RECORD: Darwin C. R. 1888. Darwin [1878 letter to James Grant]. The British Weekly: A Journal of Social and Christian Progress 4 (3 August): 233.
REVISION HISTORY: Transcribed and edited by John van Wyhe. RN1
NOTE: The original letter, in Darwin's hand and marked "Private", sold at Sotheby's in 2017 and was published in Correspondence vol. 26 along with the letter making the query from James Grant (1853-1940), a commercial clerk and writer and son of James Grant (1812-1900), fishing-tackle maker of Grantown-on-Spey, Moray, Scotland. Hence the letter was sent to the British Weekly from Edinburgh in 1888 and first entered the public domain. It was soon republished in the Presbyterian Review and elsewhere.
[page] 233
Darwin.
An Edinburgh correspondent kindly sends in the following letter from Mr. Darwin. which was written in reply to a query [10 words illeg]
I should have been very glad to have aided you in any degree if it had been in my power. But to answer your question would require an essay, and for this I have not strength, being much out of health. Nor, indeed, could I have answered it distinctly and satisfactorily with any amount of strength.
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 may hope for whatever he earnestly desires. Dear Sir yours faithfully
[Signed] Ch. Darwin
Down, Beckenham, Kent, March 11th 1878
Citation: John van Wyhe, ed. 2002-. The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online. (http://darwin-online.org.uk/)
File last updated 17 July, 2025