Search Results - The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online

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A315 Pamphlet: H.A.S. [1888]. Darwin and his works: a biological & metaphysical study. London: John Bale and Sons. Text Image PDF

as ours. In studying man he did not presume on the unknown; as Tyndall said, He merely followed the flying shuttle of nature in its process of weaving the living garment of God, and in the repose and well-merited fame he now enjoys we can safely say:— He has outsoared the shadow of our night; Envy and calumny, and hate and pain, And that unrest which men miscall delight, Can touch him not, and torture not again. From the contagion of the world's slow stain He is secure. —Shelley. His love of

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A315 Pamphlet: H.A.S. [1888]. Darwin and his works: a biological & metaphysical study. London: John Bale and Sons. Text Image PDF

last after wrong-doing). The Fuegians, we are told believed in no god, and practised no rites. Religion is a highly complex devotion, and is a reflex of an ideational or emotive sense, and hence is largely exhibited by those strong in emotion; it embraces hope, fear, gratitude, dependence, and submission, and for these very reasons could not have advanced till the intellectual and moral (emotive) faculties reached a high level. Some distant approach to reverence and dependence is seen even now

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A315 Pamphlet: H.A.S. [1888]. Darwin and his works: a biological & metaphysical study. London: John Bale and Sons. Text Image PDF

, p. 83. What Aristotle predicted, Goethe hinted, Bonnet, 1762, affirmed, and A. R. Wallace, 1859, confirmed ( Contributions to Theory of Natural Selection ) still holds good. Animals were not created as seen, but produced by development and modification from progenitors. But it was the Socratic mind of Darwin that elaborated and classified the vast chain of being which from God began, that converted life chaos into Cosmos. To his observation and study is due the accepted history of animals and

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A336 Book: Gray, Asa. 1888. Darwiniana: Essays and reviews pertaining to Darwinism. New York: D. Appleton. Text Image PDF

Tulloch, Principal, on the philosophy of miracles, 199. Turnip, origin of, 111. Tyndall, Prof., on matter, 390. Types, prophetic and synthetic, of Agassiz, 116. Ungulata, affiliation of, 243. Unity of the human race, 179. Universe, relation of God to, 57-59, 131, 152, 167. Utricularia, or bladderwort, insectivorous, 324. Variation, cause of, unknown, 12, 76, 84, 157, 158, 170, 196, 337, 385; an inherent tendency, 15, 96, 337, 386, 388; of domestic animals not exceptional, 26; extent of

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A336 Book: Gray, Asa. 1888. Darwiniana: Essays and reviews pertaining to Darwinism. New York: D. Appleton. Text Image PDF

Sequoia, 214, 225, 230. God, relation of, to Nature, 54, 58, 144-168, 199, 234, 257, 275; to the universe, 59; his presence required in a long process of adaptation as well as in a short one, 60, 149 sq., 234, 256; immanence in Nature, 61, 159; his thoughts eternal, yet manifested in succession, 167; veracity of, in the works of Nature, 371. Goeppert on the antiquity of Taxodium distichum and other plants, 228. Gradation, from tertiary species downward, 34, 101, 114, 115, 200; extent of, in fossils

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A336 Book: Gray, Asa. 1888. Darwiniana: Essays and reviews pertaining to Darwinism. New York: D. Appleton. Text Image PDF

, the existence of God from what has seemed to them the wonderful adaptation of the different organs and parts of the animal body to its, [page] 68 DARWINIANA

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A336 Book: Gray, Asa. 1888. Darwiniana: Essays and reviews pertaining to Darwinism. New York: D. Appleton. Text Image PDF

such a mind, under such circumstances, infer the existence of the designer—God— when he can, at the same time, satisfactorily account for the thing produced, by the operation of this natural se- [page] DESIGN VERSUS NECESSITY

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A336 Book: Gray, Asa. 1888. Darwiniana: Essays and reviews pertaining to Darwinism. New York: D. Appleton. Text Image PDF

