Abstract
This chapter argues that Ralph Cudworth should be recognised as formative for Richard Price’s political philosophy. Cudworth’s ethics of eternal and immutable morality, dualistic account of human intellect, idea of deiform reason—and his consequent theology of conscience—together with his participatory account of commonwealth, gives significant shape to Price’s conception of political will, equality and democracy. A consideration of the impact of Cudworth’s philosophy on Price’s political thought results in a difficulty for the attempt to dichotomise the enlightenment into sharply distinct radical and moderate movements. A commitment to eternal and immutable reality is shared with the more moderate Burke while Price’s own anti-materialist, dualistic and theologically motivated radicalism marks a significant departure from some of his most important Dissenting contemporaries, including Joseph Priestley.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
Price is clearly indebted to Samuel Clarke too but see Smith (2011, 1–18) for an argument that Clarke’s account of the immutability of truth is in outline from the Cambridge Platonists, particularly Cudworth.
- 2.
- 3.
Fitzpatrick (2012, 42–72) makes a similar argument with regard to candour and toleration. The scope of his paper does not include Price’s influences, however. Hickman (2017) discusses the distinctions Israel draws in further detail but the subject of this book is primarily the philosophy of religion.
- 4.
- 5.
In the mid-twentieth century it was popular to interpret Burke as either a Thomist or a utilitarian, see e.g. Insole (2012); Stanlis (1991). Pocock (1971) argued against the attempt to identify a systematic political philosophy in Burke’s writings and his approach has since dominated. Insole disputes that natural law theology had no influence on Burke and his reading adds weight to Peter J. Stanlis’ interpretation. This article follows their argument that a commitment to the eternal law of the nature of things is a fundamental component of Burke’s philosophy.
- 6.
Burke scholars have tended to continue making this mistake see e.g. Stanlis (1991, 222).
- 7.
For an in depth analysis of Price’s Platonic theology of participation see Hickman (2008) esp. 3–5.
- 8.
This article utilises Carter’s account of Cudworth. He gives a valuable and convincing argument for seeing Cudworth as politically engaged and his monograph is the fullest treatment of Cudworth’s political theology. He challenges the older perception of Cudworth and his fellow Cambridge-based Latitudinarian divines as primarily mystical rather than political; see particularly Tulloch (1872) and Powicke (1926). The political elements of Cudworth’s thought have been noted by Cragg (1968), Rogers (1997) and Hutton, (2011, 161–82).
- 9.
For Burke see Insole (2008, esp. 463–4).
- 10.
Josiah Tucker (1781) is the first person to argue that Price derives his politics from Locke. It was popular until the mid-twentieth century to assume that modern liberalism originated from Locke and studies on Price’s work have tended to see his principle of liberty as Lockean, see esp. Thomas (1977, esp. 188) and Cone (1952, 33). Kramnick (1968) and Pocock (1975) were early and important challengers of the assumption that there is a direct line between Locke and eighteenth century radicalism. Following the work of John Dunn (1969) and HT Dickinson (1977), Locke’s importance has been reaffirmed. Hickman, (2011) argues instead for a Platonic strand in Price’s account of liberty. This discussion points out that few monographs dedicated to Price have considered his politics in detail. The most notable, Labouchiex, (1982) is more concerned with reception and does not consider Price’s influences.
- 11.
Price also associates Henry More with the doctrine (1990, 49n).
- 12.
For more on Price and Cudworth on plastic nature see Hickman (2017, ch. 4, esp. 106–7).
- 13.
It is difficult to know for sure if Burke learned the doctrine of plastic nature directly from the Cambridge Platonists especially given that the idea had popular currency in the late eighteenth century. We know from Price’s writing that it was associated with them and it is reasonable to suppose that Burke was familiar with Cudworth’s work. The True Intellectual System of 1743 was in Burke’s library (item no. 138) and Burke also criticised Bolingbroke who was considerably unfavourable towards Cudworth’s Treatise. McLoughlin and Boulton suggest Cudworth may have introduced Burke to Plotinus (Burke 1997, 241).
