CUMBERLAND, RICHARD. – English philosopher, born in London on 15 July 1631, died there on 9 October 1718. C., Anglican bishop of Petersborough, is known for the struggle he waged against Hobbes’s egoistic materialism.
To the Hobbesian theory of the original struggle (homo homini lupus), in the treatise De legibus naturae (London 1672) he opposes an optimistic conception, developing the idea of a fundamental lex naturae, which he identifies with benevolentia universalis. On this concept he bases a systematization of the social and historical world inspired by finalism, although in the philosophy of nature he follows Cartesian mechanism, and he anticipates the Enlightenment view of social life.
BIBL.: F. E. Spaulding, R. C. als Begründer der englischen Ethik, Leipzig 1893; F. C. Sharp The ethical system of R. C., excerpt from Mind, 21 (1912). Giovanni di Napoli