cudworth, The true intellectual system of the universe : wherein, all reason and philosophy

of atheism is confuted ; and its impossibility demonstrated(London: printed for Richard Royston, 1678).

Publication was in 1678, but the imprimatur is dated May 29th 1671, which suggests that the

manuscript was complete seven years before publication.

8 The 1649 publication was Pierre Gassendi,Animadversiones in decimum librum Diogenis Laertii.

Qui est de vita, moribus, placitisque Epicuri .... 1 vols. (Lugduni, 1649). This was followed by various

revisions, reprints and further publications including Pierre Gassendi, De vita et moribus Epicuri, libri

octo (Ed. altera auctior & correctior edn.; Hag-Comitum: A. Vlacq, 1656) and Pierre Gassendi,

Philosophi Epicuri syntagma (London: Ex officina Johannis Redmayne, 1668). See Bernard Rochot, Les

Travaux de Gassendi sur picure et sur l'Atomisme, 1619-1658 (Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin,

1944).


5/28


Spinoza (1632-77) was fifteen years younger than Cudworth. Passmore observes (rightly, I

think) that Cudworth clearly knew the work of Spinoza, even though he does not name him.9 But this

is the more interesting when we notice that the only published work by Spinoza that Cudworth could

have known in time to react to it in the True Intellectual System was the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus

which was published anonymously in 1670.10 But that was only one year before the completion of the

manuscript of the True Intellectual System. So evidently Cudworth, when he responds to Spinoza, is

responding to that anonymous work, and in those circumstances it is not surprising that he does not

attribute the views to anyone by name but rather refers to the author by alluding to the title of his

book.

So Cudworth is right up to date and on the spot in his engagement with the ideas coming

from the continent. At the same time, closer to home, he is engaged in a sustained attack on Thomas

Hobbes (1588-1679) whose most influential works had been appearing in Latin and English from about

1642 (De cive) to 1658 (De homine). Hobbes's attempt to reduce everything, including morality, to

mechanistic and material explanations and his empiricist outlook were anathema to Cudworth, who

sets out to try to show both that such a system is inadequate and also that it was already seen as

inadequate by the better minds among the ancient philosophers. Besides Hobbes, Francis Bacon

(1561-1626, a generation previous and dead before Cudworth went up to Cambridge) and Robert

Boyle (1627-91, ten years his junior) were the chief Englishmen whom Cudworth had in his sights.

John Locke (1632-1704) was a close friend of the Cudworth family, and particularly of Cudworth's

9 J. A. Passmore, Ralph Cudworth: an interpretation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

1951), 5. The references to Spinoza in TIS are in chapter V (Vol. 2 p.564 and Vol. 3 p.4).

10 Tractatus theologico-politicus : continens dissertationes aliquot, quibus ostenditur libertatem

philosophandi non tantum salva pietate, & reipublicae pace posse concedi: sed eandem nisi cum pace

reipublicae, ipsaque pietate tolli non posse. (Hamburgi: Apud Henricum Knraht, 1670). Spinoza had

earlier published, under his own name, the Principles of Descartes's Philosophy (Benedict de Spinoza,

Renati Des Cartes Principiorum philosophi pars I, & II, more geometrico demonstrat / per Benedictum de

Spinoza (Amstelodami: apud Johannem Riewerts, 1663)) which was an attempt to render Descartes's

Principles of Philosophy Parts I and II into Euclidean form. Conceivably Cudworth might have known this,

but it would hardly be what was needed to acquaint him with the distinctive views on substance,

determinism and mind associated with the name of Spinoza. The reference to Spinoza as "that late

theological politician" in TIS chapter V (vol. 3, p.4) shows that it is the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus that

is under discussion.


6/28


daughter Damaris.11 As far as I can see Cudworth should also be attacking Locke for his empiricism

and his antipathy to innate ideas, as well as his association with Boyle.

Cudworth published his True Intellectual System of the Universe in English. He and the other

Cambridge Platonists were among the first English Philosophers to publish primarily in English. It was

not well received; in fact it caused an outcry, because (so it seems) many readers were convinced that

Cudworth was advancing atheism by the back door. Several attempts were made to rescue the

credibility of the work after Cudworth's death, including publication of extracts from the work in Jean

Le Clerc's Bibliotheque choisie,12 an improved and abridged version edited by Thomas Wise (fl 1706)13

and a Latin translation with extensive commentary by Johann Lorenz Mosheim (1694?-1755) published

in 1733.14

2. The True Intellectual SystemCudworth's True Intellectual System of the Universe has a fairly simple thesis to present, which

goes like this: atomism (which we associate with Democritus) is basically true; but it is only half the

11 Damaris Cudworth, later Lady Damaris Masham (1658-1708), was an intellectual and

thinker in her own right, who published under the name of Philoclea. Lady Damaris Masham, A

discourse concerning the love of God (London: printed for Awnsham and John Churchil, at the Black-

Swan in Pater-noster-row, 1696) was published in 1696, and Lady Damaris Masham, Occasional

thoughts in reference to a vertuous or Christian life (London: Printed for A. and J. Churchill, 1705) in

1705.

12 Jean Le Clerc, Bibliotheque Choisie: pour servir de suite a la Bibliotheque universelle, vols 1-27

vols. (Amsterdam: Chez Henry Schelte, 1703-1713)

13 Thomas Wise,A confutation of the reason and philosophy of atheism : being in a great measure

either an abridgment or an improvement of what Dr. Cudworth offerd to that purpose in his True intellectual

system of the universe, 2 vols. (London: printed by J. D. for A. and J. Churchil, Mat. Wotton, R.

Knaplock and D. Midwinter, and Andrew Bell, 1706)

14 Ralph Cudworth, Systema intellectuale huius universi ... Accedunt reliqua ... opuscula / J.L.

Moshemius ... reliqua omnia ex anglico latine vertit ... translated by Johann Lorenz Mosheim (Jenae, 1733).

Mosheim writes at great length and is often critical of Cudworth both for his scholarly practices and

for his opinions. The work is available in an English translation (with Cudworth's original English text

and Mosheim's notes translated into English, and Birch's life of Cudworth): Ralph Cudworth, The True

Intellectual system of the Universe (with the Notes and Dissertations of J. L. Mosheim) , ed. John Harrison, 3

vols. (London: Thomas Tegg, 1845).


7/28


story. Atomism (with its mechanistic account of the behaviour of bodies) is true about the bodyside

of the mind-body divide (or rather about the matter side of the matter/spirit divide). But by its own

admission it has to regard secondary qualities as the effects of bodies in perceiving subjects, and

matter itself would be inert without motion originating from minds. So Democritus and all other

atheistic atomists are wrong in so far as they think that atoms are all there is. The truth is that

atomism is right, if and only if it is combined with substance dualism of mind and body, with atomism

providing an account only of the body side of the dualism. According to Cudworth, furthermore, this

true position, substance dualism, in which material substance is inert and passive, while spiritual

substance is immortal, active and perceptive, was actually the system adumbrated by earlier

Presocratics, before the ancient atomists themselves started the rot, mistakenly thinking that they

could do without the spirit half of the story.

