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cerning the road they are about to travel, is but part of the scheme with which he set out. In his preface, he tells us,

"I acknowledge, that when I engaged the press, I intended only a discourse concerning liberty and necessity, or, to speak out more plainly, against the fatal necessity of all actions and events; which, upon whatsoever grounds or principles maintained, will, as we conceive, serve the design of atheism, and undermine Christianity, and all religion, as taking away all guilt and blame, punishments and rewards, and plainly rendering a day of judgement ridiculous; and it is evident, that some have pursued it of late, in order to that end. But afterwards we considered, that this, which is indeed a controversy concerning the true intellectual system of the universe, does in the full extent thereof, take in other things; the necessity of all actions and events being maintained by several persons upon very different grounds, according to that tripartite fatalism mentioned by us in the beginning of the first chapter. For, first, the Democritic Fate is nothing but the material necessity of all things without a God, in supposing senseless matter necessarily moved to be the only original and principal of all things; which therefore is called by Epicurus the physiological, by us the atheistic fate. Besides which, the divine fate is also bipartite : some Theists supposing God both to decree and do all things in us (evil as well as good), or by his immediate influence to determinate all actions, and so make them alike necessary to us. From whence it follows, that his will is no way regulated or determined by any essential and immutable goodness and justice; or that he hath nothing of morality in his nature, he being only arbitrary will omnipotent. As also, that all good and moral evil, to us creatures, are mere thetical and positive things; vów, and not pucu, by law or command only, and not by nature. This therefore may be called the divine fate, immoral and violent. Again, there being other divine fatalists, who acknowledge such a Deity, as both suffers other things, besides itself, to act, and hath an essential goodness and justice in its nature, and consequently, that there are things, just and unjust to us naturally, and not by law and arbitrary constitution only; and yet nevertheless take away from men all such liberty as might make them capable of praise and dispraise, rewards and punishments, and objects of distributive justice; they conceiving necessity to be intrinsical to the nature of every thing, in the actings of it, and nothing of contingency to be found any where; from whence it will follow, that nothing could possibly have been otherwise in the whole world than it is. And this may be called the divine fate moral, (as the other immoral) and natural (as the other violent); it being a concatenation or implexed series of causes, all in themselves necessary, depending upon a Deity moral (if we may so speak); that is such as is essentially good, and naturally just, as the head thereof: the first contriver and orderer of all. Which kind of divine fate hath not only been formerly asserted by the Stoics, but also, of late, by divers modern writers. Wherefore, of the three fatalisms, or false hypotheses of the universe, mentioned in the beginning of this book, 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 factitious things, made by arbitrary will and command only); the third and last, such a theism, as acknowledges not only a God, or omnipotent understanding being, but also natural justice and morality, founded in him, and derived from him; nevertheless no liberty from necessity any where, and therefore no distributive or retributive justice in the world.. Whereas these three things are (as we conceive) the fundamentals or essentials of true religion. First, that all things in the world do not float without a head and governor; but that there is a God, an omnipotent understanding being, presiding over all. Secondly, that this God, being essentially good and just, there is Quo naλòv nai díxarov, something in its own nature immutably and eternally just and unjust; and not by arbitrary will, law, and command only. And, lastly, that there is something i'u, or that we are so far forth principals or masters of our own actions, as to be accountable to justice for them, or to make us guilty and blame-worthy for what we do amiss, and to deserve punishment accordingly."

