PALEY, William, D. D., was born at Peterborough in July 1743, where his father was then minor canon of the cathedral church. His father afterwards removed to Giggleswick, being appointed head master of the school at that place. Here his son was trained under his immediate inspection, and discovered a solidity of understanding, and a studiousness of disposition, which gave a fair earnest of his future eminence.

In November 1758, at the age of fifteen, he was admitted a sizar of Christ’s College, Cambridge, and in October 1759 he became a resident member. When he left home his father could not refrain from expressing to his friends the anticipations he entertained of the figure which his son was destined to make: “He’ll turn out a great man; very great. He has by far the clearest head I ever met with.”

Shortly after his removal to Cambridge he obtained three scholarships. He was not at this time a close or laborious student; he spent much time in company, and improved himself rather by observation and reflection than by reading. When he appeared in the public school to make his first act, the spruceness of his dress, presenting a striking contrast to the habitual carelessness of his appearance, attracted very particular notice, and, aided by a singularity in his gestures and manner, occasioned much mirth amongst the spectators; but the uncommon success with which he acquitted himself had the effect of drawing crowds on all future occasions when he was expected to dispute. His eminent abilities created upon one occasion some degree of apprehension, when he proposed to argue against the eternity of future punishments. One of the heads of the college insisted on his relinquishing that question. Dr Watson, then moderator, and afterwards the celebrated Bishop of Llandaff, protected on this occasion Paley’s independence. The latter, however, was averse to give offence; and at the suggestion of Dr watson he retained the subject, but took the opposite side. He came off with much eelat, his talents having received the best scope for display from the high ability of his opponent, Mr Freie.

After obtaining with great honour his bachelor’s degree in January 1763, he accepted of the situation of second assistant and Latin teacher in an academy at Greenwich, chiefly resorted to by young men intended for the army and navy.

In 1765 Mr Paley gained the first senior bachelor’s prize by a Latin dissertation on “a Comparison between the Stoic and Epicurean Philosophy in their influence on Morals;” taking the side of the Epicureans, as a sect friendly to rational pleasures, and not, as their enemies supposed, indulgent to vicious excesses; whilst he condemned the affected austerity of the followers of Zeno, and showed from facts that it was compatible with the most flagitious crimes. It is a remarkable circumstance, as illustrative of the formality which often presides in university matters, that this dissertation narrowly escaped rejection, because the Latin text was accompanied by English notes, for the purpose of aiding philosophical accuracy where the Latin appeared liable to ambiguity.

Being ordained deacon at the proper age, he officiated as curate to Dr Hinehcliffe, vicar of Greenwich, where he continued to reside, though he gave up his situation in the academy.

Mr Paley was elected a fellow upon the foundation of Christ’s College in June 1766; returned to reside in the university; took the degree of master of arts, and engaged in the business of private tuition. He took priest’s orders in December 1767, and in 1768 he was appointed tutor of Christ’s College, along with his friend Mr Law, already a distinguished scholar. The talents and assiduity of these two quickly raised the celebrity of their college to an unprecedented height. Paley’s intimacy with Law was productive of much mutual improvement, and introduced the former to the acquaintance of his friend’s father, the eminent Dr Edmund Law, who was soon after Bishop of Carlisle, but continued to reside in the university as master of Peterhouse. Mr Paley was at this time held in the highest esteem; and amongst his particular friends were numbered Dr Plumptre, professor of casuistry; Dr Waring, Lucanian professor of mathematics, who was in his department eminent beyond his contemporaries; and the accomplished Mr Jebb. He figured as a lecturer on mathematics, morals, and the Greek Testament, and afterwards on divinity. His method of lecturing was singularly happy, the result of a diligent study of the art of teaching. He soon discovered that, in moral disquisitions, more pains are required to make young minds perceive the difficulty than to make them understand the solution, and that some curiosity must be raised before an attempt is made to satisfy it. The discourses which he delivered at this time contained the germ of the principal works which he afterwards published on morals and theology.

