53 RELIGION. [Oh. IIL 



religion. 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 largo portions of the earth like wildfire 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 Eomans, 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 