Cudworth's project in The True Intellectual System is to trace this correct view, the dualistic

one, back to the Presocratics. He also intends to identify and explain for his readers what were the

temptations that led atomists, on the one hand, and Platonists, on the other, to opt for the two

mistaken positions on either side, first atheistic materialism, and second idealism, or Platonism, which

denies the reality of body and goes for the immaterial substance alone. Representatives of the

materialist mistake include both the ancient atomists and all the recent opponents of teleology of

Cudworth's own time such as Francis Bacon and, above all, Thomas Hobbes. Representatives of the

idealist mistake include Plato and the Platonists of antiquity (and doubtless would have included

Bishop Berkeley, only that Berkeley was not born until Cudworth was 68). A third mistake is also

diagnosed, probably in Spinoza as well as some ancient thinkers, in which the spirit and material

aspects of things are conflated, or life is attributed to the matter itself.

All these kinds of theory, the hylozoic atheists, the materialists and the idealists, all get the

ontology wrong, according to Cudworth. But he thinks that we can readily understand why they went

wrong if we reconstruct the history of philosophy from the beginning.

Cudworth's work, as noted above, was widely misunderstood during his lifetime. Many read

it as a thinly veiled argument in favour of mechanistic atheism, dressed up as a defence of theism (but

with theism given much the weaker of the arguments). The reason for this misunderstanding is

doubtless partly the arrangement of Cudworth's chapters (which are more like book length

treatments of their topics). The whole of chapter II (admittedly the shortest chapter) was devoted to


8/28


presenting the reasons in favour of atheism and making them as strong as possible. Cudworth

declares that he has made the case as strong as he can in favour of atheism so that the refutation is a

genuine one, brought against the best case that can be made out for the opposing position.

And yet for all that we shall not wrong it in the least in our representation, but giveit all possible advantages of strength and plausibility, that so the Atheists may have

no cause to pretend (as they are wont to do, in such cases) that either we did not

understand their mysteries, nor apprehend the full strength of their cause, or else

did purposely smother and conceal it. Which indeed we have been so far from, that

we must confess we were not unwilling that this business of theirs should look a

little like something, that might deserve a confutation. And whether the Atheists

ought not to give us thanks for mending and improving their arguments, than

complain that we have any way impaired them, we shall leave it to the censure of

impartial judgements.

Chapter II, iii, vol. 1, page 107. 15

Having given Atheism the best run for its money in chapter II, Cudworth proceeds, in

Chapters III to V, to undermine atheism and defend theism. But the reader might be forgiven for

having taken the defence of atheism too strongly to heart by then. And besides, Cudworth does not

want to throw out everything that the atheist takes to be true. On the contrary he wants us to

swallow and hold onto some of the views of the materialists, because he wants to say that they were

right about the nature of bodies, and about how bodies behave in the absence of God. So to that extent

he does himself believe what he says in favour of the more extreme materialist version of atheism

(though he thinks that it is incorrect to conclude that the world can be adequately explained without

reference to God and teleology).

Doubtless Cudworth's readers were right to detect that he was evaluating the different

forms of atheism and grading some more favourably than others. They naturally read him as

advocating the corpuscularian account of matter (which indeed he was advocating) and they took him

to be thereby committed to the Hobbesian picture that went with it (which in fact he was trying to

oppose).

15 All page references are to the 1845 Harrison edition, Cudworth, The True Intellectual

system of the Universe (with the Notes and Dissertations of J. L. Mosheim) , volume number and page

number in Arabic, or Chapter number and section in Roman.


9/28


3. Cudworth and the PresocraticsCudworth's project is very substantially concerned with the history of ancient philosophy, and

particularly the Presocratics. It is buttressed by a most magnificent array of learning. This learning is

harnessed in aid of showing the following theses that bear particularly on the interpretation of

Presocratic philosophy:

1. A certain kind of mechanistic atomism and determinism which denies any role toGod or the incorporeal is found in Leucippus, Democritus and Protagoras

(TIS I v-vii)

2. Atomism is not new with Leucippus/Democritus but derived originally from Mosesand was thence endorsed by Pythagoras and all Pythagorean philosophers.

These include Parmenides and Empedocles, and in effect all the

Presocratics apart from the Milesians. (I ix-xiii; xv-xvi)

3. Lucretius and other Epicureans are inspired by Empedocles. (I xiii -xiv)4. It is not true that the ancients had no idea of the incorporeal: in fact the incorporeal

is to be traced in Aristotle, Plato and before Plato in all or most of the

Presocratics (I xix-xxv)

5. The doctrine of pre-existence of souls and transmigration of souls is a naturalconcomitant of the dualism of mind and body, combined with the thesis

that nothing comes from nothing, and is found in the best of the ancient

thinkers (I xxviii-xxxiii).

6. Presocratic philosophers were not all atheists, and where they are atheists they canbe different kinds of atheists:

a. some are hylozoic atheists who think that matter is endowed with life initself (III i-viii)16

16 Cudworth only manages to produce the Peripatetic Strato of Lampsacus as an example

(III.iv-vi). Two other candidates, Hippocrates and Plato (the Eleatic Stranger at Sophist 265c) are

considered but found to be unconvincing. So there seem to be no examples of this position among

the Presocratics, a conclusion that is confirmed on the basis that Plato seems to be unaware of any

other kind of atheism to be refuted besides the kind found in Democritus or Anaximander (III.viii).


10/28


b. others (the Milesians, but not including Thales) are atheists because theythink the material principle without life is all that is required (III.ix-xiii)17

7. Pagan theists from Thales to Heraclitus, Parmenides and Zeno and through toAristotle, the Stoics and Plotinus are all basically positing one ruling God (IV xx-xxv)

8. Trinitarian theological thinking can be traced back to Parmenides (IV xxix-xxxvi)9. The incomprehensibility of God does not entail impossibility or inconceivability.

Even the ancient atheists (such as Anaximander and Democritus) were properly

open to the idea of infinity. (V, Vol 2 pp. 516-525).

All these claims revolve around the general thesis, which is that the Italian school of Presocratic

philosophers more or less got everything right. Under the Italian School, Cudworth perversely

includes not just Pythagoras, Parmenides, Empedocles, and Zeno, but Heraclitus, and Anaxagoras as

well. These thinkers, he claims, were atomists about body; they held that nothing comes from

nothing; and they were committed to the reality and permanence of incorporeals (which also obey

the same rule that nothing comes from nothing).

