Page:Supplement to the fourth, fifth, and sixth editions of the Encyclopaedia Britannica - with preliminary dissertations on the history of the sciences - illustrated by engravings (IA gri 33125011196181).pdf/121

 their common zeal for the scheme of necessity; which both of them stated in such a way is to be equally inconsistent with the moral agency of man, and with the moral attributes of God. The strongest of all presumptions against this scheme is afforded by the other tenets with which it is almost universally combined; and accordingly, it was very shrewdly observed by Cudworth, that the licentious system which flourished in his time (under which title, I presume, he comprehended the immoral tenets of the fanatics, as well as of the Hobbists), “grew up from the doctrine of the fatal necessity of all actions and events, as from its proper root.” The unsettled, and, at the same time, disputatious period during which Cudworth lived, afforded him peculiarly favourable opportunities of judging from experience, of the practical tendency of this metaphysical dogma; and the result of his observations deserves the serious attention of those who may be disposed to regard it in the light of a fair and harmless theme for the display of controversial subtilty. To argue, in this manner, against a speculative principle from its palpable effects, is not always so illogical as some authors have supposed. “You repeat to me incessantly,” says Rousseau to one of his correspondents, “that truth can never be injurious to the world. I myself believe so as firmly as you do; and it is for this very reason I am satisfied that your proposition is false.”

But the principal importance of Cudworth, as an ethical writer, arises from the influence of his argument concerning the immutability of right and wrong on the various theories of