Creator, without whose intellectual power they could not have been brought into being, he takes a most decided step to banish a belief in the intelligent action of God from the organic world. The lower organisms will go next. The atheist will say, Wait a little. Some future Darwin will show how the simple forms came necessarily from inorganic matter. This is but another step by which, according to Laplace, the discoveries of science throw final causes further back. A. G-.—It is conceded that, if

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A336 Book: Gray, Asa. 1888. Darwiniana: Essays and reviews pertaining to Darwinism. New York: D. Appleton. Text Image PDF

misapplication of my illustration, I cannot take as an answer to the matter stated or intended to be stated by me. Again, following this misconception, you suppose the skeptic (instanced by me as revealing through the evidence of design, exhibited in the structure of the eye, for its designer, God) as bringing to the examination a belief in the existence of design in the construction of the animals as they existed up to the moment when the eye was, according to my supposition, added to the heart

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A336 Book: Gray, Asa. 1888. Darwiniana: Essays and reviews pertaining to Darwinism. New York: D. Appleton. Text Image PDF

the last part of my former paper; but, as you request it, I will go over the leading points as there given, with more minuteness of detail. Let us, then, suppose a skeptic, one who is yet considering and doubting of the existence of God, having already concluded that the testimony from any and all revelation is insufficient, and having rejeeted[sic] what is called the a priori arguments brought forward in natural theology, and pertinaciously insisted upon by Dr. Clark and others, turning as a

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A336 Book: Gray, Asa. 1888. Darwiniana: Essays and reviews pertaining to Darwinism. New York: D. Appleton. Text Image PDF

say, is supernatural; their very question is, whether we have yet gone back to the origin, and can affirm that the present forms of plants and animals are the primordial, the miraculously created ones. And, even if they admit that, they will still inquire into the order of the phenomena, into the form of the miracle. You might as well expect the child to grow up content with what it is told about the advent of its infant brother. Indeed, to learn that the new-comer is the gift of God, far from

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A336 Book: Gray, Asa. 1888. Darwiniana: Essays and reviews pertaining to Darwinism. New York: D. Appleton. Text Image PDF

That, notwithstanding God hath rested and ceased from creating [in the sense of supernatural origination], yet, nevertheless, he doth accomplish and fulfill his divine will in all things, great and small, singular and general, as fully and exactly by providence as he could by miracle and new creation, though his working be not immediate and direct, but by compass; not violating Nature, which is his own law upon the creature. However that may be, it is undeniable that Mr. Darwin has purposely

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A336 Book: Gray, Asa. 1888. Darwiniana: Essays and reviews pertaining to Darwinism. New York: D. Appleton. Text Image PDF

concerns the order and not the cause, the how and not the why of the phenomena, and so leaves the question of design just where it was before. To illustrate this from the theist's point of view: Transfer the question for a moment from the origination of species to the origination of individuals, which occurs, as we say, naturally. Because natural, that is, stated, fixed, or settled, is it any the less designed on that account? We acknowledge that God is our maker—not merely the originator of

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A336 Book: Gray, Asa. 1888. Darwiniana: Essays and reviews pertaining to Darwinism. New York: D. Appleton. Text Image PDF

, no less than the origination of a species, requires and presupposes Divine power. A fortiori, then, the origination of a variety requires and presupposes Divine power. And so between the scientific hypothesis of the one and the philosophical conception of the other no contrariety remains. And so, concludes the North American reviewer, a proper view of the nature of causation. ... places the vital doctrine of the being and the providence of a God on ground that can never be shaken. 1 A worthy

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A336 Book: Gray, Asa. 1888. Darwiniana: Essays and reviews pertaining to Darwinism. New York: D. Appleton. Text Image PDF

the views here taken are little, if at all, in advance of the average scientific mind of the day. I cannot regard them as less noble than those which they are succeeding. An able philosophical writer, Miss Frances Power Cobbe, has recently and truthfully said:1 It is a singular fact that, when we can find out how anything is done, our first conclusion seems to be that God did not do it. No matter how wonderful, how beautiful, how intimately complex and delicate has been the machinery which has

