1743 – 1805

William Paley

Worth knowing

An English clergyman, Archdeacon of Carlisle.
His View of the Evidences of Christianity (1794) argues from the apostles, who suffered and died rather than deny what they had seen. Cambridge required students to read it for more than a century.
His Natural Theology (1802) opens with a watch found on a heath, which no one would think had made itself.

In Scholar’s Dream, William Paley has two books

Natural TheologyWilliam Paley, Natural Theology: or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity, Collected from the Appearances of Nature (1802)Natural Theology

A View of the Evidences of ChristianityWilliam Paley (1794)History

William Paley’s quotes in the game

Every quotation from William Paley that a player meets in Scholar’s Dream, attached to the move that says it. Or see them as a plain list →

In Scholar’s Dream, books argue with each other, and each thing a book can do in a debate is called a move. Every quote below is spoken by one of those moves. Open “How it works in the game” under a quote to see the move, which books learn it, and which arguments it answers best.

“If twelve men... should seriously and circumstantially relate to me an account of a miracle wrought before their eyes... if I myself saw them, one after another, consenting to be racked, burnt, or strangled, rather than give up the truth of their account; — still, if Mr. Hume’s rule be my guide, I am not to believe them. Now I undertake to say, that there exists not a sceptic in the world who would not believe them.”
William Paley, A View of the Evidences of Christianity (1794), public domain.public domain

How it works in the game: the move Mr. Hume’s Rule

RationalityArgument · power 80 · 95% accurate

In the gamePaley tests Hume’s own theorem against a simple case, the way a mathematician tests a proof — and finds that nobody, including a sceptic, actually lives by the rule Hume says reason requires.

Learned byA View of the Evidences of Christianity (Lv 40)

“There is precisely the same proof that the eye was made for vision, as there is that the telescope was made for assisting it.”
William Paley, Natural Theology (1802), Ch. III, public domain.public domain

How it works in the game: the move The Eye and the Telescope

Natural TheologyArgument · power 88 · 100% accurate

In the gamePaley’s sharper point: a fish’s eye and a land animal’s eye are shaped differently, and each is exactly right for bending light in water or in air. An instrument-maker would have to make that calculation on purpose.

Learned byNatural Theology (Lv 44)

“That there is satisfactory evidence that many, professing to be original witnesses of the Christian miracles, passed their lives in labours, dangers, and sufferings, voluntarily undergone in attestation of the accounts which they delivered, and solely in consequence of their belief of those accounts.”
William Paley, A View of the Evidences of Christianity (1794), Proposition I, public domain.public domain

How it works in the game: the move Voluntarily Undergone

HistoryArgument · power 96 · 95% accurate

In the gameNot "his word for it" — many witnesses, hostile and friendly, choosing labour, danger, and suffering they could have walked away from at any point, for a claim Paley says none of them ever recanted.

Learned byA View of the Evidences of Christianity (Lv 44)

Strong against

×4Revelation Is Hearsayan argument · why?

Paine says a report cannot bind a reader who was not there. Paley answers with what these particular reporters paid to keep repeating it — labour, danger, and in the end their own lives, for a claim none of them ever recanted.

×4The Age of Reasona book · why?

×2.5A Uniform Experience Against Itan argument · why?

Paley points to witnesses who chose danger and suffering for their testimony and never took it back. Hume’s rule has to call every one of them a liar or a fool.

×2.5An Enquiry Concerning Human Understandinga book · why?

Paley points to witnesses who chose danger and suffering for their testimony and never took it back. Hume’s rule has to call every one of them a liar or a fool.

×2.5Beyond the Mytha book · why?

Paley: the first witnesses suffered for what they said they saw. A myth does not get men killed for telling it.

“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 comprehended its construction, and designed its use.”
William Paley, Natural Theology (1802), Ch. I, public domain.public domain

How it works in the game: the move The Watch Upon the Heath

Natural TheologyArgument · power 95 · 100% accurate

In the gameFind a stone on a heath and you might say it has always been there. Find a watch and you cannot, because its parts fit together for a purpose. Paley argues that the eye is like the watch.