Our author's design was then the establishment of these three points: but the first part of the work grew beneath his hands, and spread itself into an unanticipated extent. To overthrow the principles of atheism, it was necessary to state them to overthrow them effectually, it was also necessary to state them fairly, to present all the several shades, and bearings, and doublings, of the atheistic argument: and this was not to be done without quotations, and these quotations were to be translated, and these translations to be defended as accurate, and the inferences from them to be established as fair and legitimate. There was need to examine the writings of philosophers and of poets, of every description, gay or grave, dull or ingenious; to unravel the tangled web of sophistry, to hold up to the light the various logical deformities of the atheistic school, to disperse the mass of misty words, and look for some residuum of meaning. Cudworth lived in times when there was no opportunity of quoting quotations; it was necessary that he should really read what he would seem to have read. In those days, it was no easy task to make a book, and no light work to read one. Reading was then an employment, not merely a recreation. It consisted of something more solid than the flippancies of chit-chat, and the bandying of truisms in the shape of paradoxes. Books were written in the study, that they might be read in the study; and, for the most part, the readers were better paid for their trouble than the writers. But the latter had their reward in the consciousness of having laboured for the information and improvement of society, and in the anticipation of names that should live.

Authors, however, even then had their share of mortification and disappointment, and narrow-minded opposition. Will

it be believed, that the honest and studious author of the True Intellectual System of the Universe could not escape the shafts of calumny, but that his sincerity was called into question? That, instead of receiving the well merited praise which his refutation of atheism demanded, he should be accused of entertaining those very principles which he opposed, and that this very accusation should be founded in his having fairly stated those doctrines which he as fairly overturned? That this, however, was the case appears from a few passages which we shall extract from a brief memoir of the author, prefixed to Birch's edition. After speaking of some objections made by a Catholic divine to the view which Cudworth had taken of the pagan idolatry, his learned editor proceeds:

"But let us now see, in how severe a manner he was treated, even by a Protestant divine, Mr. John Turner, in his Discourse of the Messiah. He tells us, ' We must conclude Dr. Cudworth to be himself a tritheistic; a sect, for which, I believe, he may have a kindness, because he loves hard words, or something else, without either stick or trick, which I will not name, because his book pretends to be written against it.' And again, that the most that charity itself can allow the doctor, if it were to step forth, and speak his most favourable character to the world, is, that he is an Arian, a Socinian, or a Deist.

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"Mr. Dryden likewise tells us, that our author has raised such strong objections against the being of a God and Providence, that many think he has not answered them.' And the late Earl of Shaftesbury, in his Moralists, a rhapsody, has the following passage: You know the common fate of those who dare to appear fair authors. What was that pious and learned man's case, who wrote the Intellectual System of the Universe? I confess, it was pleasant enough to consider, that though the whole world were no less satisfied with his capacity and learning, than with his sincerity in the cause of the Deity; yet was he accused of giving the upper hand to the atheists, for having only stated their reasons and those of their adversaries fairly together.'

"Such was the treatment which our great author received for his immortal volume; wherein, as Mr. Warburton says, with a boldness uncommon indeed, but very becoming a man conscious of his own integrity, and of the truth and evidence of his cause, he launched out into the immensity of the Intellectual System, and at his first essay, penetrated the very darkest recesses of antiquity, to strip Atheism of all its disguises, and drag up the lurking monster to conviction. Where, though few readers could follow him, yet the very slowest were able to unravel his secret purpose-to tell the world— that he was an Atheist in his heart, and an Arian in his book. However, thus ran the popular clamour against this excellent person. Would the reader know the consequence? Why, the zealots inflamed the bigots :

"Twas the time's plague, when madmen led the blind :

:

The silly calumny was believed; the much injured author grew disgusted; his ardour slackened; and the rest and far greatest part of the defence never appeared."

