Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Watchmaker analogy" in English language version.
In astronomy, the Copernican revolution regarding the heliocentrism of the solar system, Johannes Kepler's (1571–1630) three laws of planetary motion, and Isaac Newton's (1642–1727) law of universal gravitation—laws of gravitation and of motion, and notions of absolute space and time—all combined to establish the regularities of heavenly and earthly bodies.
Parallel to this, the mechanical philosophers, led by René Descartes (1596-1650) [...] argued [...] that all material entities [...] were extensions in space and time that were subject to the laws of physics and governed by efficient causes.
A machine analogy for natural phenomena had long been a consistent element in Enlightenment philosophy.
Could the universe, Descartes speculated, have been devised by a sort of 'industrious watchmaker' deity? Could it be 'similar to a clock' rather than to that 'divine animated being' imagined by natural philosophers down the centuries?
