WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.980 I want you to close your eyes for a second. Picture 00:00:01.980 --> 00:00:05.459 the most desolate, wild place you can imagine. 00:00:05.679 --> 00:00:07.780 Okay. Maybe it's the Scottish Highlands or a 00:00:07.780 --> 00:00:10.619 windswept heath in 18th century England. Right. 00:00:10.740 --> 00:00:14.119 Just scrub, dirt, and wind. Nothing but nature. 00:00:14.320 --> 00:00:16.980 Exactly. It's raw. It's untamed. Now, you're 00:00:16.980 --> 00:00:19.039 walking along this heath, head down against the 00:00:19.039 --> 00:00:22.219 wind, and your boot hits something hard. You 00:00:22.219 --> 00:00:25.519 look down. It's a stone. Jagged, rough, maybe 00:00:25.519 --> 00:00:29.190 covered in a bit of moss. Just a stone. Do you 00:00:29.190 --> 00:00:32.369 stop and ask, why is this stone here? Who built 00:00:32.369 --> 00:00:35.509 this stone? What is its purpose? Probably not. 00:00:35.609 --> 00:00:37.969 It's a stone. It's part of the background noise 00:00:37.969 --> 00:00:41.570 of the universe. It lacks, well, it lacks intentionality. 00:00:41.789 --> 00:00:43.689 Intentionality. Good word. It's just a product 00:00:43.689 --> 00:00:46.710 of raw geological forces. Wind, rain, erosion. 00:00:46.909 --> 00:00:49.030 It doesn't scream design. Right. It's just part 00:00:49.030 --> 00:00:51.210 of the furniture of the earth. But, and here 00:00:51.210 --> 00:00:53.299 is the pivot. That changed Western thought. Yeah. 00:00:53.380 --> 00:00:56.039 You keep walking. Okay. And 10 feet later, you 00:00:56.039 --> 00:00:57.960 see something glinting in the heather. Yeah. 00:00:58.060 --> 00:01:00.119 You pick it up. It's not a stone. It's a pocket 00:01:00.119 --> 00:01:02.539 watch. Yeah. You see the gold casing, the glass 00:01:02.539 --> 00:01:05.239 face. Yeah. You pop the back open. And suddenly, 00:01:05.379 --> 00:01:07.659 you aren't looking at geology anymore. You're 00:01:07.659 --> 00:01:12.379 looking at engineering. Yes. You see gears, springs, 00:01:12.739 --> 00:01:16.670 levers. A balance wheel oscillating back and 00:01:16.670 --> 00:01:19.269 forth. You see a mechanism where every single 00:01:19.269 --> 00:01:22.329 part is grinding against another part to do one 00:01:22.329 --> 00:01:25.430 specific thing. Tell time. To tell time. Now 00:01:25.430 --> 00:01:27.250 the question is, could you look at that watch 00:01:27.250 --> 00:01:29.650 and say, oh, the wind and the rain just sort 00:01:29.650 --> 00:01:32.469 of pushed these brass molecules together over 00:01:32.469 --> 00:01:35.049 a billion years until they started ticking? No 00:01:35.049 --> 00:01:36.870 rational person would say that. That would be 00:01:36.870 --> 00:01:38.890 absurd. You immediately look for the guy who 00:01:38.890 --> 00:01:40.900 dropped it. You look for the watchmaker. The 00:01:40.900 --> 00:01:44.560 complexity forces you to infer a designer. And 00:01:44.560 --> 00:01:47.040 that right there, that shift from it's just a 00:01:47.040 --> 00:01:50.599 rock to there must be a maker, is perhaps one 00:01:50.599 --> 00:01:52.459 of the most famous arguments in the history of 00:01:52.459 --> 00:01:54.659 philosophy, theology, and science. It is the 00:01:54.659 --> 00:01:57.500 watchmaker analogy. And today we are going on 00:01:57.500 --> 00:02:00.000 a deep dive, not just into that argument, but 00:02:00.000 --> 00:02:02.219 into the mind of the man who made it so famous. 00:02:02.400 --> 00:02:04.680 William Paley. William Paley. Now, I have to 00:02:04.680 --> 00:02:07.019 be honest. Before we started researching this, 00:02:07.140 --> 00:02:10.180 if I knew the name at all, I knew him as a caricature. 00:02:10.759 --> 00:02:14.240 He's often painted as this dusty, old -fashioned 00:02:14.240 --> 00:02:17.159 theologian who is naively trying to prove God 00:02:17.159 --> 00:02:21.580 exists before Charles Darwin came along and ruined 00:02:21.580 --> 00:02:23.680 the party. That is the common narrative, yes. 00:02:23.900 --> 00:02:26.539 He's often treated as the before picture in the 00:02:26.539 --> 00:02:28.580 history of biology, the guy who got it wrong. 00:02:28.780 --> 00:02:30.759 But the reality is so much more fascinating. 00:02:31.080 --> 00:02:33.539 It is. If we look past that caricature, what 00:02:33.539 --> 00:02:35.979 we find in William Paley is a rigorous logician, 00:02:36.120 --> 00:02:40.060 a utilitarian philosopher, and a surprisingly 00:02:40.060 --> 00:02:42.840 radical thinker. Radical how? Well, this is a 00:02:42.840 --> 00:02:45.020 man whose work defined Cambridge education for 00:02:45.020 --> 00:02:47.639 a century. This is a man who influenced everyone 00:02:47.639 --> 00:02:50.500 from Charles Darwin to Richard Dawkins. And get 00:02:50.500 --> 00:02:52.879 this. He was a man who supported the American 00:02:52.879 --> 00:02:55.560 Revolution. He did. Public. Which for a high 00:02:55.560 --> 00:02:57.599 -ranking churchman in England at the time was. 00:02:59.300 --> 00:03:02.080 That's a bold move. A very bold move. And he 00:03:02.080 --> 00:03:04.620 didn't do it because he loved the idea of republics. 00:03:04.620 --> 00:03:06.439 No. He did it because he thought it would end 00:03:06.439 --> 00:03:08.500 slavery. Precisely. And that's the part of the 00:03:08.500 --> 00:03:10.879 story most people miss entirely. So our mission 00:03:10.879 --> 00:03:13.139 today is to unpack the logic of the watchmaker's 00:03:13.139 --> 00:03:15.120 mind. We're going to look at his origins, his 00:03:15.120 --> 00:03:18.860 radical politics, his forensic approach to scripture, 00:03:19.120 --> 00:03:21.939 and of course, that famous watch. Right. We need 00:03:21.939 --> 00:03:24.000 to understand him not just as a religious figure, 00:03:24.219 --> 00:03:27.379 but as a towering intellectual of the Enlightenment. 00:03:27.560 --> 00:03:29.139 Because he wasn't just a country parson, was 00:03:29.139 --> 00:03:32.780 he? No, not at all. He was a top -tier intellectual. 00:03:33.219 --> 00:03:35.340 And to understand the watch, you have to understand 00:03:35.340 --> 00:03:37.539 the mathematician who described it. A mathematician. 00:03:38.189 --> 00:03:40.370 Okay, I like that. So let's start at the beginning. 00:03:40.509 --> 00:03:42.689 Where does a mind like this come from? Well, 00:03:42.750 --> 00:03:46.610 he was born in July 1743 in Peterborough, Northamptonshire. 00:03:47.050 --> 00:03:49.710 But his intellectual formation really begins 00:03:49.710 --> 00:03:52.870 at a place with arguably the best name in British 00:03:52.870 --> 00:03:55.569 history. Which is? Beagleswick School. Beagleswick. 00:03:55.629 --> 00:03:57.189 Yeah. You're kidding me. It sounds like something 00:03:57.189 --> 00:03:59.310 out of Harry Potter. It does, but it was a very 00:03:59.310 --> 00:04:02.370 serious place. And here is the interesting dynamic. 00:04:03.460 --> 00:04:06.139 His father, who was also named William Paley, 00:04:06.300 --> 00:04:08.439 was the headmaster there. Oh, well. And not just 00:04:08.439 --> 00:04:10.800 for a few years. He ran that school for half 00:04:10.800 --> 00:04:14.400 a century, 50 years. So education was literally 00:04:14.400 --> 00:04:17.000 the family business. I can't imagine the pressure. 