Sir Nathaniel Rich (1585 – 1636) was an English merchant adventurer and politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1614 and 1629.
75-576: Ralph Cudworth FRS ( / r eɪ f ˈ k ʊ d ɜːr θ / rayf KUUD -urth ; 1617 – 26 June 1688) was an English Anglican clergyman , Christian Hebraist , classicist , theologian and philosopher , and a leading figure among the Cambridge Platonists who became 11th Regius Professor of Hebrew (1645–88), 26th Master of Clare Hall (1645–54), and 14th Master of Christ's College (1654–88). A leading opponent of Hobbes's political and philosophical views, his magnum opus
150-735: A "diet of Calvinism ". Letters, to Stoughton, by both brothers James and Ralph Cudworth make this plain; and, when Ralph matriculated at Emmanuel College , Cambridge (1632), Stoughton thought him "as wel grounded in Scho[o]l-Learning as any Boy of his Age that went to the University". Stoughton was appointed Curate and Preacher at St Mary Aldermanbury , London (1632), and the family left Aller. Ralph's elder brother, James Cudworth , married and emigrated to Scituate , Plymouth Colony , New England (1634). Mary Machell Cudworth Stoughton died during summer 1634, and Dr Stoughton married
225-763: A Chair (all of whom are Fellows of the Royal Society ). Members of the 10 Sectional Committees change every three years to mitigate in-group bias . Each Sectional Committee covers different specialist areas including: New Fellows are admitted to the Society at a formal admissions day ceremony held annually in July, when they sign the Charter Book and the Obligation which reads: "We who have hereunto subscribed, do hereby promise, that we will endeavour to promote
300-587: A Fellow (1645–56), and pupil of Benjamin Whichcote 's. After part of the Medford estate was rented to Edward Collins (1642), it was placed in the hands of an attorney; the widow Rebecca Cradock (whose second and third husbands were Richard Glover and Benjamin Whichcote , respectively), petitioned the General Court of Massachusetts, and the legatees later sold the estate to Collins (1652). The marriage of
375-427: A daughter of John Browne of Frampton and Dorchester . From a family background embedded in the early nonconformity and a diligent student, Cudworth was admitted (as a pensioner) to his father's old college, Emmanuel College , Cambridge (1630), matriculated (1632), and graduated (BA (1635/6); MA (1639)). After some misgivings (which he confided in his stepfather), he was elected a Fellow of Emmanuel (1639), and became
450-473: A discourse refuting "fatal necessity", or determinism . Enlarging his plan, he proposed to prove three matters: These three comprise, collectively, the intellectual (as opposed to the physical) system of the universe; and they are opposed, respectively, by three false principles: atheism, religious fatalism (which refers all moral distinctions to the will of God), and the fatalism of the ancient Stoics (who recognized God and yet identified him with nature). Only
525-534: A formative principle that contains both substance and the laws of motion, as well as a nisus or direction that accounts for design and goal in the natural world. He was stimulated by the Cartesian idea of the mind as self-consciousness to see God as consciousness. He first analysed four forms of atheism from ancient times to present, and showed that all misunderstood the principle of life and knowledge, which involved unsentient activity and self-consciousness, addressing
600-415: A group of English seventeenth-century thinkers associated with the University of Cambridge who were stimulated by Plato's teachings but also were aware of and influenced by Descartes, Hobbes, Bacon, Boyle and Spinoza. The other important philosopher of this group was Henry More (1614–1687). More held that spiritual substance or mind controlled inert matter. Out of his correspondence with Descartes, he developed
675-579: A group that would open up colonization of New England . In 1621 he was elected MP for East Retford and sat on a royal commission in Ireland in 1622. Rich became a prominent member of the Virginia Company, and when, in April 1623, there occurred the great split between two factions in the company, he took a leading part on the side of his cousin, Robert Rich, 2nd Earl of Warwick . In 1624 he
