ABSTRACT
The word ‘teleology’ was coined in English in the eighteenth century; its first use was in 1742, when Phillip Henry Zollman wrote in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, ‘Teleology is one of those Parts of Philosophy, in which there has been but little Progress made.’ For eighteenth-century Christians, personal salvation was the goal of most lives and much human endeavour. Evidence for the assertion that the eighteenth century was an era of faith and piety is widespread and forms a major strand in the religious history of the period. In most accounts of Britain in the eighteenth century, the role of religion has been restored. The eighteenth century is often thought of as a period in which Britain became the first industrial nation and in which market economics of early capitalism developed. In the eighteenth century–and perhaps in some aspects in later centuries–the culture of Britain was one which was replete with teleological ideas.
