Cudworth, RALPH, the chief figure in the group of 'Cambridge Platonists,' was born in 1617 at Aller, in Somersetshire, and admitted pensioner of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 1632. He graduated B.A. in 1635 and M.A. in 1639, and was in the same year elected fellow of his college, where he became a popular tutor. In 1645 he was appointed by parliament Master of Clare Hall, and in the same year regius professor of Hebrew. In 1650 he was presented to the college living of North Cadbury, in Somersetshire, and in 1654 was elected Master of Christ's College, an appointment the confirmation of which at the Restoration his acquiescence with the rule of the Commonwealth did not prevent. In 1662 he was presented by Archbishop Sheldon to the rectory of Ashwell, Hertfordshire; and in 1678 he was installed prebendary of Gloucester. He died at Christ's College, July 26, 1688. His daughter Damaris, who became the second wife of Sir Francis Matcham of Oates, in Essex, was a friend of Locke, and herself wrote a well-reasoned Discourse concerning the Love of God (1696).
Cudworth's great work, entitled The True Intellectual System of the Universe, was published in 1678. It is a learned, ample, and discursive work, singularly large-minded and sagacious; but its logical consistency as a consecutive argument is somewhat marred by discussions on such subjects as the true meaning of the pagan mythology, and the relation of the Platonic and Christian trinities. Its aim was to establish the reality of a supreme divine Intelligence against the materialism of Democritus and Epicurus, the 'atheism of atomicism,' to vindicate the eternal reality of moral ideas against the old nominalists and their successors; and to prove the reality of moral freedom and responsibility in man as against pantheistic naturism and stoicism. The only basis for a philosophy of religion rests on the conception of man as a free moral subject, capable of choosing good or evil. The portentous erudition of this famous treatise, and the redundant fullness of its endless digressions, with its strange Alexandrian amalgamation of fancy and speculation, have tended to obscure its real merits. Perhaps its most honourable distinction is the marvelously honest and impartial statement of the best arguments of his antagonists, which, indeed, laid him open to the charge of having fallen into the same heresy with Milton and with Clarke, and even into atheism, simply for being just to the arguments of atheistic writers. 'He has raised,' says Dryden, 'such strong objections against the being of a God and Providence that many think he has not answered them'—'the common fate,' adds Shaftesbury, 'of those who dare to appear fair authors.'
Cudworth's admirable sermon, preached before the House of Commons in 1647, shows the best features of that much-abused Latitudinarian school to which he belonged, and, says Mackintosh, 'may be compared even to Taylor (Liberty of Prophesying, published the same year) in charity, piety, and the most liberal toleration.' In its insistence upon the co-ordinate relativity of all knowledge, and the connection of religion with life and morality, the author lays down a sound basis for a harmony between philosophy and religion, between reason and faith. Many of Cudworth's MSS. still lie unprinted. His Treatise concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality was published in 1731, and is a contribution of real value to ethics. See Tulloch's Rational Theology in England in the XVII. Century (1872), Dr Martineau's Types of Ethical Theory (1885), and monographs by Lowrey (New York, 1884) and W. R. Scott (1891).