It seems that adherence to the "nothing comes from nothing" principle might prove difficult

for Cudworth himself, if he is to account for the possibility of creation ex nihilo by God. Cudworth

addresses this worry in chapter V section 2. There are two worries: first that it might imply that

there can be no creation ex nihilo at all, and second that only spirit could create spirit, and body

body, so that God would be powerless to make anything corporeal. Cudworth adheres to the belief

that in order to cause something the cause must have the same quality as it brings about and have it

to a sufficient degree to be able to cause it in another. This ought to mean that God, if he is pure

spirit, would be in difficulty about the creation of what is corporeal. Cudworth praises the Italian

school of philosophy for perceiving that souls cannot be created from or perish into matter (hence

17 This charge is brought rather generally against all "Aristotle's old Materialists" by which

Cudworth means the ones whom Aristotle describes as having appealed to the material cause alone

(Metaphysics 983b6). However he then proceeds to exempt several Presocratic philosophers whom

Aristotle seems to have intended to include, such as Anaxagoras, Heraclitus and Zeno as well as

Thales, and, of course all the Pythagorean line, and he also takes this ancient kind of atheism by

omission to be quite different from what he calls the Democritic sort, so that in the end there seems

to be rather little left to be included in "Aristotle's old materialists". Thales is vindicated at

considerable length in III.xx on the basis of post-Aristotelian sources.


11/28


their theory that the souls were "insinuated or introduced into bodies in generations.") 18 But in fact,

Cudworth argues, there is a sense of the expression "nothing out of nothing" which is after all not

true or self evident, but rather we are all capable of producing new thingsnot bodies, but at least

thoughts. 'And it may well be thought to be as easy for God, or an omnipotent Being, to make a

whole world, matter and all,ejx oujk o[ntwn, "out of nothing" as it is for us to create a thought, or to

move a finger, or for the sun to send out rays, or a candle light; or lastly, for any opaque body to

produce the image of itself in glasses or water, or to project a shadow.' These are all examples of

creating something new, Cudworth suggests. And providing the relevant creation is something within

your power, it's not difficult to achieve.19 Cudworth finishes this chapter by showing that it is atheists,

not theists, who break the nothing out of nothing rule.

1. Some case studiesIt is worth looking a little more closely at some of these claims. Perhaps the least interesting and the

least important for our purposes is the second one in the list, the claim that Pythagoras got the

corpuscularian theory from Moses. In TIS I.ix Cudworth argues that the first inventor of atomism was

a Phoenician philosopher called Moschus, who lived before the Trojan Wars. In I.x Cudworth argues

that this Moschus, also to be identified with a character called Mochus mentioned by Iamblichus, was

in fact Moses (this seems to be not Cudworth's own idea but one already floated by the editor of the

text of Iamblichus).20 It is not immediately clear why we need this hypothesis, even for the task that

18 Vol 3, page 87.

19 Cudworth's attempt to resolve the problems of generating body from spirit are raised and

addressed in "Le Clerc's observations on the preceding section against those who deny that anything

can be made out of nothing" in Cudworth, The True Intellectual system of the Universe (with the Notes

and Dissertations of J. L. Mosheim) volume 3, pages 133-9.

20 Cudworth cites one "Mr Selden" (presumably John Selden, author of De Diis Syris) as

approving the conjecture of "Arcerius, the publisher of Jamblichus that this Mochus was no other than

the celebrated Moses of the Jews, with whose successors, the Jewish philosophers, priests and

prophets, Pythagoras conversed at Sidon." (I x). The edition of Iamblichus in question is Johannes

Arcerius's 1598 bilingual Greek and Latin edition, Iamblichus, Iamblichi Chalcidensis ex Syria cle De vita

Pythagor, & Protreptic orationes ad philosophiam lib. II. Nunquam hactenus visi: nunc ver Grc & Latin

primm editi cum necessariis castigationibus & notis, additae sunt in fine Theanus, Myi, Meliss &


12/28


Cudworth has set himself; but it tells us something about exactly how Cudworth wanted to account

for the relation between human reason and divine revelation. It seems to matter for him that the

truth about the nature of body, and about the relation between the corporeal and the incorporeal,

was indeed understood by the Greeks, but that they reached this understanding not just by the pure

light of reason, but with assistance from God, indirectly mediated by way of Moses and Pythagoras. So

whereas we might have thought that, as a rationalist and a Platonist, Cudworth would not have

needed to appeal to revelation to prove the truth of the atomist account of matter, but rather would

have held that reason shows it to be correct, still he wants to suggest that the source of the ancient

understanding of these matters was, in practice, not purely human science.

A similar story seems to be at work in Cudworth's efforts to show that there are traces of

Trinitarian thinking in the ancient philosophers. For sure, Cudworth was probably much intrigued and

delighted by finding that he could show that the majority of the philosophers, from Parmenides right

through to Plotinus, were not only monotheists of a sort, but also implicitly anticipated some of the

crucial features of the doctrine of the Trinity.21 Again we might expect that the point was to show

that religion comes naturally, and that a pure understanding uncorrupted by false doctrine yields

monotheistic and Trinitarian beliefs, and to a limited extent this does appear to be the point. But

again the source of the best Trinitarian material is to be found in what Cudworth thinks of as the

Platonic/Pythagorean school of thought.22 The chapter includes an extensive discussion of Parmenides,

whose views Cudworth knows directly from the verses quoted in Simplicius, (including some which

he pointedly observes are not included in Stephanus's Poesis Philosophica,) and also through the

spectacles of Plato's Parmenides and Plotinus (though he clearly separates the latter from the original

texts and treats them as interpretations worthy of respect rather than authoritative records of

Pythagor aliquot epistoliae Gr. & Lat., translated by Johannes Thodoretus Arcerius (Heidelberg: In

bibliopolio Commeliniano, 1598).

21 TIS IV xxxvi. Cudworth remarks at the end of Chapter IV that the chapter has run to

surprising length (Vol. 2, page 486). It seems clear that he found the project of tracing Trinitarian

thought in antiquity more entertaining than was really necessary for his task. It had also figured briefly

in Chapter I (Vol. 1. 41).

22TIS IV xx-xxii. He does not explicitly say here that this material derives from Moses, but

there are some allusions to the idea that it includes some corruptions of the Mosaic message, e.g. Vol.

2, 335.


13/28


Parmenides' meaning).23 He does grant that the early philosophers and theologians did not express

themselves very well, so that while they were really trying to describe the Trinity they tended to talk

as if there were three gods, not three persons of one god, and so on. This is why the later

interpretations of Parmenides offered by Plato and Plotinus make the matter more perspicuous. But

essentially, Cudworth suggests, the ancients were on the right track, and it was only their language

that was at fault.24

But we should move on. Philosophically this material on traces of true theology in the

ancient pagan thinkers is not very exciting: it was doubtless far more significant for Cudworth in

terms of what it showed about natural religion. It is time to get on to things that look more important

to us, in relation to our prejudices about what is important in Presocratic thinking.

The discovery of the incorporeal

One issue that strikes a modern chord is the question as to whether the Presocratic thinkers had a

notion of the incorporeal. Cudworth deals with this in chapter I, sections xix-xxv. Cudworth is

arguing against some unnamed recent thinker:

It has been indeed of late confidently asserted by some, that never any of the

ancient philosophers dreamed of any such thing as incorporeal substance; and

therefore they would bear men in hand, that it was nothing but an upstart and new-fangled invention of some bigotal religionists.

