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.

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    to pass or not come to pass*. Therefore, says lie, if there he a necessity in the disjunction, there must be a necessity in one or other of the two parts thereof alone by itself; if there be no necessity that it shall come to pass, then must it be necessary that it shall not come to pass, as if there could not be no necessity in the disjunction, though both the members of it were contingent, and neither of them necessary. This is a most shameful ignorance in logic, especially for one who pretends so much to geometrical de- monstration. And yet this childish and ridiculous nonsense and sophistry of his was stolen from the Stoics too, who played the fools in logic after the same manner. Every proposition, said they, concerning a supposed future contingent, that it will come to pass, was either true or false beforehand and from eternity. If it were true then it must of necessity come to pass, if false then was it necessary that it should not come to pass. And yet this ridiculous sophistry puzzled not only Cicero f but also Aristotle t himself, so much as to make them hold that propositions * See Treatise of Liberty and Necessity, Works fol cd Lon. 1750, p. 484. ’ ' t XIic primum si mihi libeat assentiri Epicuro, ot negaro omnem enuntiationeni aut veram esse, ant falsam; cam plagam potius accipiam, quam fato omnia fieri coinprobein. Cic. de Fato, § 10. ^ t d yap Traa-a Kardcjiaais t, dnocjiaais, dKr,6fis, fevtrjs’ Kal dtrav dvdyKr, vndpxdv Tj pr] xmdpxav.—Aristot. de Interp. ix. 1.