641 



PALEY, WILLIAM. 



PALGRA.VE, SIR FRANCIS. 



other plan. On the same principle persecution is condemned and 

 toleration justified ; because the former never produced any real 

 change of opinion, whilst the latter encourages inquiry and advances 

 the progress of truth. 



The book ends with the subjects of population and provision, agri- 

 culture and commerce, and military establishments. " The final view," 

 observes Paley, "of all national politics is to produce the greatest 

 quantity of happiness." In legislation, in government, in levying war, 

 this is the ruling principle ; and in relation to these questions, as in 

 every other part of his work, he applies it with great skill and with a 

 most masterly judgment. 



In 1790 he published his ' Horse Paulinae," certainly the most original 

 of his works, and executed with singular ability. He here opens a new 

 department of evidence in favour of Christianity. By a comparison of 

 St. Paul's Epistles with the history of that apostle, as delivered in the 

 ' Acts,' and by marking what he designates the " undesigned coinci- 

 dences " of the one with the other, he establishes the genuineness of 

 both, and thus furnishes a novel and ingenious and at the same time a 

 very conclusive species of testimony in behalf of revealed religion. 



His 'View of the Evidences of Christianity' appeared in 1794. In 

 the composition of this work he availed himself largely of the labours 

 of the learned Lardner and of Bishop Don. las, but the materials are 

 wrought up with so much address and disposed with so much skill, 

 and the argument laid before the reader in so clear and convincing a 

 form, that it is one of the most valuable and important books of the 

 kind. The argument, which is opened and illustrated with singular 

 ability, U briefly this : A revelation can be made only by means of 

 miraculous interference. To work a miracle is the sole prerogative of 

 the Supreme Being. If therefore miracles have been wrought in con- 

 firmation of a religion, they are the visible testimony of God to the 

 divine authority of that religion. Consequently, if the miracles alleged 

 in behalf of Christianity were actually performed, the Christian religion 

 must be the true one. Whether the miracles were actually performed 

 or not, depends upon the credibility of those who professed to be wit- 

 nesses of them, that IB, the Apostles and first disciples of Jesus Christ ; 

 and their credibility is demonstrated from this consideration " that 

 they passed their lives in labours, danger', and sufferings voluntarily 

 undergone in attestation of the accounts which they delivered, and 

 solely in consequence of their belief in those accounts ; and that they 

 also submitted, from the same motives, to new rules of conduct." 

 They could not have been deceived ; they must have known whether 

 Christ was an impostor or not ; they must have known whether the 

 miracles he did were real or pretended. Neither could they have been 

 deceivers ; they had no intelligible purpose to accomplish by dec-p- 

 tion ; they had everything to lose by it. On the other hand, by being 

 still by letting the subject rest they might have escaped the Buffer- 

 ings they endured. It is perfectly inconceivable, and entirely out of 

 all the principles of human action, that men should set about propa- 

 gating what they know to be a lie, and yet not only gain nothing by it, 

 but expose themselves to the manife.-t consequences enmity and 

 hatred, danger and death. 



His last great work, ' Natural Theology,' was published in 1802. As 

 noticed elsewhere [XIEUWE.MYT, LI:U:..YKI>, vol. iv., col. 511], it has 

 been fchown that, for the general idea and most of the materials of this 

 work, Paley was indebted to the 'Religious Philosopher' of NieuWentyt, 

 the English version of which was published about eighty years earlier. 

 The only explanation of this apparent plagiarism is that furnished by 

 Paley's known method of composition. This, like his other works, 

 there can be little doubt, was written from the materials collected in 

 his notes for his lectures as a college tutor; and probably against 

 neither the arguments nor the illustrations which he copied did he 

 enter the name of the author from whom he borrowed them. It 

 might easily happen that it would be difficult in the course of so many 

 yeara (the ' Natural Theology ' was written more than five-and-tweuty 

 years after removing from Cambridge, and, as he expressly says, while 

 prevented by ill-health from discharging his regular duties) to recover 

 the original authorities, however anxious he might be to do so. Had 

 Paley himaelf been called upon to answer the charge, we fancy he 

 would have done it by pointing to a passage in the preface to his 

 ' Moral Philosophy,' which seems to us fully to meet the case and 

 corroborate what we have here suggested. It may be thought necessary 

 to explain, he sa>s, why "I have scarcely ever referred to any other 

 book, or mentioned the name of the author whose thoughts, and some- 

 times, possibly, whose very expressions I have adopted. My method 

 of writing has constantly been this, to extract what I could from my 

 own stores and my own reflections in the first place ; to put down 

 that, and afterwards to consult upon each subject such readings as 

 Ml in my way. . . . The effect of such a plan upon the production 

 itself will be, that, whilst some parts in matter or in manner may be 

 new, others may be little else than a repetition of the old. I make 

 no pretensions to perfect originality : I claim to bo something more 

 than a mere compiler. Much no doubt is borrowed : but the fact is 

 that th < notes for this work having been prepared for some yeans, and 

 such things having been from time to time inserted iu them as 

 appeared to me worth preserving, and such insertions made commonly 

 without the name of the author from whom they were taken, I should, 

 at this time, have found a difficulty in recovering thosu names with 

 sufficient exactness to be able to render to every man his own. Nor, 



MOO. DIV, vol. IT. 



