From Natural Theology (1802)
William Paley (1743-1805)

Chapter One: State of the Argument

(1-A)    In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone and were asked how the stone came to be there, I might possibly answer that for anything I knew to the contrary it had lain there forever; nor would it, perhaps, be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer. But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watchhappened to be in that place, I should hardly think of the answer which I had before given, that for anything I knew the watch might have always been there. Yet why should not this answer serve for the watch as well as for the stone; why is it not as admissible in the second case as in the first? For this reason, and for no other, namely, that when we come to inspect the watch, we perceive–what we could not discover in the stone–that its several parts are framed and put together for a purpose, e.g., that they are so formed and adjusted as to produce motion, and that motion so regulated as to point out the hour of the day; that if the different parts had been differently shaped from what they are, or placed after any other manner or in any other order than that in which they are placed, 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. To reckon up a few of the plainest of these parts and of their offices, all tending to one result: we see a cylindrical box containing a coiled elastic spring, which, by its endeavor to relax itself, turns round the box. We next observe a flexible chain–artificially wrought for the sake of flexure–communicating the action of the spring from the box to the fusee. We then find a series of wheels, the teeth of which catch in and apply to each other, conducting the motion from the fusee to the balance and from the balance to the pointer, and at the same time, by the size and shape of those wheels, so regulating that motion as to terminate in causing an index, by an equable and measured progression, to pass over a given space in a given time. We take notice that the wheels are made of brass, in order to keep them from rust; the springs of steel, no other metal being so elastic; that over the face of the watch there is placed a glass, a material employed in no other part of the work, but in the room of which, if there had been any other than a transparent substance, the hour could not be seen without opening the case. This mechanism being observed–it requires indeed an examination of the instrument, and perhaps some previous knowledge of the subject, to perceive and understand it; but being once, as we have said, observed and understood–the inference we think is inevitable, that the watch must have had a maker–that there must have existed, at some time and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers who formed it for the purpose which we find it actually to answer, who completely comprehended its construction and designed its use.

    (1-A) I. Nor would it, I apprehend, weaken that conclusion, that we had never seen a watch made–that we had never known an artist capable of making one–that we were altogether incapable of executing such a piece of workmanship ourselves, or of understanding in what manner it was performed . . . .

    (1-A) II. Neither, secondly, would it invalidate our conclusion, that the watch sometimes went wrong or that it seldom went exactly right. . . .

    (1-A) III. Nor, thirdly, would it bring any uncertainty into the argument, if there were a few parts of the watch, concerning which we could not discover or had not yet discovered in what manner they conduced to the general affect; or even some parts, concerning which we could not ascertain whether they conduced to that effect in any manner whatever. . .

    (1-A) IV. Nor, fourthly, would any man in his senses think the existence of the watch with its various machinery accounted for, by being told that it was one out of possible combinations of material forms; that whatever he had found in the place where he found the watch, must have contained some internal configuration or other; and that this configuration might be the structure now exhibited, namely, of the works of a watch, as well as a different structure.

    (1-A) V. Nor, fifthly, would it yield his inquiry more satisfaction, to be answered that there exists in things a principle of order, which had disposed the parts of the watch into their present form and situation. He never knew a watch made by the principle of order; nor can he even form to himself an idea of what is meant by a principle of order distinct from the intelligence of the watchmaker.

    (1-A) VI. Sixthly, he would be surprised to hear that the mechanism of the watch was no proof of contrivance, only a motive to induce the mind to think so:

    (1-A) VII. And not less surprised to be informed that the watch in his hand was nothing more that the result of the laws of metallic nature. It is a perversion of language to assign any law as the efficient, operative cause of any thing. A law presupposes an agent, for it is only the mode according to which an agent proceeds: it implies a power, for it is the order according to which that power acts. Without this agent, without this power, which are both distinct from itself, the law does nothing, is nothing. . . .

    (1-A) VIII. Neither, lastly, would our observer be driven out of his conclusion or from his confidence in its truth by being told that he knew nothing at all about the matter. He knows enough for his argument; he knows the utility of the end; he knows the subserviency and adaptation of the means to the end. These points being known, his ignorance of other points, his doubts concerning other points affect not the certainty of his reasoning. The consciousness of knowing little need not beget a distrust of that which he does know.

Chapter Two:  State Of The Argument Continued

(2-A)    Suppose, in the next place, that the person who found the watch should after some time discover that, in addition to all the properties which he had hitherto observed in it, it possessed the unexpected property of producing in the course of its movement another watch like itself–the thing is conceivable; that it contained within it a mechanism, a system of parts–a mold, for instance, or a complex adjustment of lathes, files, and other tools–evidently and separately calculated for this purpose; let us inquire what effect ought such a discovery to haveupon his former conclusion.
    
    (2-A) I. The first effect would be to increase his admiration of the contrivance, and his conviction ofthe consummate skill of the contriver. . . .

