238 DARWINIANISM. 



here was rapport that was nothing but the effect of 

 accident. An accidental variation accidentally corre- 

 sponded to a factor of nature accidentally present, and a 

 rapport, a relation, a coincidence, that looked like in- 

 tentional concert, that looked like design, was the result. 

 Mr. Darwin could no sooner have become aware of such 

 a peculiarity as this, than it must have at once suggested 

 itself to him that what was organic really occupied after 

 all only the same level as what was inorganic. Physical 

 mechanism, natural mechanism, was alone existent in the 

 universe. Whether, otherwise, his religious views had 

 been of themselves coming, for an indefinite time back, 

 to no very different result, is not a consideration for us 

 here : it is enough that from the instant his own 

 Danvinian Relation became plain to him, he gradually 

 ceased, as it is said, to believe. 



From previous expressions in this writing, the reader 

 will, pretty well, have perceived that it (the writing) is 

 no issue from the society de propaganda fide : these are 

 not days in which it will occur to any true man to reflect 

 with censure on his neighbour's religion. Any religious 

 reference in Mr. Darwin's regard must be understood to 

 concern only what bears on design ; and it is only as so 

 bearing that we shall make now certain quotations. 

 There has been evidence already that what Mr. Darwin 

 conceived to be the only opposite or alternative to his own 

 doctrine was creation. Expressions to that effect, for 

 example, we have already seen in passages of letters that 

 concerned Lyell. "Creation or Modification" (ii. 371): 

 that was the flag he definitively nailed to his mast. Mr. 

 Darwin vacillated at times externally ; but not for long, 

 I honestly believe, did he ever in any serious respect 

 vacillate internally after maturation of his ideas. 

 Expressions of such vacillation occur, for instance (see 

 Gifford Lectures), in regard to his views on conditions : 



