A treatise of freewill / by Ralph Cudworth ; now first edited from the original MS and with notes by John Allen.

  • Cudworth, Ralph, 1617-1688.
Date:
1838
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise of freewill / by Ralph Cudworth ; now first edited from the original MS and with notes by John Allen. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

    44/110 (page 32)
    'nyeiMovLKQv, the ruling, governing, commanding, deter- mining principle in us. For here, or nowhere else, is to he found the to rj^oiv and the to avTc^ovcLov, sui potestas, self-power, or such a liberty of will a.s whereby men deserve praise or dispraise, commenda- tion or blame. This hegemonic of the soul is a thing that was much taken notice of by the Greek philosophers, after Aristotle, and to this is ascribed by them the original of those moral evils that deserve blame and punishment. Thus the learned Origen, p. 207 ^: to yap eKacrrov rjyep,0VLK0V, airiov T7/9 v’JToardo'rj'i iv avTw KaKua^ early r}rl<> iari to KaKoV Kal dWo ovSev, co? Trpo? aKpi^ij \6yov KaO' rjpid'i eari KaKov. oi8a rov \6yov heop^evov 7toW‘7]<; i^epyaaia'i KaL KaraaKevi]^, where the TO eKaarov qyepLOVLKov is rendered by Gelenius sua cuique ratio, every man’s own reason, as if this were the thing whereby he is the cause of moral evil. He taking it for gTanted that Origen’s hegemonic in every man is reason, which is a thing commonly supposed to be natural and necessary in its perception, whereas necessary nature can be no foundation for blame and punishment. And if moral evil were to be imputed wholly to necessary nature, then must that, and the blame of it, needs be imputed to God himself, as the cause thereof. Whereas Origen’s design here, and elsewhere, is to free both God and nature from the blame of moral evils, and cast it * The reference is to Spencer’s ed. 4to., C.-unb. 1G77‘ Par. cd. fol. 1733, i. p. 554., cont. Cels. iv. § (50.