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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    same manner as we do the faults of a clock or watch wholly to the watchmaker. All men’s words at least free God from the blame of wicked actions, pronouncing 6 0eo? avairio^, God is causeless and guiltless of them, and we cast the blame of them wholly on the men themselves, as principles of action and the true causes of the moral defects of them. So also do we blame men’s acting viciously and immorally in another sense than we blame a halting or a stumbling horse; or than we blame the natural and necessary infirmities of men themselves when uncontracted by vice. For in this case we so blame the infirmities as to pity the men them- selves, looking upon them as unfortunate but not as faulty. But we blame men’s vices, with a dis- pleasure against the persons themselves. The same sense of nature’s instincts appears yet more plainly from men’s blaming, accusing, and condemning themselves for their own actions, when done either rashly, inconsiderately, and imprudently, to their own private disadvantage, or else immorally and viciously, and against the dictate of honesty. In whicli latter case men have an inward sense of guilt (besides shame), remorse of conscience, with horror, confusion, and astonishment; and they repent of those their actions afterward with a kind of self-detestation, and sometimes not without exer- cising revenge upon themselves ns being a piece of justice due. No man accuses or condemns himself, nor looks u]ion himself as guilty for having had a