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A336 Book: Gray, Asa. 1888. Darwiniana: Essays and reviews pertaining to Darwinism. New York: D. Appleton. Text Image PDF

take a theistic view. Voltaire's saying here holds true: that if there were no God known, it would be necessary to invent one. It is the best, if not the only, hypothesis [page] 250 DARWINIANA

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A336 Book: Gray, Asa. 1888. Darwiniana: Essays and reviews pertaining to Darwinism. New York: D. Appleton. Text Image PDF

that it explains moral anomalies, and accounts for the mixture of good and evil in the world, as well as for the merely relative perfection of things; and, finally, that the whole scheme which God has framed for man's existence, from the first that was created to all eternity, collapses if the great law of evolution be suppressed. The second part of his book is occupied with a development of this line of argument. By this doctrine of evolution he does not mean the Darwinian hypothesis

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A336 Book: Gray, Asa. 1888. Darwiniana: Essays and reviews pertaining to Darwinism. New York: D. Appleton. Text Image PDF

development, specially that of Darwin, the atheistic character of the theory, etc. Although he admits that there is a theistic and an atheistic form of the nebular hypothesis as to the origin of the universe, so there may be a theistic interpretation of the Darwinian theory, yet he contends that the system is thoroughly atheistic, notwithstanding that the author expressly acknowledges the existence of God. Curiously enough, the atheistic form of evolutionary hypotheses, or what he takes for such

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A336 Book: Gray, Asa. 1888. Darwiniana: Essays and reviews pertaining to Darwinism. New York: D. Appleton. Text Image PDF

atheism is infused into the premises in a negative form: Mr. Darwin shows no disposition to resolve the efficiency of physical causes into the efficiency of the First Cause. Next (on page 48) comes the positive charge that Mr. Darwin, although himself a theist, maintains that the contrivances manifested in the organs of plants and animals. ... are not due to the continued cooperation and control of the divine mind, nor to the original purpose of God in the constitution of the universe. As to the

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A336 Book: Gray, Asa. 1888. Darwiniana: Essays and reviews pertaining to Darwinism. New York: D. Appleton. Text Image PDF

everywhere operative efficiency of God. One or both of these Mr. Darwin (being, as Dr. Hodge says, a theist) must needs hold to in some form or other; wherefore he may be presumed to hold the fourth proposition in such wise as not really to contradict the first or the third. The proper antithesis is with the second proposition only, and the issue comes to this: Have the multitudinous forms of living creatures, past and present, been produced by as many special and independent acts of creation at very

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A336 Book: Gray, Asa. 1888. Darwiniana: Essays and reviews pertaining to Darwinism. New York: D. Appleton. Text Image PDF

such as we should adopt or like to defend; and we may say once for all—aside though it be from the present issue—that, in our opinion, the adequacy of the assigned causes to the explanation of the phenomena has not been made out. But we do not understand him to deny purpose, intention, or the cooperation of God in Nature. This would be as gratuitous as unphilosophical, not to say unscientific. When he speaks of this or that particular or phase in the course of events or the procession of

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A336 Book: Gray, Asa. 1888. Darwiniana: Essays and reviews pertaining to Darwinism. New York: D. Appleton. Text Image PDF

and everywhere operative efficiency of God, he may lapse into the same doctrine that the Duke of Argyll and Sir John Herschel seem inclined to, the latter of whom is blamed for thinking it but reasonable to regard the force of gravitation as the direct or indirect result of a consciousness or will existing somewhere, and the former for regarding it unphilosophical 'to think or speak as if the forces of Nature were either independent of or even separate from the Creator's power' (page 24): while

