496 Darwinism and the Study of Religions 
Our business was not to study but, exclusively, to convert them, to 
root out superstition and carry the torch of revelation to “Souls in 
heathen darkness lying.” To us nowadays it is a commonplace of 
anthropological research that we must seek for the beginnings of 
religion in the religions of primitive peoples, but in the last century 
the orthodox mind was convinced that it possessed a complete and 
luminous ready-made revelation; the study of what was held to be 
a mere degradation seemed idle and superfluous. 
But, it may be asked, if, to the orthodox, revealed religion was 
sacrosanct and savage religion a thing beneath consideration, why 
did not the sceptics show a more liberal spirit, and pursue to their 
logical issue the conjectures they had individually hazarded? The 
reason is simple and significant. The sceptics too had not worked 
free from the presupposition that the essence of religion is dogma. 
Their intellectualism, expressive of the whole eighteenth century, 
was probably in England strengthened by the Protestant doctrine of 
an infallible Book. Hume undoubtedly confused religion with dog- 
matic theology. The attention of orthodox and sceptics alike was 
focussed on the truth or falsity of certain propositions. Only a few 
minds of rare quality were able dimly to conceive that religion might 
be a necessary step in the evolution of human thought. 
It is not a little interesting to note that Darwin, who was leader 
and intellectual king of his generation, was also in this matter to 
some extent its child. His attitude towards religion is stated clearly, 
in Chap. vill. of the Life and Letters. On board the Beagle he 
was simply orthodox and was laughed at by several of the officers 
for quoting the Bible as an unanswerable authority on some point 
of morality. By 1839 he had come to see that the Old Testament was 
no more to be trusted than the sacred books of the Hindoos. Next 
went the belief in miracles, and next Paley’s “argument from design” 
broke down before the law of natural selection; the suffering so 
manifest in nature is seen to be compatible rather with Natural 
Selection than with the goodness and omnipotence of God. Darwin 
felt to the full all the ignorance that lay hidden under specious 
phrases like “the plan of creation” and “Unity of design.” Finally, 
he tells us “the mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by 
us ; and I for one must be content to remain an Agnostic.” 
The word Agnostic is significant not only of the humility of the 
man himself but also of the attitude of his age. Religion, it is clear, 
is still conceived as something to be known, a matter of true or false 
opinion. Orthodox religion was to Darwin a series of erroneous 
hypotheses to be bit by bit discarded when shown to be untenable. 
" Vol. 1. p. 304. For Darwin’s religious views see also Descent of Man, 1871, Vol. 1. 
p. 65; 2nd edit. Vol. 1. p. 142. 