The controversy on the propriety of requiring a subscription to articles of faith, as practised by the Church of England, was at this time much agitated at the two universities. At Oxford the High Church party was triumphant, and scarcely any individual ventured a whisper of opposition; but at Cambridge, talents and ingenuity were exercised upon both sides of the question. Paley favoured the claims of the reforming party; but, from motives of prudence, declined signing a petition for relief at that time drawn up, not entertaining such expectations of ultimate success as to be induced to take a public step so obnoxious to those on whom his future prospects depended. He told one of his friends in jest, that “he could not afford to keep a conscience ;” a confession which will, no doubt, lay him open to the animadversions of those who reserve their censures for the subdued struggles of a mind of limited moral strength, whilst they excuse or applaud the oppressive system by which its efforts are overawed. Paley, however, soon after wielded his pen in a decided tone in the cause of freedom. Dr Law, the bishop of Carlisle, published an able and moderate pamphlet against the imposition of the church test. An answer appeared at Oxford from the pen of Dr Randolph. To this Paley published, anonymously, a reply, entitled A Defence of the Considerations on the Propriety of the Church Test.

His well-merited reputation induced that great constitutional lawyer, the Earl of Camden, to offer him the situation of tutor to his son; but his other engagements led him to decline the offer.

In 1775, he was inducted to the rectory of Musgrove in Westmoreland, worth about eighty pounds a year, presented to him by the Bishop of Carlisle. He now married Miss Hewit of Carlisle, and took a small farm to improve his income; a speculation which he soon after gave up as unproductive. Next year, he was inducted to the vicarage of Dalston in Cumberland.

In 1777, he was inducted to the vicarage of Appleby, worth about L.200 a year; and whilst in this situation he published a small volume, entitled The Clergyman’s Companion in Visiting the Siek; in which he both evinced his personal attention to the spiritual wants of his own flock, and conferred an obligation on his brethren, which has been acknowledged by the numerous and large editions which it has undergone. In June 1780, he was installed a prebendary[7:16:761] of the fourth stall, in the Cathedral of Carlisle, worth about L.400 a year; and in August 1782, on the promotion of his friend Mr Law to the see of Clonfert, he was raised to the dignity of archdeacon of the diocese.

A report was long in circulation, that Mr Paley, being appointed to preach before the University of Cambridge when Mr Pitt made his first appearance at St Mary’s after his elevation to the premiership, chose the following passage for his text: “There is a lad here who hath five barley loaves and two fishes; but what are they among so many ?” That was not the fact; but the joke originated with Paley, who said to a friend that, had he been asked to preach on the occasion, he would have chosen this text.

Now in possession of a competent income, and sufficient leisure, he prepared for the press his great work On the Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy, which first appeared in 1785. In consequence of the well-known merit of his lectures on the subject of that work, high expectations were formed of it; and his admirers were not disappointed. Its most obvious feature was that of being all directed to the practice of life in cases which hourly claim the attention of well-meaning minds. Most other scientific works on morals were mere speculative treatises, which pleased the reader by unfolding the principles of right and wrong, in cases in which he has been previously satisfied about the practical rule and its application; whilst they embarrassed conscientious inquirers with hair-breadth distinctions, instead of conveying satisfactory principles. Dr Paley’s work happily unites a due regard for practical duty with rational information on those points on which the mind is most anxious to obtain satisfaction. It soon established the reputation of its author. Some of his doctrines met with opposition, but he never was provoked to write any reply; and it is further remarked by his biographer, Mr Meadley, that, in the subsequent editions, he made no alterations materially affecting the sense. Had there been a few such alterations, however, he would have more fully merited the character of a liberal inquirer. Amongst his elucidations of the foundations of virtue, he certainly fails in his definition of “the nature of obligation.” He acknowledges that the subject had embarrassed his own mind; yet he ultimately reposes in a solution founded on a confusion of terms, which laid him fully open to the animadversions of the Reverend Mr Pearson, who published An Examination of his Theory. Dr Paley’s doctrine is, that “a man is under moral obligation when he is urged by a violent motive resulting from the command of another.” He thus resolves obligation into an effectual inducement. According to this statement, a man is under no moral obligation unless he feels, acknowledges, and acts upon it. Had such a hypothesis occurred in the writings of an author who made the purity of practice to depend on the reception of peculiar theories, it might have created great laxity of principle in the minds of some persons, and distress in those of others. But his masterly elucidation of the rule of morals, and the paternal benignity with which his efforts are uniformly accompanied, set his reader at rest from all hurtful anxiety on practical topics.