750-628: A legal training, and was admitted a member of Gray's Inn on 2 February 1609/10, as of Ash, Essex. In 1614 he was elected Member of Parliament for Totnes . He was knighted at Hatton House on 8 November 1617. He was a board member of the Somers Isles Company , and in 1619 bought shares in the Virginia Company . In November 1620, he was listed as one of the shareholders of the Plymouth Council for New England ,
825-643: A self-conscious knowledge. This idea would later emerge in the Romantic period in German science as Blumenbach's Bildungstreib (generative power) and the Lebenskraft (or Bildungskraft ). The essence of atheism for Cudworth was the view that matter was self-active and self-sufficient, whereas for Cudworth the plastic power was unsentient and under the direct control of the universal Mind or Logos . For him atheism, whether mechanical or material could not solve
SECTION 10
#1732800938864900-675: A successful tutor, delivering the Rede Lecture (1641). He published a tract entitled The Union of Christ and the Church, in a Shadow (1642), and another, A Discourse concerning the True Notion of the Lord's Supper (1642), in which his readings of Karaite manuscripts (stimulated by meetings with Johann Stephan Rittangel ) were influential. Following sustained correspondence with John Selden (to whom he supplied Karaite literature), he
975-685: Is confirmed by the Council in April, and a secret ballot of Fellows is held at a meeting in May. A candidate is elected if they secure two-thirds of votes of those Fellows voting. An indicative allocation of 18 Fellowships can be allocated to candidates from Physical Sciences and Biological Sciences; and up to 10 from Applied Sciences, Human Sciences and Joint Physical and Biological Sciences. A further maximum of six can be 'Honorary', 'General' or 'Royal' Fellows. Nominations for Fellowship are peer reviewed by Sectional Committees, each with at least 12 members and
1050-421: Is nominated by two Fellows of the Royal Society (a proposer and a seconder), who sign a certificate of proposal. Previously, nominations required at least five fellows to support each nomination by the proposer, which was criticised for supposedly establishing an old boy network and elitist gentlemen's club . The certificate of election (see for example ) includes a statement of the principal grounds on which
1125-575: Is offered as an alternative to the interpretation of all of nature as either governed by blind chance, or, on his understanding of the Malebranchean view, as micro-managed by God." Cudworth's plastic principle also involves a theory of mind that is active, that is, God or the Supreme Mind is "the spermatic reason" which gives rise to individual mind and reason. Human mind can also create, and has access to spiritual or super-sensible 'Ideas' in
1200-401: Is so eminently accomplished with what is noble and Exemplarily Academical, it would be an ill omen." Despite his worsening sight, Cudworth was elected (29 October 1654) and admitted (2 November 1654), as 14th Master of Christ's College . His appointment coincided with his marriage to Damaris (died 1695), daughter (by his first wife, Damaris) of Matthew Cradock (died 1641), first Governor of
1275-454: Is the articulation of Cudworth’s principle of plastic nature, which is then transformed in the published version into a Berkeleyan expression of the causal agency of motion performed by God’s immanent activity." Cudworth's works included The Union of Christ and the Church, in a Shadow (1642); A Sermon preached before the House of Commons (1647); and A Discourse concerning the True Notion of
1350-617: The Massachusetts Bay Company . Hence Worthington commented "After many tossings Dr Cudworth is through God's good Providence returned to Cambridge and settled in Christ's College, and by his marriage more settled and fixed." In his Will (1641), Matthew Cradock had divided his estate beside the Mystic River at Medford, Massachusetts (which he had never visited, and was managed on his behalf) into two moieties: one
1425-601: The Stoic's pneuma , which encapsulates the laws of nature, both for inert and vital nature, and involves a sympathetic resonance between soul ( psyche ) and body ( soma ). The role of nature was one faced by philosophers in the Age of Reason or Enlightenment. The prevailing view was either that of the Church of a personal deity intervening in his creation, producing miracles, or an ancient pantheism (atheism relative to theism) – deity pervading all things and existing in all things. However,