00:04:17.540 --> 00:04:20.839 Absolutely. Paley attended the school his father 00:04:20.839 --> 00:04:23.939 ran. You're the headmaster's son. You can't slack 00:04:23.939 --> 00:04:27.079 off. You are immersed in academic rigor from 00:04:27.079 --> 00:04:30.079 the moment you can read. So from Giggleswick, 00:04:30.160 --> 00:04:33.079 he heads off to university. He does. He followed 00:04:33.079 --> 00:04:35.660 a path that was becoming a bit of a family tradition. 00:04:36.019 --> 00:04:38.699 He went to Christ's College, Cambridge. His father 00:04:38.699 --> 00:04:40.680 had gone there and his great uncle had gone there 00:04:40.680 --> 00:04:42.759 as well. And he didn't just go there to party 00:04:42.759 --> 00:04:45.199 and scrape by, I take it. Not even close. The 00:04:45.199 --> 00:04:49.199 notes here say he graduated in 1763 as Senior 00:04:49.199 --> 00:04:52.379 Wrangler. Senior Wrangler. Now, to a modern ear, 00:04:52.459 --> 00:04:54.199 that sounds like he was in charge of the Cataletta 00:04:54.199 --> 00:04:56.779 Rodeo. But at Cambridge in the 18th century, 00:04:56.939 --> 00:05:00.310 this was a big deal. Big deal is a massive understatement. 00:05:00.410 --> 00:05:02.649 You have to understand the intellectual arena 00:05:02.649 --> 00:05:05.410 of Cambridge at that time. Being the senior wrangler 00:05:05.410 --> 00:05:07.649 didn't just mean you were good at math. No. It 00:05:07.649 --> 00:05:10.610 meant you had survived arguably the most grueling 00:05:10.610 --> 00:05:13.069 intellectual test in the British Empire. Wow. 00:05:13.670 --> 00:05:15.410 What did the test actually look like? Was it 00:05:15.410 --> 00:05:17.879 just a written exam? It was days of examination, 00:05:18.279 --> 00:05:20.600 often referred to as the Senate House examination. 00:05:21.379 --> 00:05:23.759 And it wasn't just sitting quietly with a piece 00:05:23.759 --> 00:05:26.660 of paper. A lot of this was disputation. You 00:05:26.660 --> 00:05:29.639 had to solve incredibly complex problems, often 00:05:29.639 --> 00:05:32.740 orally, sometimes in Latin, under intense pressure 00:05:32.740 --> 00:05:35.920 from the moderators. So you're on your feet defending 00:05:35.920 --> 00:05:38.639 your answers in front of everyone. Exactly. To 00:05:38.639 --> 00:05:41.439 come out on top, to be number one, the senior 00:05:41.439 --> 00:05:44.139 wrangler, meant you were the smartest guy in 00:05:44.139 --> 00:05:47.389 the room, in a room full of the smartest. So 00:05:47.389 --> 00:05:50.269 he's a mental athlete. He is. And this is crucial 00:05:50.269 --> 00:05:53.800 for you to grasp. Paley isn't a mystic. He isn't 00:05:53.800 --> 00:05:57.199 a poet who feels God in the sunset. He is a mathematician. 00:05:57.579 --> 00:05:59.660 Right. When he looks at the Bible or when he 00:05:59.660 --> 00:06:01.740 looks at a flower, he isn't just seeing beauty 00:06:01.740 --> 00:06:03.759 in the abstract sense. He is seeing an equation. 00:06:04.000 --> 00:06:06.300 He's looking for the proof. Exactly. He wants 00:06:06.300 --> 00:06:08.899 the variables to balance. That mathematical training 00:06:08.899 --> 00:06:11.420 is the skeleton key to his entire philosophy. 00:06:11.920 --> 00:06:14.860 He wants theology to be as logical as geometry. 00:06:14.939 --> 00:06:16.959 That explains his writing style later on. It's 00:06:16.959 --> 00:06:19.319 so structured. Premise A, therefore premise B, 00:06:19.420 --> 00:06:22.060 therefore conclusion C. It explains everything. 00:06:22.540 --> 00:06:25.319 After graduating, he didn't leave. He stayed 00:06:25.319 --> 00:06:28.980 on at Cambridge. He became a fellow in 1766 and 00:06:28.980 --> 00:06:32.329 a tutor in 1768. And what was he teaching? He 00:06:32.329 --> 00:06:34.649 was lecturing on the heavy hitters of the Enlightenment, 00:06:34.829 --> 00:06:37.370 people like Samuel Clarke, Joseph Butler and 00:06:37.370 --> 00:06:40.649 John Locke. The big names. The biggest. He developed 00:06:40.649 --> 00:06:44.009 a systematic course on moral philosophy. And 00:06:44.009 --> 00:06:45.990 this is crucial. Those lectures weren't just 00:06:45.990 --> 00:06:48.829 ephemeral talks. They formed the basis of his 00:06:48.829 --> 00:06:51.569 later books. So he was essentially beta testing 00:06:51.569 --> 00:06:54.290 his ideas on the brightest students in England 00:06:54.290 --> 00:06:56.829 for years before he ever put them in print. That's 00:06:56.829 --> 00:06:58.610 a perfect way to put it. He was road testing 00:06:58.610 --> 00:07:01.230 his arguments. Now, speaking of his time at Cambridge. 00:07:01.420 --> 00:07:03.959 There was a bit of drama, wasn't there? The notes 00:07:03.959 --> 00:07:05.920 mentioned something called the Feathers Tavern 00:07:05.920 --> 00:07:09.100 context. This sounds like a pub brawl, but I'm 00:07:09.100 --> 00:07:10.540 guessing it was a bit more intellectual than 00:07:10.540 --> 00:07:12.579 that. A bit more intellectual, yes. This was 00:07:12.579 --> 00:07:15.500 the subscription controversy. It gives us a really 00:07:15.500 --> 00:07:17.819 interesting glimpse into Paley's character, his 00:07:17.819 --> 00:07:20.600 caution, but also his principles. Set the stage 00:07:20.600 --> 00:07:23.029 for us. What was the controversy? At the time, 00:07:23.050 --> 00:07:24.769 if you wanted to be a member of the university 00:07:24.769 --> 00:07:27.810 or to become a clergyman, you had to subscribe 00:07:27.810 --> 00:07:32.230 to the 39 articles of religion. Which were? The 00:07:32.230 --> 00:07:35.050 defining statements of Anglican doctrine. So 00:07:35.050 --> 00:07:36.689 basically, you had to sign a contract saying, 00:07:36.810 --> 00:07:40.370 I believe exactly these 39 specific things. All 00:07:40.370 --> 00:07:43.350 of them. No exceptions. Correct. And if you disagreed 00:07:43.350 --> 00:07:46.050 with number 24 or number 31, too bad. You sign 00:07:46.050 --> 00:07:48.810 or you leave. That sounds incredibly rigid. It 00:07:48.810 --> 00:07:51.189 was. And there was a growing movement, particularly 00:07:51.189 --> 00:07:54.610 among more liberal or latitudinarian thinkers, 00:07:54.810 --> 00:07:57.189 to relax these terms. They wanted to simplify 00:07:57.189 --> 00:07:59.269 the requirements to allow for more freedom of 00:07:59.269 --> 00:08:01.689 conscience. And where did Paley, our brilliant 00:08:01.689 --> 00:08:04.310 young mathematician, stand on this? It's nuanced. 00:08:04.350 --> 00:08:06.810 It's very telling. There was a pamphlet circulating 00:08:06.810 --> 00:08:09.129 that advocated for this simplification. It was 00:08:09.129 --> 00:08:12.410 written by Bishop Edmund Law. Okay. Paley anonymously 00:08:12.410 --> 00:08:15.149 defended this pamphlet. So he steps into the 00:08:15.149 --> 00:08:17.569 ring under a pseudonym. To support the idea of 00:08:17.569 --> 00:08:19.889 reform. Okay, so he's a reformer. He wants to 00:08:19.889 --> 00:08:21.350 loosen the rules. He's on the progressive side 00:08:21.350 --> 00:08:24.829 of this. Yes. However, when a formal petition 00:08:24.829 --> 00:08:27.610 was organized to officially demand this relaxation, 00:08:28.009 --> 00:08:30.949 a petition drafted at a place called the Feathers 00:08:30.949 --> 00:08:33.610 Tavern Paley refused to sign it. Wait, wait. 00:08:33.669 --> 00:08:35.970 He defended the idea, but wouldn't put his name 00:08:35.970 --> 00:08:37.889 on the actual petition. That seems contradictory. 