Paley W

NAME: Paley, William

ACHIEVEMENT(S): “God the designer” concept

NICKNAME/ALIAS: "Pigeon" Paley

DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH: July, 1743, Peterborough, Northamptonshire, England

DATE/PLACE OF DEATH/AGE AT DEATH: May 25, 1805, Lincoln, Lincolnshire, England. Aged 61

DISCIPLINE: Theologian

FIELD: Theology/Philosophy

LANGUAGE: English

PARENTS: William Paley; Elizabeth Clapham

SIBLINGS: 3 sisters

SPOUSE: 1) Jane Hewitt. 2) (First name unknown) Dobinson

CHILDREN: By Jane Hewitt: 4 sons, 4 daughters

EDUCATION: Giggleswick Grammar School; tutored in mathematics at Ripon (???); Cambridge University

MAJOR WORK: "Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy", "Evidences of Christianity", "Natural Theology: or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity, Collected from the Appearances of Nature"

LIFE AND TIMES:

Paley briefly worked as Latin tutor at the Greenwich Academy in London before being ordained deacon and taking the position as junior curate to the vicar of Greenwich. In 1766 he was offered a fellowship at Cambridge University, where, during a stay of a year, he became known as a superb teacher and lecturer. From Cambridge, he went to Musgrave, in northern England, to become archdeacon of Carlisle in 1782.

Encouraged by friends, Paley expanded his Cambridge lectures into a book, "Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy", which was published in 1785. The work contained his version of theological utilitarianism, a line of thought whose major proponents would be Jeremy Bentham* and, a half-century later, John Stuart Mill*. (Inspired by Paley's work, Bentham brought out "Introduction to the Principals of Morals and Legislation", in 1789).

Paley's book was immediately adopted as a textbook at Cambridge, and went through 15 editions during his lifetime. His famous attack on private property in Book III, which compared human greed with the behavior of pigeons, earned him the nickname "Pigeon" Paley. In 1794, he produced his famous "Evidences of Christianity", a summary of the arguments against the deists, which became required reading for entrance to Cambridge University until the 20th century.

In 1795, Paley was made a subdean of Lincoln and rector of Bishop-Wearmouth in Durham. In 1802, he published his most popular work, "Natural Theology", in which he sought to prove the existence of God by citing the apparent design in natural phenomena, particularly in the mechanisms of the human body.

The opening pages of "Natural Theology" introduced his celebrated analogy of a watch: ". . . we perceive. . . that [the watch's] several parts are . . . put together for a purpose, . . . formed . . . as to produce motion, and that motion so regulated as to point out the hour of the day; . . . if the different parts had been differently shaped, . . . or placed . . . in any other order, . . . either no motion at all would have been carried on in the machine, or none which would have answered the use that is now served by it. . . . The watch must have had a maker. . ." Living organisms, Paley argued, are more complicated than watches, to a degree that "exceeds all computation", and he argued that the only way to account for the often amazing adaptations of animals and plants was to accept that an intelligent designer (God) created them.

Paley always stressed he was not writing a system of natural history, but he read extensively in theology and science, particularly the works of John Hunter* ("Account of the Dissection of a Whale") and Cheselden* ("Anatomy of the Human Body"). His theological arguments were also in part derived from such authors as Ray* ("Wisdom of God Manifested in the Works of the Creation"). Charles Darwin*, while a student at Cambridge, was impressed with Paley's arguments.

Paley had difficulty, however, in explaining suffering, waste, and cruelty (why would a benevolent Designer have made cats play with mice before killing them, or parasites that eat their hosts from the inside?)

Paley struggled to reconcile the apparent discrepancies between the cruelty and indifference of nature with his belief in a good God, and finally concluded that the joys of life simply outweighed its sorrows.

ASSESSMENT: Paley's theological arguments were comforting to Christians in a time of startling biological and geological discovery

EXTRA CONNECTIONS: Saw actor Garrick* perform in a London theater.

His work related to that of Raffles*.

Economist Alfred Marshall* married his granddaughter.

He influenced Charles Bell*

ONELINER: William Paley, of ‘God the Designer’ view

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

EB, DNB

LeMahieu, D.L., The Mind of William Paley: A Philosopher and His Age, Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1976