His exposition of the rule of morals, as founded in utility, is ably managed. He demonstrates the superiority of this rule to every other, and the subordinate rank of all those mental suggestions and impressions which some moralists have represented as essential parts of the foundation of morality. Many such feelings are valuable provisions of the Author of our Nature, but they do not deserve the authority of guides. Their whole claim to our obedience is derived either from their coincidence with some express command of the Deity, or their conduciveness to utility. The difficulties attending inquiries into this conduciveness in particular instances do not generate uncertainties so great as those attached to the other supposed natural tests of moral truth. A man may be mistaken respecting the useful or hurtful tendency of a particular line of conduct; but he is equally liable to be led astray by feelings venerated as moral suggestions; and, under that influence, he is deprived of an equal possibility of correcting himself by subsequent reflection. When authors declaim on the danger attached to the doctrine of utility, they borrow their arguments from that doctrine itself. They merely set up utility in its extensive application against such utilities as are partial and delusive. Dr Paley, therefore, dwells strongly on the necessity and importance of general rules; and, by taking them for his guides, obviates all the serious objections brought against this leading theorem, “that the method of coming at the will of God concerning any action, by the light of nature, is to inquire into the tendency of that action to promote or diminish the general happiness.”

On our duties to ourselves his observations are short, at which we cannot be surprised when we find that in his definition of virtue these duties are excluded. In the excellent casuistical Observations on Self-Defence, Drunkenness, and Suicide, of which this portion of his work entirely consists, he regards the tendency of personal conduct and habits only as they affect society around us. But if he had paid more respect to the maxims of the stoical authors, and studied them in their most favourable meaning, he would have been more disposed to point out the importance of maintaining mental composure as an ultimate object of individual efforts. On our duties towards God he also treats briefly. The simplicity attached to our knowledge of their great object divests them of variety as a separate subject, without detracting from their sublimity.

In the political part of this work, we find the exertions of a manly understanding employed with some success in exposing the dark bigotry and the gratuitous king-worship by which political knowledge had in past ages been disgraced. His efforts, however, are exempt from those headstrong tendencies which minds liberated from unfair control sometimes betray, and thus run into schemes incapable of being applied without compromising the happiness of society. That happiness he keeps steadily in view, as the only legitimate object of all government, as well as the only legitimate object of opposition to existing practices and institutions. Some of his admirers consider him as going too far in vindicating the exaction of a subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles. His chapter on subscription has been assailed with equal asperity by the strenuous adherents of the established church, and by the scrupulous advocates of Protestant freedom. His biographer, Mr Meadley, calls it “the last effort of an ingenious mind to soften, by interpretation, the rigour of a practice of which he could not seriously approve, and so to enlarge the pale of conformity to liberal and conscientious men.”

The answer which he gives to the arguments for passive obedience as founded in Scripture, is particularly worthy of attention. Throughout the whole he displays a candour of the most conciliating kind. None of his strictures on existing systems had the slightest tendency to give offence to any, except to persons actuated by downright prejudice, or the most corrupt motives.

On the death of Dr Law, bishop of Carlisle, which happened in 1787, Mr Paley published a short Memoir of the life of that venerable prelate. Soon afterwards he wrote two tracts in favour of“the abolition of the slave-trade;” a subject on which he had expressed his sentiments with decision in his Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy, before it began to excite general interest.

In 1790 he published his ílorae 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. The object was to show, by a copious selection of references and reciprocal [7:16:762]allusions, the strong evidence of their genuineness derived from their undesigned coincidence. This able treatise possesses more novelty of interest, and greater originality of idea, than any of his other works.

During the violent political ferment which led to the French Revolution, Dr Paley published a short tract, entitled Reasons for Contentment, addressed to the Labouring Classes; and he republished, in a separate form, his chapter on the British Constitution, from his Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy. He was censured by the violent partisans on both sides, as he went the full length of neither; but his style of reasoning had the best tendency to guide and satisfy those minds which were not obstinately and unreasonably prepossessed.

In May 1791, Mrs Paley died, leaving him a family of four sons and four daughters.

Early in 1794 he published his View of the Evidences of Christianity. This work, with regard to manner and effect, follows a happy medium between that learned prolixity which deters the reader, or tires out his patience, and that abrupt brevity which is apt, with some minds, to beget an unfortunate impression of some imperfection in the argument. He contends for the substantial truth of the history connected with the Christian revelation; and, not undervaluing, as some have injudiciously done, the internal evidences, he exhibits, in primitive simplicity, and without the least oratorical exaggeration, the superlative value of those doctrines in which all Christians are agreed, and gives an animated view of the morality of the gospel. The work, considered as addressed to doubting minds, was well fitted to interest the attention of all who are duly impressed with the importance of the question at issue.

