Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography/Volume 3/Paley, William
PALEY, William, the most perspicuous and popular of English moralists and theologians, was born at Peterborough in 1743. His father was a minor canon in the cathedral of that city. Paley's family had formerly resided in the parish of Giggleswick in the West Riding of Yorkshire, where his grandfather and great-grandfather had possessed a small patrimonial estate. Soon after his birth they returned to this district, his father having been appointed head master of the grammar-school of Giggleswick. In this remote region, which is one of the wildest in England, Paley was educated under the parental eye. He grew up among a people of marked character, primitive ways, hard nature, and uncultivated speech; and to the last his manners retained a tincture of the social peculiarities with which they had been imbued in his boyhood. His genius, too, may have owed something to the same local influences. To his early intercourse with the shrewd peasantry of Craven, who with all their simplicity had a keen eye to the main chance, his prudential morality and racy style may doubtless be in some measure ascribed. In 1759 Paley entered Christ's college, Cambridge, as a sizar. His time, he tells us, during the first two years of his residence was spent not very profitably. He was of a convivial turn, and his conversational powers were great, so that he was constantly in society, where he says, "we were not immoral, but only idle and rather expensive." This career was cut short by an incident which, had Paley been of a fanciful disposition, he might have construed into a supernatural visitation. Early one morning a boon companion, whom he had left at the festive board a few hours before, appeared at his bedside, and solemnly adjured him to alter his course of life. No ghost ever spake to better purpose. "I was so struck," says Paley, "with the visit and the visitor, that I lay in bed great part of the day, and formed my plan. I ordered my bedmaker to prepare my fire every evening, in order that it might be lighted by myself. I arose at five; read during the whole day, except such hours as chapel and hall required; allotted to each portion of time its peculiar branch of study; and just before the closing of the college gates, at nine o'clock, I went to a neighbouring coffeehouse, where I constantly regaled on a mutton chop and a dose of milk punch; and thus, on taking my bachelor's degree, I became senior wrangler." Paley graduated in 1763. During the next three years he acted as assistant teacher in Mr. Bracken's academy at Greenwich. In 1765 he gained a university prize for a Latin essay, the subject of which was a comparison between the Stoic and Epicurean philosophy with respect to the influence of each on the morals of a people. He advocated the Epicurean side of the question. This essay was probably the germ of his maturer work on moral and political philosophy. Soon afterwards he was elected a fellow and tutor of Christ's college, where he resided for about ten years, during which time, by his animated mode of instruction, he imparted a new life and interest to the routine of academical study. His intimate friend and associate in this occupation was Mr. Law, son of the bishop of Carlisle, to whom Paley was indebted for much of his subsequent preferment in the church. In 1776 Paley married, and of course vacated his fellowship; but in lieu of it he had got the livings of Mosgrove and Appleby in Westmoreland, and of Dalston in Cumberland. In 1782 he obtained the archdeaconry of Carlisle, and a prebendal stall in the cathedral of that city. His "Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy," for the copyright of which he received £1000, were published in 1785. This work obtained at once a very extensive circulation. It was admirably adapted to the spirit of the times, being very orthodox in its tone, and very worldly in its principles. Deficient as it is in all the profounder requirements of an ethical system, it was seen to have its roots in reality, and to be no mere beating of the air. It has a sufficient degree of truth to recommend it to all who are not very solicitous about nice distinctions; and its pithy and intelligible chapters must have fallen like a refreshing dew on a generation worn out by the dreary prosing of Bishop Cumberland, and his commentator. Dr. John Towers, or left unsatisfied by the somewhat visionary moralizing of Cudworth and of Clark. Paley's ethics were a return to a large extent to the Hobbesian position, according to which all moral obligation is grounded on the command of a superior invested with the power to punish any transgression of his will. The university of Cambridge adopted, and for long continued to use, this work as their text-book of moral philosophy, and perhaps not unwisely; for, questionable as its fundamental propositions are, the good sense of its practical expositions renders it a beneficial study, and neutralizes the unsoundness of its theoretical principles. In 1788 Paley was engaged in a correspondence with a Dr. Perceval, a physician in Manchester, on the subject of subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles. Dr. Perceval's son, a dissenter, wished to become a clergyman in the Church of England, but he had scruples about signing the articles, some propositions of which he could not agree to, although he assented to the spirit and purport of the whole. Paley was consulted, and his verdict was, that in interpreting statutes it was frequently allowable to go out of the terms in which they were expressed, and collect from other sources the intention of the legislature in enacting them; and that accordingly a dissenter might fairly argue that the government at the time of the Reformation, in laying down certain religious propositions, had intended merely to exclude from the pale of the church such sects as were dangerous to the new establishment, viz., the papists and the continental anabaptists—and so arguing, might conclude that the propositions in question did not apply to him. This opinion satisfied the Percevals, the younger of whom entered the church; but it gave umbrage to some of Paley's high church friends as betokening too lax a conscience.
In 1789 Paley was offered the mastership of Jesus college, Cambridge, but declined it for some reason which he never divulged. He was supposed to have been influenced by a disinclination to be brought into contact with Mr. Pitt (for whom he entertained no great regard), when it came to be his turn to act as vice-chancellor of the university. In 1790 he published his "Horæ Paulinæ," in which he tracks with marvellous sagacity the undesigned coincidence of passages in St. Paul's epistles with passages in the Acts of the Apostles, and thus proves the genuineness of these writings and the reality of the events which they record. This work, though the least popular, is the most original and valuable of Paley's writings. He published in 1794 his "View of the Evidences of Christianity," an admirable digest of the voluminous materials collected by the diligence of Dr. Lardner. It brought him a large accession of fame and preferment. Dr. Porteus, bishop of London, nominated him to the prebend of St. Pancras, one of the most lucrative in the cathedral of St. Paul's, and soon afterwards he was appointed subdean of Lincoln and rector of Bishopwearmouth. Between these two places his residence was divided during the latter years of his life. In 1800 Paley was seized with a painful disorder in the kidneys, which, however, did not prevent him from writing his "Natural Theology," one of his most popular compositions. The man who can bear pain like a stoic, may be permitted to enjoy pleasure like an epicurean. Paley could do both. He speaks from his own experience, and quite in the spirit of Socrates, when he dwells on the power which pain has "of shedding a satisfaction over intervals of ease which few enjoyments can exceed." His health continued to decline, and he died on the 25th May, 1805. He was buried in the cathedral of Carlisle, near the remains of his first wife, who had borne him four sons and four daughters, and predeceased him in 1791.—J. F. F.