50 PRESENT-DAY RATIONALISM 



of a Conscious Creator altogether. His previous mental 

 training saved him at that time from the Agnosticism of 

 modern Rationalists, scientific or otherwise ; though their 

 conclusion, so far as his theory is concerned is a legiti- 

 mate one, had Darwinism any real foundation in fact. 



It need hardly be added that the belief in a Creator 

 was and is held by astronomers, physicists, chemists and 

 others who are not biologists. Inductive evidence of the 

 existence of an Omnipotent Power is not confined to the 

 living world, but is based on the widest series of facts. 



When, however, we turn to Darwin's " Life," we read 

 a somewhat different story. He tells us that when 

 standing in a Brazilian forest he wrote in his diary : 

 " It is not possible to give an adequate idea of the higher 

 feelings of wonder, admiration and devotion which fill 

 and elevate the mind "} 



" But now," he continues, "the grandest scenes would 

 not cause any such convictions and feelings to rise in 

 my mind." I will not quote his description of his 

 mental atrophy for art, etc, nor more of his conversion 

 by his own theory of Natural Selection to Agnosticism. 

 It appears to me that this resulted from, as I shall show, 

 the total absence of Natural Law in Natural Selection, 

 as an element in the Origin of Species. For — and I wish 

 to emphasise this fact as it is so important to bear it 

 in mind — there is no rclationsiiip at all between the ac- 

 cidentally arising, favourable variations (out of imaginary 

 indefinite variations among a group of offspring) and the 

 requirements of the beings in adaptation to their new 

 conditions of life. 



This is the fatal want in Darwinism ; and at once 

 stamps it with an atheistic character in the eyes of those 



' Life, vol. i., p. 311. 