Hitherto his preferment in the church had been slender, considering his singular merit and the opulence of the ecclesiastical establishment. But the boldness of his reasonings on political subjects had given deep dissatisfaction. To the favourers of power it was not welcome doctrine, that “governments may be too secure. ;” that “the obligations of subjects and sovereigns are reciprocal ;” and “that the divine right of kings rests on the same foundation with the divine right of constables.” But when he stood forth as the successful defender of the Christian revelation, at a time when the interests of the church were supposed to be in danger, his services met with more marked attention. Dr Porteous, bishop of London, conferred on him the desirable situation of prebend of St Paneras in the Cathedral of St Paul’s, to which he was instituted in August 1794. He was in a few months afterwards promoted to the subdeanery of Lincoln by Dr Prettyman, bishop of that diocese, and took his degree of D. D. at Cambridge.

Before leaving this place, he had the agreeable surprise of a letter from Dr Barrington, bishop of Durham, offering him the valuable rectory of Bishop-Wearmouth, worth about L.1200 a year, into which he was soon inducted. A few months afterwards he married Miss Dobinson of Carlisle; and, from this period to his death, divided his time between Bish op-Wearmouth and Lincoln, being obliged to reside three months in the year at the latter place. Now that he enjoyed a handsome independence, we find his company courted by many distinguished characters, and his life spent in a series of the most useful labours, whilst all his secular transactions were so well conducted, as to shed a lustre on his character, and to exhibit a most instructive example to all around him. Both his parents lived to witness his high reputation and success in life. His mother died in 1796, and his father in 1799.

In 1800, Dr Paley was attacked by a disease in the kidneys, accompanied with a species of melaena, which obliged him to suspend the discharge of his professional duties.

He had a second attack in the following spring, and a third about the end of 1802.

During the progress of this fatal disease, he was engaged in preparing for the press his last important work, On Natural Theology. His literary labours were frequently interrupted by severe paroxysms of pain, but on the first respite he always resumed them with cheerfulness. Under these circumstances, he wrote his excellent remarks on the alleviations of pain, in his chapter on the Goodness of the Deity. This work had been undertaken at the suggestion of the Bishop of Durham, that he might, by theological exertions in his closet, make up for the unavoidable suspension of his public ecclesiastical labours. In none of his writings does his candour appear to such incontestible advantage as in this. We never find him browbeating the adversary, or attempting to push his conclusions a single step farther than his premises evidently warrant We do not find him, like many others, advancing the metaphysical position “that every thing which exists must have a cause,” so glaringly open to the query, “why should the world have a cause more than its Creator?” Mere existence cannot authorize the inference of owing that existence to a higher source. He rests his argument on far better ground; the character of the fabric of nature, or rather of various objects in it which offer themselves to our observation. Nor does he, with some, assume the doctrine, that matter is essentially inert, and that, therefore, its motions must be induced by an extraneous and spiritual cause. He more wisely turns his attention to the proofs of design which so many objects in the world exhibit. These are so selected and arranged as to appear in the most interesting and satisfactory point of view. Where the phenomena are apparently inconsistent, we find no straining to reconcile them; no reluctance to take a full view of unfavourable appearances; no inclination to draw the same inferences from opposite facts. His argument is not suspended on a chain of metaphysical reasoning, which would have subjected it to the risk of destruction as soon as one of the links gave way. He directs the attention of his reader to numerous columnar supports of the existence of a God, each of which is adequate to the whole office. Each instance produced is decisive of the point at issue; and though his instances are numerous as well as beautiful, they are evidently only partial exemplifications of a species of evidence which is boundless in extent.

In the present state of the learned world, this is perhaps the most important of Dr Paley’s works; as possessing the best tendency to reclaim persons wandering in the mazes of scepticism, to that state of thought which is most favourable to the true improvement of the human character; and to the establishment of that state of mental peace after which a sense of our weakness naturally leads us to aspire.

After its publication, Dr Paley continued to take a lively interest in the literary and scientific discussions of the day, especially such as bore directly on the great interests of society; but in May 1805, he was subjected to a violent attack of his complaint, in which all remedies proved ineffectual; and, with great tranquillity, he breathed his last at Bishop-Wearmouth, leaving a family of four sons and four daughters in possession of a competent fortune, saved by a systematic though by no means a niggardly economy.

He wrote several sermons and other minor productions, less known than those above enumerated. They are all collected in a uniform edition of his works, and will be found, on examination, worthy of his fame, and successfully directed to the same valuable ends with his more celebrated productions. (p. p. p. p.)