Nathanael Culverwel, the religious and moral philosopher commonly if rather misleadingly described as a Cambridge Platonist, was probably a son of Richard Culverwel, rector of St. Margaret's, in London, although neither his parentage nor the date of his birth is certain. He certainly grew up in a Calvinist atmosphere. In 1633 he was admitted to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he encountered the teachings of Benjamin Whichcote, the spiritual leader of Cambridge Platonism. Ralph Cudworth was slightly junior to him as an undergraduate at Emmanuel but was elected to a fellowship three years before Culverwel's election in 1642. John Smith was of the same generation. Culverwel's contemporaries refer in somewhat obscure terms to troubles that beset him in later life; these may have included some sort of mental breakdown. He died not later than 1651.

Culverwel published nothing during his lifetime. Shortly after his death, however, William Dillingham...