Richard Cumberland, D.D., bishop of Peterborough, a learned divine and archæologist, was born in London in 1632, and was educated at St. Paul’s School, and Magdalen College, Cambridge. He was made rector of Brampton, and in 1667 vicar of All Hallows, Stamford. In 1691 he was raised to the see of Peterborough without any solicitation on his part. He was previously known by his treatise “De Legibus Naturæ” (London, 1672, 4to), in answer to Hobbes, and by his “Essay on Jewish Weights and Measures” (London, 1686, 8vo). He was indefatigable in performing his episcopal duties. Being advised, on account of his age and infirm state, to relax a little, he replied, “It is better to wear out than rust out.” After his death appeared his “Origines Gentium” (London 1724, 8vo); and his translation of “Sanchoniatho’s Phœnician History” (London, 1720, 8vo). At the age of eighty-three, Dr. Cumberland, having been presented by Dr. Wilkins with a copy of his Coptic Testament, then just published, commenced, like another Cato, the study of Coptic. “At this age,” says Mr. Payne, “he mastered the language, and went through great part of this version, and would often give me excellent hints and remarks as he proceeded in reading of it.” He died Oct. 9, 1718. Cumberland’s theory of morals is set forth in his treatise “De Legibus Naturæ.”

Personal

  The pastoral industry, affectionate zeal, and fervent piety of Bishop Cumberland, were as conspicuous as his learning and theological acumen.

  From Payne’s account he appears to have been a man of great simplicity and entire absence of vanity. He was slow and phlegmatic, and preferred the accumulation to the diffusion of knowledge. He received a copy of Wilkins’s Coptic Testament at the age of eighty-three, and learned the language in order to examine the book. At the same age he was forced to give up the visitation of his diocese. He had previously discharged his duties conscientiously, saying often that “a man had better wear out than rust out.” He was liberal, and at the end of every year gave all surplus revenue to the poor, reserving only 25l. to pay for his funeral.

General

  It [“Recovery of Jewish Weights and Measures”] discovers great sagacity, learning, and research. The subject is attended with many difficulties, which the Bishop of Peterborough combats, perhaps as successfully as could reasonably be expected. The work was attacked by Bernard in a Latin work on the same subject, published two years after; but it is highly spoken of by Le Clerc.

  His manner of reasoning is diffuse, abounding in repetitions, and often excursive: we cannot avoid perceiving that he labors long on propositions which no adversary would dispute, or on which the dispute could be little else than one of verbal definition…. As Taylor’s “Ductor Dubitantium” is nearly the last of a declining school, Cumberland’s “Law of Nature” may be justly considered as the herald, especially in England, of a new ethical philosophy, of which the main characteristics were, first, that it stood complete in itself without the aid of revelation; secondly, that it appealed to no authority of earlier writers whatever, though it sometimes used them in illustration; thirdly, that it availed itself of observation and experience, alleging them generally, but abstaining from particular instances of either, and making, above all, no display of erudition; and, fourthly, that it entered very little upon casuistry, leaving the application of principles to the reader.

  Cumberland stands by himself,… is important as a distinctly philosophical disquisition, but its extraordinarily discursive character renders impossible anything like analysis.

  His doctrines have an independent place in the history of philosophy; but as he wrote in Latin, he has but a quasi-legitimate standing in the history of English literature.

  Bishop Cumberland was the first of English-speaking moralists to teach that virtue or rectitude consists in general or universal benevolence. For this, his name is worthy of perpetual remembrance among philosophers.

  His book on the laws of nature was one of the innumerable treatises called out by opposition to Hobbes. It is rather cumbrous and discursive, but is ably written, and remarkable as laying down distinctly a utilitarian criterion of morality. The public good is the end of morality, and “universal benevolence” the source of all virtues. Cumberland occupies an important place in English ethical speculation, and his influence seems to be traceable in the writings of Shaftesbury and Hutcheson.

  The bishop wrote an excessively bad style, alike in Latin and in English. He is often quite unintelligible and always dull. Long, involved sentences, and tedious, almost irrelevant, digressions, mar his pages. That he was a man of deep learning, careful judgment, and acute reasoning power is evident enough, but that he either could not or would not put his doubtless valuable matter into an attractive form, is also only too painfully evident. There is neither humour, poetry, nor any embellishment in his writings. Clumsy, long-winded disquisitions on themes that have years ago lost any interest they may ever have had, constantly recur as we turn over page after page of his treatises. To serve as a warning that, however valuable the matter, badness of manner will inevitably damn a book in the eyes of posterity is the only lasting good poor old Bishop Cumberland can claim to have accomplished.

  Culverwell and Cumberland scarcely rank in a literary history.

  While the doctrine of Universalistic Hedonism has played a most conspicuous part in English Ethics since the time of Paley and Bentham, it is not commonly realized that the essential features of the system were stated and developed by a contemporary of the Cambridge Platonists. It is true that Cumberland’s treatise, De legibus naturae, like most ethical works of the time, were largely controversial in character, being written to refute Hobbes. Moreover, the jural aspect of the system, implied by the very title of the treatise, tends to obscure what for us is by far its most important feature. And even this is not all. The “common good” which Cumberland regarded as the end of all truly moral action, includes “perfection” as well as “happiness,” which leads to serious confusion in the working out of the system. But, making all allowances for what was incidental in the external form of the work, and the confusion of two principles which have long since become clearly differentiated, it is well worth while to examine with some care the ablest, or at any rate the most successful, opponent of Hobbes and the true founder of English Utilitarianism…. While the thinker of an ordinary ability, and standing for a principle which has become clearly differentiated in the later development of English Ethics, Cumberland is so utterly lacking in a talent for exposition that the adequate presentation of his views is a matter of peculiar difficulty. Indeed, even apart from its singular lack of method, the fact that the work is so largely controversial in character, increases the difficulty of extracting from it the author’s own system.