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A336 Book: Gray, Asa. 1888. Darwiniana: Essays and reviews pertaining to Darwinism. New York: D. Appleton. Text Image PDF

plant to make a plant, supposes it to select carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, to combine these into cellulose and protoplasm, to join with these some phosphorus, lime, etc., to build them into structures and usefully-adjusted organs. A man who can believe that plants and animals can do this (not, indeed, in the crude way suggested, but in the appointed way) might as well believe in God. Yes, verily, and so he probably will, in spite of all that atheistical philosophers have to offer, if not

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A336 Book: Gray, Asa. 1888. Darwiniana: Essays and reviews pertaining to Darwinism. New York: D. Appleton. Text Image PDF

the contrary, something is gained: the design-argument remains unshaken, and the wisdom and beneficence of God receive new illustration. Of his closing remark, that, so far as he knows, the subject has never before been handled in the same way for the same purpose, we will only say that the handling strikes us as mainly sensible rather than as substantially novel. He traverses the whole ground of evolution, from that of the solar system to the origin of moral species. He is clearly a theistic

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A336 Book: Gray, Asa. 1888. Darwiniana: Essays and reviews pertaining to Darwinism. New York: D. Appleton. Text Image PDF

short extracts from it: The God who satisfies our conscience ought more or less to satisfy our reason also. To teach that was Butler's mission; [page] 282 DARWINIANA

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A688 Pamphlet: Anon. 1888. Darwinisme og Christendom. Tre prædikener af Biskopperne af Carlisle, Bedford og Manchester. Copenhagen: Høst. Text Image

Samtidige); enhver ufejlbarlig ledet til den Sandhed,som det var Guds Villie han Saaledes skulde forkyndetil practisk Brug for hans Folk, men ikke paa over-naturlig Vis oplyst om Universets Mysterier eller omVerdenshistoriens Annaler. Lad os ikke søge i Bibelen,hvad den aldrig har havt til Hensigt at lære. Det vilallerede hjælpe os ud over en god Del Vanskeligheder. Det Æmne, jeg har valgt, nemlig Bibelen i densForhold til Videnskaben, er saa omfattende, at jegmaa søge at begrænse det ved at

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A688 Pamphlet: Anon. 1888. Darwinisme og Christendom. Tre prædikener af Biskopperne af Carlisle, Bedford og Manchester. Copenhagen: Høst. Text Image

, der idetmindstealtid ville minde os om vor egen absolute Afhængighedaf den Lovmæssighed, som den guddommelige Kjærlig-hed har fastslaaet for den Verden, hvori vi leve. Menlad os dog ikke glemme, at en Tro med en ufuldstæn-dig Kundskab, hvor god og nødvendig den end er for [page] 4

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A336 Book: Gray, Asa. 1888. Darwiniana: Essays and reviews pertaining to Darwinism. New York: D. Appleton. Text Image PDF

early periods. 114, 224. Climbing-plants. 331-337; feel as well as grow, 332; comparative advantage of their habits. 334; cause of motion, 336. Cobbe, Frances Power, on the relation of God to the Universe, 234. Cohn, Prof., on Utricularia, 324. Complexity of Nature. 41. Competition sharpest between allied species, 42. Condor, rate of increase, 39. [page] 392 INDEX

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F3718 Periodical contribution: Darwin C. R. 1888. Darwin [1878 letter to James Grant]. The British Weekly: A Journal of Social and Christian Progress 4 (3 August): 233. Text

. The strongest argument for the existence of God, as it seems to me, is the instinct or intuition which we all (as I suppose) feel that there must have been an intelligent beginner of the Universe; but then comes the doubt and difficulty whether such intuitions are trustworthy. I have touched on one point of difficulty in the two last pages of my Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, but I am forced to leave the problem insoluble. No man who does his duty has anything to fear, and

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A551 Pamphlet: Foote, G. W. 1889. Darwin on God. London: Progressive publishing company. Text Image PDF

Foote, G. W. 1889. Darwin on God. London: Progressive publishing company. [front cover] DARWIN ON GOD BY G. W. FOOTE. PRICE SIXPENCE. LONDON: PROGRESSIVE PUBLISHING COMPANY, 28 STONECUTTER, STREET, E.C. 1889. [page 1

