PALEY, Dr. WILLIAM, a celebrated English divine, was born at Peterborough in 1743. His father was a Yorkshireman, and not lqng after Paley was born returned to his native parish of Giggleswick, one of the wildest and most sequestered districts in the West Hiding, to become a master of the grammar-school there. Young Paley was brought up afriong the shrewd, hard•heacied peasantry of Yorkshire; and it is probable that lie either naturally possessed, or insensibly acquired their moral and mental characteristics. At all events, he soon became conspicuous in the family for his good sense; and when he left to enter Christ's college, Cambridge, as a sizar, in his 16th year, his father said: " He has by far the clearest head I ever met with." At Cambridge, Paley led for the first two years, a gay, idle, and dissipated life, but thereafter became a severe student, and took his bachelor degree in 1763 with highest honors. Be then taught for three years in an academy at Greenwich. In 1765 he obtained the first prize for a prose Latin dissertation—the subject being, " A Comparison between the St oic and Epicurean Philoso phy with respect to the Influence of each on the Morals of a People," in which he char acteristically argued in favor of the latter. Next year he was elected a fellow and tutor of Christ's, and also took• the degree of 3I.A. In 1767 he was ordained a priest. His career as a college tutor, which lasted about ten years, was eminently successful; and it appears to have been during this period that he systematized his principles iu moral and political philosophy. In 1776 Paley married, and was of course obliged to give up his fellowship, but was compensated by a presentation to the livings of Mosgrove and Appleby in Westmoreland, and of•Dalston in Cumberland. Four years later he was col lated to a prebendal stall in the cathedral church of Carlisle; in 1782 he became arch deacon, and in 1875 chancellor of the diocese. The last of these years witnessed the publication of his Elements of Moral and Political Philosophy. In this work he propounds his ethical theory, which is commonly culled utilitarianism, but is really a mixture of utility and theology. He begins by renouncing the favorite doctrine of the moral sense, against which he adduces a series of strong objections. He then takes up the question of the source of obligation, and resolves it into the will of God, enforced by name pun ishment, admitting candidly that virtue is prudence directed to the next world. The will of God, in so far as it is not rendered explicit by revelation, is to be interpreted by the tendency of actions to promote human happiness; the benevolence of the Deity being supposed. Objection has frequently been taken to the principles on which Paley rests his system, but the lucidity and appositeness of his illustrations are beyond all praise. If his treatise cannot be regarded as a profoundly philosophical work, it is•at any rate one of the clearest and most sensible ever written, even by an Englishman; and if it failed to sound the depths of "moral obligation," it at least brushed off into oblivion the shallow and muddy mysticism that had long enveloped the philosophy of politics. Paley's plain,
sarcastic view of the "divine right of kings," which be puts on a level with the "divine right of constables," gave extreme offense to George III., but was nevertheless much admired by not a few of his majesty's subjects, and is now held by everybody to be beyond question. In 1790 appeared his most original and valuable work—the Home Paulina, or the Truth of the Scripture _History of St. Aul evinced by a Comparison of the Epistles which bear his name with the Acts of the Apostles, and with one another. The aim of this admira ble work is to prove, by a great variety of " undesigned coincidences." the improbability, if not impossibility, of the usual infidel hypothesis of his time—viz., that the New Tes tament is a "cunningly-devised fable," It was dedicated to his friend John Law, then bishop of Killala, in Ireland, to whose favor he had been indebted for most of his prefer ments. Paley's next important work was entitled A Wew of the Evidences of Christianity, published in 1794. It is not equal in originality to its predecessor,but the use which the author of the labors of such eminent scholars as Lardner and bishop Douglas is generally reckonedmost dexterous and effective. Later and keener criticism is indeed anything but satisfied with Paley's "evidences;" but in Paley's own day he was held to have achieved a splendid triumph over skeptics, and was handsomely rewarded. The bishop of London appointed him a prebend of St. Pancras; shortly after, he was pro moted to the subcleanery of Lincoln (worth £700 per annum); Cambridge conferred on him the degree of D.D. ; and the bishop of Durham the rich rectory of bishop Wea•mouth (worth ,P.1200 per anntpt), in consequence of which be honorably resigned his livings in the diocese of Carlisle. After 1800 he became subject to a painful disease of the kidneys; but notwithstanding, he continued to write, and in 1802 published perhaps the most widely popular of all his works, .Nntural Theology, or Evidences of the Existence and Attri butes of the Deity, which, however, is based, and to a large extent borrowed from the Religions Philosopher, the work of a Dutch philosopher named Nieu•entyt, an English translation of which appeared in 1718-19. The plagiarisms are most palpable, but have been accounted for on the supposition that the _Natural Theology was " made up" from his loose papers and notes written when Paley was a college tutor, and that he had for gotten the sources from which he derived them. It is also hut fair to state that lie has taken nothing which he has not greatly improved; wihil tetigit, quod non ornavit. A somewhat noted edition of this work, enriched, or at least expanded by annotations and dissertations, is that by lord Brougham and sir Charles Bell (1836-39). Paley died May 25, 1805. He had a family of four sons and three daughters. A complete edition of his works was published in 1838 by one of his sons—the rev. Edmund Paley. The best biography is that by Meadley (1809).