THE DESIGN OF VIOLENCE

Abstract

William Paley's Natural Theology (1802) is dedicated 'To the Honourable and Right Rev. Shute Barrington, LLD, Lord Bishop of Durham'—the last but one of the Counts Palatine: 'The following Work [Paley writes] was undertaken at your Lordship's recommendation, and amongst other motives, for the purpose of making the most acceptable return that I could, for a great and important benefit conferred on me.'1 My motives today are not unrelated to Paley's: the present lecture has been undertaken for the purpose of making an acceptable return for a great benefit and honour conferred upon me—the Macmillan Fellowship at St Chad's College, Uni versity of Durham. Paley's phrase 'acceptable return' suggests the closing prayer of Psalm 19: 'Let the words of my mouth, and the meditations of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.' The first verse reads: 'The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.' In essence, Paley's Natural Theology, like the Argument from Design in general, is an elaborate and extended exegesis of Psalm 19:1. For Paley, as for Kirby and Spence, among other natural theologians, the universe with its plants, insects, and birds—God's 'handywork'—manifests Divine intention and testifies to an intelligent and benevolent Creator. 'Suppose,' Paley argues in his opening chapter, 'I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place.' That watch, he reasons, 'must have had a maker ... there must have existed, at some time, and at some place or other, an artificer, who formed it for the purpose which we find it actually to answer; who comprehended its construction, and designed its use.' Furthermore, it would not 'invalidate our conclusion, that the watch sometimes went wrong, or that it seldom went exactly right. The purpose of the machinery, the design and the designer,' would be evident in any case. 'It is not necessary that a machine be perfect in order to show with what design it was made; still less necessary, where the only question is, whether it were made with any design at all.' In Paley's view, then, 'there cannot be a design without a designer; contrivance without a contriver.'2 The word design normally refers to a plan, a scheme, a project, a purpose, an intention. Nevertheless, like artifice or craft, design may, without qualifying adjectives, occur in what the OED terms a 'bad sense'; thus design may