 The oldest member of the group, Benjamin Whichcote, is usually considered to be the founding father of Cambridge Platonism. During the Civil War period, Whichcote was appointed Provost of King’s College, Cambridge, and he served as Vice Chancellor of the University in 1650. However, he was removed from his post at King’s College at the Restoration in 1660, and was obliged to seek employment elsewhere, as a clergyman in London. The interruption to his academic career may explain why he never published any philosophical treatises as such. The main source for his philosophical views are his posthumously-published sermons and aphorisms. Whichcote’s tolerant, optimistic and rational outlook set the intellectual tone for Cambridge Platonism. Whichcote’s philosophical views are grounded in his repudiation of Calvinist theology. He held that God being supremely perfect is necessarily good, wise and loving. Whichcote regarded human nature as rational and perfectible, and he believed that it is through reason as much as revelation that God communicates with man. ‘God is the most knowable of any thing in the world’ (Patrides, 1969, p.58). Without reason we would have no means of demonstrating the existence of God, and no assurance that revelation is from God. By reason Whichcote did not mean the disputatious logic of the schools but discursive, demonstrative and practical reason enlightened by contemplation of the divine. He held that moral principles are immutable absolutes which exist independently of human minds and institutions, and that virtuous conduct is grounded in reason. Whichcote’s Aphorisms amount to a manual of practical ethics which amply illustrates his conviction that the fruit reason is not ‘bare knowledge’ but action, or knowledge which ‘doth go forth into act’. It is through reason that we gain knowledge of the natural world, and recognise natural phenomena as ‘the EFFECTS OF GOD’. Although Whichcote’s published writings do not discuss natural philosophy as such, his recognition of the demonstrative value of natural philosophy for the argument from design anticipates the use of natural philosophy in the apologetics of Cudworth and More.