63

This article deals with a significant episode in the history of the early-modern reception of Stoicism - namely, Ralph Cudworth 's interpretation of Stoic philosophy as part of his project of producing a complete investigation of atheism, in both a historical and theoretical sense. More specifically, the article focuses on the way in which Cudworth uses elements characteristic of the Stoic conception of nature in order to strengthen the case for his own notion of plastic nature. In dealing with Stoicism, Cudworth 's attitude is reticent and circumspect because of the danger of being linked with contemporary more or less atheistical views of nature (atomistic, hylozoistic, hylopathian, and cosmoplastic - to cite his own fourfold classification of the principal varieties of atheism). Cudworth argues that the « cosmoplastic system of the universe » represents a specifically Stoic version of atheism. At the same time, though, he is at pains to show that cosmoplasticism has to be carefully distinguished from the theistical and « correct » interpretation of Stoic naturalism.