282 RELIGION. 



"^'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 senti- 

 ent 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, im- 

 presses 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 de- 

 serve 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 tliat 

 possessed by the lowest animals, be trusted when it draws 

 such grand conclusions ? 

 \ " I cannot pretend to throw the least light on such ab- 

 struse problems. The mystery of the beginning of all things 

 is insoluble by us ; and I for one must be content to remain 

 an Agnostic." 



The following letters repeat to some extent what has 

 been given from the Autobiography. The first one refers to 

 * The Boundaries of Science, a Dialogue,* published in ' Mac- 

 millan's Magazine,' for July 1861.] 