1500-637: The Treatise on eternal and immutable Morality are connected with the design of his magnum opus , The True Intellectual System of the Universe . In 1678, Cudworth published The True Intellectual System of the Universe: the first part, wherein all the reason and philosophy of atheism is confuted and its impossibility demonstrated , which had been given an Imprimatur for publication (29 May 1671). The Intellectual System arose, according to Cudworth, from
1575-426: The post-nominal letters FRS . Every year, fellows elect up to ten new foreign members. Like fellows, foreign members are elected for life through peer review on the basis of excellence in science. As of 2016 , there are around 165 foreign members, who are entitled to use the post-nominal ForMemRS . Honorary Fellowship is an honorary academic title awarded to candidates who have given distinguished service to
SECTION 20
#17328009388641650-465: The "ideas of an all-embracing providential care of the world and of one universal vital force capable of organizing the world from within." presented difficulties for philosophers of a spiritual as well as materialistic bent. Cudworth countered these mechanical, materialistic views of nature in his True intellectual system of the universe (1678), with the idea of 'the Plastick Life of Nature',
1725-405: The "phenomenon of nature." Henry More argued that atheism made each substance independent and self-acting such that it 'deified' matter. Cudworth argued that materialism/mechanism reduced "substance to a corporeal entity, its activity to causal determinism, and each single thing to fleeting appearances in a system dominated by material necessity." Cudworth had the idea of a general plastic nature of
1800-415: The 'thinking' mind, which is both receptive and pro-active. The first involves receiving sensations ('simple ideas') and the second by reflection – "observation of its own inner operations" (inner sense which leads to complex ideas), with the second activity acting upon the first. Thought is set in motion by outer stimuli which 'simple ideas' are taken up by the mind's self-activity, an "active power" such that
1875-567: The Earl of Warwick and others, he found the funds for the first voyage of discovery to Providence Island , off the north-east of Yucatan . On 4 December 1630 they received the patent forming the governor and company of adventurers for the plantation of Providence and Henrietta . To this Providence Island Company Rich seems henceforth to have devoted his best efforts. Many matters of importance, especially regulations and affairs requiring legal handling, were left to him. When fresh funds were required he
1950-428: The Lord's Supper (1670). Much of Cudworth's work remains in manuscript. However, certain surviving works have been published posthumously, such as A Treatise concerning eternal and immutable Morality, and A Treatise of Freewill. Cudworth's Treatise on eternal and immutable Morality , published with a preface by Edward Chandler (1731), is about the historical development of British moral philosophy. It answers, from
2025-713: The Massachusetts project, and strongly supported puritan causes. Cudworth emerged as a central figure among that circle of theologians and philosophers known as the Cambridge Platonists , who were (more or less) in sympathy with the Commonwealth : during the later 1650s, Cudworth was consulted by John Thurloe , Oliver Cromwell 's Secretary to the Council of State , with regard to certain university and government appointments and various other matters. During 1657, Cudworth advised Bulstrode Whitelocke 's sub-committee of
2100-661: The Parish Church of St Andrew the Great , Cambridge. He was awarded the degree of Bachelor of Divinity in 1603. He edited Perkins's Commentary on St Paul 's Epistle to the Galatians (1604), with a dedication to Robert, 3rd Lord Rich (later 1st Earl of Warwick) , adding a commentary of his own with dedication to Sir Bassingbourn Gawdy . Lord Rich presented him to the Vicariate of Coggeshall , Essex (1606) to replace
2175-823: The Parliamentary "Grand Committee for Religion" on the accuracy of editions of the English Bible. Cudworth was appointed Vicar of Great Wilbraham , and Rector of Toft , Cambridgeshire Ely diocese (1656), but surrendered these livings (1661 and 1662, respectively) when he was presented, by Dr Gilbert Sheldon , Bishop of London , to the Hertfordshire Rectory of Ashwell (1 December 1662). Given Cudworth's close cooperation with prominent figures in Oliver Cromwell's regime (such as John Thurloe ), Cudworth's continuance as Master of Christ's
