...maintained without absurdity? Yet this is atheism. From CHAPTER III. APPLICATION OF THE ARGUMENT THIS is atheism: for every indication of contrivance, every...and that in a degree which exceeds all computation. I mean that the contrivances of nature surpass the contrivances of art, in the complexity, subtlety,...

...maker, a deity. The argument to design. You cannot argue otherwise without falling into absurdity. "This is atheism; for every indication of contrivance, every...and that in a degree which exceeds all computation" (p. 14). This is the precise point that John Ray expressed a century before. Inasmuch as the workings,...

...being observed ... the inference, we think, is inevitable, that the watch must have had a maker. . . . Every indication of contrivance, every manifestation...greater and more, and that in a degree which exceeds all computation.19 Paley argues that if we found a watch and saw how all of its parts fit together precisely...

...humans— are more like watches than stones. This is how he puts it in his 1802 book Natural Theology: "Every indication of contrivance, every manifestation...difference, on the side of nature, of being greater or more, and that in a degree which exceeds all computation."2 Paley's point was simply that where...

...purpose which we find it actually to answer; who comprehended its construction, and designed its use ... Every indication of contrivance, every manifestation...difference, on the side of nature, of being greater or more, and in a degree which exceeds all computation." Paley goes on with a discussion of anatomical...

...of biological structures which are 'contrived' - that is, constructed with a clear purpose in mind. 'Every indication of contrivance, every manifestation...existed in the watch, exists in the works of nature.' Indeed, Paley argues, the difference is that nature shows an even greater degree of contrivance than...

...maker, a Deity. The argument to design. You cannot argue otherwise without falling into absurdity. "This is atheism; for every indication of contrivance, every...and that in a degree which exceeds all computation" (p. I4). After Hume, how was Paley able to get away with it? More pertinently, after Hume, how did...

...mechanisms, but the inevitable conclusion follows after the handling of a few more suggestions: "... every indication of contrivance, every manifestation...and that in a degree which exceeds all computation" (Paley, 13). If the argument from design buys a clear sense of natural design and its source at the...

...Stonehenge. After an elaborate discussion of the workings of the watch, Paley goes on to draw the moral, that "every indication of contrivance, every manifestation...and that in a degree which exceeds all computation" (13).' In the second dialogue, Hume ([1779] 1970) puts the same argument in the mouth of Cleanthes:...

...product of blind forces. Paley therefore extends his analogy from the watch to the works of nature: every indication of contrivance, every manifestation...difference, on the side of nature, of being greater or more, and that in a degree which exceeds all computation.6 Then, in 1859, Darwin proposed a change...