00:08:37.990 --> 00:08:40.669 Was he scared? He was pragmatic. He famously 00:08:40.669 --> 00:08:43.149 said, and this quote has followed him for centuries, 00:08:43.350 --> 00:08:46.049 he said he could not afford to keep a conscience. 00:08:46.570 --> 00:08:49.370 Oof, that sounds cynical. It does, but you have 00:08:49.370 --> 00:08:52.049 to interpret it carefully. He was a man who valued 00:08:52.049 --> 00:08:55.549 reform, but he was wary of putting his name to 00:08:55.549 --> 00:08:57.649 something so politically charged that it would 00:08:57.649 --> 00:09:00.409 destroy his career before it even began. So he 00:09:00.409 --> 00:09:02.389 wanted to change the system, but he felt he needed 00:09:02.389 --> 00:09:04.970 to be in the system to do it. Exactly. You can't 00:09:04.970 --> 00:09:06.490 change the church if you've been kicked out of 00:09:06.490 --> 00:09:08.649 it. It shows a man who was careful about how 00:09:08.649 --> 00:09:10.549 he engaged with the establishment. That makes 00:09:10.549 --> 00:09:12.649 sense. He's navigating a very strict hierarchy. 00:09:12.870 --> 00:09:15.549 Yeah. And speaking of that hierarchy, his career 00:09:15.549 --> 00:09:18.149 starts to move upward. He leaves Cambridge eventually, 00:09:18.389 --> 00:09:22.000 right? He does. In 1776, he moves into the church 00:09:22.000 --> 00:09:25.019 hierarchy full time. He takes up various rectories, 00:09:25.139 --> 00:09:29.100 Musgrave, Appleby, Dalston. Eventually, in 1782, 00:09:29.379 --> 00:09:31.820 he becomes the archdeacon of Carlisle. And he 00:09:31.820 --> 00:09:33.799 had some powerful friends helping him along the 00:09:33.799 --> 00:09:36.379 way. You mentioned Bishop Edmund Law. The Law 00:09:36.379 --> 00:09:38.960 family, yes. They were his patrons. We mentioned 00:09:38.960 --> 00:09:40.539 Bishop Edmund Law earlier, the one who wrote 00:09:40.539 --> 00:09:42.940 the pamphlet. Paley was very close with him and 00:09:42.940 --> 00:09:45.639 his son, John Law, who later became an Irish 00:09:45.639 --> 00:09:48.080 bishop. And they were the ones who pushed him 00:09:48.080 --> 00:09:50.580 to publish. They really were. They knew he had 00:09:50.580 --> 00:09:52.980 this brilliant lecture material from Cambridge, 00:09:53.100 --> 00:09:54.620 and they kept telling him, you need to publish 00:09:54.620 --> 00:09:56.960 this. Don't let these ideas die in the classroom. 00:09:57.259 --> 00:10:01.110 Get it out into the world. Precisely. Apparently 00:10:01.110 --> 00:10:03.730 a very mild man, but he was adamant that Paley 00:10:03.730 --> 00:10:05.529 should write a book on political philosophy. 00:10:06.090 --> 00:10:08.549 Paley was actually reluctant at first. But he 00:10:08.549 --> 00:10:12.110 did it. And in 1785, he published The Principles 00:10:12.110 --> 00:10:14.330 of Moral and Political Philosophy. And it was 00:10:14.330 --> 00:10:16.889 a sensation. I mean, we cannot overstate how 00:10:16.889 --> 00:10:18.809 important this book was. How big a deal are we 00:10:18.809 --> 00:10:21.429 talking? It became a required text at the University 00:10:21.429 --> 00:10:23.850 of Cambridge almost immediately the very next 00:10:23.850 --> 00:10:27.129 year. Wow. Imagine writing a book and the next 00:10:27.129 --> 00:10:30.889 year your old university says, OK. Every single 00:10:30.889 --> 00:10:32.929 student has to read this to graduate. And they 00:10:32.929 --> 00:10:35.830 kept reading it. It remained a set textbook well 00:10:35.830 --> 00:10:39.509 into the Victorian era. It went through 15 editions 00:10:39.509 --> 00:10:42.529 just in Paley's lifetime. It was a monster hit. 00:10:42.909 --> 00:10:46.730 So what was in it that made it so compelling? 00:10:46.909 --> 00:10:48.490 Because this is where we get to the radical and 00:10:48.490 --> 00:10:50.590 the rectory part of our outline. I want to circle 00:10:50.590 --> 00:10:52.870 back to what you said in the intro. You said 00:10:52.870 --> 00:10:55.590 he supported the American Revolution. Yes. This 00:10:55.590 --> 00:10:57.450 is a fact that usually makes people stop and 00:10:57.450 --> 00:11:00.490 say, wait, what? Because. Paley was a high -ranking 00:11:00.490 --> 00:11:03.110 official in the Church of England. The king is 00:11:03.110 --> 00:11:05.669 the head of the church. So for Paley to support 00:11:05.669 --> 00:11:08.470 the rebels, that's bordering on treasonous. It 00:11:08.470 --> 00:11:11.129 was incredibly risky. So why did he do it? Was 00:11:11.129 --> 00:11:13.990 he a closet Democrat that just loved the idea 00:11:13.990 --> 00:11:16.669 of republics? Not exactly. He wasn't really concerned 00:11:16.669 --> 00:11:18.549 with forms of government. He was looking at the 00:11:18.549 --> 00:11:20.970 balance sheet of human misery. The balance sheet 00:11:20.970 --> 00:11:23.230 of human misery. Right. You have to remember, 00:11:23.429 --> 00:11:27.029 as we said, Paley was a utilitarian. We hear 00:11:27.029 --> 00:11:29.440 that word a lot. Usually people associated with 00:11:29.440 --> 00:11:31.980 Jeremy Bentham or John Stuart Mill. What did 00:11:31.980 --> 00:11:35.059 it mean for Paley writing before them? For Paley, 00:11:35.139 --> 00:11:37.440 it was simple. It was about general happiness. 00:11:37.600 --> 00:11:40.940 He believed that God's will was for his creation 00:11:40.940 --> 00:11:44.259 to be happy. Therefore, actions that increased 00:11:44.259 --> 00:11:46.480 the general happiness of the world were moral, 00:11:46.600 --> 00:11:49.299 and actions that caused misery were immoral. 00:11:49.500 --> 00:11:53.279 Okay. A very clear, logical framework. So how 00:11:53.279 --> 00:11:56.509 does that connect to America in 1776? Paley looked 00:11:56.509 --> 00:11:58.830 at the British Empire and he saw one thing that 00:11:58.830 --> 00:12:01.210 generated an immense amount of misery. Slave 00:12:01.210 --> 00:12:03.830 trade. The slave trade. He believed that as long 00:12:03.830 --> 00:12:06.029 as America was attached to Britain, the British 00:12:06.029 --> 00:12:08.529 Empire would have a financial and political incentive 00:12:08.529 --> 00:12:11.750 to keep pumping enslaved people into the colonies 00:12:11.750 --> 00:12:14.370 to fuel the sugar and cotton economies. So he 00:12:14.370 --> 00:12:16.110 thought breaking the link might break the chain. 00:12:16.350 --> 00:12:19.129 Exactly. He hoped that if America was independent, 00:12:19.450 --> 00:12:21.990 the British Empire would lose its primary market 00:12:21.990 --> 00:12:24.669 and therefore its primary reason to support the 00:12:24.669 --> 00:12:26.809 slave trade. That's a fascinating bit of political 00:12:26.809 --> 00:12:30.429 calculation. It is. He wrote, and I want to quote 00:12:30.429 --> 00:12:33.029 this because it's so powerful. The Great Revolution, 00:12:33.169 --> 00:12:35.590 which has taken place in the Western world, may 00:12:35.590 --> 00:12:38.549 probably conduce, and who knows, but that it 00:12:38.549 --> 00:12:42.570 was designed to accelerate the fall of this abominable 00:12:42.570 --> 00:12:46.200 tyranny. Abominable tyranny. That is not subtle 00:12:46.200 --> 00:12:49.019 language for an archdeacon. It's incredibly radical. 