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A551 Pamphlet: Foote, G. W. 1889. Darwin on God. London: Progressive publishing company. Text Image PDF

DARWIN ON GOD BY G. W. FOOTE LONDON: PROGRESSIVE PUBLISHING COMPANY, 28 STONECUTTER STREET, E.C. 1889. [page 3

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A551 Pamphlet: Foote, G. W. 1889. Darwin on God. London: Progressive publishing company. Text Image PDF

the God of Nature: no one can stand in these solitudes unmoved, and not feel that there is more in man than the mere breath of his body. 9 This is the language of emotion, and no one will be surprised at Darwin's saying subsequently I did not think much about the existence of a personal God until a considerably later period of my life. 1 How great a change the thinking wrought is seen from a reference to this very incident in the Autobiography, written in 1876, a few years before his death. At

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A551 Pamphlet: Foote, G. W. 1889. Darwin on God. London: Progressive publishing company. Text Image PDF

Atheist was a denier of God, and this is borne out by the extract just given from his letter to Mr. Fordyce. His two guests explained to him that the Greek prefix a was privative not negative, and that an Atheist was simply a person without God. Darwin agreed with them on every point, and said finally, I am with you in thought, but I should prefer the word Agnostic to the word Atheist. They suggested that Agnostic was Atheist writ respectable, and Atheist was Agnostic writ 7 Vol. II., p. 312. 8 Vol

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A551 Pamphlet: Foote, G. W. 1889. Darwin on God. London: Progressive publishing company. Text Image PDF

all races had the same inward conviction of the existence of one God; but we know that this is very far from being the case. Therefore I cannot see that such inward convictions and feeling are of any weight as evidence of what really exists. The state of mind which grand scenes formerly excited in me, and which was intimately connected with a belief in God, did not essentially differ from that which is often called the sense of sublimity; and however difficult it may be to explain the genesis of

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A551 Pamphlet: Foote, G. W. 1889. Darwin on God. London: Progressive publishing company. Text Image PDF

thus again the proverb is verified that extremes meet. The last objection is almost too puerile to notice. It has been asserted that Darwin was an unconscious believer, after all; and this astonishing remark is supported by exclamations from his letters. He frequently wrote God Knows, would to God, and so forth. But the sometimes wrote By Jove, from which it follows that he believed in Jupiter! On one occasion he informed Dr. Hooker that he had recovered from an illness, and could eat like a

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A551 Pamphlet: Foote, G. W. 1889. Darwin on God. London: Progressive publishing company. Text Image PDF

But now the grandest scenes would not cause any such conviction and feelings to rise in my mind. 2 Darwin's belief in a personal God had not perceptibly weakened in 1859, when he published the Origin of Species. He could still speak of the Creator and use the ordinary language of Deism. In a letter to Mr. C. Ridley, dated November 28, 1878, upon a sermon of Dr. Pusey's, he said, When I was collecting facts for the 'Origin' my belief in what is called a personal God was as firm as that of Dr

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A551 Pamphlet: Foote, G. W. 1889. Darwin on God. London: Progressive publishing company. Text Image PDF

curious ineptitude on the part of such a vigorous thinker. When, in 1879, Darwin was consulted by a German student, a member of his family replied for him as follows: He considers that the theory of Evolution is quite compatible with belief in God; but that you must remember, that different persons have different definitions of what they mean by God. 1 Precisely so. You may believe in God if you define him so as not to contradict facts; in other words, you have a right to a Deity if you choose to

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F1528.1 Book: Darwin, F. ed. 1889. Charles Darwins liv og breve med et kapitel selvbiografi. Translated by Martin Simon Søraas. Fagerstrand pr. Høvig: Bibliothek for de Tusen Hjem, volume 1. Text Image PDF

sig ad omtrent paa samme maade. Naar en s tning blev haabl st indviklet, kunde han sp re sig selv: „Nu, hvad vil du da sige? og hans svar, naar det var nedskrevet, kunde ofte l se forviklingen. Hans stil er blit meget rost; paa den anden side har i det mindste n god dommer gjort den bem rkning til mig, at det ikke er nogen god stil. Den er fremfor alt grei og klar; og den er betegnende for ham i sin, til naivitet gr nsende, lige-fremhed og fordringsl shed. Han n rede den st r-keste mistro til

