APPENDIX 401 



pretend to throw the least light on such abstruse problems. The 

 mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us ; and I for 

 one must be content to remain an Agnostic.' 



What Darwin meant by being an Agnostic seems pretty clear 

 now ; and it is also pretty clear why he felt sometimes that he 

 ' deserved to be called a Theist.' l 



Agnostic is the vague denomination for a genus including 

 several species. According to their temperament or to their earlier 

 associations, Agnostics lean either to Atheism or to Theism. They 

 agree in pronouncing the problem of the universe to be insoluble ; 

 but they are variously coloured by divers inclinations toward the 

 faiths they have abandoned. One is an Optimist by natural bent, 

 another is a Pessimist. But their common link is a certain nega- 

 tive relation to creeds they formerly professed. Among Agnostics, 

 Darwin leant toward Theism. Habit, instinct, and reason drew 

 him in that direction. It was long before he worked off his early 

 belief in revelation, and the nature of that belief continued to 

 qualify his reasoning when he entertained theological speculations. 



I gather from several passages in this chapter that Darwin 

 never transcended the conception of Deity as Providence, as a 

 designing Person, with purpose in each detail of creation. 2 These 

 passages are in part directed against teleology. But they also 

 show that their author still thought of God from Paley's point of 

 view. 3 He continued to regard God as the theologians of English 

 orthodoxy made Him as a being constructing the world from 

 outside, planning its contrivances and directing each event to a 

 calculated end. Darwin never speaks as though the conception of 

 Deity immanent in the universe were tenable. 



For example, he remarks that while he (Darwin) is designedly 

 shooting a bird in order to obtain food, the lightning is destroying 

 a good man. ' Do you believe,' he asks, ' that God designedly 

 killed this man ? Many or most persons believe this : I can't and 

 don't.' Here a dilemma is stated : either God made the lightning 

 kill a good man in the same way as I killed a bird, or He did not. 

 It does not occur to him that there is no dilemma except upon his 

 own assumption that God directed the flash of lightning with the 

 providential design of killing the good man, just as he (Darwin) 

 discharged his gun with the purpose of killing the bird. Then he 



1 P. 312, ' When thus reflecting,' &c. 



2 P. 313, ' The mind refuses,' down to p. 316, ' existed in the moon.' 



3 This is confirmed by a very emphatic confidence about Paley in a 

 I letter to Sir John Lubbock. Life, vol. ii. p. 219. 



D D 



