be an object of corporeal sense is to deny the existence of mind and soul in ourselves and others, since we can neither feel nor see any such things. Nevertheless, we are certain from inward consciousness, from "reason," since 66 "nothing" cannot act, - and from our observation of the actions of others, that soul and mind really exist in ourselves and others. And the atheist has as little reason to deny the existence of a perfect mind presiding over the universe as that of mind and soul in ourselves and others. To derive mind from a "supposed senseless, stupid, and inconscious life of nature in matter" is equivalent to deriving something from nothing. "If matter as such had life, perception, and understanding to it, then of necessity must. every action or smallest particle thereof be a distinct percipient by itself: from which it will follow that there could not possibly be any such men and animals as now are compounded out of them; but every man and animal would be a heap of innumerable perceptions and intellections; whereas it is plain that there is but one life and understanding, one soul or mind, one thinker in every one." Similarly, there must be assumed in the universe as one universe a single mind ruling it. Further, were all movement in the universe merely mechanical, communicated, or passive, movement, motion would primarily proceed from nothing; hence there must be a self-moving, unmoved first mover. Again, matter could never have created mind; but a perfect mind could have created matter. Another proof of the existence of God (or perfect being) is as follows: Something must eternally have existed, and must consequently have existed naturally and necessarily, including necessarily eternal existence in its own nature; hence have been absolutely perfect. Still another proof may be given thus: "Knowledge is possible only through ideas, which must have their source in an eternal reason. Sense is not only not the whole of knowledge, but is in itself not at all knowledge: it is in itself wholly relative and individual, and not universal until the mind adds to it what is absolute and universal. Knowl

edge does not begin with what is universal: the individual is known by being brought under a universal: the universal is not gathered from a multitude of individuals. And the universals, vońμara, or ideas, which underlie all knowledge of men, which originate it, and do not originate in it, have existed eternally in the only mode in which truth can be said to be eternally existent, i. e., in an eternal mind." Another proof offered by Cudworth of the existence of God is that of Anselm, slightly modified.1

God in Relation to Matter: The "Plastic Nature." To suppose that "God himself doth all immediately, and, as it were, with his own hands, forms the body of every gnat and fly, insect and mite, is to render divine providence operose, solicitous, and distractious." And, apart from this, the slowness and imperfection of actual nature confute such an idea. There must exist between God and matter a third nature, which may be termed the "plastic nature." "It is a certain lower life than the animal, which acts regularly and artificially according to the directions of mind and understanding, reason and wisdom, for ends, in order to good, though itself do not know the reason for what it does, nor is master of that wisdom according to which it acts, but only a servant to it, and drudging executioner of the same, it operating fatally and sympathetically according to law and commands prescribed to it by a perfect intellect, and impressed upon it; and which is either a lower faculty of some conscious soul, or else an inferior kind of life or soul by itself, but essentially depending upon an higher intellect." To suppose that "every plant, herb, and pile of grass has a plastic or vegetative soul of its own were unreasonable, but there may possibly be one plastic unconscious nature in the whole terraqueous globe, by which vegetables may be generally organized and framed, and all things performed which transcend the power of fortuitous mechanism."

112

1 See Professor Flint's article on Cudworth in the "Encyclopædia Britannica," on these proofs.

2 See "Intellectual System of the Universe," book i., ch. iii.

Eternal and Immutable Morality. - Cudworth's theory of the foundation of morality, intended as answer to Hobbes's mechanico-sensational theory, is summed up in the following propositions: (1) Things are what they are by nature, not by mere will; (2) Things are immutably and necessarily what they are, there is no such thing as an 66 arbitrarious essence, mode, or relation that may be made indifferently anything at pleasure ; even when a divine or human command makes a thing before indifferent obligatory or unlawful, the real element of morality depends upon the right or authority of the one who gives the command, which right or authority is founded on natural justice and equity or on antecedent obligation to obedience in the subjects; the moral quality of acts does not depend on the mere will or pleasure that enjoins them. Cudworth's doctrine of morality rests immediately on the epistemological doctrine that knowledge, in the proper sense of the term, is not born of sense, which is merely receptive and mutable, like the things of which alone it takes cognizance, but of intellect, and is as such true and eternal. The mind, characteristically, acts by an inherent power of its own, and has not only fleeting "sensations" and "phantasms," but also noëmata, or pure conceptions, to the essence of which, as the objects of pure actuality or self-determination, it pertains to endure. Among such conceptions are those of right, justice, and the like.1

Liberty and Necessity. - Cudworth admits free will in man in so far as man, because of an imperfect nature, may at times be unable to make an intellectual choice or distinction between objects. Otherwise man is not "free," as God is not, in any sense.