2250-469: The Platonic sense. Cudworth challenged Hobbesian determinism in arguing that will is not distinct from reason, but a power to act that is internal, and therefore, the voluntary will function involves self-determination, not external compulsion, though we have the power to act either in accordance with God's will or not. Cudworth's 'hegemonikon' (taken from Stoicism) is a function within the soul that combines
2325-439: The Royal Society has been described by The Guardian as "the equivalent of a lifetime achievement Oscar " with several institutions celebrating their announcement each year. Up to 60 new Fellows (FRS), honorary (HonFRS) and foreign members (ForMemRS) are elected annually in late April or early May, from a pool of around 700 proposed candidates each year. New Fellows can only be nominated by existing Fellows for one of
Ralph Cudworth - Misplaced Pages Continue
2400-1400: The Society, the oldest known scientific academy in continuous existence, is a significant honour. It has been awarded to many eminent scientists throughout history, including Isaac Newton (1672), Benjamin Franklin (1756), Charles Babbage (1816), Michael Faraday (1824), Charles Darwin (1839), Ernest Rutherford (1903), Srinivasa Ramanujan (1918), Jagadish Chandra Bose (1920), Albert Einstein (1921), Paul Dirac (1930), Winston Churchill (1941), Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (1944), Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis (1945), Dorothy Hodgkin (1947), Alan Turing (1951), Lise Meitner (1955), Satyendra Nath Bose (1958), and Francis Crick (1959). More recently, fellowship has been awarded to Stephen Hawking (1974), David Attenborough (1983), Tim Hunt (1991), Elizabeth Blackburn (1992), Raghunath Mashelkar (1998), Tim Berners-Lee (2001), Venki Ramakrishnan (2003), Atta-ur-Rahman (2006), Andre Geim (2007), Bai Chunli (2014), James Dyson (2015), Ajay Kumar Sood (2015), Subhash Khot (2017), Elon Musk (2018), Elaine Fuchs (2019) and around 8,000 others in total, including over 280 Nobel Laureates since 1900. As of October 2018 , there are approximately 1,689 living Fellows, Foreign and Honorary Members, of whom 85 are Nobel Laureates. Fellowship of
2475-663: The Society, we shall be free from this Obligation for the future". Since 2014, portraits of Fellows at the admissions ceremony have been published without copyright restrictions in Wikimedia Commons under a more permissive Creative Commons license which allows wider re-use. In addition to the main fellowships of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS & HonFRS), other fellowships are available which are applied for by individuals, rather than through election. These fellowships are research grant awards and holders are known as Royal Society Research Fellows . In addition to
2550-756: The award of Fellowship (FRS, HonFRS & ForMemRS) and the Research Fellowships described above, several other awards, lectures and medals of the Royal Society are also given. Nathaniel Rich (merchant adventurer) Nathaniel Rich was born to Jane Machell and Richard Rich of Leez Priory , Essex. His father was an illegitimate son of Richard Rich, 1st Baron Rich . In 1598 Nathaniel and his sister Margaret, later Dame Margaret Wroth , were with their mother at their father's deathbed at Leez, attended by William Noyes , then 'minister of this place'. Nathaniel matriculated pensioner from Emmanuel College, Cambridge and graduated B.A. in 1604/05. He had
2625-443: The being of a God and Providence that many think he has not answered them". Much attention was also attached to a subordinate matter in the book, the conception of the "Plastic Medium" (a revival of Plato 's " World-Soul ") which was intended to explain the existence and laws of nature without referring to the direct operation of God. This theory occasioned a long-drawn controversy between Pierre Bayle and Georges-Louis Leclerc , with
2700-469: The cause of motion (neither seeing the polarity involved between two forces, as Cudworth had in his plastic principle). However, in Berkeley's conception, aether is both the movement of spirit and the motion of nature. Both Cudworth's views and those of Berkeley were taken up by Coleridge in his metaphor of the eolian harp in his 'Effusion XXXV' as one commentator noted: "what we see in the first manuscript
