William Paley

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 … it had lain there
forever … but suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired
how the watch happened to be in that place, I should hardly think of the answer which
I had before given, that, for any thing 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? For this reason,
that, when we come to inspect the watch, we perceive (what we could not discover in the stone)
that its several parts are … put together for a purpose. … we think 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 comprehended
its construction, and designed its use. For every indication of contrivance, every manifestation
of design, which existed in the watch, there exists in the works of Nature… there is precisely the
same proof that the eye was [Created] for vision …

William Paley - Natural Theology


Download "Natural Theology" using a HTML (Blue) format.

Additional Chapters will appear upon request.

- Natural Theology - 1839 - Preface - Text -

- Natural Theology - Chapter 1. - Text -

- Natural Theology - Chapter 2. - Text -

- Natural Theology - Chapter 3. - Text -


Representative Figures -


Portrait of William Paley






The Book Page

Return to The Book Page using "Back"

or in a new window using the "Book" link above.



Report problems ...... Tools ...... News ...... Links