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William Paley was born in July 1743 in Peterborough, England. He was the eldest son of Elizabeth and William Paley. His father, a graduate of Christ’s College, Cambridge, was a vicar and minor canon of the Church of England, and was headmaster of the grammar school at Giggleswick.
He was educated at Giggleswick school and at Christ's College, Cambridge. While an undergraduate, Paley had shown promise in mathematics.
He received his B. A. degree in January 1763. In 1795 he received the Doctorate of Divinity at Cambridge University.
In 1763 Paley began to teach at the academy in Greenwich, but in June 1766 he was elected a fellow of his college and returned to Cambridge. While a fellow of Christ’s College, he gave a lecture entitled “Metaphysics, Morals and the Greek Testament” and discussed the Being and Attributes of God, written by the Reverend Samuel Clarke. He lectured on Butler and Locke, and also delivered a systematic course on moral philosophy, which subsequently formed the basis of his well-known treatise. Paley’s last formal connection with Christ’s College was as tutor from 1771 to 1774. His interest in metaphysics and in Clarke’s work led him to support an attempt of other latitudinarians to relax the stringency of the church’s organization and government.
In 1775 Paley was presented with the rectorship of Musgrave in Cumberland, the first of several ecclesiastical posts he was to hold. By 1782 he had become archdeacon of Carlisle, and his financial position was assured. His rise in the church continued, and by the end of 1785 he had become chancellor of the diocese of Carlisle. Having become interested in the abolition of the slave trade, he lectured against slavery and became, on the local level, very much of the public figure. That same year, at the suggestion of John Law, Paley published his lectures, revised and enlarged, under the title of The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy. The book at once became the ethical text-book of the University of Cambridge, and passed through fifteen editions in the author's lifetime. The Principles was followed in 1790 by his first essay in the field of Christian apologetics, Horae Paulinae, or the Truth of the Scripture History of St Paul: Evinced by a Comparison of the Epistles which Bear His Name with the Acts of the Apostles and with One Another, probably the most original of its author's works.
Paley’s abandonment of a purely academic career was seen in his refusal of the mastership of Jesus College, Cambridge, in 1792, for financial reasons. Instead of returning to the university he continued to accumulate increasingly lucrative ecclesiastical holdings and continued to publish. By 1794 his writings advanced his religious career, his Evidences of Christianity was warmly regarded by the church and he was rewarded with new benefices.
In 1795 Paley received the rectorship of Bishop-Wearmouth, a post worth £1, 200 a year. He remained in residence at Carlisle and was appointed a justice of the peace for the region. Although much in demand as a public speaker, illness in 1800 forced Paley to give up this aspect of his career. In 1802 he published Natural Theology, or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity collected from the Appearances of Nature, his last, and, in some respects, his most remarkable book.
Paley’s most important works were The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy (1785), A View of the Evidence of Christianity (1794), which was required reading for entrance to Cambridge until the 20th century, and Natural Theology (1802), based on John Ray’s Wisdom of God Manifested in the Works of the Creation (1691).
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His own religious views inclined toward liberalism, and while he never embraced the Unitarian point of view, he was not hostile toward Arianism or Unitarianism.
In his work he tried to reconcile liberal orthodox Christianity with divine providence.
Quotations: “It is a happy world after all. The air, the earth, the water teem with delighted existence. In a spring noon, or a summer evening, on whichever side I turn my eyes, myriads of happy beings crowd upon my view. “The insect youth are on the wing. ” Swarms of new-born flies are trying their pinions in the air. Their sportive motions, their wanton mazes, their gratuitous activity, testify their joy and the exultation which they feel in their lately discovered faculties…. The whole winged insect tribe, it is probable, are equally intent upon their proper employments, and under every variety of constitution, gratified, and perhaps equally gratified, by the offices which the author of their nature has assigned to them. ”
Paley was married twice: to Jane Hewitt, who died in 1791; and in 1795 to a Miss Dobinson. His son by his first marriage, Edmund, wrote a life of his father.
