In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against ...

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William Paley Quote

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 any thing I know to the contrary, it had lain there for ever: 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 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? why is it not as admissable in the second case as in the first? For this reason, and for no other, viz., 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 . . . This mechanism being observed . . . 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 of 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

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Quote Tags: Watch, Stone, Purpose, Suppose, Framed, Heath, Perceive, Inspect, Several, Crossing, Discover, Parts, Inference, Formed, Artificers

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Author Information

English theologian and philosopher, 1743-1805

Born:1743

Author Keywords: Philosopher, Theologian, English

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Other Authors

Xi Zhi, Heraclitus, Pierre Bayle, Victor Cousin, Alfred North Whitehead

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