ch. in.] RELIGION. 09 



portance which you attribute to our greatest men ; I have 

 been accustomed to think second, third, and fourth-rate 

 men of very high importance, at least in the case of Science. 

 Lastly, I could show fight on natural selection having done 

 and doing more for the progress of civilisation than you 

 seem inclined to admit. Remember what risk the nations of 

 Europe ran, not so many centuries ago, of being overwhelmed 

 by the Turks, and how ridiculous such an idea now is ! The 

 more civilised so-called Caucasian races have beaten the Turk- 

 ish hollow in the struggle for existence. Looking to the world 

 at no very distant date, what an endless number of the lower 

 races will have been eliminated by the higher civilised races 

 throughout the world. But I will write no more, and not 

 even mention the many points in your work which have 

 much interested me. I have indeed cause to apologise for 

 troubling you with my impressions, and my sole excuse is 

 the excitement in my mind which your book has aroused. 

 I beg leave to remain, dear sir, 



Yours faithfully and obliged. 



Darwin spoke little on these subjects, and I can con- 

 tribute nothing from my own recollection of his conversa- 

 tion which can add to the impression here given of his atti- 

 tude towards Religion.* Some further idea of his views 

 may, however, be gathered from occasional remarks in his 

 letters. 



* Dr. Aveling has published an account of a conversation with my father. 

 I think that the readers of this pamphlet {The Religious Views of Charles 

 Darwin, Free Thought Publishing Company, 1883) may be misled' into see- 

 ing more resemblance than really existed between the positions of my father 

 and Dr. Aveling : and I say this in spite of my conviction that Dr. Aveling 

 gives quite fairly his impressions of my father's views. Dr. Aveling tried to 

 show that the terms "Agnostic" and " Atheist" were practically equivalent 

 that an atheist is one who, without denying the existence of God, is without 

 God. inasmuch as he is unconvinced of the existence of a Deity. My father's 

 replies implied his preference for the unaggressive attitude of an Agnostic. 

 Dr. Aveling seems (p. 5) to regard the absence of aggressiveness in my father's 

 views as distinguishing them in an unessential manner from his own. But, 

 in my judgment, it is precisely differences of this kind which distinguish 

 him so completely from the class of thinkers to which Dr. Aveling belongs. 