00:12:49.200 --> 00:12:51.500 And remember, he's teaching this to the future 00:12:51.500 --> 00:12:53.700 leaders of the empire. Right. These Cambridge 00:12:53.700 --> 00:12:55.740 students are the next generation of prime ministers 00:12:55.740 --> 00:12:57.940 and members of parliament. And he's planting 00:12:57.940 --> 00:13:00.899 the seed in their minds that slavery is a moral 00:13:00.899 --> 00:13:04.019 rot at the heart of the nation. It's a utilitarian 00:13:04.019 --> 00:13:06.600 argument against a massive economic institution. 00:13:06.940 --> 00:13:09.200 It's interesting. We usually think of utilitarianism 00:13:09.200 --> 00:13:12.120 as cold calculation. You know, the needs of the 00:13:12.120 --> 00:13:14.080 many outweigh. the knees of the few right but 00:13:14.080 --> 00:13:16.860 here he's using it to justify a massive human 00:13:16.860 --> 00:13:19.299 rights stance that's the power of his logic he 00:13:19.299 --> 00:13:22.940 argues slavery causes immense misery god's will 00:13:22.940 --> 00:13:24.960 is for happiness therefore slavery is against 00:13:24.960 --> 00:13:28.399 the will of god it's a clean logical proof a 00:13:28.399 --> 00:13:30.639 mathematical proof for abolition you could say 00:13:30.639 --> 00:13:34.250 that and since this book was a bestseller That 00:13:34.250 --> 00:13:36.690 argument seeped into the consciousness of the 00:13:36.690 --> 00:13:39.669 entire British ruling class. You could argue 00:13:39.669 --> 00:13:41.929 that Paley did more to end the slave trade by 00:13:41.929 --> 00:13:44.090 writing that textbook than any protest could 00:13:44.090 --> 00:13:46.830 because he changed the minds of the men who would 00:13:46.830 --> 00:13:49.929 eventually vote to ban it. So when we think of 00:13:49.929 --> 00:13:52.750 Paley, we shouldn't just think watchmaker. We 00:13:52.750 --> 00:13:55.230 should think abolitionist. We absolutely should. 00:13:55.269 --> 00:13:57.409 He was a political heavyweight. So we have the 00:13:57.409 --> 00:13:59.690 mathematician and we have the political philosopher. 00:14:00.399 --> 00:14:03.480 But now he turns his attention to the Bible itself. 00:14:03.779 --> 00:14:07.279 He moves from ethics to, well, the outline says 00:14:07.279 --> 00:14:09.139 it sounds like crime scene investigation. He 00:14:09.139 --> 00:14:11.340 really does. It's a remarkable shift in gears. 00:14:11.740 --> 00:14:15.679 In 1790, he publishes Hore Pauline, or The Truth 00:14:15.679 --> 00:14:18.299 of the Scripture History of St. Paul. Hore Pauline. 00:14:18.399 --> 00:14:20.980 This is the book you said some scholars think 00:14:20.980 --> 00:14:23.480 was his most original. Many scholars do. It's 00:14:23.480 --> 00:14:26.000 a tour de force of inductive logic. The premise 00:14:26.000 --> 00:14:29.039 is entirely forensic. He takes two sets of documents 00:14:29.039 --> 00:14:30.940 from the New Testament. On one hand, you have 00:14:30.940 --> 00:14:32.840 the epistles of St. Paul, the letters Paul wrote 00:14:32.840 --> 00:14:34.940 to the churches. On the other hand, you have 00:14:34.940 --> 00:14:37.220 the Book of Acts, which is the narrative history 00:14:37.220 --> 00:14:40.139 of the early church written by Luke. And he's 00:14:40.139 --> 00:14:42.659 comparing them, looking for contradictions. Not 00:14:42.659 --> 00:14:44.980 just contradictions. He's looking for something 00:14:44.980 --> 00:14:48.519 much more subtle. He's looking for what he calls 00:14:48.519 --> 00:14:52.700 undesigned coincidences. Undesigned coincidences. 00:14:53.240 --> 00:14:55.120 Break that down for us, because that sounds like 00:14:55.120 --> 00:14:58.039 a paradox. How can a coincidence be designed? 00:14:58.460 --> 00:15:00.480 Well, that's the point. It can't be. Think about 00:15:00.480 --> 00:15:02.940 it this way. If I want to forge a story with 00:15:02.940 --> 00:15:06.419 you, if we want to create a fake alibi for a 00:15:06.419 --> 00:15:09.419 crime, we make sure our stories match perfectly. 00:15:09.700 --> 00:15:12.600 Right. We were at the movies at 8 p .m., we saw 00:15:12.600 --> 00:15:15.419 the action film, we rehearse it. Exactly. The 00:15:15.419 --> 00:15:18.059 stories line up too perfectly. But if we are 00:15:18.059 --> 00:15:20.539 both telling the truth about a real event that 00:15:20.539 --> 00:15:23.120 we witnessed, We might mention different details 00:15:23.120 --> 00:15:24.879 that just happen to fit together in a way we 00:15:24.879 --> 00:15:27.679 didn't plan. Okay, I think I get it. Paley combs 00:15:27.679 --> 00:15:29.919 through the Greek text, looking for these tiny 00:15:29.919 --> 00:15:33.120 moments. Give me a concrete example. What's one 00:15:33.120 --> 00:15:36.500 of these coincidences? Okay. In one of his letters, 00:15:36.620 --> 00:15:39.039 the Epistle to the Romans, Paul casually mentions 00:15:39.039 --> 00:15:42.559 that a man named Gaius is his host. Gaius, whose 00:15:42.559 --> 00:15:44.899 hospitality I and the whole church here enjoy. 00:15:45.139 --> 00:15:47.539 Just a throwaway line. Right. Mundane. But then 00:15:47.539 --> 00:15:49.840 you go to a completely different document, the 00:15:49.840 --> 00:15:52.460 first epistle to the Corinthians. In that letter, 00:15:52.600 --> 00:15:55.519 Paul mentions that he personally baptized a man 00:15:55.519 --> 00:15:58.659 named Gaius in Corinth. Paley points out that 00:15:58.659 --> 00:16:01.460 the Book of Acts confirms Paul wrote Romans from 00:16:01.460 --> 00:16:04.639 Corinth. So the Gaius Paul baptized in Corinth 00:16:04.639 --> 00:16:07.740 is now hosting him years later. But neither document 00:16:07.740 --> 00:16:10.019 explicitly makes that connection. So it's like 00:16:10.019 --> 00:16:12.899 two puzzle pieces that fit, but neither author 00:16:12.899 --> 00:16:14.759 seemed to know they were making a puzzle piece 00:16:14.759 --> 00:16:17.200 for the other one. Precisely. Paley says, if 00:16:17.200 --> 00:16:19.419 this was a forgery, the forger would have made 00:16:19.419 --> 00:16:20.899 a big deal about it to prove the connection. 00:16:21.039 --> 00:16:23.299 Remember Gaius, the guy I baptized? Well, he's 00:16:23.299 --> 00:16:25.840 my host now. The fact that it's so subtle, so 00:16:25.840 --> 00:16:28.480 undesigned, proves to Paley that they are both 00:16:28.480 --> 00:16:31.500 reflecting a shared, authentic, historical reality. 00:16:31.919 --> 00:16:34.000 He's cross -examining the witnesses, centuries 00:16:34.000 --> 00:16:37.360 after the fact. He is. And he finds dozens of 00:16:37.360 --> 00:16:39.860 these. He stacks them up, one after another, 00:16:39.940 --> 00:16:42.179 until, in his view, the weight of the evidence 00:16:42.179 --> 00:16:45.100 is overwhelming. And this book, this method, 00:16:45.200 --> 00:16:48.679 this set the stage for his next big hit in 1794. 00:16:49.259 --> 00:16:51.659 A view of the evidences of Christianity. This 00:16:51.659 --> 00:16:54.320 was his direct response to the skepticism of 00:16:54.320 --> 00:16:56.539 the Enlightenment, right? People like Hume were 00:16:56.539 --> 00:16:58.500 starting to doubt the miracles, doubt the history. 00:16:58.879 --> 00:17:01.240 Paley wanted to provide a rational, evidence 00:17:01.240 --> 00:17:04.319 -based defense. And judging by his career trajectory, 00:17:04.619 --> 00:17:06.839 the establishment loved it. Oh, they showered 00:17:06.839 --> 00:17:09.559 him with rewards. The Bishop of London gave him 00:17:09.559 --> 00:17:12.400 a stall in St. Paul's Cathedral. The Bishop of 00:17:12.400 --> 00:17:14.859 Lincoln made him a sub -dean. The Bishop of Durham 00:17:14.859 --> 00:17:17.420 gave him the very wealthy rectory of Bishop Wearmouth. 