Ralph, the celebrated antagonist of Hobbes, was born at Aller, Somersetshire, in 1617. When only thirteen, he was entered at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he afterwards became a fellow and tutor. Amongst his pupils he numbered the celebrated Sir William Temple. In 1641 he was presented to the rectory of North Cadbury, Somersetshire; and in the year following he published a discourse concerning the true nature of the Lord's Supper, which was quoted with approbation by Bochart, Spencer, Selden, and other learned writers. In 1644 he was appointed master of Clare Hall, and in the following year was elected regius professor of Hebrew. After a temporary absence from Cambridge, caused by pecuniary difficulties with which he seems to have been embarrassed, he was elected master of Christ's College in 1654; and having devoted a large share of his attention to the study of Hebrew literature and antiquities, he was one of the persons named by a committee of parliament to be consulted in regard to the English translation of the Bible. In 1678 appeared his greatest work, the True Intellectual System of the Universe, a treatise which aims at confuting on a priori principles the system of intellectual atheism, as distinguished from the schemes of immoral theism and fatalistic morality. It was translated into Latin by Mosheim, in 1733. The odium heaped upon Cudworth and all the sect of the Latitude men, as they were called at Cambridge, seems to have deterred him from publishing the two great appendices to the work, in which he discusses the ethical and physical aspects of atheism. Of these one was published by Bishop Chandler in 1731, under the title of a Treatise on Eternal and Immutable Morality; but the other still remains in MS. in the British Museum.

Dr Cudworth died at Cambridge in 1688, and was buried in Christ's College. His daughter Damaris, who married Sir Francis Masham, was a lady of considerable genius and learning, and is known as the friend and nurse of Locke in his last illness. Besides the works already mentioned, Cudworth also published a treatise entitled Deus Justificatus, or the Divine Goodness vindicated and cleared, against the assertors of absolute and unconditional Reprobation; a sermon on John ii.3–4, preached before the House of Commons; and a sermon preached at Lincoln's Inn on I Cor. xv. 57. The MSS. preserved in the British Museum comprise treatises on the following subjects:—A Discourse of Moral Good and Evil; another Book of Morality, in which Hobbes's philosophy is explained; A Discourse of Liberty and Necessity, in which the grounds of the atheistical philosophy are confuted, and morality vindicated and explained; another book De Libero Arbitrio; Upon Daniel's Prophecy of the Seventy Weeks, in which all the interpretations of the Jews are considered and refuted, with several of some learned Christians; Of the Verity of the Christian Religion against the Jews; A Discourse of the Creation of the World and the Immortality of the Soul; Hebrew Learning; and An Explanation of Hobbes's notion of God, and of the extension of Spirits. For an estimate of Cudworth's merits, see Second Preliminary Dissertation, vol. i., p. 341.

Cuencá, a department of New Castile, Spain. It occupies the eastern part of that ancient kingdom, and forms the northern half of the great southern Castilian plain which is watered by the Guadiana and Incar. The rocky district of Cuencá includes the valley of the Incar and its tributary streams; but in the north it is principally watered by tributaries of the Tagus. The forests of the department are proverbial, and rival those of Soria; but, from the difficulty of land carriage, timber is scarce and dear in the unwooded districts. Excessive droughts prevail throughout the whole department, and the heat of summer is relieved only by frequent storms of wind. The soil, where well watered, is fertile, but little attention is paid to agriculture. The rearing of cattle, asses, mules, and sheep is the principal employment of the natives. Olive-oil and wine are but sparingly produced. Manufactures are limited to the coarsest stuffs.

Cuencá, the capital of the above department, stands near the river Incar at its confluence with a small stream called the Huecar, on a site 3400 feet above the level of the sea, and is distant about nine miles from Madrid. It was once a flourishing town, the focus of the provincial wool-trade, but it has now a population of barely 8000. Its cathedral was founded by Alonzo VIII. in 1177, and is one of the most remarkable in Spain. A few woollen factories and paper mills are all that now remain of its ancient industry.

Cuencá, an inland town of Ecuador, and capital of a cognominal province. It stands on a plain at an elevation of about 8600 feet, near the hill of Farqui, chosen by the French astronomers as their meridian in 1742. It is a cathedral city, and contains several monasteries, besides a college and other educational institutions. Cuencá has an extensive trade in cheese, confectionery, hats, grain and other agricultural produce. Pop. 20,000; of whom a considerable portion are Indians.