Leighton Library, Dunblane

Scotland's oldest purpose-built independent library founded in 1687

Leighton Library has 1816 edition of “Natural Theology or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity” by William Paley

Added at 06:16 on 25 May 2025

The Leighton Library has a 1816 edition of the best known work of clergyman & philosopher William Paley (who died #OnThisDay 25 May 1805) “Natural Theology or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity.”

This book presented the intelligent design argument for the existence of God and included the first use of the phrase "argument from design” with his version of the watchmaker analogy (that a watch did not come to be accidentally but rather through the intentional handiwork of a skilled watchmaker, so he reasoned that it is also readily observed that nature did not come to be accidentally or on its own but through the intentional handiwork of an intelligent designer, supporting the existence of God).

This was one of the most influential philosophical texts in late Enlightenment Britain. It was cited in several parliamentary debates over the corn laws in Britain and in debates in the US Congress. The book remained a set textbook at Cambridge well into the Victorian era. Charles Darwin was required to read it when he did his undergraduate studies at Christ's College. Portraits of Paley and Darwin face each other at Christ's College to this day.

< Leighton Library has 1701 edition of "The pirat's doom : or, Captain Kidd's fatall farewell“Leighton Library has 1614 edition of "Relatio ad reges & principes christianos" by Caspar Schoppe >