§ 57.

Henry More (1614-1687). More went from Eton College (Grammar School at Eton) to Christ's College,

1 The student may profitably consult the monograph by C. E. Lowrey, Ph. D., entitled, "The Philosophy of Ralph Cudworth," etc. (N. Y., 1884).

Cambridge, where as student or as fellow he lived recluselike most of his adult life. As a youth he exhibited great sensitiveness of feeling. His parents were stanch Calvinists; the Calvinistic faith was utterly repulsive to him. After passing through a religious ferment, he found mental satisfaction in the study of the doctrines of the Neo-Platonists, the Cabala, the medieval Mystics, and Boehme. He believed himself to have a direct sense of the presence of a higher life in him, and he strove intellectually and emotionally for a union with the divine principle of things. Though a sort of recluse, he had a warm love for visible nature. His life and character are said to have been of special beauty. Like Cudworth, he was deeply learned in the history of philosophy.

Works. — Of More's works may be mentioned: “Antidote against Atheism," "Immortality of the Soul," "Grand Mystery of Godliness," "Mystery of Iniquity," "Divine Dialogues" (1668), "Enchiridion Ethicum" (1668), "Enchiridium Metaphysicum, or Manual of Metaphysics" (1671), "Letters to Descartes." He wrote treatises on Boehme and Spinoza.

Philosophy: Problems. The character of More's philosophizing was determined by his opposition to the doctrines of the unphilosophical theologians of his time, and of Descartes and Hobbes. He strives to establish against the theologians the rights of reason in religion, and the rationality of (Christian) religion. "For mine own part, reason seems to me to be so far from being any contemptible principle in man that it must be acknowledged in some sort to be God himself." To make clear this point he distinguishes the divine reason as the ratio stabilis, a "kind of steady and immovable reason discovering the connections of all things at once," and the human reason as the ratio mobilis, or "reason in evolution," and a real "participation of that divine reason." The "logos, or steady comprehensive wisdom of God, in which all ideas and their respects are contained, is but universal reason." The root of religion,

and indeed of philosophy, is moral purity, the very constitution of human nature itself. More's attitude towards Descartes and Hobbes will appear in what follows.

Matter and Spirit. — Matter is, not extension, as Descartes maintains, but "impenetrable and discerptible substance" it is "resistance or capacity of keeping out stoutly or irresistibly another substance from entering into the same space or place with itself," and it is the capacity of endless subdivision into parts. Equally rational (Hobbes to the contrary notwithstanding) with the notion of an impenetrable and discerptible substance is that of a "penetrable and indiscerptible substance," i. e., spirit. "Penetrability" implies "self-motion, self-contraction, and dilation;" indiscerptibility "implies that spirit of its own nature invisibly holds itself together, so that it cannot be disunited or dissevered." The idea of extension and space cannot be thought away: it is necessary, and implies a necessary reality, one, indivisible, infinite. Matter is not such a reality; matter, as being essentially contingent, implies a necessary principle, spirit; the very idea of God as being absolutely perfect, implies a spiritual existence; the fact of motion points to an immaterial cause of motion, since matter is "homogeneal," and hence without a principle of difference and change such as motion implies, matter, even if capable of producing motion, could not be conceived as doing anything more than "grinding itself into the more rude and general delineation of nature;" unquestionable testimony to the existence of ghosts and apparitions necessitates belief in the existence of spirit; above all, the fact of an ideal element in knowledge and of the freedom of the will prove the existence of spirit. Spirit is extended substance. If it were not, God would not be omnipresent. Whatever is, is in virtue of its simple being, somewhere, and is therefore in some sort of space. The space occupied by matter is an extensive space, that occupied by spirit, intensive. Space, as both extensive and intensive, is the bridge (in More's