2775-612: The cause of science, but do not have the kind of scientific achievements required of Fellows or Foreign Members. Honorary Fellows include the World Health Organization's Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (2022), Bill Bryson (2013), Melvyn Bragg (2010), Robin Saxby (2015), David Sainsbury, Baron Sainsbury of Turville (2008), Onora O'Neill (2007), John Maddox (2000), Patrick Moore (2001) and Lisa Jardine (2015). Honorary Fellows are entitled to use
2850-705: The degree of Bachelor of Divinity (1646), and preached a sermon before the House of Commons of England (on 1 John 2 , 3–4), which was later published with a Letter of Dedication to the House (1647). Despite these distinctions and his presentation, by Emmanuel College, to the rectorate of North Cadbury, Somerset (3 October 1650), he remained comparatively impoverished. He was awarded the degree of Doctor of Divinity (1651), and, in January 1651/2, his friend Dr John Worthington wrote of him, "If through want of maintenance he should be forced to leave Cambridge, for which place he
2925-656: The deprived minister Thomas Stoughton , but he resigned this position (March 1608), and was licensed to preach from the pulpit by the Chancellor and Scholars of the University of Cambridge (November 1609). He then applied for the rectorate of Aller, Somerset (an Emmanuel College living) and, resigning his fellowship, was appointed to it in 1610. His marriage (1611) to Mary Machell ( c .1582–1634), (who had been "nutrix" – nurse, or preceptor – to Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales ) brought important connections. Cudworth Snr
3000-468: The direction of its first Master, Laurence Chaderton ) was, from its inception, a stronghold of Reformist, Puritan and Calvinist teaching, which shaped the development of puritan ministry, and contributed largely to the emigrant ministry in America. Ordained in 1599 and elected to a college fellowship by 1600, Cudworth Snr was much influenced by William Perkins , whom he succeeded, in 1602, as Lecturer of
3075-468: The fellowships described below: Every year, up to 52 new fellows are elected from the United Kingdom, the rest of the Commonwealth of Nations , and Ireland, which make up around 90% of the society. Each candidate is considered on their merits and can be proposed from any sector of the scientific community. Fellows are elected for life on the basis of excellence in science and are entitled to use
Ralph Cudworth - Misplaced Pages Continue
3150-403: The first part, dealing with atheism, was ever published. Cudworth criticizes two main forms of materialistic atheism : the atomic (adopted by Democritus , Epicurus and Thomas Hobbes ); and the hylozoic (attributed to Strato of Lampsacus , which explains everything by the supposition of an inward self-organizing life in matter). Atomic atheism, to which Cudworth devotes the larger part of
3225-626: The first was completed; he wrote: "there is no reason why this volume should therefore be thought imperfect and incomplete, because it hath not all the Three Things at first Designed by us: it containing all that belongeth to its own particular Title and Subject, and being in that respect no Piece, but a Whole." Cudworth was installed as Prebendary of Gloucester (1678). His colleague, Benjamin Whichcote , died at Cudworth's house in Cambridge (1683), and Cudworth himself died (26 June 1688), and
3300-558: The former maintaining, and the latter denying, that the Plastic Medium is favourable to atheism. Summing up the work, Andrew Dickson White wrote in 1896: To this day he [Cudworth] remains, in breadth of scholarship, in strength of thought, in tolerance, and in honesty, one of the greatest glories of the English Church ... He purposed to build a fortress which should protect Christianity against all dangerous theories of
3375-540: The good of the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, and to pursue the ends for which the same was founded; that we will carry out, as far as we are able, those actions requested of us in the name of the Council; and that we will observe the Statutes and Standing Orders of the said Society. Provided that, whensoever any of us shall signify to the President under our hands, that we desire to withdraw from