We have made these extracts as testimony to the matter of fact, and though we have represented Warburton and Shaftesbury as sympathizing with the fate of Cudworth, we would guard against any insinuation that the author of the Intellectual System had any sympathy of sentiment with the paradoxical bishop, or the sceptical and arrogant peer. All that these three men had in common, was a deep and original habit of thought, accompanied with a boldness in stating their opinions, and a recklessness of the consequences which might be deduced from them. But Cudworth never went out of his way for the sake of paradox, never degenerated into affectations for the purpose of displaying originality, was content to be full of his subject, instead of making his subject full of himself; it was not his aim to wrap himself in the clouds of conceitedness, and to make himself obscure to the multitude, but to render himself as intelligible as the subject would admit. His object was to seek for the truth wherever it might be found, and to communicate truth to whomsoever it was desirable. Warburton indeed in the above extract says, " few readers could follow him." This is a piece of transparent common-place vanity, a pleasant mode in which a man may advertise his own profundity, insinuating that himself is one of the favoured few who can see so much farther than the rest of the world. The fact is, that there is not, from one end of the Intellectual System to the other, a single section or train of reasoning, which may not be well understood by any average degree of intellect, or by any one at all accustomed to abstraction. Herein is the great value and lasting beauty of the work: it is not like the Divine Legation by Warburton, that is, merely admired for its author's ingenuity, but its merits are real and substantial. We do not rise from its perusal, thinking that the author could equally well have advocated the opposite system, but we are satisfied that the mind has followed the leadings of conviction. Cudworth does not argue as a pleader who is engaged to make the best of a cause, but sums up, at length, the evidence, like an honest judge who sees where the right lies.

But it is time we turn our attention to the work; which, though but a part of the author's intention, is whole in itself. The work is divided into five chapters of which the first contains an account of the atomic physiology, as made the ground of the Democritic fate, which is one of the three false hypotheses of the Intellectual System. In this chapter it is shewn, that neither Democritus nor Leucippus were inventors

of this doctrine of atoms, but that it had a much more ancient origin, and is, so far as relates to the material universe, the true philosophy.

"And whereas," says our author, "we conceive this atomic physiology, as to the essentials thereof, to be unquestionably true, viz.— That the only principles of bodies are magnitude, figure, site, motion, and rest; and that the qualities and forms of inanimate bodies are really nothing, but several combinations of these, causing several fancies in us; (which excellent discovery, therefore, so along ago made, is a notable instance of the wit and sagacity of the ancients;) so do we, in the next place, make it manifest, that this atomic physiology, rightly understood, is so far from being either the mother or nurse of atheism, or any ways favorable thereunto, (as is vulgarly supposed) that it is indeed the most directly opposite to it of any, and the greatest defence against the same. For, first, we have discovered, that the principle, upon which this atomology is founded, and from whence it sprung, was no other than this, nothing out of nothing, in the true sense thereof; or that nothing can be caused by nothing; from whence it was concluded, that in natural generations there was no new real entity produced, which was not before; the genuine consequence whereof was two-fold; that the qualities and forms of inanimate bodies are no entities really distinct from the magnitude, figure, site, and motion of parts; and that souls are substances incorporeal, not generated out of matter. Where we have shewed, that the Pythagoric doctrine of the pre-existence of souls, was founded upon the very same principles with the atomic physiology. And it is from this very principle rightly understood, that ourselves afterwards undertake to demonstrate the absolute impossibility of atheism. Moreover, we have made it undeniably evident, that the intrinsic constitution of this atomic physiology also is such, as that whoever admits it, and rightly understands it, must needs acknowledge incorporeal substance; which is the absolute overthrow of atheism. And from hence alone it is certain to us, without any testimonies from antiquity, that Democritus and Leucippus could not possibly be the first inventors of this philosophy, they either not rightly understanding it, or else wilfully depraving the same; and the atomic atheism being really nothing else, but a rape committed upon the atomic physiology. For which reason we do by no means here applaud Plato, nor Aristotle, in their rejecting this most ancient atomic physiology, and again introducing that unintelligible first matter, and those exploded qualities and forms, into philosophy. For though this were probably done by Plato, out of a disgust and prejudice against the atomic atheists, which made him not so well consider nor understand that physiology; yet was he much disappointed of his expectation herein, that atomology, which he exploded, (rightly understood,) being really the greatest bulwark against atheism; and, on the contrary, those forms and qualities, which he espoused, the natural seed thereof, they, besides their unintelligible darkness, bringing something out of nothing, in the impossible sense; which we shew to be the inlet of all atheism. And thus, in this first chapter,

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