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Joseph Butler
(18 May 1692 - 16 Jun 1752)
English bishop and author whose moral philosophy is stated in his books Fifteen Sermons Preached at the Rolls Chapel and The Analogy of Religion. To demonstrate that revelation and nature are complementary, he provides an argument in an Aristotelian style starting with the nature of man and concluding how man should live to be in accord with that nature.
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Science Quotes by Joseph Butler (3 quotes)
Men are impatient, and for precipitating things; but the Author of Nature appears deliberate throughout His operations, accomplishing His natural ends by slow, successive steps. And there is a plan of things beforehand laid out, which, from the nature of it, requires various systems of means, as well as length of time, in order to the carrying on its several parts into execution.
— Joseph Butler
Analogy of Religion (1860), 239-240.
The only distinct meaning of the word “natural” is stated, fixed, or
settled; since what is natural as much requires and presupposes an intelligent agent to render it so, i.e. to effect it continually or at stated times, as what is supernatural or miraculous does to effect it for once.
— Joseph Butler
In The Analogy of Revealed Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature (1791), 43. Charles Darwin placed this quote on the title page of his On the Origin of Species.
To us probability is the very guide of life.
— Joseph Butler
In 'Introduction', The Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature (1740), Vol. 1, iv.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