    (2-A)  II. He would reflect that, though the watch before him were in some sense the maker of the watch which was fabricated in the course of its movements, yet it was in a very different sense from that in which a carpenter, for instance, is the maker of a chair–the author of its contrivance, the cause of the relation of its parts to their use. With respect to these, the first watch was no cause at all to the second; in no such sense as this was it the author of the constitution and order, either of the parts which the new watch contained, or of the parts by the aid and instrumentality of which it was produced. . . . Therefore,

    (2-A) III. Though it be now no longer probable that the individual watch which our observer had found was made immediately by the hand of an artificer, yet this alteration does not in anywise affect the inference that an artificer had been originally employed and concerned in the production. The argument from design remains as it was. Marks of design and contrivance are no more accounted for now than they were before. . . .

    (3-A) IV. Nor is anything gained by running the difficulty farther back, that is, by supposing the watch before us to have been produced from another watch, that from a former, and so on indefinitely. Our going back ever so far brings us no nearer to the least degree of satisfaction upon the subject. Contrivance is still unaccounted for. We still want a contriver. . . . The machine which we are inspecting demonstrates, by its construction, contrivance and design. Contrivance must have had a contriver, design a designer, whether the machine immediately proceeded from another machine or not. . . .

    (3-A) V. Our observer would further also reflect that the maker of the watch before him was in truth and reality the maker of every watch produced from it: there being no difference, except that the latter manifests a more exquisite skill, between the making of another watch with his own hands, by the mediation of files, lathes, chisels, etc., and the disposing, fixing, and inserting of these instruments, or of others equivalent to them, in the body of the watch in the course of the movements which he had given to the old one. It is only working by one set of tools instead of another. The conclusion which the first examination of the watch, of its works, construction, and movement, suggested, was that it must have had, for cause and author of that construction, an artificer who understood its mechanism and designed its use. This conclusion is invincible. A second examination presents us with a new discovery. The watch is found, in the course of its movement, to produce another watch similar to itself; and not only so, but we perceive in it a system or organization separately calculated for that purpose. What effect would this discovery have or ought it to have upon our former inference? What, as has already been said, but to increase beyond measure our admiration of the skill which had been employed in the formation of such a machine? Or shall it, instead of this, all at once turn us round to an opposite conclusion, namely, that no art or skill whatever has been concerned in the business, although all other evidences of art and skill remain as they were, and this last and supreme piece of art be now added to the rest? Can this be maintained without absurdity? Yet this is atheism.

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Conclusion

(27-A)      In all cases wherein the mind feels itself in danger of being confounded by variety, it is sure to rest upon a few strong points, or perhaps upon a single instance. Among a multitude of proofs it is one that does the business. If we observe in any argument that hardly two minds fix upon the same instance, the diversity of choice shows the strength of the argument because it shows the number and competition of the examples. There is no subject in which the tendency to dwell upon select or single topics is so usual because there is no subject of which, in its full extent, the latitude is so great as that of natural history applied to the proof of an intelligent Creator. For my part, I take my stand in human anatomy; and the examples of mechanism I should be apt to draw out from the copious catalogue which it supplies are the pivot upon which the head turns, the ligaments within the socket of the hip-joint, the pulley or trochlear muscles of the eye, the epiglottis, the bandages which tie down the tendons of the wrist and instep, the slit or perforated muscles at the hands and feet, the knitting of the intestines to the mesentery, the course of the chyle into the blood, and the constitution of the sexes as extended throughout the whole of animal creation. To these instances the reader's memory will go back, as they are severally set forth in their places: there is not one of the number which I do not think decisive–not one which is not strictly mechanical; nor have I read or heard of any solution of these appearances, which in the smallest degree shakes the conclusion that we build upon them.

(27-B)    But of the greatest part of those who, either in this book or any other, read arguments to prove the existence of a God, it will be said that they leave off only where they began; that they were never ignorant of this great truth, never doubted of it; that it does not therefore appear what is gained by researches from which no new opinion is learned, and upon the subject of which no proofs were wanted. Now, I answer that by investigation the following points are always gained in favor of doctrines even the most generally acknowledged, supposing them to be true, namely, stability, and impression. Occasions will arise to try the firmness of our most habitual opinions. And upon these occasions it is a matter of incalculable use to feel our foundation, to find a support in argument for what we had taken up upon authority. In the present case the arguments upon which the conclusion rests are exactly such as a truth of universal concern ought to rest upon. "They are sufficiently open to the views and capacities of the unlearned, at the same time that they acquire new strength and luster from the discoveries of the learned." If they had been altogether abstruse and recondite, they would not have found their way to the understandings of the mass of mankind; if they had been merely popular, they might have wanted solidity.