00:17:17.799 --> 00:17:19.759 It's a lot of titles. Yeah. And presumably a 00:17:19.759 --> 00:17:21.599 nice bump in salary for his troubles. He was 00:17:21.599 --> 00:17:23.640 the establishment saying, thank you for defending 00:17:23.640 --> 00:17:25.980 us from the skeptics. And just like his first 00:17:25.980 --> 00:17:28.380 book, evidences stuck around for a long time. 00:17:28.480 --> 00:17:30.619 A very long time. It remained on the Cambridge 00:17:30.619 --> 00:17:34.079 syllabus until the 1920s. Think about that longevity. 00:17:34.660 --> 00:17:37.220 From the French Revolution almost to the Jazz 00:17:37.220 --> 00:17:40.259 Age, students at Cambridge had to grapple with 00:17:40.259 --> 00:17:43.279 Paley's arguments. I read somewhere that it wasn't 00:17:43.279 --> 00:17:45.539 just theology students. It was used for law students, 00:17:45.759 --> 00:17:48.940 too. Yes. That's a fascinating detail. A .V. 00:17:48.940 --> 00:17:51.539 Dicey, a famous constitutional theorist in the 00:17:51.539 --> 00:17:54.420 late Victorian period, later had his pupils read 00:17:54.420 --> 00:17:57.420 evidences specifically to teach them legal reasoning. 00:17:57.640 --> 00:18:00.640 Why? Because Paley organizes his evidence like 00:18:00.640 --> 00:18:03.240 a barrister making a closing argument to a jury. 00:18:03.400 --> 00:18:06.099 It's all about weighing testimony, probability, 00:18:06.420 --> 00:18:10.019 and the credibility of witnesses. It's a masterclass 00:18:10.019 --> 00:18:13.160 in building a cumulative case. So we have the 00:18:13.160 --> 00:18:15.480 mathematician, the abolitionist, the detective. 00:18:16.019 --> 00:18:18.660 But now we have to get to the masterpiece, the 00:18:18.660 --> 00:18:21.500 book that gave us the watch, Natural Theology. 00:18:21.619 --> 00:18:25.200 Published in 1802. And the context here is really 00:18:25.200 --> 00:18:27.180 poignant. We have to humanize Paley for a moment. 00:18:27.279 --> 00:18:29.519 He wasn't sitting in a comfortable armchair surrounded 00:18:29.519 --> 00:18:31.460 by books when he wrote this. What was happening? 00:18:31.799 --> 00:18:33.119 He was near the end of his life. He was suffering 00:18:33.119 --> 00:18:35.660 from an increasingly debilitating illness. The 00:18:35.660 --> 00:18:37.680 records suggest it was likely something involving 00:18:37.680 --> 00:18:40.519 the kidneys or stomach, extremely painful. So 00:18:40.519 --> 00:18:42.900 he's in physical agony while writing a book about 00:18:42.900 --> 00:18:45.349 how the body is a perfect machine. That's the 00:18:45.349 --> 00:18:48.869 profound irony and the bravery. He pushed through 00:18:48.869 --> 00:18:50.990 the pain to write this book. And interestingly, 00:18:51.309 --> 00:18:54.269 he intended this book to be the preamble to all 00:18:54.269 --> 00:18:56.650 his other work. The preamble. But he wrote it 00:18:56.650 --> 00:18:59.650 last. That seems backwards. Right. But logically, 00:18:59.829 --> 00:19:03.369 in his system, it came first, he argues. Step 00:19:03.369 --> 00:19:05.609 one, look at nature to understand that there 00:19:05.609 --> 00:19:07.990 is a creator. That's natural theology. Okay. 00:19:08.069 --> 00:19:11.369 Step two, look at scripture to understand what 00:19:11.369 --> 00:19:13.769 that creator specifically revealed and wants. 00:19:14.400 --> 00:19:17.740 That's evidences. And step three, apply that 00:19:17.740 --> 00:19:20.500 knowledge to your life and society. That's the 00:19:20.500 --> 00:19:23.400 moral philosophy. He was building a grand unified 00:19:23.400 --> 00:19:26.259 theory of everything from a blade of grass to 00:19:26.259 --> 00:19:28.279 the houses of parliament. He was. It was the 00:19:28.279 --> 00:19:30.799 capstone of his entire life's work. OK, let's 00:19:30.799 --> 00:19:32.759 unpack the argument itself. Yeah. The watchmaker. 00:19:32.839 --> 00:19:35.140 We did the intro, but let's go deeper. He says 00:19:35.140 --> 00:19:37.279 if you find a stone, it proves nothing. If you 00:19:37.279 --> 00:19:39.700 find a watch, the complexity implies a maker. 00:19:39.859 --> 00:19:42.420 Correct. The key word for him is contrivance. 00:19:42.910 --> 00:19:44.849 Paley looks at the watch and sees that the parts 00:19:44.849 --> 00:19:48.049 are contrived for a purpose. The gears are cut 00:19:48.049 --> 00:19:50.470 with teeth to mesh perfectly with other gears. 00:19:50.710 --> 00:19:54.309 The spring is coiled to release energy at a specific 00:19:54.309 --> 00:19:56.990 controlled rate. The hands are shaped to point 00:19:56.990 --> 00:19:59.490 to numbers. If you change the shape of the gears 00:19:59.490 --> 00:20:01.869 or remove the spring, the whole thing fails. 00:20:01.970 --> 00:20:04.490 It stops telling time. So the arrangement is 00:20:04.490 --> 00:20:06.670 the proof, the purposefulness of the arrangement. 00:20:06.829 --> 00:20:09.609 Exactly. The arrangement implies an arranger. 00:20:10.569 --> 00:20:13.259 Intentionality. And then he makes the leap. The 00:20:13.259 --> 00:20:15.440 leap to nature. He says, okay, now let's look 00:20:15.440 --> 00:20:18.339 at the human eye. It has a lens to refract light. 00:20:18.680 --> 00:20:20.839 It has an iris to control the amount of light. 00:20:20.980 --> 00:20:23.680 It has a retina to receive the image. It has 00:20:23.680 --> 00:20:26.440 muscles to focus. It has a tear duct to keep 00:20:26.440 --> 00:20:29.099 it clean. It's a biological camera. It is infinitely 00:20:29.099 --> 00:20:31.720 more complex than a watch. Therefore, he argues, 00:20:31.900 --> 00:20:34.359 if a watch requires a watchmaker, the eye requires 00:20:34.359 --> 00:20:36.700 an eye maker. I take my stand in human anatomy. 00:20:36.819 --> 00:20:39.299 That's his quote, right? It is. He was fascinated 00:20:39.299 --> 00:20:41.960 by anatomy. He fills the book with page after 00:20:41.960 --> 00:20:44.460 page of examples. He talks about the valves in 00:20:44.460 --> 00:20:46.740 the heart, how they're perfect little one -way 00:20:46.740 --> 00:20:49.140 doors to let blood flow one way but not the other. 00:20:49.299 --> 00:20:51.819 He talks about the structure of bird bones, how 00:20:51.819 --> 00:20:54.619 they are hollow to be light for flight, but trust 00:20:54.619 --> 00:20:57.099 internally to be strong enough to support the 00:20:57.099 --> 00:20:59.619 wings. It sounds like he's doing biology. Yeah. 00:20:59.700 --> 00:21:01.759 He sounds like a modern biologist describing 00:21:01.759 --> 00:21:04.299 adaptations. He is doing biology. That's the 00:21:04.299 --> 00:21:06.140 thing. He isn't quoting scripture here. He's 00:21:06.140 --> 00:21:09.180 quoting the best science of his day. He argues 00:21:09.180 --> 00:21:12.500 that there is an intelligent designing mind necessary 00:21:12.500 --> 00:21:15.380 to organize these forms. Now, did he come up 00:21:15.380 --> 00:21:17.380 with this idea out of thin air? Was he the first 00:21:17.380 --> 00:21:20.059 guy to say nature looks designed? Oh, no, not 00:21:20.059 --> 00:21:23.200 at all. He was remixing and perfecting. The ancient 00:21:23.200 --> 00:21:26.380 Roman philosopher Cicero used examples like sundials 00:21:26.380 --> 00:21:28.619 and water clocks to argue for a divine order. 