3450-532: The higher functions of the soul (voluntary will and reason) on the one hand with the lower animal functions (instinct), and also constitutes the whole person, thus bridging the Cartesian dualism of body and soul or psyche and soma . This idea provided the basis for a concept of self-awareness and identity of an individual that is self-directed and autonomous, an idea that anticipates John Locke. Locke examined how man came to knowledge via stimulus (rather than seeing ideas as inherent), which approach led to his idea of
3525-408: The idea that everything, whether material or non, had extension, an example of the latter being space, which is infinite (Newton) and which then is correlative to the idea of God (set out in his Enchiridion metaphysicum 1667). In developing this idea, More also introduced a causal agent between God and substance, or Nature, in his Hylarchic Principle, derived from Plato's anima mundi or world soul, and
3600-463: The latter's composition of an ethical work which Cudworth feared would interfere with his own long-contemplated treatise on the same subject. To avoid any difficulties, More published his Enchiridion ethicum (1666–69), in Latin ; However, Cudworth's planned treatise was never published. His own majestic work, The True Intellectual System of the Universe (1678), was conceived in three parts of which only
3675-432: The manor of Werneth/Oldham, until 1683. Ralph Cudworth (the philosopher)'s father, Ralph Cudworth (Snr) , was the posthumous-born second son of Ralph Cudworth (d.1572) of Werneth Hall , Oldham . The philosopher's father, The Rev. Dr Ralph Cudworth (1572/3–1624), was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge , where he graduated BA (1592/93, MA (1596). Emmanuel College (founded by Sir Walter Mildmay (1584), and under
3750-683: The origin and maintenance of the universe as a slow and gradual development of Nature in obedience to an inward principle. Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society ( FRS , ForMemRS and HonFRS ) is an award granted by the Fellows of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge , including mathematics , engineering science , and medical science ". Fellowship of
3825-615: The outer world can only be real-ized as action (natural cause) by the activity of consciousness. Locke also took the issue of life as lying not in substance but in the capacity of the self for consciousness, to be able to organize (associate) disparate events, that is to participate life by means of the sense experiences , which have the capacity to produce every kind of experience in consciousness. These ideas of Locke were taken over by Fichte and influenced German Romantic science and medicine. (See Romantic medicine and Brunonian system of medicine ). Thomas Reid and his "Common Sense" philosophy,
SECTION 50
#17328009388643900-514: The post nominal letters HonFRS . Statute 12 is a legacy mechanism for electing members before official honorary membership existed in 1997. Fellows elected under statute 12 include David Attenborough (1983) and John Palmer, 4th Earl of Selborne (1991). The Council of the Royal Society can recommend members of the British royal family for election as Royal Fellow of the Royal Society . As of 2023 there are four royal fellows: Elizabeth II
3975-552: The proposal is being made. There is no limit on the number of nominations made each year. In 2015, there were 654 candidates for election as Fellows and 106 candidates for Foreign Membership. The Council of the Royal Society oversees the selection process and appoints 10 subject area committees, known as Sectional Committees, to recommend the strongest candidates for election to the Fellowship. The final list of up to 52 Fellowship candidates and up to 10 Foreign Membership candidates
4050-401: The standpoint of Platonism , Hobbes's famous doctrine that moral distinctions are created by the state. It argues that just as knowledge contains a permanent intelligible element over and above the flux of sense-impressions, so there exist eternal and immutable ideas of morality. Another posthumous publication was Cudworth's A Treatise of Freewill , edited by John Allen (1838). Both this and
4125-453: The tension between theism and atheism, took both the Stoic idea of Divine Reason poured into the world, and the Platonic idea of the world soul ( anima mundi ) to posit a power that was polaric – "either as a ruling but separate mind or as an informing vital principle – either nous hypercosmios or nous enkosmios. All of the atheistic approaches posited nature as unconscious, which for Cudworth
