Quote#Happiness
God, when he created the human species, wished their happiness; and…
Quote byWilliam Paley · 1743–1805
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy (1785), Vol. I, Book II, Ch. V.
English (original)
God, when he created the human species, wished their happiness; and made for them the provision which he has made, with that view, and for that purpose.
— William Paley
More from William Paley
In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone and were asked how the stone came to be there, I might possibly answer that for anything I knew to the contrary it had lain there forever; nor would it, perhaps, be very easy …
[E]lections to the supreme power having upon some occasions produced the most destructive contentions, many states would take refuge from a return of the same calamities, in a rule of succession; and no rule presents itself so obvious, …
The infidelity of the Gentile world, and that more especially of men of rank and learning in it, is resolved into a principle which, in my judgment, will account for the inefficacy of any argument, or any evidence whatever, viz. contempt …
Wherefore rejecting the intervention of a compact, as unfounded in its principle, and dangerous in the application, we assign for the only ground of the subjects' obligation, THE WILL OF GOD AS COLLECTED FROM EXPEDIENCY.
Wanton, and, what is worse, studied cruelty to brutes, is certainly wrong.
Virtue is infinitely various.