TIS I xix, vol. 1.34-5It is not clear who the "some" are, in this quotation. Mosheim confidently asserts that the challenge

had come from Hobbes and cites Leviathan chapter 12. There are in fact two candidate chapters in

Leviathan (chapter 12 and chapter 46 both attack the notion of incorporeal essences), as well as

relevant material in other minor works such as the "Considerations upon the reputation, loyalty,

manners, and religion of Thomas Hobbes"25 and "An historical narration concerning heresy"26. But in

23 See, for instance, TIS vol 2.40-41.24TIS IV xxxvi.

25 Thomas Hobbes, 'Considerations upon the reputation, loyalty, manners, and religion of

Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, written by himself by way of letter to a learned person (John Wallis,

D.D.)' in Sir William Molesworth (ed.), The English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury; now first

collected and edited(IV; London: John Bohn, 1840), 409-40, pages 426-7.


14/28


all these works Hobbes maintains a consistent position which is the exact opposite of what Cudworth

cites here. Hobbes suggests that it was precisely the ancient philosophers who dreamed up the idea

of incorporeal being,27 and it was those heathen philosophers who were the source of a corruption

that is quite absent from scripture and religion in its proper form:What kind of attribute, I pray you, is immaterial, or incorporeal substance?Where doyou find it in the Scripture? Whence came it hither but from Plato and Aristotle,

heathens, who mistook those thin inhabitants of the brain they see in sleep for so

many incorporealmen; and yet allowed them motion, which is proper only to thingscorporeal? Do you think it an honour to God to be one of these? And would youlearn Christianity from Plato and Aristotle? 28

Nowhere does Hobbes do what Cudworth mentions here, namely deny that incorporeal substance

figured anywhere among the ancient philosophers, or claim that it was a misguided invention of

"bigotal religionists".

It is not clear, then, whom Cudworth has in mind. There is nothing of this kind in Spinoza.

Pierre Gassendi and Francis Bacon are perhaps other possible candidates, though I have not traced

anything plausible there. In any case, whoever it was, Cudworth takes it upon himself to refute this

suggestion. He will show, first that Plato and Aristotle were fully aware of the idea of incorporeal

being, and then that it can also be traced in the Presocratic philosophers. He begins with Plato's

Gigantomachy in the Sophist:

Wherefore the same Plato tells us, that there had been always, as well, as then

there was, a perpetual war and controversy in the world, and, as he calls it, a kind of

gigantomachy betwixt these two parties or sects of men; the one, that held that

there was no other substance in the world besides body; the other, that asserted

incorporeal substance.

TIS I xix, vol. 1.35

26 Thomas Hobbes, 'An historical narration concerning heresy' in Sir William Molesworth

(ed.), The Collected works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury; now first collected and edited (IV; London:

John Bohn, 1840), 385-408, page 394.

27 "To conclude, there is nothing so absurd that the old philosophers (as Cicero saith, who

was one of them) have not some of them maintained. And I believe that scarce anything can be more

absurdly said in natural philosophy than that which now is called Aristotle's Metaphysics", (Leviathan

chapter 46).

28 Hobbes, 'Considerations upon the reputation, loyalty, manners, and religion of Thomas

Hobbes of Malmesbury, written by himself by way of letter to a learned person (John Wallis, D.D.)'

426-7. See also An answer to Dr Bramhall307. I am grateful to George MacDonald Ross and Jerry

Goodenough for directing me to the relevant passages in Hobbes.


15/28


Cudworth proceeds to quote the relevant passage from the Sophist in Greek and in English to

demonstrate his point. The point is a good one: Plato has set up a dispute between those who hold a

Hobbesian position, and those who grant that there are incorporeal essences as well as corporeal

reality. The fact that Plato describes such a dispute as having a long history ("but betwixt these two

there hath always been," saith he, "a great war and contention")29 implies not just that Plato himself is

aware of the notion of incorporeals, but that he considers that it goes back somewayindeed that it

makes historical sense to envisage the Eleatic Stranger, in conversation with the young Theaetetus in

the time of Socrates, speaking of it going back into the mists of time. In fact we are to understand that

the Eleatic Stranger is thinking of a dispute involving his countryman Parmenides. That point

Cudworth does not immediately make, however, since his immediate task is to show that Plato

himself was explicitly aware of the idea of incorporeal reality.

The second task is to show that the same was true of Aristotle (section xx). Thirdly, in

section xxi, Cudworth cites evidence of Epicurean arguments against incorporeal substance, in order

to demonstrate that such an idea had already been floated for the Epicureans to object to.

But the task that most engages Cudworth at this point is that of showing that the

philosophers before Plato had the notion of the incorporeal too. This occupies sections xxii to xxv of

the chapter. Cudworth claims that all philosophers who held that there was immortality of the soul

and all those who held that there was a God distinct from the visible world were committed to the

idea of incorporeal substance. The first candidate is Pherecydes of Syrus, on the basis of a report in

Cicero that he was the first to teach that human souls are eternal,30 a hint (apparently picked up from

St Augustine)31 that Pherecydes' discussions on the immortality of the soul were what first inspired

Pythagoras to take up philosophy, and a (surely spurious) letter from Thales to Pherecydes preserved

in Diogenes Laertius.32

The second candidate is Thales himself, and the third is Pythagoras. So we might notice that

Cudworth is not content to allow that the idea of incorporeality came late to Presocratic philosophy.

29 Cudworth TIS Vol 1.36, quoting Plato Sophist 246c.

30 Cicero Tusculan Disputations 1.16

31 Mosheim traces this specific story only in Augustine, while remarking that the idea that

Pherecydes was a teacher of Pythagoras is more widespread.

32 Diogenes Laertius 1.43.


16/28


He is trying to trace it to the very beginnings. Of course, we might protest at the quality of his

sources. His sources for the incorporeality of the divine in Thales are at least as bad, if not worse,

than those he gave for Pherecydes. There is a rather general statement from the Placita to the effect

that Thales, Pythagoras and Plato all thought that the souls was incorporeal; there is a reference to a

divine mindthat created things out of the original water, which is attributed to Thales in Cicero De

natura deorum;33 and some ingenious attempts by Cudworth to attribute various things of supposedly

Phoenician origin to Thales, on the grounds that Thales was of Phoenician extraction. Yet perhaps it is

unreasonable to complain about these resources. I suppose one might hope for a greater degree of

caution or scepticism about the reliability of the evidence, but it isn't as if Cudworth has missed out

on better evidence for or against these interpretations of Thales and Pherecydes. On the contrary, he

seems to have at his fingertips all conceivable evidence that might be brought on behalf of the position

he wants to maintain.

In the case of Pythagoras Cudworth does acknowledge a problem of lack of direct sources.

He gets round the difficulty, first by asserting that it goes more or less without question that

Pythagoras held the relevant views on the soul and god, and then by offering additional support by

inference backwards from Platonism, which certainly did, and was surely getting it from Pythagoras:

That he asserted the immortality of the soul, and consequently its immateriality, isevident from his doctrine of pre-existence and transmigration: and that he likewise

held an incorporeal deity distinct from the world, is a thing not questioned by any.

