It is only in the silence of seclusion that we should open the awful tome of “The True Intellectual System of the Universe” of Ralph Cudworth.[1] The history and the fate of this extraordinary result of human knowledge and of sublime metaphysics, are not the least remarkable in the philosophy of bibliography.
The first intention of the author of this elaborate and singular work, was a simple inquisition into the nature of that metaphysical necessity, or destiny, which has been introduced into the systems both of philosophy and religion, wherein man is left an irresponsible agent in his actions, and is nothing more than the blind instrument of inevitable events over which he holds no control.
This system of “necessity,” or fate, our inquirer traced to three different systems, maintained on distinct principles. The ancient Democritic or atomical physiology endows inert matter with a motive power. It views a creation, and a continued creation, without a creator. The disciple of this system is as one who cannot read, who would only perceive lines and scratches in the fairest volume, while the more learned comprehend its large and legible characters; in the mighty volume of nature, the mind discovers what the sense may not, and reads “those sensible delineations by its own inward activity,” which wisdom and power have with their divinity written on every page. The absurd system of the atomist or the mere materialist, Cudworth names the atheistic.
The second system of “necessity” is that of the theists, who conceive that the will of the Deity, producing in us good or evil, is determined by no immutability of goodness and justice, but an arbitrary will omnipotent; and therefore all qualities, good and evil, are merely so by our own conventional notions, having no reality in nature. And this Cudworth calls the divine fate, or immoral theism, being a religion divesting the Creator of the intellectual and moral government of the universe; all just and unjust, according to this hypothesis, being mere factitious things. This “necessity” seems the predestination of Calvinism, with the immorality of antinomianism.
The third sort of fatalists do not deny the moral attributes of the Deity, in his nature essentially benevolent and just; therefore there is an immutability in natural justice and morality, distinct from any law or arbitrary custom; but as these theists are necessarians, the human being is incapacitated to receive praise or blame, rewards or punishments, or to become the object of retributive justice; whence they deduce their axiom that nothing could possibly have been otherwise than it is.
To confute these three fatalisms, or false hypotheses of the system of the universe, Cudworth designed to dedicate three great works; one against atheism, another against immoral theism, and the third against the theism whose doctrine was the inevitable “necessity” which determined all actions and events, and deprived man of his free agency.
These licentious systems were alike destructive of social virtues; and our ethical metaphysician sought to trace the Deity as an omnipotent understanding Being, a supreme intelligence, presiding over all, in his own nature unchangeable and eternal, but granting to his creatures their choice of good and evil by an immutable morality. In the system of the visible and corporeal world the sage contemplated on the mind which everywhere pervaded it; and his genius launched forth into the immensity of “The Intellectual System of the Universe.”
In this comprehensive design he maintains that the ancients had ever preserved the idea of one Supreme Being, distinct from all other gods. That multitude of pagan deities, poetical and political, were but the polyonomy, or the many names or attributes, of one God, in which the unity of the Divine Being was recognised. In the deified natures of things, the intelligent worshipped God; the creator in the created. The pagan religion, however erroneous, was not altogether nonsensical, as the atheists would represent it.
In this folio of near a thousand pages, Cudworth opens the occult sources of remote antiquity; and all the knowledge which the most recondite records have transmitted are here largely dispersed. There is no theogony and no cosmogony which remains unexplored; the Chaldean oracles, and the Hermaic hooks, and the Trismegistic writings, are laid open for us; the arcane theology of the Egyptians is unveiled; and we may consult the Persian Zoroaster, the Grecian Orpheus, the mystical Pythagoras, and the allegorising Plato. No poet was too imaginative, no sophist was too obscure, to be allowed to rest in the graves of their oblivion. All are here summoned to meet together, as at the last tribunal of their judgment-day. And they come with their own words on their lips, and they commune with us with their own voices; for this great magician of mind, who had penetrated into the recesses of mythic antiquity to descry its dim and uncertain truths, has recorded their own words with the reverence of a votary to their faiths. “The sweetness of philology allays the severity of philosophy; the main thing, in the meantime, being the philosophy of religion.[2] But for our parts, we neither call Philology nor yet Philosophy our mistress, but serve ourselves of either as occasion requireth.” Such are the words of the historian of “The Intellectual System of the Universe.”
It is this mine of recondite quotations in their original languages, most accurately translated, which has imparted such an enduring value to this treasure of the ancient theology, philosophy, and literature;[3] for however subtle and logical was the master-mind which carried on his trains of reasoning, its abstract and abstruse nature could not fail to prove repulsive to the superficial, for few could follow the genius who led them into “the very darkest recesses of antiquity,” while his passionless sincerity was often repugnant to the narrow creed of the orthodox. What, therefore, could the consequence of this elaborate volume when given to the world be, but neglect or hatred? And long was “The Intellectual System” lost among a thoughtless or incurious race of readers. It appeared in 1678. It was nearly thirty years afterwards, when the neglected author was no more, in 1703, that Le Clerc, a great reader of English writers, furnished copious extracts in his “Bibliothèque Choisie,” which introduced it to the knowledge of foreigners, and provoked a keen controversy with Bayle. This last great critic, who could only decide by the translated extracts, proved to be a formidable antagonist of Cudworth. At length, in 1733, more than half a century subsequent to its publication, Mosheim gave a Latin version, with learned illustrations. The translation was not made without great difficulty; and a French one, which had been begun, was abandoned. Cudworth has invented many terms, compound or obscure; and though these may be traced to their sources, yet when a single novel term may allude to metaphysical notions or to recondite knowledge, the learning is less to be admired than the defective perspicacity is to be regretted. It was, however, this edition of a foreigner which awakened the literary ardour of the author’s countrymen towards their neglected treasure, and in 1743 “The True Intellectual System” at length reached a second edition, republished by Birch.[4]