to speak the truth, did it appear to me worth while to repeat the 

 search merely for this purpose. When authorities are relied upon, 

 names must be produced : when a discovery has been made in science, 

 it may be unjust to borrow the invention without acknowledging the 

 author. But in an argumentative treatise, and upon a subject which 

 allows no place for discovery or invention properly so called ; . . . I 

 should have thought it superfluous, had it been easier to me than it 

 was, to have interrupted my text or crowded my margin with references 

 to every author whose sentiment I have made use of." We do not 

 adopt this statement as satisfactory, but quote it as the apology which 

 Paley did put forth in one work, and would probably have offered in 

 this had he anticipated the objection. But it is only fair to add that 

 Paley has wonderfully improved wherj he has borrowed, and mado 

 that clear, impressive, and convincing, which in the original was con- 

 fused, illogical, and tiresome. He has added too more than he has 

 borrowed ; and, as in all the rest of his productions, the matter is 

 arranged and the argument followed out with consummate judgment. 

 His object is to establish the fact of benevolent design in the works 

 of the visible creation. Hence the existence of a Supreme Designing 

 Intelligence is inferred; and his personality, unity, and goodness 

 demonstrated. It is not only one of the most convincing, but one of 

 the most delightful books in the English language. 



A valuable edition of this work, with notes and scientific illustrations, 

 was published a few years since by Lord Brougham and Sir C. Bell, the 

 former furnishing a preliminary discourse of natural theology. The 

 discourse is divided into two parts: the first contains an exposition of 

 the nature and character of the evidence on which natural theology 

 rests, with the intention of proving that it is as much a science of 

 iuduction as either physical or mental philosophy ; and the second is 

 devoted to a consideration of the advantages and pleasures which the 

 study is calculated to afford. Subjoined to the volume ara some notes 

 on various metaphysical points connected with the subject. 



Besides the above works, Paley was the author of various sermons 

 and tracts. Numerous editions of his ' Natural Theology ' and 

 ' Evidences' have been published, as well as several complete editions 

 of hU works. A complete edition, in 4 vola., containing posthumous 

 sermons, published by his son, the Kev. Edmund Paley, in 1838, may 

 be regarded as the standard edition. 



*PALGRAVE, SIR FRANCIS, KNIGHT, was born in London. He 

 assumed the name of Palgrave in lieu of that of Cohen. In 1S27 he 

 was called to the bar at the Inner Temple. He became known to 

 those of the literary public who take an interest in the historical anti- 

 quities of Great Britain by some learned articles which were ascribed 

 to him, hi periodical publications, and by the ' Parliamentary Writs," 

 2 vols. folio, 1827-34, which he edited under the Commissioners of 

 Public Records. In the early part of the year 1831 he published a 

 pamphlet entitled ' Conciliatory Reform : a Letter addressed to the 

 Kight Hon. Thomas Spring Rice, M.P., on the Means of reconciling 

 Parliamentary Reform to the Interests and Opinions of the different 

 Orders of the Community ; together with the Draft of a Bill founded 

 on the Ministerial Bill, but adapted more closely to the Principles and 

 Precedents of the Constitution.' About this time he was elected F.R.S. 

 and F.S.A. In the year 1831 he published * The Hibtory of England ; 

 Anglo-Saxon Period,' 12mo, iu ' The Family Library.' This little work 

 is written iu a popular manner, with much liveliness of style, and 

 displays an intimate knowledge of the details of this period of English 

 history. In 1832 he received the honour of knighthood for his services 

 generally, and especially for his attention to constitutional and parlia- 

 mentary literature. He is also a K. H. In the same year he published 

 his ' Rise and Progress of the English Commonwealth : Anglo-Saxon 

 Period, containing the Anglo-Saxon Policy, and the Institutions arising 

 out of the Laws and Usages which prevailed before the Conquest,' 2 voK 

 4to. In the first volume of this valuable work Sir Francis Palgrave 

 examines into the ranks and conditions of society during the Anglo- 

 Saxon period, connecting them with the usages and legal institutions. 

 He afterwards discusses the political and municipal government, and 

 the ecclesiastical polity, and treats of the warfare, protraoted for some 

 centuries, between the invaders and the Britons introducing much new 

 and curious matter. He afterwards connects the political and legal 

 institutions of the Anglo-Saxons with those of the continent under 

 Charlemagne and his successors. The second volume of the work is 

 entitled ' Proofs and Illustrations,' and is supplementary to the first 

 volume. The work is especially valuable to the inquirers into the 

 origin of English jurisprudence, affording at the same time abundance 

 of curious information ou the other early institutions of the country. 



About a year after the passing of the 'Act to amend the Repre- 

 sentation of the People in England and Wales," the king issued, iu 

 July 1833, a Commission under the Great Seal to twenty gentlemen, 

 " to inquire into the existing state of the Municipal Corporations of 

 England and Wales." Of these twenty gentlemen Sir Francis Palgrave 

 was one, and ho published in the same yo.vr ' Observations on the Prin- 

 ciples to bo adopted in the Establishment of New Municipalities, tha 

 Reform of Ancient Corporations, ami the Cheap Administration of 

 Justice," 8vo. The reports of the commissioners ou individual corpo- 

 rations occupied five folio volumes, the greater part of a ,-ixth volume 

 contained important information ou matters connected with the corpo- 

 rations, and the results of the whole inquiry were presented iu a General 

 Report, published in 1 835, and signed by sixteen of the co mmisbiouers. 



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