But if there were any need of proving it (because there are no monuments of his

extant), perhaps it might be done from hence, because he was the chief propagator

of that doctrine amongst the Greeks concerning three hypostases in the Deity.

TIS 1.41This provides a convenient excuse for Cudworth to anticipate his later theme concerning the

adumbration of the Trinity among the Greeks. The argument goes like this: Plato and Plotinus have

three divine hypostases. Both of them indicate that it was not a new invention but an ancient one. We

can infer that it came from Pythagoreanism (and is one of the Pythagorean corruptions which

Xenophon complains of in Plato's account of Socrates). Corporealists don't assert Trinitarian views.34

33 Cicero De natura deorum 1.10

34 This part of the argument seems weak, and it is not clear what it is that Cudworth thinks

not fit to mention at the end of xxii, but the point may be that if one asserted a trinity of corporeal

gods it would not be a trinity worthy of consideration.


17/28


Therefore if Pythagoras was a Trinitarian, as we have just deduced, he too must have been an

incorporealist in theology.

The next section (xxiii) deals briefly with Parmenides, proving that he held that substance

was incorporeal on the basis of a contrast between flux theorists (Heraclitus and Cratylus) and

proponents of stability (Parmenides and Melissus). The former are all materialists, according to

Cudworth, and the latter are committed to an immutable nature and eternal and immutable truths. So

the argument is based on a sort of pattern of correlation: stability goes with incorporeality, flux with

material stuffs.

The next section provides a detailed and lengthy defence of Empedocles against the charge

that he might have been an atheist (TIS I xxiv, vol. 1.42-51). The atheism challenge comes from

Aristotle's account of Empedocles, in particular the idea that knowledge is perception, the idea that

the soul is composed of the four elements, and the anti-teleological explanations including natural

selection. Cudworth's response, showing that Empedocles was not after all a materialist or an atheist,

comes in two parts. On the one hand he tries to discredit Aristotle's report about the natural

selection business, on the grounds that it is not replicated in any other author's account of

Empedocles:35

But what shall we then say to those other things, which Empedocles is charged withby Aristotle, that seem to have so rank a smell of atheism? Certainly those mongrel

and biform animals, that are said to have sprung up out of the earth by chance, look

as if they were more akin to Democritus than Empedocles; and probably it is the

fault of the copies, that it is read otherwise, there being no other philosopher that I

know of, that could find any such thing in Empedocles' poems.

TIS vol. 1.48.And second, having conceded that Aristotle's account might not be a misrepresentation but true to

Empedocles in his more extravagantly mechanistic moments, Cudworth appeals to a range of non-

Aristotelian accounts of Empedocles' theory to show that Empedocles built teleology into the

structure using love and strife (which he assimilates to his own teleologically oriented natural forces,

which he calls 'plastic powers' or plastic natures). The authorities to whom he appeals for this more

35 As Mosheim observes ad loc, the material relating to this theory is not exclusively in

Aristotle but also appears in PlutarchAdv. Colotes and Aelian De natural animalium (with fragment 61)

both of which we might have expected Cudworth to have known. It is also mentioned by Simplicius In

Phys 371.33, whose commentary on the Physics Cudworth cites on the next page (1.49) but that may

be thought to be too closely influenced by the text of Aristotle whose authority Cudworth is

questioning.


18/28


positive picture of Empedocles include Sextus Empiricus, Plutarch, Hierocles, Clement of Alexandria,

and a series of texts that Cudworth calls "those fragments of Empedocles' poems yet left", or the

"fragments of his still extant"36 among which he cites the lines we know as fr. 3.13 (Sextus Empiricus),

fragment 121 (part of his quotation from Hierocles), fragment 135 (derived from Aristotle's Rhetoric),

fragment 132 from Clement of Alexandria,37 fragment 134 from Tzetzes,38 and fragment 133 from

Clement of Alexandria or Theodoret.

It is noticeable that all but the first of these fragments cited by Cudworth belong to the

material that Diels was later to assign to the Katharmoi. Effectively Cudworth is juxtaposing the

religious material from non-Aristotelian authors against the mechanistic reading of Empedocles typical

of the Aristotelian tradition. The division roughly corresponds to the division between Physics and

Katharmoi on the traditional understanding of those titles. Cudworth, however, does not mention any

distinction between the poems of Empedocles, though he does refer to 'poems' in the plural. Of

course, it would not help his case to make space for the idea that Empedocles might have been

committed to atheistic mechanism in one poem and theism in the other!

The proof that early thinkers had a grasp of the incorporeal is completed in TIS I xxv with a

brief account of Anaxagoras's Nous.

The corpuscularian account of matter

Our second case study concerns the idea that thinkers before Leucippus and Democritus were

already committed to the idea that matter was composed of inert particles. Part of Cudworth's

project is to show that Democritus should not be credited with inventing atomism as such. Rather what

Democritus did was take over the atomism of earlier thinkers, and then cut out the spirit or theistic

side of things and try to leave matter intact to function on its own. Democritus is therefore not the

hero of the story, but the villain, since he was guilty of developing atheistic atomism, even though

36 vol. 1. 44; I.50;

37 As Mosheim notes ad loc, Cudworth re-reads this fragment as a condemnation of atheism

rather than a condemnation of superstition.

38 The words are also cited by Ammonius (and the first line only by Olympiodorus) but it

seems from the text that Cudworth gives that he is citing it from Tzetzes.


19/28


atomism as it stands is fine as an account of the material aspects of the cosmos, as are the mechanistic

accounts of how it functions when left to itself.

Had Democritus been the inventor of atomism, of course we should have had to admire that

achievement. But atomism was not new with Leucippus or Democritus, Cudworth suggests. Thinkers

well before Democritus had already subscribed to the atomist physics, at least in their account of

matter. The project to trace the pre-history of atomism in the earlier Presocratic Philosophers is first

introduced in section v of chapter I, where Cudworth explains that the atheistic determinism of

thinkers like Democritus is founded upon an atomistic account of matter:

Now this atheistical system of the world, that makes all things to be materially and

mechanically necessary, without a God, is built upon a peculiar physiological

hypothesis, different from what hath been generally received for many ages; which is

called by some atomical or corpuscular, by others mechanical: of which we musttherefore needs give a full and perfect account.

TIS I.v, (vol. 1.11)When Cudworth says that the physiological hypothesis is peculiar, he does not mean that it is funny

or wrong, but rather that it is distinctive. When he says that it is different from what has been

generally received he means only that it differs from the Medieval and Aristotelian physics that has

been in circulation prior to the early modern period at whose dawning he is now placed. He does not

mean that it had no prior history in antiquity. It is that prior history that he is now about to establish.

