UNDERSTANDING THE TEXT
Why does Paley first talk about finding a stone and then discuss finding a watch? What is the rhetorical effect of the contrast between the stone and the watch?
What are the essential characteristics of the watch that set it apart from a natural object such as a stone?
What kinds of knowledge does one need to have in order to understand the purpose of a watch? What kinds of comparable knowledge does one need to understand the workings of nature?
4. Do you agree with Paley's conclusion, that the existence of a watch implies the existence of a watchmaker? Do you agree with the implied conclusion that the existence of the world implies a God? Why or why not?
MAKING CONNECTIONS
Compare Paley's view of nature with Lucretius's view of natural harmony (p. 292). Where would Lucretius be most likely to disagree with Paley?
Charles Darwin was an admirer of Paley's work, yet Origin of Species (p. 314) is now often presented as a refutation of Natural Theology. Do you believe that the views of Darwin and Paley can be reconciled?
WRITING ABOUT THE TEXT
Compare and contrast Lucretius's opinion that there is too much wrong with the world for it to have been made by the gods (p. 292) with Paley's opinion that the world shows too much evidence of design not to have been made by a god. Write a paper supporting one of these views and disagreeing with the other, and explain your reasoning.
Compare the way that Paley uses a parable to make a point with the way that Jesus uses parables in the New Testament (p. 541) or Plato uses allegories in "The Speech of Aristophanes" (p. 74). Explain the rhetorical value of using stories and examples to prove a point.
Write a research paper that explores the current debate about teaching evolution and intelligent design in public schools. Trace the way that current theories of intelligent design relate to the theories of William Paley and his contemporaries.
charles darwin
from Natural Selection; or, the Survival of the Fittest
[1859]
THOUGH CHARLES DARWIN (1809-1882) was one of the most famous naturalists in world history, he originally studied theology and medicine. After an unremarkable undergraduate career at Cambridge University, he took the job of ship's naturalist on the H.M.S. Beagle, a scientific survey vessel that from 1831 to 1836 charted navigable waters throughout South America, the Pacific Islands, and Australia. At some points on this journey, Darwin observed enormous variations in species in environments that were separated from each other by only a few miles. These variations inspired him to formulate a theory of how organisms might evolve through time to adapt to their environment.
Contrary to popular belief, Darwin did not originate the theory of evolution. Many scientists in Darwin's time accepted the idea that organisms evolved through gradual changes over time, but they did not understand the mechanism that produced those changes. Before Darwin, the most widely accepted theory was that of the French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829), who speculated that organisms acquired slight useful modifications during their lifetimes and passed them on to their offspring, resulting in gradual change over time.
Darwin, however, theorized that changes in a species resulted from a mechanism that he called "natural selection." Working from the understanding that variations exist in all species, Darwin reasoned that naturally occurring variations within species sometimes give an organism distinct advantages in the competition for resources. These advantages might help the organism find food or defend itself from predators, thus allowing it to survive long enough to reproduce; or they might help the organism attract a mate or disseminate its seeds. In either case, an organism with an advantageous variation will have more reproductive success, and that variation will eventually become a more prominent characteristic of the species.
Darwin was influenced by the work of Thomas Malthus, whose "Essay on the Principle of Population" argued that people tend to produce more offspring than local resources can support. He also benefited from the work of nineteenth-century geologists such as Sir Charles Lyell (1797-1875), who demonstrated that the earth was millions of times older than had previously been imagined. Darwin understood that his work would be opposed by those who believed that God created all the individual species of plants and animals—including human beings—and these concerns probably influenced his decision to delay the publication of his theories until more than twenty years after he formulated them. Though his book The Origin of Species—of which "Natural Selection" is the fourth chapter—encountered resistance on religious grounds when it was published, and continues to do so today in some places, the scientific community has accepted natural selection as the mechanism by which organisms on Earth adapt and change.
Unlike the earlier writers in this chapter, who make deductive arguments about nature by beginning with general principles derived from religious or classical sources, Darwin's arguments are primarily inductive. He begins with specific observations about nature that have not been sufficiently explained in previous theories and then draws general principles from those observations to create a new explanation.
How will the struggle for existence . . . act in regard to variation? Can the principle of selection, which . . . is so potent in the hands of man, apply under nature? I think we shall see that it can act most efficiently. Let the endless number of slight variations and individual differences occurring in our domestic productions, and, in a lesser degree, in those under nature, be borne in mind; as well as the strength of the hereditary tendency. Under domestication, it may be truly said that the whole organisation becomes in some degree plastic. But the variability, which we almost universally meet with in our domestic productions, is not directly produced, as Hooker and Asa Gray[146] have well remarked, by man; he can neither originate varieties, nor prevent their occurrence; he can preserve and accumulate such as do occur. Unintentionally he exposes organic beings to new and changing conditions of life, and variability ensues; but similar changes of conditions might and do occur under nature. Let it also be borne in mind how infinitely complex and close-fitting are the mutual relations of all organic beings to each other and to their physical conditions of life; and consequently what infinitely varied diversities of structure might be of use to each being under changing conditions of life. Can it, then, be thought improbable, seeing that variations useful to man have undoubtedly occurred, that other variations useful in some way to each being in the great and complex battle of life, should occur in the course of many successive generations? If such do occur, can we doubt (remembering that many more individuals are born than can possibly survive) that individuals having any advantage, however slight, over others, would have the best chance of surviving and of procreating their kind? On the other hand, we may feel sure that any variation in the least degree injurious would be rigidly destroyed. This preservation of favourable individual differences and variations, and the destruction of those which are injurious, I have called Natural Selection, or the Survival of the Fittest. Variations neither useful nor injurious would not be affected by natural selection, and would be left either a fluctuating element, as perhaps we see in certain polymorphic species,2 or would ultimately become fixed, owing to the nature of the organism and the nature of the conditions.
2. Polymorphic species: species in which an individual changes form during its lifetime, such as frogs and butterflies.