CHARLES DARWIN (1809-1882)
      excerpt from a letter of 1876 

This letter is packed with a variety of ideas.  Darwin reveals himself to be a typical 19th century agnostic by the time of this letter.  He begins with a variety of brief objections to Christian beliefs.  Among other things, the progress of science has convinced him that events occur because of the "fixed laws of nature," not because of interventions by divine or supernatural powers.  

Darwin once learned well the natural theology of William Paley's book by that name, in which Paley argued that the extraordinary complexity of even a single organism could not have come about by chance.  The only alternative to chance, said Paley, is design.  But by this time, of course, Darwin had offered a 3rd possibility -- his theory of natural selection.  

Darwin also addresses a common question about the extent of suffering in the world.  If on the whole nature produces happiness in organisms, might that not be a sign of a benevolent Designer at work?  Darwin has a double response.

Darwin also looks at a common theological position, that even if the design of nature cannot prove God's existence, intense inner religious experience can.  (Eliade offers a 20th century version of this.)  But Darwin points out flaws in that argument also.  So in the end he takes the word agnostic quite literally:  he cannot know whether God exists.

As you read, reflect on his arguments to see how much sense they make to you.  Some of them are stated a bit obscurely and will be hard to make full sense of.  In any case you may find this a fascinating peek into the mind of one of the most influential thinkers in Western history.  [See the book by Daniel Dennet, Darwin's Dangerous Idea.]

Darwin's Letter
Whilst on board the Beagle  I was quite orthodox, and I remember being heartily laughed at by several of the officers (though themselves orthodox) for quoting the Bible as an unanswerable authority on some point of morality.  I suppose it was the novelty of the argument that amused them.  But I had gradually come by this time, i.e. 1836 to 1839, to see that the Old Testament was no more to be trusted than the sacred books of the hindoos.  The question then continually rose before my mind and would not be banished,--is it credible that if God were now to make a revelation to the Hindoos, he would permit it to be connected with the belief in Vishnu, Siva, &c., as Christianity is connected with the Old Testament?  This appeared to me utterly incredible.

By further reflecting that the clearest evidence would be requisite to make any sane man believe in the miracles by which Christianity is supported,--and that the more we know of the fixed laws of nature the more incredible do miracles become,--that the men at that time were ignorant and credulous to a degree almost incomprehensible by us,--that the Gospels cannot be proved to have been written simultaneously with the events,--that they differ in many important details, far too important, as it seemed to me, to be admitted as the usual inaccuracies of eye-witnesses;--by such reflections as these, which I give not as having the least novelty or value, but as they influenced me, I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation. The fact that many false religions have spread over large portions of the earth like wild-fire had some weight with me.

But I was very unwilling to give up my belief; I feel sure of this, for I can well remember often and often inventing day-dreams of old letters between distinguished Romans, and manuscripts being discovered at Pompeii or elsewhere, which confirmed in the most striking manner all that was written in the Gospels.  But I found it more and more difficult, with free scope given to my imagination, to invent evidence which would suffice to convince me.  Thus disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but was at last complete.  The rate was so slow that I felt no distress.

Although I did not think much about the existence of a personal God until a considerably later period of my life, I will here give the vague conclusions to which I have been driven.  The old argument from design in Nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection has been discovered.  We can no longer argue that, for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must have been made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by man.  There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings, and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows.  But I have discussed this subject at the end of my book on the Variations of Domesticated Animals and Plants,' and the argument there given has never, as far as I can see, been answered.

But passing over the endless beautiful adaptations which we everywhere meet with, it may be asked how can the generally beneficent arrangement of the world be accounted for?  Some writers indeed are so much impressed with the amount of suffering in the world, that they doubt, if we look to all sentient beings, whether there is more of misery or of happiness; whether the world as a whole is a good or bad one.  According to my judgment happiness decidedly prevails, though this would be very difficult to prove.  If the truth of this conclusion be granted, it harmonizes well with the effects which we might expect from natural selection.  If all the individuals of any species were habitually to suffer to an extreme degree, they would neglect to propagate their kind; but we have no reason to believe that this has ever, or at least often occurred.  Some other considerations, moreover, lead to the belief that all sentient beings have been formed so as to enjoy, as a general rule, happiness.

Every one who believes, as I do, that all the corporeal and mental organs (excepting those which are neither advantageous nor disadvantageous to the possessor) of all beings have been developed through natural selection, or the survival of the fittest, together with use or habit, will admit that these organs have been formed so that their possessors may compete successfully with other beings, and thus increase in number.  now an animal may be led to pursue that course of action which is most beneficial to the species by suffering, such as pain, hunger, thirst, and fear; or by pleasure, as in eating and drinking, and in the propagation of the species, &c.; or by both means combined, as in the search for food.  But pain or suffering of any kind, if long continued, causes depression and lessens the power of action, yet is well adapted to make a creature guard itself against any great or sudden evil.  Pleasurable sensations, on the other hand, may be long continued without any depressing effect; on the contrary, they stimulate the whole system to increased action.  Hence it has come to pass that most or all sentient beings have been developed in such a manner, through natural selection, that pleasurable sensations serve as their habitual guides.  We see this in the pleasure from exertion, even occasionally from great exertion of the body or mind,--in the pleasure of our daily meals, and especially in the pleasure derived from sociability, and from loving our families.  The sum of such pleasures as these, which are habitual or frequently recurrent, give, as I can hardly doubt, to most sentient beings an excess of happiness over misery, although many occasionally suffer much.  Such suffering is quite compatible with the belief in Natural Selection, which is not perfect in its action, but tends only to render each species as successful as possible in the battle for life with other species, in wonderfully complex and changing circumstances.