The distinctive views that belong to the corpuscular physics are described thus:

The atomical physiology supposes that body is nothing else but diastatovnajntivtupon, that is, extended bulk; and resolves therefore, that nothing is to beattributed to it, but what is included in the nature and idea of it, viz. more or less

magnitude, with divisibility into parts, figure and position, together with motion or

rest, but so as that no part of body can ever move itself, but is always moved by

something else. And consequently it supposes that there is no need of any thing else

besides the simple elements of magnitude, figure, site and motion (which are all

clearly intelligible as different modes of extended substance) to solve the corporeal

phenomena by; and therefore, not of any substantial forms distinct from the

matter

TIS I.v, vol.1 11-12.After a discussion of the evidence for attributing the invention of this theory to Democritus (I.vi),

Cudworth begins in section vii to explore the evidence for discerning physical theories of this sort in

other thinkers before Plato. The first candidate is the Protagoras of the Theaetetus. Here, in the first

part of the Theaetetus, Cudworth correctly locates the idea that perception of colours and the like

are secondary qualities that emerge in the perceiver and are not intrinsic properties of the physical

objects. However, Protagoras is not necessarily earlier than Democritus or independent of him, as


20/28


Cudworth grants. And in any case, Cudworth has a more ambitious idea to put forward. I suspect

that part at least of the following passage is done with a twinkle in the eye:

However, we are of the opinion that neither Democritus, nor Protagoras, nor

Leucippus, was the first inventor of this philosophy; and our reason is, because they

were all three of them Atheists, (though Protagoras alone was banished for thatcrime by the Athenians) and we cannot think that any Atheists could be the

inventor of it, much less that it was the genuine spawn and brood of atheism itself,

as some conceit; because, however these Atheists adopted it to themselves,

endeavouring to serve their turns of it, yet if rightly understood, it is the most

effectual engine against atheism that can be.

TIS I.viii (vol. 1.19-20)Nevertheless, it should be noted that Cudworth's argument here is not that atomism is good and true

and therefore cannot have been thought up by an atheist (because atheists don't have access to good

inventions),39 but rather that it is unlikely that an atheist would have invented this physical theory

because it is a theory that effectively undermines atheism. So in fact, it is only because they failed to

understand it that any of the atheists adopted it. If one understood it properly, one would reject it, if

one was an atheist. So the irony is that Cudworth will draw the antidote to atheism out of the very

theories that the atheists have used in its support.

Cudworth proceeds to reconstruct the origins of atomism in early Greek philosophy. First

there is the material already discussed above, concerning Moschus and Moses.40 Secondly an argument

to the effect that Democritus was inspired by Pythagoras is intended to supply further evidence that

Pythagoras must have subscribed to atomism, and was the source of Democritus's commitment to

atomism.41 Third, we have an argument to the effect that Pythagorean monads were corpuscles, that

is small material bodies. This claim is supported by a variety of evidence, including Ecphantus (or,

rather, Ecphantus cited by Stobaeus), the material in Aristotle's Metaphysics M where he suggests that

the Pythagoreans took their monads to have extension,42 some further material from Aristotle's de

39 This appears to be what Mosheim understood to be the gist of the argument and against

which he launches a scathing attack in his footnote on page 19.

40TIS 1.ix-x. See above note 20.

41TIS I.xi.42Metaphysics M 6, 1080b19-20.


21/28


anima,43 and an epigram from the Greek anthology. All this information appears to have been derived

from a discussion of the same subject by Pierre Gassendi.44

After Pythagoras, the next candidate is Empedocles, who is the subject of sections xiii and xiv

of Chapter I. A whole host of support is mustered for the view that Empedocles was an atomist. First

Cudworth cites two lines of fragment 8 (fuvsi" oujdenov" ejstin eJkavstou, ajlla movnon mivxi"

diavllaxiv" te migevntwn)45 and offers two alternative English renderings:

"Nature is nothing but the mixture and separation of things mingled;" or thus,

"There is no production of any thing anew, but only mixture and separation of

things mingled." Which is not only to be understood of animals, according to the

Pythagoric doctrine of the transmigration of souls, but also, as himself expounds,

universally of all bodies, that their generation and corruption is nothing but mixture

and separation; or, as Aristotle expresses it, suvgkrisi" kai; diavkrisi", "concretionand secretion" of parts, together with change of figure and order."

TIS vol. 1.25-6That is, the idea that things develop and decay in virtue of mixture and separation is taken as evidence

of composition out of atomic parts. There then follows some reflection on the fact that Empedocles

held that there were four elements, earth, air, fire and water, and that these elements are what other

things are composed of, and they do not themselves change into one another. Does this count against

43De anima 409a10-11. This is part of an argument against Xenocrates. Aristotle is interested

mainly in showing that anything with extension is in effect divisible into a moving and a moved part.

This applies to Democritean atoms even if they are envisaged as points with nothing besides size. It is

not clear that Cudworth can get his more generic claim that all points are minimal bodies. But the

passage is hard to understand in any case.

44 As noted above, Pierre Gassendi (1592-1652) had been working on Epicurean subjects as

his main enterprise throughout his life, from 1649 (Gassendi, Animadversiones in decimum librum

Diogenis Laertii. Qui est de vita, moribus, placitisque Epicuri .... ) to 1668 (Gassendi, Philosophi Epicuri

syntagma ) and it is likely that Cudworth knew and was influenced by all these works. Walter

Charleton's translation and expansion of the Animadversiones appeared in English in 1654 (Walter

Charleton, Physiologica Epicuro-Gassendo-Charltoniana or a Fabrick of Science Natural, upon the hypothesis

of atoms, founded by Epicurus, repaired by Petrus Gassendus, Augmented by Walter Charleton (London:

Printed By Thomas Newcomb, for Thomas Heath, 1654) but if Cudworth is indebted to Gassendi for

detailed accumulation of the ancient source materials for presocratic atomism he must have known

Gassendi's own work.

45 Cudworth is probably citing from Plutarch (hence the word eJkavstou in line 1, where

Diels prefers aJpavntwn from Aetius). He has omitted line 2, probably simply for reasons of relevance

to his argument.


22/28


the idea that Empedocles was working with atoms?46 Cudworth suggests that it is perfectly compatible

with atomism, and that the concretions of atoms that make up earth air fire and water played a

similar role in Democritus's atomism. Cudworth also cites evidence from Plutarch and Stobaeus (or,

as we might say, the Placita tradition) which attributes the idea of small o[gkoi to Empedocles. He also

questions whether Aristotle is right that the elements never change into one another, in

Empedocles.47

In section xiv there is an impressive treatment of Empedocles' theory of perception, to show

that it is basically identical to that found in Epicurus, and functions by way of effluvia from bodies

entering the pores of the senses. Support for this is found in Plato (Meno 76c7-d2, 76d4-5),Aristotle

(De caelo 3.7, 305b2-5), and the Placita. Finally, this explains the enthusiasm that Lucretius expressed

for Empedocles, so that Lucretius too serves as a proof of the atomistic reading of Empedocles:

We see therefore, that it was not without cause, that Lucretius did no highly extol

Empedocles, since his physiology was really the same with that of Epicurus and

Democritus; only that he differed from them in some particularities, as in excluding

a vacuum, and denying such physical minima as were indivisible.