Bibliography
Burke, Edmund. 1792. An appeal from the new to the old Whigs. In The works of the right honourable Edmund Burke, vol. 3, 375–520. London: J Dodsley.
———. 1991. In The writings and speeches of Edmund Burke, ed. P.J. Marshall. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
———. 1997. The early writings. In The writings and speeches of Edmund Burke, ed. T.O. McLouglin and James T. Boulton, vol. 1. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
———. 2014. Reflections on the revolution in France. In Revolutionary writings, ed. I. Hampsher-Monk, 1–250. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Carter, Benjamin. 2011. “The little commonwealth of man”: The Trinitarian origins of the ethical and political philosophy of Ralph Cudworth. Leuven: Peeters.
Cone, Carl B. 1952. Torchbearer of freedom: The influence of Richard Price on eighteenth century thought. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press.
Cragg, G.R. 1968. The Cambridge Platonists. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Cudworth, Ralph. 1820. The true intellectual system of the universe. Vol. 4. London: Richard Priestley.
———. 1996. In A treatise concerning eternal and immutable morality with a treatise of freewill, ed. Sarah Hutton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dickenson, H.T. 1977. Liberty and property: Political ideology in eighteenth century Britain. New York: Holmes and Meier.
Dreyer, Frederick. 1978. The genesis of Burke’s “Reflections”. The Journal of Modern History 50: 462–479.
Dunn, John. 1969. The political thought of John Locke. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fitzpatrick, Martin. 2012. Enlightenment, dissent and toleration. Enlightenment and Dissent 28: 42–72.
Freeman, Michael. 1980. Edmund Burke and the critique of political radicalism. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Fruchtman, Jack. 1983. The apocalyptic politics of Richard Price and Joseph Priestley: A study in late eighteenth century English republican millennialism. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society.
Hickman, Louise. 2008. Godliness and godlikeness: Cambridge Platonism in Richard Price’s religious rationalism. Enlightenment and Dissent 24: 1–23.
———. 2011. Casting out Hagar and her children: Richard Price, Platonism and the origins of American independence. International Journal of the Classical Tradition 18: 393–414.
———. 2017. Eighteenth century dissent and Cambridge Platonism: Reconceiving the philosophy of religion. New York: Routledge.
Hoecker, James J. 1984. Joseph Priestley and Utilitarianism in the age of reason. Enlightenment and Dissent 3: 56–64.
Hole, Robert. 1989. Pulpits, politics and public order in England, 1760–1832. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hunter, William B., Jr. 1950. The seventeenth century doctrine of plastic nature. Harvard Theological Review 43: 197–213.
Hutton, Sarah. 2003. The ethical background of the rights of women. In Philosophical theory and the universal declaration of human rights, ed. William Sweet, 27–40. Ottowa: University of Ottowa Press.
———. 2011. A radical review of the Cambridge Platonists. In Varieties of seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century English radicalism in context, ed. Ariel Hessayon and David Finnegan, 161–182. Farnham: Ashgate.
Insole, Christopher J. 2008. Two conceptions of liberalism: Theology, creation and politics in the thought of Immanuel Kant and Edmund Burke. Journal of Religious Ethics 36: 447–489.
———. 2012. Burke and the natural law. In The Cambridge companion to Edmund Burke, ed. David Dwan and Christopher J. Insole, 117–130. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Israel, Jonathan. 2010. A revolution of the mind: Radical enlightenment and the intellectual origins of modern democracy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
———. 2011. Democratic enlightenment: Philosophy, revolution, and human rights 1750–1790. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kramnick, Isaac. 1968. Bolingbroke and his circle: The politics of nostalgia in the age of Walpole. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.
Laboucheix, Henri. 1982. Richard Price as moral philosopher and political theorist: Studies on Voltaire and the eighteenth century. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation at the Taylor Institution.
Page, Anthony. 2011. “A species of slavery”: Richard Price’s rational dissent and antislavery. Slavery and Abolition 32: 53–73.