00:21:28.900 --> 00:21:30.880 Right. And enlightenment thinkers often used 00:21:30.880 --> 00:21:34.240 machines as analogies. Paley drew heavily on 00:21:34.240 --> 00:21:36.759 earlier English naturalists like John Ray and 00:21:36.759 --> 00:21:39.779 William Durham. So why do we remember Paley and 00:21:39.779 --> 00:21:42.440 not John Ray? What made Paley's version the one 00:21:42.440 --> 00:21:44.640 that stuck? Because Paley was a better writer. 00:21:44.819 --> 00:21:49.099 He was clearer. He perfected the argument. He 00:21:49.099 --> 00:21:51.619 wrote it with such clarity, such beautiful prose, 00:21:51.799 --> 00:21:54.160 and such a wealth of specific biological detail 00:21:54.160 --> 00:21:56.880 that his version became the definitive one. He 00:21:56.880 --> 00:21:59.519 made it accessible to everyone. He also looked 00:21:59.519 --> 00:22:01.400 up, didn't he? Not just in anatomy, but of the 00:22:01.400 --> 00:22:05.000 stars. Yes, astronomy. He compares the solar 00:22:05.000 --> 00:22:08.250 system to a giant clock. The regularity of the 00:22:08.250 --> 00:22:10.349 planets orbiting the sun according to precise 00:22:10.349 --> 00:22:13.670 laws. He actually cited his old friend John Law 00:22:13.670 --> 00:22:16.490 and the astronomer Royal John Brinkley. He wanted 00:22:16.490 --> 00:22:18.490 the science to be accurate to the best knowledge 00:22:18.490 --> 00:22:21.309 of 1802. And the reception. Did people buy it? 00:22:21.410 --> 00:22:23.529 They devoured it. It was an instant bestseller. 00:22:23.670 --> 00:22:26.150 The Edinburgh Review, a very serious intellectual 00:22:26.150 --> 00:22:28.670 journal, praised his judicious disposition of 00:22:28.670 --> 00:22:31.230 forces. They admired how he lined up his arguments 00:22:31.230 --> 00:22:33.630 like an army to cover every possible angle of 00:22:33.630 --> 00:22:35.349 attack. It seems like it hit a nerve at that 00:22:35.349 --> 00:22:37.549 particular time. It did. It appealed to Victorian 00:22:37.549 --> 00:22:40.910 anxieties. The world was changing fast industrialization, 00:22:41.029 --> 00:22:43.390 the French Revolution. Paley offered a comforting 00:22:43.390 --> 00:22:46.349 view. The universe is an orderly machine supervised 00:22:46.349 --> 00:22:48.869 by a benevolent architect. Everything is under 00:22:48.869 --> 00:22:51.890 control. everyone loved it the notes mentioned 00:22:51.890 --> 00:22:54.329 something called the oxford movement right these 00:22:54.329 --> 00:22:57.049 were the more high church ritualistic anglicans 00:22:57.049 --> 00:22:58.990 later in the 19th century they didn't like it 00:22:58.990 --> 00:23:01.329 at all why not it's an argument that proves god 00:23:01.329 --> 00:23:04.480 exists shouldn't they like that They disliked 00:23:04.480 --> 00:23:07.539 his utilitarianism. They hated the idea of judging 00:23:07.539 --> 00:23:10.039 God's will by general happiness. Too calculating 00:23:10.039 --> 00:23:12.980 for them. Exactly. They felt it reduced God to 00:23:12.980 --> 00:23:16.259 a sort of cosmic engineer, a divine problem solver. 00:23:16.380 --> 00:23:19.180 They wanted a more mystical, tradition -based 00:23:19.180 --> 00:23:22.059 faith, not one based on dissecting eyeballs and 00:23:22.059 --> 00:23:24.799 calculating happiness. But for the broad public 00:23:24.799 --> 00:23:27.779 and for the scientific establishment of the time, 00:23:28.059 --> 00:23:31.440 Paley was the man. So Paley is the dominant voice. 00:23:32.430 --> 00:23:34.690 But he wasn't the only voice. And this brings 00:23:34.690 --> 00:23:37.289 us to the intellectual web, because there was 00:23:37.289 --> 00:23:40.369 a ghost haunting this debate, and his name was 00:23:40.369 --> 00:23:43.509 David Hume. David Hume, the great Scottish skeptic. 00:23:43.509 --> 00:23:46.369 Now, Hume had died in 1776, long before natural 00:23:46.369 --> 00:23:49.029 theology was published. But years earlier, Hume 00:23:49.029 --> 00:23:51.130 had written Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, 00:23:51.250 --> 00:23:53.250 where he specifically and brilliantly attacked 00:23:53.250 --> 00:23:55.769 the design argument. So he saw this argument 00:23:55.769 --> 00:23:59.009 coming. What was Hume's beef with it? Hume pointed 00:23:59.009 --> 00:24:01.269 out all the flaws in the analogy. He talked about 00:24:01.269 --> 00:24:03.349 monstrosities. Monstrosities, what do you mean? 00:24:03.509 --> 00:24:10.089 Birth defects, pain, disease, parasites. Hume 00:24:10.089 --> 00:24:12.319 basically asked... If the world is a perfect 00:24:12.319 --> 00:24:15.740 machine made by a perfect all good God, why is 00:24:15.740 --> 00:24:17.480 there so much suffering? Why are there hurricanes? 00:24:17.720 --> 00:24:19.980 Why do children get sick and die? The problem 00:24:19.980 --> 00:24:22.980 of evil. Exactly. He argued that you can't infer 00:24:22.980 --> 00:24:26.000 a perfect, infinitely good creator from an imperfect, 00:24:26.319 --> 00:24:29.019 often painful world. The evidence doesn't match 00:24:29.019 --> 00:24:31.099 the conclusion. That's a very strong counter 00:24:31.099 --> 00:24:33.940 argument. Did Paley just ignore it? No. And this 00:24:33.940 --> 00:24:36.039 is what makes Paley a serious philosopher, not 00:24:36.039 --> 00:24:38.559 just a propagandist. He engaged directly with 00:24:38.559 --> 00:24:40.619 Hume's ideas from his undergraduate days right 00:24:40.619 --> 00:24:42.920 up to his final works. He didn't just ignore 00:24:42.920 --> 00:24:44.900 the problem of suffering. He tried to incorporate 00:24:44.900 --> 00:24:47.640 it into his utilitarian framework. How on earth 00:24:47.640 --> 00:24:50.180 do you do that? How do you explain pain in a 00:24:50.180 --> 00:24:53.200 machine designed for happiness? Well, he argued 00:24:53.200 --> 00:24:56.079 that pain often served a purpose like a warning 00:24:56.079 --> 00:24:58.259 system to tell you to pull your hand from the 00:24:58.259 --> 00:25:01.640 fire. Or he argued that, on balance, happiness 00:25:01.640 --> 00:25:03.900 was still the predominant state of nature. Really? 00:25:04.099 --> 00:25:07.160 Oh, yes. He famously wrote, it is a happy world 00:25:07.160 --> 00:25:09.940 after all. He looked at swarms of flies buzzing 00:25:09.940 --> 00:25:12.259 in the sun or millions of young shrimp in the 00:25:12.259 --> 00:25:16.069 water, and he saw an excess of happiness. That 00:25:16.069 --> 00:25:19.170 seems incredibly optimistic, especially from 00:25:19.170 --> 00:25:21.710 a man who is in constant pain himself. Extremely 00:25:21.710 --> 00:25:23.990 optimistic. And that optimism is where he differs 00:25:23.990 --> 00:25:27.150 most from Hume's skepticism. Hume saw the darkness. 00:25:27.450 --> 00:25:29.930 Paley insisted on seeing the light. It's interesting. 00:25:30.009 --> 00:25:32.369 The source says Hume's works fell stillborn from 00:25:32.369 --> 00:25:34.289 the press when they were published. That was 00:25:34.289 --> 00:25:37.210 Hume's own assessment. In his lifetime, Hume's 00:25:37.210 --> 00:25:39.549 deep skepticism was too radical for most people. 00:25:39.609 --> 00:25:42.049 It just didn't sell. Paley, on the other hand, 00:25:42.069 --> 00:25:44.029 was the voice of the establishment and the people. 