The Works of William Paley: Natural Theology

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C. and J. Rivington and J. Nunn, 1825

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Página xvii - I knew 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.
Página 313 - Swarms of new-born flies are trying their pinions in the air. Their sportive motions, their wanton mazes, their gratuitous activity, their continual change of place without use or purpose, testify their joy, and the exultation which they feel in their lately discovered faculties.
Página 321 - ... this is to irritate; this to inflame; this duct is to convey the gravel to the kidneys; this gland to secrete the humour which forms the gout.
Página 370 - 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.
Página 285 - 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
Página 318 - One great cause of our insensibility to the goodness of the Creator is, the very extensiveness of his bounty. We prize but little what we share only in common with the rest, or with the generality of our species. When we hear of blessings, we think forthwith of successes, of prosperous fortunes, of...
Página 9 - For instance; these laws require, in order to produce the same effect, that the rays of light, in passing from water into the eye, should be refracted by a more convex surface than when it passes out of air into the eye. Accordingly we find that the eye of a fish, in that part of it called the crystalline lens, is much rounder than the eye of terrestrial animals. What plainer manifestation of design can there be than this difference...
Página 103 - Consider what an affair this is, when we come to very large animals. The aorta of a whale is larger in the bore than the main pipe of the waterworks at London bridge; and the water roaring in its passage through that pipe is inferior, in impetus and velocity, to the blood gushing from the whale's heart.
Página 1 - 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. The expression, "the law of metallic nature," may sound strange and harsh to a philosophic ear; but it seems quite as justifiable as some others which are more familiar to him, such as "the law of vegetable nature,
Página 148 - A friend of mine counted fifty of these fibres in one twentieth of an inch. These fibres are crooked ; but curved after a different manner : for those which proceed from the thread on the side towards...

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