(27-C)   But, secondly, what is gained by research in the stability of our conclusion is also gained from it in impression. Physicians tell us that there is a great deal of difference between taking a medicine and the medicine getting into the constitution; a difference not unlike which, obtains with respect to those great moral propositions which ought to form the directing principles of human conduct. It is one thing to assent to a proposition of this sort; another, and a very different thing, to have properly imbibed its influence. I take the case to be this: perhaps almost every man living has a particular train of thought, into which his mind glides and falls, when at leisure from the impressions and ideas that occasionally excite it; perhaps, also, the train of thought here spoken of, more than any other thing, determines the character. It is of the utmost consequence, therefore, that this property of our constitution be well regulated. Now it is by frequent or continued meditation upon a subject, by placing a subject in different points of view, by induction of particulars, by variety of examples, by applying principles to the solution of phenomena, by dwelling upon proofs and consequences, that mental exercise is drawn into any particular channel. It is by these means, at least, that we have any power over it. The train of spontaneous thought, and the choice of that train, may be directed to different ends, and may appear to be more or less judiciously fixed, according to the purpose in respect of which we consider it; but, in a moral view , I shall not, I believe, be contradicted when I say that, if one train of thinking be more desirable than another, it is that which regards the phenomena of nature with a constant reference to a supreme intelligent Author. To have made this the ruling, the habitual sentiment of our minds, is to have laid the foundation of everything which is religious. The world thenceforth becomes a temple, and life itself one continued act of adoration. The change is no less than this: that whereas formerly God was seldom in our thoughts, we can now scarcely look upon anything without perceiving its relation to him. Every organized natural body, in the provisions which it contains for its sustentation and propagation, testifies a care, on the part of the Creator, expressly directed to these purposes: We are on all sides surrounded by such bodies: examined in their parts, wonderfully diversified. So that the mind, as well as the eye, may either expatiate in variety and multitude or fix itself down to the investigation of particular divisions of the science. And in either case it will rise up from its occupation, possessed by the subject in a very different manner, and with a very different degree of influence, from what a mere assent to any verbal proposition which can be formed concerning the existence of the Deity–at least that merely complying assent with which those about us are satisfied, and with which we are too apt to satisfy ourselves–will or can produce upon the thoughts. More especially may this difference be perceived in the degree of admiration and of awe with which the Divinity is regarded, when represented to the understanding by its own remarks, its own reflections, and its own reasonings, compared with what is excited by any language that can be used by others. The works of nature want only to be contemplated. When contemplated, they have everything in them which can astonish by their greatness; for, of the vast scale of operation through which our discoveries carry us, at one end we see an intelligent Power arranging planetary systems, fixing, for instance, the trajectory of Saturn, or constructing a ring of two hundred thousand miles diameter, to surround his body, and be suspended like a magnificent arch over the heads of his inhabitants; and at the other, bending a hooked tooth, concerting and providing and appropriate mechanism for the clasping and reclasping of the filaments of the feather of the hummingbird. We have proof not only of both these works proceeding from an intelligent agent but of their proceeding from the same agent: for, in the first place, we can trace an identity of the plan, a connection of system, from Saturn to our own globe; and when arrived upon our globe, we can, in the second place pursue the connection though all the organized, especially the animated bodies which it supports. We can observe marks of a common relation, as well to one another as to the elements of which their habitation is composed. Therefore, one mind has planned or at least has prescribed a general plan for all these productions. One Being has been concerned in all.

(27-D)   Under this stupendous Being we live. Our happiness, our existence, is in his hand. All we expect must come from him. Nor ought we to feel our situation insecure. In every nature, and in every portion of nature which we can descry, we find attention bestowed upon even the minutest parts. The hinges in the wings of an earwig, and the joints of its antennae, are as highly wrought as if the Creator had had nothing else to finish. We see no signs of diminution of care by multiplicity of objects, or of distraction of thought by variety. We have no reason to fear, therefore, our being forgotten, or overlooked, or neglected.

(27-E)    The existence and character of the Deity is, in every view, the most interesting of all human speculations. In none, however, is it more so than as it facilitates the belief of the fundamental articles of revelation. It is a step to have it proved that there must be something in the world more than what we see. It is a further step to know, that among the invisible things of nature there must be an intelligent mind concerned in its production, order, and support. These points being assured to us by natural theology, we may well leave to revelation the disclosure of many particulars which our research cannot reach respecting either the nature of this Being as the original cause of all things, or his character and designs as a moral governor; and not only so, but the more full confirmation of other particulars, of which, though they do not lie altogether beyond our reasonings and our probabilities, the certainty is by no means equal to the importance. The true theist will be the first to listen to any credible communication of divine knowledge. Nothing which he has learnt from natural theology will diminish his desire of further instruction, or his disposition to receive it with humility and thankfulness. He wishes for light, he rejoices in light. His inward veneration of this great Being will incline him to attend with the utmost seriousness, not only to all that can be discovered concerning him by researches into nature, but to all that is taught by a revelation which gives reasonable proof of having proceeded from him.