4200-503: The universe, ancient or modern ... While genius marked every part of it, features appeared which gave the rigidly orthodox serious misgivings. From the old theories of direct personal action on the universe by the Almighty he broke utterly. He dwelt on the action of law, rejected the continuous exercise of miraculous intervention, pointed out the fact that in the natural world there are "errors" and "bungles" and argued vigorously in favor of
4275-493: The widow Rebecca Cradock to Cudworth's colleague Benjamin Whichcote laid the way for the union between Cudworth and her stepdaughter Damaris (died 1695), which reinforced the connections between the two scholars through a familial bond. Damaris had first married (1642) Thomas Andrewes Jnr (died 1653) of London and Feltham, son of Sir Thomas Andrewes (died 1659), ( Lord Mayor of London , 1649, 1651–2), which union had produced several children. The Andrewes family were also engaged in
4350-445: The work, is described as arising from the combination of two principles, neither of which is, individually, atheistic (namely atomism and corporealism, or the doctrine that nothing exists but body). The example of Stoicism, Cudworth suggests, shows that corporealism may be theistic. Cudworth discusses the history of atomism at length. It is, in its purely physical application, a theory that he fully accepts. He holds that theistic atomism
4425-415: The world, containing natural laws to keep all of nature, inert and vital in orderly motion, and particular plastic natures in particular entities, which serve as 'Inward Principles' of growth and motion, but ascribes it to the Platonic tradition: Further, Cudsworth's plastic principle was also a functional polarity. As he wrote: As another historian notes in conclusion, "Cudworth’s theory of plastic natures
4500-514: Was also influenced by Cudworth, taking his influence into the Scottish Enlightenment. George Berkeley later developed the idea of a plastic life principle with his idea of an 'aether' or 'aetherial medium' that causes 'vibrations' that animate all living beings. For Berkeley, it is the very nature of this medium that generates the 'attractions' of entities to each other. Berkeley meant this 'aether' to supplant Newton's gravity as
4575-400: Was always the first to respond. He appears to have pursued a forward policy, for in 1635 he advocated the admission of all the adventurers to the benefits of the trade of the main. A little later, on his motion, the first local council of Providence was appointed. On 7 May 1635 he was appointed deputy governor of the company, and held the post for about a year. Rich died before 26 May 1636. It
SECTION 60
#17328009388644650-427: Was among the dedicatees of Richard Bernard 's 1621 edition of The Faithfull Shepherd . Ralph Snr died at Aller declaring a nuncupative will (7 August 1624) before Anthony Earbury and Dame Margaret Wroth. The children of Ralph Cudworth Snr and Mary (née Machell) Cudworth ( c .1582–1634) were: The second son, and third of five (probably six) children, Ralph Cudworth (Jnr) was born at Aller , Somerset , where he
4725-746: Was appointed as one of James I 's chaplains. Mary's mother (or aunt) was the sister of Sir Edward Lewknor , a central figure (with the Jermyn and Heigham families) among the puritan East Anglian gentry, whose children had attended Emmanuel College. Mary's Lewknor and Machell connections with the Rich family included her first cousins Sir Nathaniel Rich and his sister Dame Margaret Wroth, wife of Sir Thomas Wroth of Petherton Park near Bridgwater , Somerset, influential promoters of colonial enterprise (and later of nonconformist emigration) in New England . Aller
4800-409: Was baptised (13 July 1617). Following the death of his father, Ralph Cudworth Snr (1624), The Rev. Dr John Stoughton (1593–1639), (son of Thomas Stoughton of Coggeshall; also a Fellow of Emmanuel College), succeeded as Rector of Aller, and married the widow Mary (née Machell) Cudworth ( c .1582–1634). Dr Stoughton paid careful attention to his stepchildren's education, which Ralph later described as
4875-406: Was bequeathed to his daughter Damaris Cradock (died 1695), (later wife of Ralph Cudworth Jnr); and one was to be enjoyed by his widow Rebecca (during her lifetime), and afterwards to be inherited by his brother, Samuel Cradock (1583–1653), and his heirs male. Samuel Cradock's son, Samuel Cradock Jnr (1621–1706), was admitted to Emmanuel (1637), graduated (BA (1640–1); MA (1644); BD (1651)), was later