That there is much suffering in the world no one disputes.  Some have attempted to explain this with reference to man by imagining that it serves for his moral improvement.  But the number of men in the world is as nothing compared with that of all other sentient beings, and they often suffer greatly without any moral improvement.  This very old argument from the existence of suffering against the existence of an intelligent First Cause seems to me a strong one; whereas, as just remarked, the presence of much suffering agrees well with the view that all organic beings have been developed through variation and natural selection.

At the present day the most usual argument for the existence of an intelligent God is drawn from the deep inward conviction and feelings which are experienced by most persons.  Formerly I was led by feelings such as those just referred to (although I do not think that the religious sentiment was ever strongly developed in me), to the firm conviction of the existence of God, and of the immortality of the soul.  In my Journal I wrote that whilst standing in the midst of the grandeur of a Brazilian forest, "it is not possible to give an adequate idea of the higher feelings of wonder, admiration, and devotion, which fill and elevate the mind."  I well remember my conviction that there is more in man than the mere breath of his body.  But now the grandest scenes would not cause any such convictions and feelings to rise in my mind.  It may be truly said that I am like a man who has become colour-blind, and the universal belief by men of the existence of redness makes my present loss of perception of not the least value as evidence.  This argument would be a valid one if all men of 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 feelings 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 this sense, it can hardly be advanced as an argument for the existence of God, any more than the powerful though vague and similar feelings excited by music.

With respect to immortality, nothing shows me [so clearly] how strong and almost instinctive a belief it is, as the consideration of the view now held by most physicists, namely, that the sun with all the planets will in time grow too cold for life, unless indeed some great body dashes into the sun, and thus gives it fresh life.  Believing as I do that man in the distant future will be a far more perfect creature than he now is, it is an intolerable thought that he and all other sentient beings are doomed to complete annihilation after such long-continued slow progress.  To those who fully admit the immortality of the human soul, the destruction of our world will not appear so dreadful.

Another source of conviction in the existence of God, connected with the reason, and not with the feelings, impresses me as having much more weight.  This follows from the extreme difficulty or rather impossibility  of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe, including man with his capacity of looking far backwards and far into futurity, as the result of blind chance or necessity.  When thus reflecting I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man; and I deserve to be called a Theist.  This conclusion was strong in my mind about the time, as far as I can remember, when I wrote the 'Origin of Species;' and it is since that time that it has very gradually, with many fluctuations, become weaker.  But then arises the doubt, can the mind of man, which has, as I fully believe, been developed from a mind as low as that possessed by the lowest animals, be trusted when it draws such grand conclusions?

I cannot pretend to throw the least light on such abstruse problems.  The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be content to remain an Agnostic.

OPTIONAL:  Additional notes on Darwin's theory:

THE CHICKEN OR THE EGG?
Which came first, the chicken or the egg, is answered by Darwin's theory of evolution.

LAMARCK'S (1744-1829) THEORY (1801):
The chicken adapts to its environment.  If its food is on rocky ground, for example, a constant pecking at this hard ground will produce a tougher beak.  This change in the chicken will then be passed on to its offspring.  So the change in the chicken leads to a new kind of chick, one with a harder beak, that develops in the egg.

DARWIN'S (1809-1882 THEORY (1859):
No matter how tough a chicken's beak gets, that will not produce chicks with harder beaks.  (Just as the many centuries Chinese women had their feet bound, the children were born with normal feet.)  But no offspring is identical to its parents.  There is natural variation among offspring (even in non-sexual reproduction some variations appear occasionally). So the egg comes first: a variation in a species appears in the offspring.  The process of "natural selection" weeds out some variations.  Natural selection is a fancy name for the simple fact that most offspring do not survive.  Those most suited to survive in a given environment, because they are faster or tougher or harder to see, etc., will be more likely to survive.  They will have a better chance of passing on their particular genes.  (Sexual selection also plays a role; females which chose hardy males whose genes are more likely to produce stronger offspring and/or hang around to help and protect those offspring are females whose genes will be more likely to get passed on.)

CONFUSION OF LANGUAGE: 
Evolutionists sometimes speak of "adaptation" as the mechanism of evolution.  By this they mean only that those variants that happen to be better adapted to their environment will have a better chance at surviving to reproduce and pass on their particular genetic pattern: "reproductive success."  Evolutionists do not mean that the genetic code of individual living organisms adapt to their environment, like the individual chicken might adapt to hard ground by developing a hard beak.  Biologists assume that the process is a somewhat random one.  Any "progress" is purely by chance. In fact most biologists would say that the overall pattern of evolution is not one of progress but simply one of ongoing production of multiple life forms, among which are some that we tend to think of as "better" than others.

CONFUSION OF IDEAS: 
A major misunderstanding about the evolutionary process is the idea that one species gradually changes until it turns into another species.  This sort of thing might occasionally happen; it is hard to say for sure.  But the evidence indicates that when a new species appears it may usually do so while the old species continues.  A new species is an off-shoot from the old species, not a transformation of the entire old species.  A species may in fact co-exist with several of its own off-shoots.

Michael Barnes.  Dec., 1994