TIS I.xiv, vol. 1, p.30.

Anaxagoras might seem a less likely candidate for being identified as a closet atomist, but

Cudworth is undeterred. The real problem with Anaxagoras is not that he was opposed to atomism

as that he just did not really understand it, and foolishly substituted a slightly different theory (but still

one that involved atoms). The argument for this view appeals to the idea that Anaxagoras, like the

46 It is not quite clear why the hypothetical objector would think that the four element

theory was incompatible with atomism. Possibly the idea is that elements are uniform stuffs, not

particulate nor composed out of smaller parts. But is seems more likely that the problem is that the

atoms would be the explanatory factor, rather than the elements, in an atomistic theory, and that

there would be no reason to speak of four elements as the stuffs from which other things were

compounded. It would be helpful to know whether Cudworth understood the four elements in

Aristotle to be composed of atoms, but this does not figure as a topic for discussion in the TIS.

Cudworth's interest in Aristotle is primarily for his views on incorporeal substance (TIS I.xx, I. xlv,

and IV.xxiv).

47 The structure of the argument here seems to imply that Cudworth thinks that an atomistic

structure would entail that elements could change into one another, although it is not clear why this

should be. The claim that the elements are not permanent appeals to the authority of Lucretius ("who

was better versed in that philosophy" sc. than Aristotle), and to Empedocles fragment 26.2.


23/28


rest, insists on the 'nothing comes out of nothing' principle and hence uses "concretion and secretion"

in place of "generation and corruption" (i.e. there is no real generation and decay but only coming

together and moving apart). The mistake he made was to suppose that a thing must be made out of

atoms that are like the end result:

Yet, as his Homoiomereia is represented by Aristotle, Lucretius and other authors,

that bone was made of bony atoms, and flesh of fleshy, red things of red atoms, and

hot things of hot atoms; these atoms being supposed to be endued originally with so

many several forms and qualities essential to them, and inseparable from them,

there was indeed a wide difference betwixt his philosophy and the atomical.

TIS I xv (vol. 1 p.31).The difference that strikes Cudworth as crucial is this idea that the phenomenal properties of a thing

must be replicated in the atoms of which it is made. That diverges fundamentally from the basic

principle that secondary qualities of things are mental effects in the perceiving subject, generated by

atoms that do not possess those qualities in themselves: and it was that thesis that was supposed to

be crucial to generating the idea of inert matter that has its effect on spiritual substance. Anaxagoras

diverges from this in having all the phenomenal properties represented in the atoms, and indeed

having a predominance of atoms with the phenomenal property that predominates, thereby building

those secondary qualities in as the essential properties of the atoms that cause them.

This move is the one that makes Cudworth conclude that poor old Anaxagoras just didn't

get it. The whole point of atomism, as Cudworth sees it, is to divide the physical cause from the

mental effect and create secondary effects in perceiving subjects that are not there in the essential

nature of body. This is his verdict on Anaxagoras's mishandling of this idea:

However, this seems to have had its rise from nothing else but this philosopher's

not being able to understand the atomical hypothesis, which made him decline it,

and substitute this spurious and counterfeit atomism of his own in the room of it.

TIS I xv, vol. 1.31Because Anaxagoras did not understand that you can generate these effects by using atoms that don't

have the qualities they generate, he had to put in a spurious substitute theory, that introduced atoms

such as hot and red. These weren't needed in atomism of the purer sort.

We might be struck by the fact that Cudworth makes no comment on the infinite divisibility

of Anaxagoras's primary substances. For someone to be an atomist, on Cudworth's story, it does not


24/28


seem to be necessary for the person to be committed to finite divisibility of matter.48 Rather the

crucial idea is that phenomenal items be composed of basic substances that are re-arranged to

produce different effects, thereby generating apparent changes of things without real changes in the

underlying stuffs. Whether the particles are thought to be finite in size or infinitely divisible is less

important for the structure of the thought than the idea that there is a particular kind of relation

between material composition and phenomenological experiences.

Atheism in the early Presocratic Philosophers

So far we have looked mainly at material from the early part of Cudworth's treatise. It is

time to sample a bit of his work from chapter III, the introduction to the confutation of atheism.

Cudworth starts by drawing a distinction between two kinds of atheism. On the one hand

there is the "atomical atheism" (which he has been presenting with all its merits in chapter II); on the

other hand we have to make space for another kind which is to be called "hylozoic atheism". The

introduction of Hylozoic atheism almost certainly reflects Cudworth's interest in the work of Spinoza,

although for the reasons discussed above, Spinoza does not get mentioned by name.

The Hylozoic atheist is like the atomical atheist in admitting only one kind of substance,

which is corporeal substance. But whereas the atomical materialist denies that the matter has life, the

hylozoic materialist thinks that matter itself has "a certain natural or plastic life" 49 so it is not inert as

in the atomistic account of matter. Hylozoists can then (in theory) be either atheists or not. Hylozoic

materialists can appeal to the idea of natural plastic life in things to explain how creation can function

very well without any deity at all, and these are hylozoic atheists. Others posit a corporeal soul and

corporeal deities endowed with natural animal life, and this makes them appear to be theists, but with

corporeal gods, so that they are both theists and materialists. However, in fact Cudworth thinks that

48 Cf. the comment on Empedocles and indivisible minima at the end of the quotation above,

from volume 1 page 30.

49TIS III.i, vol. 1.144-5.


25/28


26/28


Plutarch and Diogenes Laertius, Cudworth sets out to prove that Thales held that mind was another

principle over against matter. In effect, Cudworth suggests, Thales has been misrepresented because

he left no writings.

It remains then to find in Anaximander the origin of the worst kind of atheism. In this case

Cudworth considers a variety of counter-evidence that implies that Anaximander meant his Infinite to

be God, but concludes that that is not so, and Anaximander is definitely a materialist. The description

of the infinite matter as qei'on is just a way of describing the first principle, but that doesn't stop it still

being "senseless and stupid matter".54

Rather little is left here to meet the requirements of Aristotle's description of materialists

who allowed no room for the divine. Cudworth mentions a train of philosophers in the wake of

Anaximander, in particular Anaximenes, Hippon the Atheist, Diogenes of Apollonia "and many more".

We might think that actually there were rather few left once the rest have been excused or removed

as atomistic atheists. And indeed it is not clear that any of these should correctly be described as

hylozoic atheists, since the matter that they were appealing to seems to be described as senseless and

stupid.

The other main candidate for this description of hylozoist seems to be Heraclitus. Heraclitus

is said to have asserted a corporeal God, in the form of intelligent fire, 55 and that all substance was

material. In chapter III Cudworth takes care to show that the intelligence in Heraclitus's universe is

more than just plant-like pre-programmed development (a "plastic nature"), but is actually endowed

with animate intelligence. Here, it seems we have a corporealist who is also a theist, though by

Cudworth's own admission (in section iii of Chapter III) anyone who holds that the only substance is

material cannot really be a theist but must be a hylozoic atheist.

