...explanation in terms of intentional design. The passage most often quoted from this work is the following: that, for anything I knew to the contrary, it had lain there forever: nor would it perhaps be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer. But suppose I had...

...that everywhere displays such convincing marks of benevolent and wise design.69 He wrote, famously: In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against...came to be there; I might possibly answer, that, for any thing I knew to the contrary, it had lain there forever, nor would it perhaps be very easy to show...

...or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity, Collected from the Appearances of Nature: In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against...came to be there, I might possibly answer, that, for any thing I knew to the contrary, it had lain there forever: nor would it perhaps be very easy to show...

...Appearance of Nature. Paley, a moral philosopher and Anglican priest, posed the famous watchmaker analogy: In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against...anything I knew to the contrary, it had lain there forever. Nor would it perhaps be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer. But suppose I had...

...It is organized, it works. As Archdeacon Paley (1802) pointed out, you have to have an explanation. In crossing a heath suppose I pitched my foot against...came to be there, I might possibly answer, that for any thing I knew to the contrary it had lain there for ever; nor would it, perhaps, be very easy to...

...Paley's argument from design, most tellingly illustrated by his analogy of the watch and watchmaker. In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against...came to be there, I might possibly answer that for 60 anything I knew to the contrary it had lain there forever; nor would it, perhaps, be very easy to...

...become annealed into our culture as the winningly accessible and thus appealing "watchmaker" argument: In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against...came to be there. I might possibly answer, that, for any thing I knew to the contrary, it had lain there forever. But suppose I had found a watch upon the...

...trilobite? Nothing. William Paley wanted to make nature logical. He is the father of "intelligent design." In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against...stone came to be there, I might possibly answer, that . . . it had lain there forever. . . . But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should...

..."Suppose that you're walking along a beach and you come upon a curious sequence of squiggles in the sand." "In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone." As if the shared conceit were not enough, the two scenes also share a doubled structure, in which the...

...Paley invites the reader to accompany him on an imaginary country walk. "Suppose," he conjectures, "I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked...anything I knew to the contrary, it had lain there forever. . . ." He beckons us to contrast this with the experience of noticing a pocket-watch lying...