4950-612: Was buried in the Chapel of Christ's College. An oil portrait of Cudworth (from life) hangs in the Hall of Christ's College . During Cudworth's time an outdoor Swimming Pool was created at Christ's College (which still exists), and a carved bust of Cudworth there accompanies those of John Milton and Nicholas Saunderson . Cudworth's widow, Damaris (née Cradock) Andrewes Cudworth (died 1695), maintained close connections with her daughter, Damaris Cudworth Masham , at High Laver , Essex , which
5025-579: Was challenged at the Restoration but, ultimately, he retained this post until his death. He and his family are believed to have resided in private lodgings at the "Old Lodge" (which stood between Hobson Street and the College Chapel), and various improvements were made to the college rooms in his time. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1662. In 1665, Cudworth almost quarrelled with his fellow- Platonist , Henry More , because of
5100-403: Was elected (aged 28) as 11th Regius Professor of Hebrew (1645). In 1645, Thomas Paske had been ejected as Master of Clare Hall for his Anglican allegiances, and Cudworth (despite his immaturity) was selected as his successor, as 26th Master (but not admitted until 1650). Similarly, his fellow-theologian Benjamin Whichcote was installed as 19th Provost of King's College . Cudworth attained
5175-485: Was elected MP for East Retford and for Harwich and chose to sit for Harwich. He was specially attacked by the opposing faction of the Virginia Company when the dispute came before the House of Commons in May 1624, but he sat on the Virginia commission of July 1624. Rich was re-elected MP for Harwich in 1626 and 1628 and sat until 1629 when King Charles decided to rule without parliament for eleven years. In 1629, with
5250-461: Was his The True Intellectual System of the Universe (1678). Cudworth's family reputedly originated in Cudworth (near Barnsley ), Yorkshire , moving to Lancashire with the marriage ( c. 1377) of John de Cudworth (died 1384) and Margery (died 1384), daughter of Richard de Oldham (living 1354), lord of the manor of Werneth , Oldham . The Cudworths of Werneth Hall , Oldham , were lords of
5325-463: Was immediately within their sphere. Ralph Snr and Mary settled at Aller, where their children (listed below) were christened during the following decade. Cudworth continued to study, working on a complete survey of Case-Divinity , The Cases of Conscience in Family, Church and Commonwealth while suffering from the agueish climate at Aller. He was awarded the degree of Doctor of Divinity (1619), and
5400-421: Was not a Royal Fellow, but provided her patronage to the society, as all reigning British monarchs have done since Charles II of England . Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1951) was elected under statute 12, not as a Royal Fellow. The election of new fellows is announced annually in May, after their nomination and a period of peer-reviewed selection. Each candidate for Fellowship or Foreign Membership
5475-474: Was ontologically unsupportable, as a principle that was supposed to be the ultimate source of life and meaning could only be itself self-conscious and knowledgeable, that is, rational, otherwise creation or nature degenerates into inert matter set in motion by random external forces (Coleridge's 'chance whirlings of unproductive particles'). Cudworth saw nature as a vegetative power endowed with plastic (forming) and spermatic (generative) forces, but one with Mind, or
5550-686: Was taught by Pythagoras , Empedocles and many other ancient philosophers, and was only perverted to atheism by Democritus. Cudworth believes that atomism was first invented before the Trojan war by a Sidonian thinker named Moschus or Mochus (whom he identifies with Moses in the Old Testament ). Cudworth's method in arranging his work was to marshal the atheistic arguments elaborately before refuting them in his final chapter. This led many readers to accuse Cudworth himself of atheism – as John Dryden remarked, "he has raised such objections against
5625-415: Was where she died, and was commemorated in the church with a carved epitaph reputedly composed by the philosopher John Locke . The children of Ralph Cudworth and Damaris (née Cradock) Andrewes Cudworth (died 1695) were: The stepchildren of Ralph Cudworth (children of Damaris (née Cradock) Andrewes (died 1695) and Thomas Andrewes (died 1653)) were: Cudworth was a member of the Cambridge Platonists ,
#863136