Paley's Natural Theology Analysis

At the outset of the nineteenth century in Britain, religious faith and the study of the sciences tended to exist in harmony with each other. The study of God’s Word, in the Bible, and His Works, in nature, were assumed to be two versions of the same ultimate truth.1 When William Paley published Natural Theology; or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity in 1802, he reinforced the concept of a designing God after positing that natural objects show evidence of design, emphasizing nature as God’s creation.2 Paley compares the discovery of a rock, something most would not pay attention to in a meaningful way, with that of a watch. He argues that when one discovers a watch, they consider where it came from: when it was build, who created it, how did the hands move in the correct manner; these are all questions regarding design. Through his observation of the natural world, he asserted that “No animal, for instance, can have contrived its own limbs and senses; can have been the author to itself of the design with which they were constructed.”3 Paley’s work was well-received, even though, by the 1830’s, most Christians preferred to take
The separation of mind and brain was distinct then, and it is commonly still considered as such. Gall pioneered the concept of the organs of the mind; he theorized that specific parts of the brain coincided with distinct functions, and that they had a physical manifestation; in his own