At the end of the day, it is not clear that the analysis of the Milesians and Heraclitus yields a

coherent account. It is not clear that any of them are correctly classified even in accordance with

Cudworth's own description of his categories. But it still seems that the notion of the hylozoic view

of matter, and its difference from the inert matter of the atomistic outlook is a useful distinction, or

at least one that invites us to think about the different ways in which the Presocratics brought life into

the cosmos.

54TIS III.xxii55TIS I.xliii, III.vii


27/28


It is also clear that Cudworth had amassed an amazing quantity of evidence from a

spectacular range of sources, and that he was about as well equipped as one could be, in the

seventeenth century, without Hippolytus and without Diels-Kranz, to grapple with the Presocratics as

philosophers with significant things to say (and things that were important as philosophy). It also

seems to me that his interpretations are worth taking seriously, especially where they challenge or

engage with current received opinions.56

Bibliography

Tractatus theologico-politicus : continens dissertationes aliquot, quibus ostenditur libertatem philosophandi non

tantum salva pietate, & reipublicae pace posse concedi: sed eandem nisi cum pace reipublicae,ipsaque pietate tolli non posse. (Hamburgi: Apud Henricum Knraht, 1670).Charleton, Walter, Physiologica Epicuro-Gassendo-Charltoniana or a Fabrick of Science Natural, upon the

hypothesis of atoms, founded by Epicurus, repaired by Petrus Gassendus, Augmented by WalterCharleton (London: Printed By Thomas Newcomb, for Thomas Heath, 1654).

Cudworth, Ralph, A discourse concerning the true notion of the Lord's Supper, by R.C. (London: RichardCotes, 1642).

Cudworth, Ralph, The union of Christ and the Church; in a shadow, by R.C. (London: Richard Bishop,1642).

Cudworth, Ralph, A sermon preached before the Honourable House of Commons at Westminster, March31, 1647 by R. Cudworth (Cambridge: Printed by Roger Daniel, 1647).

Cudworth, Ralph, The true intellectual system of the universe : wherein, all reason and philosophy of atheismis confuted ; and its impossibility demonstrated(London: printed for Richard Royston, 1678).

Cudworth, Ralph, A treatise concerning eternal and immutable morality, ed. Edward Chandler Bishop ofDurham (London: printed for James and John Knapton, 1731).

Cudworth, Ralph, Systema intellectuale huius universi ... Accedunt reliqua ... opuscula / J.L. Moshemius ...reliqua omnia ex anglico latine vertit ... translated by Johann Lorenz Mosheim (Jenae, 1733).

Cudworth, Ralph, The true intellectual system of the universe : the first part; wherein all the reason andphilosophy of atheism is confuted, ... With A discourse concerning the true notion of the Lord'ssupper; ... / By Ralph Cudworth. Part 1., ed. Thomas Birch 2 vols. (Second edition edn.; London:printed for J. Walthoe, D. Midwinter, J. and J. Bonwick, W. Innys, R. Ware [and 17 others inLondon], 1743).

Cudworth, Ralph, The True Intellectual system of the Universe (with the Notes and Dissertations of J. L.Mosheim), ed. John Harrison, 3 vols. (London: Thomas Tegg, 1845).

Cudworth, Ralph, A treatise of freewill, edited by John Allen, and An introduction to Cudworth's treatise byW.R. Scott (17th and 18th Century British Philosophy, Thoemmes reprints; London:

Routledge/Thoemmes Press, 1992).Cudworth, Ralph, A Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality with A Treatise of Freewill, ed.

Sarah Hutton (Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy; Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1996).

Gassendi, Pierre, Animadversiones in decimum librum Diogenis Laertii. Qui est de vita, moribus, placitisqueEpicuri .... 1 vols. (Lugduni, 1649).

Gassendi, Pierre, De vita et moribus Epicuri, libri octo (Ed. altera auctior & correctior edn.; Hag-Comitum: A. Vlacq, 1656).

Gassendi, Pierre, Philosophi Epicuri syntagma (London: Ex officina Johannis Redmayne, 1668).

56 I am grateful to Oliver Primavesi for prompting me to investigate Ralph Cudworth's work

on the Presocratics, and to the participants in the Munich colloquium for useful comments and

responses.


28/28


Hobbes, Thomas, 'An historical narration concerning heresy', in Sir William Molesworth (ed.), TheCollected works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury; now first collected and edited (IV; London:John Bohn, 1840), 385-408, reprinted in Routledge Thoemmes Press (facsimile) 1992.

Hobbes, Thomas, 'Considerations upon the reputation, loyalty, manners, and religion of ThomasHobbes of Malmesbury, written by himself by way of letter to a learned person (John Wallis,D.D.)', in Sir William Molesworth (ed.), The English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury;

now first collected and edited (IV; London: John Bohn, 1840), 409-40, reprinted in RoutledgeThoemmes Press (facsimile) 1992.Iamblichus, Iamblichi Chalcidensis ex Syria cle De vita Pythagor, & Protreptic orationes ad philosophiam

lib. II. Nunquam hactenus visi: nunc ver Grc & Latin primm editi cum necessariiscastigationibus & notis, additae sunt in fine Theanus, Myi, Meliss & Pythagor aliquot epistoliaeGr. & Lat., translated by Johannes Thodoretus Arcerius (Heidelberg: In bibliopolioCommeliniano, 1598).

Le Clerc, Jean, Bibliotheque Choisie: pour servir de suite a la Bibliotheque universelle, vols 1-27 vols.(Amsterdam: Chez Henry Schelte, 1703-1713).

Masham, Lady Damaris,A discourse concerning the love of God(London: printed for Awnsham and JohnChurchil, at the Black-Swan in Pater-noster-row, 1696).

Masham, Lady Damaris, Occasional thoughts in reference to a vertuous or Christian life (London: Printedfor A. and J. Churchill, 1705).

More, Henry, Enchiridion ethicum : praecipua moralis philosophiae rudimenta complectens, illustratautplurimum veterum monumentis, & ad probitatem vitae perpetu accommodata / per HenricumMorum (London: Excudebat J. Flesher, venale autem habetur apud Guilielmum Morden,1668).

Passmore, J. A., Ralph Cudworth: an interpretation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1951).Rochot, Bernard, Les Travaux de Gassendi sur picure et sur l'Atomisme, 1619-1658 (Paris: Librairie

Philosophique J. Vrin, 1944).Spinoza, Benedict de, Renati Des Cartes Principiorum philosophi pars I, & II, more geometrico

demonstrat / per Benedictum de Spinoza (Amstelodami: apud Johannem Riewerts, 1663).Wise, Thomas,A confutation of the reason and philosophy of atheism : being in a great measure either an

abridgment or an improvement of what Dr. Cudworth offerd to that purpose in his True intellectualsystem of the universe, 2 vols. (London: printed by J. D. for A. and J. Churchil, Mat. Wotton, R.Knaplock and D. Midwinter, and Andrew Bell, 1706).

ralph cudworthdraft

Documents