Pocock, J.G.A. 1971. Politics, language and time: Essays on political thought and history. London: Methuen.
———. 1975. The Machiavellian moment: Florentine political thought and the Atlantic republican tradition. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Powicke, Frederick J. 1926. The Cambridge Platonists: A study. London: J.M. Dent.
Price, Richard. 1766. The nature and dignity of the human soul: A sermon preached at St. Thomas’, January the fifth, 1766. London: A. Millar.
———. 1787. Thoughts on the progress of Socinianism; with an enquiry into the cause and the cure. In a letter humbly addressed to learned, orthodox, and candid ministers of all denominations: With a particular view to the writing of Dr. Priestley. To which is added, a letter to Dr. Price, on his late Sermons on the Christian doctrine. London: J. Buckland and J. Johnson.
———. 1816. Sermons on various subjects. London: Longman.
———. 1948. A review of the principal questions in morals. 3rd ed. Oxford: Clarendon.
———. 1990. Four dissertations. Bristol: Thoemmes.
———. 1991a. In The correspondence of Richard Price, ed. D.O. Thomas. Cardiff: University of Wales Press.
———. 1991b. A discourse on the love of our country. In Political writings, ed. D.O. Thomas, 176–196. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
———. 1991c. Additional observations on the nature and value of civil liberty, and the war with America. In Political writings, ed. D.O. Thomas, 76–100. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
———. 1991d. Observations on the nature of civil liberty, the principles of government, and the justice and policy of the war with America. In Richard Price:Political writings, ed. D.O. Thomas, 20–75. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Priestley, Joseph. 1771. An essay on the first principles of government, and on the nature of political, civil, and religious liberty, including remarks on Dr. Brown’s code of education and on Dr. Balguy’s sermon on church authority. 2nd ed. London: T. Cadell and J. Johnson.
———. 1778. A free discussion of the doctrines of materialism and philosophical necessity. In a correspondence between Dr. Price and Dr. Priestley. To which are added, by Dr. Priestley, an introduction, explaining the nature of the controversy, and letters to several writers who have animadverted on his disquisitions relating to matter and spirit or his treatise on necessity. London: T. Cadell.
———. 1786. Experiments and observations, relating to various branches of natural philosophy; with a continuation of the observations on air. London: Pearson and Rollason.
Rogers, G.A.J. 1997. The other-wordly philosophers and the real world: The Cambridge Platonists, theology and politics. In The Cambridge Platonists in philosophical context: Politics, metaphysics and religion, ed. G.A.J. Rogers et al., 3–16. London: Kluwer.
Smith, S.H. 2011. Clarke on virtue and reasonableness. Enlightenment and Dissent 27: 1–18.
Stanlis, Peter J. 1991. Edmund Burke: The enlightenment and revolution. London: Transaction Publishers.
Thomas, D.O. 1977. The honest mind: The thought and work of Richard Price. Oxford: Clarendon.
———. 1985. Francis Maseres, Richard Price, and the industrious poor. Enlightenment and Dissent 4: 65–82.
———. 1991. Introduction. In Richard Price: Political writings, vii–xxii. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tucker, Josiah. 1781. A treatise concerning civil government. London: T. Cadell.
Tulloch, John. 1872. Rational theology and Christian philosophy in England in the seventeenth century. Edinburgh.
Zebrowski, Martha K. 1994. Richard Price: British Platonist of the eighteenth century. Journal of the History of Ideas 55: 17–35.
———. 2000. We may venture to say, that the number of Platonic readers is considerable: Richard Price, Joseph Priestley and the Platonic strand in eighteenth century thought. Enlightenment and Dissent 19: 193–213.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Hickman, L. (2019). Mixing Politics with the Pulpit: Eternal Immutable Morality and Richard Price’s Political Radicalism. In: Hedley, D., Leech, D. (eds) Revisioning Cambridge Platonism: Sources and Legacy. International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d'histoire des idées, vol 222. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22200-0_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22200-0_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-22199-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-22200-0
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)