00:25:44.230 --> 00:25:47.630 From 1800 to 1840, Paley was the dominant intellectual 00:25:47.630 --> 00:25:50.829 force. Hume's arguments were known to scholars, 00:25:50.890 --> 00:25:52.869 but they didn't really gain popular traction 00:25:52.869 --> 00:25:55.329 until much later. But there was one young student 00:25:55.329 --> 00:25:57.950 at Cambridge who was reading Paley very, very 00:25:57.950 --> 00:26:00.609 carefully. A young man named Charles Darwin. 00:26:01.160 --> 00:26:03.900 This is the most famous and most ironic connection 00:26:03.900 --> 00:26:06.720 in the whole story. Charles Darwin walked the 00:26:06.720 --> 00:26:09.279 same halls as Paley at Christ's College. In fact, 00:26:09.440 --> 00:26:11.240 their portraits face each other there today. 00:26:11.500 --> 00:26:14.279 That's incredible. And Darwin was required to 00:26:14.279 --> 00:26:16.539 read Paley for his degree. He was required to 00:26:16.539 --> 00:26:18.799 read the principles of moral and political philosophy 00:26:18.799 --> 00:26:21.700 for his exams. He had to know it inside and out. 00:26:21.839 --> 00:26:24.720 But here is the real kicker. what's that darwin 00:26:24.720 --> 00:26:27.339 read natural theology the watchmaker book on 00:26:27.339 --> 00:26:30.339 his own it wasn't required and he absolutely 00:26:30.339 --> 00:26:32.809 loved it really The man who would eventually 00:26:32.809 --> 00:26:35.529 dismantle the entire design argument loved it. 00:26:35.609 --> 00:26:38.390 He was incredibly impressed by the logic. He 00:26:38.390 --> 00:26:40.490 said in his autobiography that he was initially 00:26:40.490 --> 00:26:43.890 convinced by it. Darwin admired how Paley built 00:26:43.890 --> 00:26:46.769 a case piece by piece. He admired the intense 00:26:46.769 --> 00:26:50.049 focus on the observation of nature. So in a way, 00:26:50.109 --> 00:26:52.970 Paley taught Darwin how to look at nature. Exactly. 00:26:53.009 --> 00:26:55.329 Paley taught Darwin to look at an organism and 00:26:55.329 --> 00:26:57.529 ask, how does this part fit the environment? 00:26:57.750 --> 00:26:59.569 What is the function? What is the adaptation? 00:26:59.950 --> 00:27:01.960 The method was the same. The method of looking 00:27:01.960 --> 00:27:04.880 at adaptation in nature started with Paley. Paley's 00:27:04.880 --> 00:27:07.740 answer was, God designed it that way. Darwin 00:27:07.740 --> 00:27:10.099 eventually came up with a different answer. Natural 00:27:10.099 --> 00:27:12.900 selection shaped it that way. But the question, 00:27:13.059 --> 00:27:15.880 the focus on adaptation, was the same. That is 00:27:15.880 --> 00:27:19.259 a profound connection. It's like, Paley set the 00:27:19.259 --> 00:27:21.400 table and Darwin came and ate the dinner, but 00:27:21.400 --> 00:27:24.960 realized the chef was gravity and time, not a 00:27:24.960 --> 00:27:27.299 divine hand. That's a very good way to put it. 00:27:27.609 --> 00:27:30.190 Paley provided the intellectual hurdle that Darwin 00:27:30.190 --> 00:27:32.630 had to clear. You can't understand the magnitude 00:27:32.630 --> 00:27:35.430 of the origin of species unless you understand 00:27:35.430 --> 00:27:37.730 that it was a direct answer to the world Paley 00:27:37.730 --> 00:27:40.630 had built. But even before Darwin published Origin 00:27:40.630 --> 00:27:43.710 in 1859, Paley was starting to take some hits 00:27:43.710 --> 00:27:46.109 from other directions, right? The source mentions 00:27:46.109 --> 00:27:48.630 the medical community. Yes. By the 1820s and 00:27:48.630 --> 00:27:50.910 30s, the political climate in Britain was changing. 00:27:51.029 --> 00:27:53.529 You had radical reformers like Thomas Wakely, 00:27:53.650 --> 00:27:56.230 the founder and editor of The Lancet, the famous 00:27:56.230 --> 00:27:58.119 medical journal. And what was their problem with 00:27:58.119 --> 00:28:00.359 Paley? Was it scientific? It was partly that 00:28:00.359 --> 00:28:03.039 they saw Paley's anatomical examples as a bit 00:28:03.039 --> 00:28:05.859 outdated. But more than that, they saw Paley 00:28:05.859 --> 00:28:08.940 as a symbol of establishment control. Paley's 00:28:08.940 --> 00:28:11.819 theology was seen as justifying the status quo. 00:28:12.259 --> 00:28:15.019 God made the world this way, so be happy with 00:28:15.019 --> 00:28:17.480 your lot in life. And the radicals wanted to 00:28:17.480 --> 00:28:20.640 upend all that. Right. Radicals like Wakely wanted 00:28:20.640 --> 00:28:23.579 to overturn the old order of medical and scientific 00:28:23.579 --> 00:28:26.759 education. They attacked Paley as a way of attacking 00:28:26.759 --> 00:28:29.980 the Anglican Church's grip on power and the universities. 00:28:30.380 --> 00:28:32.720 So science and politics were mixing again. They 00:28:32.720 --> 00:28:35.539 always do. But despite these attacks from the 00:28:35.539 --> 00:28:38.640 intellectual left, Paley's core arguments survived 00:28:38.640 --> 00:28:41.279 in the popular imagination. You had these things 00:28:41.279 --> 00:28:43.700 called the Bridgewater Treatises. What were those? 00:28:43.940 --> 00:28:46.460 It was a series of eight books funded by a wealthy 00:28:46.460 --> 00:28:49.220 earl written by Lee. scientists of the day to 00:28:49.220 --> 00:28:51.920 explore the power and wisdom of God as manifested 00:28:51.920 --> 00:28:54.880 in the creation. They were basically high budget 00:28:54.880 --> 00:28:57.180 Paley fan fiction. And there were cheap reprints 00:28:57.180 --> 00:28:59.930 of the middle class. Yes. The Society for the 00:28:59.930 --> 00:29:01.910 Promotion of Christian Knowledge pumped out cheap 00:29:01.910 --> 00:29:04.690 copies of Paley. So even while the intellectuals 00:29:04.690 --> 00:29:06.150 at the cutting edge were starting to turn on 00:29:06.150 --> 00:29:08.549 him, the average middle class person was still 00:29:08.549 --> 00:29:11.009 reading him on the train. So when did the real 00:29:11.009 --> 00:29:13.450 shift happen? When did Paley go from standard 00:29:13.450 --> 00:29:16.670 textbook to old -fashioned relic? World War I. 00:29:16.829 --> 00:29:20.849 The war. Why the war? The sheer existential morass 00:29:20.849 --> 00:29:23.890 of it. Paley's entire worldview is fundamentally 00:29:23.890 --> 00:29:27.089 optimistic. It's a moral teleology. The idea 00:29:27.089 --> 00:29:29.589 that the world is designed for and trends towards 00:29:29.589 --> 00:29:31.910 happiness. And then comes the trenches. Then 00:29:31.910 --> 00:29:34.109 comes the trenches. Mustard gas, machine guns, 00:29:34.490 --> 00:29:37.150 the sheer scale of senseless slaughter. It's 00:29:37.150 --> 00:29:39.650 very, very hard to look at a field in the psalm 00:29:39.650 --> 00:29:41.990 and say, God designed this world for general 00:29:41.990 --> 00:29:44.309 happiness. The optimism just couldn't survive 00:29:44.309 --> 00:29:46.730 that. Exactly. The optimism of the Enlightenment 00:29:46.730 --> 00:29:49.230 collapsed in on itself. The idea that nature 00:29:49.230 --> 00:29:51.390 is a benevolent machine stopped making sense 00:29:51.390 --> 00:29:53.670 to a generation that had seen nature and human 00:29:53.670 --> 00:29:55.990 nature destroy itself on an industrial scale. 