Was Darwin an Athiest, an Agnostic, or a Deist?

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 238, 21 January 1888, Page 4

Was Darwin an Athiest, an Agnostic, or a Deist?

Darwin's long friendship ,witft Mr Irines r is the more interesting, because,, the latter as a clergyman, could never . bring himself to accept Darwin's theories'.* * Oi Darwin'sown religious views'an Authoritative judgment, can now be fotfinedr -Before; and during, his :voyage on : the Beagle u hid' fully Accoptedtthe dogmas of the church ; indeed,' 'his slripmates used to* laugh at him for the fulness of his" belief? It was "between 1836 and 1830 tHat. his views first changed, and he . becalne a Deist instead 1 of & Christian.* And a Deist he remained until the end:What Darwin meant byiGo'drOt*, rather,' what he excluded -from the ! meaning 6i the name, is sufficiently shown by the following passage, in > which he argues "the direct' intervention " theory : — "" It has always appeared to me,"»he writes to a lady co-res-pondent, "-more satisfactory td;'look upon tho immense quantity oi pain ancl suffering that, exist in the world as the inevitable result of the natural course'of' facts— that is to say, of general laws— rather than as the fesulb of the 'direct intervention of God, ' although, this theory isnOt logical,' l know, when one supposes an ouiniscient Divinity." /; . .<. "liCannot persuade "myself," he^ Bays elsewhere^ "that a' 'benevolent and omnipotent God 'has created ichneumons' (parasites that live at the expense of the caterpillars they~destroy)»"Gf* -deliberate purpose, with" the express will that they should live { o;u ( the Jjodi§B?of- cate^plUufe, or mice that they should serve as the sport of cats." "Never/, he elsewhere says, "in •my most extreme fluctuations, w.as I an Atheist ; I have never, that 'is, denied the existence of God/ ">lthink>that in general, , and especially asrl grow old (so he wrote in 1879), Dut not always,: agn&sticJsin Vould most correctly represent the- state* r of my 1 mind. " " Not' always,-' • he says', for "of ten' he felt? the necessity of a Creator, given' thfc creation; and of • a legislator,' when he considered thet mighty laws which it vVas the Hvork of, his life.to decipher. "I thinlc," he '\<rrote in a letter to tt Dutch correspondent, -iwbich4iaB .before" been published," "that the theory 0$ evolution is perfectly oompatiSle vyith; the belief in God j but I tnusfcaad 'that the definition Of what is meant by that name -varies' with the people who use it.' ;