Learned byNatural Theology (Lv 46)

“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.”
William Paley, Natural Theology (1802), Ch. I, public domain.public domain

How it works in the game: the move A Law Presupposes an Agent

Natural TheologyArgument · power 90 · 100% accurate

In the gameTell Paley the watch is the result of the laws of metallic nature and he asks what a law is. It is the manner in which something acts — a description of a power, never the power itself. Take away the thing acting and the law has nothing left to describe.

Learned byNatural Theology (Lv 50)

Strong against

×2.5The Clockwork Cosmosan argument · why?

The deist keeps the laws and retires the lawgiver. Paley asks what a law is: the manner in which something acts, a description of a power and never the power itself. Take away the thing acting and there is nothing left for the law to be about.

“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. That circumstance alters not the case.”
William Paley, Natural Theology (1802), Ch. II, public domain.public domain

How it works in the game: the move Contrivance Must Have Had a Contriver

RationalityArgument · power 88 · 100% accurate

In the gameSuppose the watch was made by another watch, and that one by a third. Paley grants the whole chain and points out what it has not done: every machine in it still shows the fitting of parts to a purpose, and moving the question back a step has never once answered it.

Learned byNatural Theology (Lv 57)

Strong against

×2.5Miracles Are Impossiblean argument · why?

Spinoza has God and nature as one thing, so the order explains itself and nothing outside it is needed or possible. Paley grants the whole chain of causes and points out what it has not done: each link still shows parts fitted to a purpose, and moving the question back has never once answered it.

“The marks of design are too strong to be got over. Design must have had a designer.”
William Paley, Natural Theology (1802), Ch. XXIII, public domain — the sentence after it, naming the designer, is cut because the scan drops its full stop.public domain

How it works in the game: the move Design Must Have Had a Designer

Natural TheologyArgument · power 92 · 100% accurate

In the gameTwenty-two chapters of eyes, ears, joints and valves, and then the shortest paragraph in the book. Paley does not claim the inference is subtle. He claims it is unavoidable, and says so in two sentences.

Learned byNatural Theology (Lv 64)

Strong against

×2.5Room for Beliefan argument · why?

Kant allows the design argument its force and then caps it: at best it reaches an architect who shaped matter, never a creator, so reason must stop and faith take over. Paley will not take the cap — twenty-two chapters of eyes and joints and valves, and then two sentences saying the inference is not subtle, it is unavoidable.

×2.5The Critique of Pure Reasona book · why?

Words William Paley’s books borrow from others

Moves these books can learn whose quotation comes from somebody else. The citation on each one names who actually said it.

“For in him we live, and move, and have our being. As some of your own poets have said.”
Acts 17:28 (WEB) — Paul at the Areopagus, quoting the Athenians’ own poets back to them.

How it works in the game: the move Affirm

Status

In the gamePick the part of the opponent’s case that is true and affirm it. That point can no longer be used against you, and the opponent’s Defend falls sharply. It deals no damage. Affirm something false and you have only agreed with an error.

Learned byNatural Theology (Lv 20), A View of the Evidences of Christianity (Lv 18)

Who else was alive

William Paley against everyone else in the game.

A.D. 450A.D. 700A.D. 950A.D. 1200A.D. 1450A.D. 1700A.D. 1950

Boethius Boniface John of Damascus Daniel of Winchester Timothy I Alcuin of York Pope Leo III Eulogius of Córdoba Paul Alvaro of Córdoba Rimbert Humbert of Silva Candida Michael Cerularius Peter III of Antioch Anselm of Canterbury Ari Thorgilsson Ebo and Herbord Thomas Aquinas John Wyclif Lorenzo Valla Girolamo Savonarola Pope Paul III Martin Luther Miles Coverdale William Tyndale Emperor Charles V John Calvin Teresa of Ávila John Jewel The Council of Trent The English exiles at Geneva Hugo Grotius René Descartes John Owen Blaise Pascal John Bunyan Louis XIV of France Pierre Bayle Joseph Butler Jonathan Edwards Thomas Reid George Campbell William Paley John Henry Newman J. C. Ryle Friedrich Nietzsche James Orr B. B. Warfield Herman Bavinck W. R. Sorley James Denney J. Gresham Machen

Solid bar = firm dates · faded = approximate51 authors sit outside this window