00:29:56.929 --> 00:29:59.990 Paley's happy world suddenly looked naive. That 00:29:59.990 --> 00:30:03.369 brings us to the modern legacy. Today, Paley 00:30:03.369 --> 00:30:06.970 is, well, the source calls him a lightning rod. 00:30:07.150 --> 00:30:09.950 He is. He is at the absolute center of the public 00:30:09.950 --> 00:30:12.730 debate between creationism, intelligent design, 00:30:12.990 --> 00:30:16.529 and evolutionary biology. His name is invoked 00:30:16.529 --> 00:30:19.720 constantly. But it's not just scorn, is it? There's 00:30:19.720 --> 00:30:22.259 a strange kind of respect there, even from his 00:30:22.259 --> 00:30:24.339 biggest opponents. There is. You have to look 00:30:24.339 --> 00:30:26.220 at Rickard Dawkins. He wrote the book The Blind 00:30:26.220 --> 00:30:29.640 Watchmaker. The title itself is a direct reference 00:30:29.640 --> 00:30:32.660 to Paley. And Dawkins is perhaps the most famous 00:30:32.660 --> 00:30:35.180 atheist and evolutionary biologist in the world. 00:30:35.279 --> 00:30:37.599 And he completely disagrees with Paley's conclusion. 00:30:37.980 --> 00:30:40.059 He believes natural selection is the watchmaker 00:30:40.059 --> 00:30:42.839 and it is blind. It has no foresight, no plan. 00:30:43.119 --> 00:30:45.940 But he calls himself a neopalean. A neopalean. 00:30:45.960 --> 00:30:47.960 What does that even mean? He respects Paley's 00:30:47.960 --> 00:30:50.259 method. He respects that Paley didn't just say 00:30:50.259 --> 00:30:53.339 it's a mystery or have faith. Paley said, let's 00:30:53.339 --> 00:30:54.900 look at the evidence. Let's look at the sheer 00:30:54.900 --> 00:30:56.819 complexity of life and demand an explanation 00:30:56.819 --> 00:31:00.599 for it. Dawkins appreciates that strong, logical, 00:31:00.740 --> 00:31:03.759 evidence -based approach, even if he thinks the 00:31:03.759 --> 00:31:06.599 answer Paley found was completely wrong. So the 00:31:06.599 --> 00:31:09.380 question Paley asked was the right one, even 00:31:09.380 --> 00:31:11.400 if the answer was wrong. That's how Dawkins sees 00:31:11.400 --> 00:31:14.240 it. And the design argument hasn't really gone 00:31:14.240 --> 00:31:16.480 away, has it? It feels like the logic of the 00:31:16.480 --> 00:31:19.680 watch hasn't disappeared. It just moved. It moved 00:31:19.680 --> 00:31:22.920 from biology to physics and cosmology. Right. 00:31:23.000 --> 00:31:25.500 We don't look at the eye and say, it must be 00:31:25.500 --> 00:31:28.559 designed in the same way anymore. We have a very 00:31:28.559 --> 00:31:30.920 powerful theory in evolution to explain that. 00:31:31.950 --> 00:31:34.269 when we look at the big bang that's a fine tuning 00:31:34.269 --> 00:31:37.430 argument or to be technical anthropic cosmological 00:31:37.430 --> 00:31:40.069 fine tuning break that down for us what is that 00:31:40.069 --> 00:31:42.450 it's the observation that the fundamental constants 00:31:42.450 --> 00:31:45.089 of our universe the strength of gravity the strong 00:31:45.089 --> 00:31:47.150 nuclear force the rate the universe expanded 00:31:47.150 --> 00:31:51.529 after the big bang are tuned so precisely that 00:31:51.529 --> 00:31:53.930 if they were off by even a tiny tiny fraction 00:31:54.490 --> 00:31:56.829 Life as we know it couldn't exist. So if gravity 00:31:56.829 --> 00:31:59.210 was a billionth of a percent stronger, the universe 00:31:59.210 --> 00:32:00.910 would have collapsed back in on itself immediately. 00:32:01.269 --> 00:32:02.650 Right. And if it was a billionth of a percent 00:32:02.650 --> 00:32:05.349 weaker, stars and galaxies would never have formed. 00:32:05.509 --> 00:32:08.109 The dial is set exactly where it needs to be 00:32:08.109 --> 00:32:10.549 for us to be here having this conversation. So 00:32:10.549 --> 00:32:12.849 the question Paley asked on that heath in 1802 00:32:12.849 --> 00:32:16.049 is still the question today. Just on a cosmic 00:32:16.049 --> 00:32:18.410 scale. It is. You're walking across the cosmic 00:32:18.410 --> 00:32:21.170 heath. You find a universe that is perfectly 00:32:21.170 --> 00:32:23.750 calibrated for life in the middle of a chaotic 00:32:23.750 --> 00:32:26.950 void. Do you assume that's just a lucky accident? 00:32:27.390 --> 00:32:29.529 Or do you assume there was a universe tuner, 00:32:29.549 --> 00:32:32.410 a universe maker? Paley wouldn't understand our 00:32:32.410 --> 00:32:34.289 physics, but he would recognize the structure 00:32:34.289 --> 00:32:36.829 of that argument immediately. It's his watch 00:32:36.829 --> 00:32:39.990 scaled up to the size of the cosmos. It seems 00:32:39.990 --> 00:32:42.349 like whether you view him with reverence or revulsion, 00:32:42.529 --> 00:32:45.710 you can't ignore him. No. His work remains a 00:32:45.710 --> 00:32:47.970 notable body in the canon of Western thought. 00:32:48.750 --> 00:32:51.150 Dicey, the lawyer we mentioned, had his students 00:32:51.150 --> 00:32:53.710 read Paley not for the theology, but for the 00:32:53.710 --> 00:32:55.769 thinking. And I think that is a great and fitting 00:32:55.769 --> 00:32:58.230 legacy. So let's wrap this up. We've gone from 00:32:58.230 --> 00:33:00.170 Giggleswick to Cambridge. We've seen the young 00:33:00.170 --> 00:33:02.890 math genius, the senior wrangler, become the 00:33:02.890 --> 00:33:05.569 cautious reformer. Then the radical abolitionist. 00:33:05.710 --> 00:33:08.430 The radical abolitionist who wanted to end slavery 00:33:08.430 --> 00:33:12.339 to increase general happiness. And we've seen 00:33:12.339 --> 00:33:14.119 the brilliant detective of scripture and the 00:33:14.119 --> 00:33:16.859 dying man writing a masterpiece about a watch 00:33:16.859 --> 00:33:19.019 that would challenge and shape science for two 00:33:19.019 --> 00:33:21.740 centuries. It is a remarkable intellectual journey. 00:33:21.900 --> 00:33:24.579 He made complex ideas transparent. He provided 00:33:24.579 --> 00:33:26.859 the intellectual structure that later thinkers 00:33:26.859 --> 00:33:29.779 like Darwin had to either build on or, in his 00:33:29.779 --> 00:33:32.259 case, dismantle. Here's the final thought I want 00:33:32.259 --> 00:33:34.960 to leave you with today. Paley looked at the 00:33:34.960 --> 00:33:37.380 world, at the birds, the mussels, the stars, 00:33:37.539 --> 00:33:41.160 and he saw general happiness. He saw a machine 00:33:41.160 --> 00:33:43.299 built for well -being. A profoundly optimistic 00:33:43.299 --> 00:33:46.019 view. In our modern world, we often focus on 00:33:46.019 --> 00:33:48.660 the chaos. We talk about entropy. We see the 00:33:48.660 --> 00:33:50.619 randomness, the struggle for survival. We do. 00:33:50.700 --> 00:33:53.119 We're more attuned to the Hume side of the argument 00:33:53.119 --> 00:33:55.799 now. So the question is, is it harder for us 00:33:55.799 --> 00:33:58.299 now to see the happiness Paley described? And 00:33:58.299 --> 00:34:00.380 does that fine -tuning of the universe today 00:34:00.380 --> 00:34:02.859 pose the exact same question as the watch on 00:34:02.859 --> 00:34:05.940 the Heath did in 1802? If you found a universe 00:34:05.940 --> 00:34:08.440 perfectly tuned for life, would you assume it 00:34:08.440 --> 00:34:10.829 had just always been there? Or would you start 00:34:10.829 --> 00:34:13.590 looking for a universe maker? That is the question 00:34:13.590 --> 00:34:17.090 that keeps the debate alive and well. Thank you 00:34:17.090 --> 00:34:19.670 for joining us on this deep dive into the watchmaker's 00:34:19.670 --> 00:34:20.889 mind. It's been a pleasure.