278 RELIGION. 



tinually 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 incred- 

 ible. 



'' 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 credu- 

 lous to a degree almost incomprehensible by us, — that the 

 Gospels cannot be proved to have been written simultaneous- 

 ly with the events, — that they differ in many important de- 

 tails, far too important, as it seemed to me, to be admitted as 

 the usual inac.curacies 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 large portions of the earth like 

 wild-fire 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 invent- 

 ing day-dreams of old letters between distinguished Romans, 

 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 diffi- 

 cult, with free scope given to my imagination, to invent evi- 

 dence 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. 



