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15 - Ralph Cudworth on Causality and Substantial Forms

Towards a New Theory of Causation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 November 2024

By
Adrian Mihai
Edited by
Douglas Hedley  and
Daniel J. Tolan
Douglas Hedley
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Daniel J. Tolan
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
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Summary

Matter, according to Ralph Cudworth (1618–1688), is passive and has no inner active principle. Since things cannot be either moved fortuitously or by chance, nor be moved directly by God himself, and thus depend for their movement wholly on God, Cudworth posits a ‘Plastick Nature’ under God, which as a subordinate instrument, does ‘Drudgingly Execute that Part of his Providence, which consists in the Regular and Orderly Motion of Matter’ (Cudworth 1678, 150).

For Cudworth, the laws of nature concerning motion are thus nothing else but this plastic nature, ‘acting upon the Matter of the whole Corporeal Universe, both Maintaining the Same Quantity of Motion always in it, and also Dispensing it (by Transferring it out of one Body into another) according to such Laws, Fatally Imprest upon it’ (Cudworth 1678, 150).

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Chapter
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Participation in the Divine
A Philosophical History, From Antiquity to the Modern Era
 , pp. 328 - 342
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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