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F1528.1 Book: Darwin, F. ed. 1889. Charles Darwins liv og breve med et kapitel selvbiografi. Translated by Martin Simon Søraas. Fagerstrand pr. Høvig: Bibliothek for de Tusen Hjem, volume 1. Text Image PDF

finder, at det er en masse ting. Heldigvis kjender jeg en mand ved navn Wood, en nev af lord Londonderry. Han er erw god ven af kaptein Fitz-Roy, og han har skrevet til ham om mig. Jeg h rte en del af kaptein Fitz-Roys brev, som var af ganske ny dato, hvori han siger: „Jeg har en rigtig god samling offioerer, og de fleste af mine folk har v ret i disse farvande f r . Det ser ud til, at han har v ret der i de sidste aar. Han har da v ret andenkommanderende paa det samme fart i, som han n har

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A551 Pamphlet: Foote, G. W. 1889. Darwin on God. London: Progressive publishing company. Text Image PDF

people who employed the term; namely, that everything in nature was brought into existence by an express fiat of the will of God. The epithet special only hides the fate of Creation from the short-sighted. To say that the Deity produced the raw material of the universe, with all its properties, and then let it evolve into what we see, is simply to abandon the real idea of Creation and to take refuge in a metaphysical dogma. Creation is only a pompous equivalent for God did it. Before the nebular

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F1528.3 Book: Darwin, F. ed. 1889. Charles Darwins liv og breve med et kapitel selvbiografi. Translated by Martin Simon Søraas. Fagerstrand pr. Høvig: Bibliothek for de Tusen Hjem. Volume 3. Text Image PDF

Sp rgsmaal. Interesser, som i h i grad har optaget Dem. Religion ? Politik?' Helbred f Heide o. s. v. ? Temperament? Legemlig energi o. s. vJ ! De. Deres far. Videnskaben; i min ungdom var jeg en lidenskapelig sportsmand. I navnet den engelske kirke. Liberal eller radikal. God i min ungdom; daarlig i de sidste 3 i aar. I navnet den engelske kirke. Liberal. God bestandig; led dog af gigt. Heide ? Figur o. s. v. V Maalpaaind-siden af hatten ? Heide ? Figur o. s. v. ? 6 fod. Mager, i min ungdom

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F1528.2 Book: Darwin, F. ed. 1889. Charles Darwins liv og breve med et kapitel selvbiografi. Translated by Martin Simon Søraas. Fagerstrand pr. Høvig: Bibliothek for de Tusen Hjem. Volume 2. Text Image PDF

, vilde den n st-bedste udgiver v re professor Forbes i London. Som numer tre (og i visse maader den aller-bedste) vil jeg n vne professor Henslow. , Dr. Hooker vilde v re meget god; dern st mr. Striekland1). Hvis ingen af disse vil gj re det, ber jeg dig raad-f re dig med mr. Lyell eller en anden kyndig mand for at faa tag i en udgiver, der er baade geolog og naturhistoriker. Skulde det lykkes ved anvendelsen af et hundrede pund til at skaffe en god udgiver, er det min alvorlige b n til dig, at

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F1528.3 Book: Darwin, F. ed. 1889. Charles Darwins liv og breve med et kapitel selvbiografi. Translated by Martin Simon Søraas. Fagerstrand pr. Høvig: Bibliothek for de Tusen Hjem. Volume 3. Text Image PDF

menneske. Jeg haaber, Deres Malayer-bog tinder god af-s tning. Artiklen i „Quarterly Journal of Science gl dede mig overmaade, forsaavidt som den helt igjennem er rosende i sin dom over Deres v rk; De vil desv rre v re enig i, hvad forfatteren siger om brugen af bambusr ret. Der skal jo ogsaa staa en god artikel i Saturday Review; den har jeg dog ikke h rt videre om. Deres Ch. Darvin. 1) Mr. Warlace peger paa, at enhver, der kun var kjendt med .naturens vilde produkter , med god grund kunde

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A551 Pamphlet: Foote, G. W. 1889. Darwin on God. London: Progressive publishing company. Text Image PDF

. Bright, witty Susannah! She died unmarried, and became, as Darwin says, the very pattern of an old lady, so nice looking, so gentle, so kind, and passionately fond of flowers. Erasmus Darwin's scepticism was of an early growth. At the age of twenty-three, in a letter to Dr. Okes, after announcing his father's death he professes a firm belief in a superior Ens Entium, but rejects the notion of a special providence, and says that general laws seem sufficient ; and while humbly hoping that God will re

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A551 Pamphlet: Foote, G. W. 1889. Darwin on God. London: Progressive publishing company. Text Image PDF

rallied before the end came. He died at about four o'clock on Wednesday, April 19th, 1882 2 Thus the great scientist and sceptic went to his everlasting rest. He had no belief in God, no expectation of a future life. But he had done his duty; he had filled the world with new truth; he had lived a life of heroism, compared with which the hectic courage of battle-fields is vulgar and insignificant; and he died in soft tranquility, surrounded by the beings he loved. His last conscious words were

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A551 Pamphlet: Foote, G. W. 1889. Darwin on God. London: Progressive publishing company. Text Image PDF

All along the line he has been saying God did it to everything not understood; that is, he has turned ignorance into a dogma. Every explanation compels him to beat a retreat; nay more, it shows that making is inapplicable. Nature's method is growth. Making is a term of art, and when applied to nature it is sheer anthropomorphism. The baby who prattles to her doll, and the theologian who prates of Creation, have a common philosophy. When the Origin of Species was published, we have seen that

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A551 Pamphlet: Foote, G. W. 1889. Darwin on God. London: Progressive publishing company. Text Image PDF

literature. A PERSONAL GOD. We have already seen that Darwin remained a Deist after rejecting Christianity. Not only in the letter on Dr. Pusey's sermon, but in his Autobiography, Darwin discloses the fact that his belief in a personal God melted away after the publication of his masterpiece. Speaking of a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man, he says, This conclusion was strong in may mind about the 6 Three Essays on Religion By J.S. Mill, p. 122. 7

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A551 Pamphlet: Foote, G. W. 1889. Darwin on God. London: Progressive publishing company. Text Image PDF

universal belief in God proves his existence Darwin was unable to admit. There is ample evidence, he says, derived not from hasty travellers, but from men who have long resided with savages, that numerous races have existed, and still exist, who have no idea of one or more gods, an who have no words in their language to express such an idea. 4 On the other hand, as he remarks in the same work I am aware that the assumed instinctive belief in God has been used by many persons as an argument for his

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A551 Pamphlet: Foote, G. W. 1889. Darwin on God. London: Progressive publishing company. Text Image PDF

). I may say that the impossibility of conceiving that this grand and wondrous universe, with our conscious selves, arose through chance, seems to me the chief argument for the existence of God; but whether this is an argument of real value I have never been able to decide. I am aware that if we admit a first cause, the mind still craves to know whence it came, and how it arose. Nor can I overlook the difficulty from the immense amount of suffering through the world. I am also induced to defer to a

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A551 Pamphlet: Foote, G. W. 1889. Darwin on God. London: Progressive publishing company. Text Image PDF

hear) that God designedly killed this man? Many or most persons do believe this; I can't and don't. If you believe so, do you believe when a swallow snaps up a gnat that God designed that that particular swallow should snap up that particular gnat at that particular instant? I believe that the man and the gnat are in the same predicament. If the death of neither man nor gnat is designed, I see no reason to believe that their first birth or production should be necessarily designed. 6 Twenty years