Darwin

by Gamaliel Bradford

IV

As with sociology and with æsthetic experience, so, and even more, with God and the things of God, Darwin’s limitations are profoundly interesting, and if the loss was less, because there was less to lose, it was nevertheless, in all its aspects significant. Here again, as with æsthetic emotion, it must be remembered that men do not utter all they feel, and those who feel most sometimes utter least. But it so happens that circumstances obliged Darwin to be very explicit about his religious views and experiences, so that we are justified in assuming that we have access to pretty much all there was.

It must never be forgotten that Darwin grew up in the thoroughly conventional atmosphere of the English Church. Neither his father nor his grandfather was an active believer, but the immense tradition of staid decorum, from which the English upper middle class rarely escapes, was all about his boyhood, and left an indelible mark on it. To appreciate how haunting and oppressive the atmosphere was, one should read ‘A Century of Family Letters,’ edited by Darwin’s daughter. The flavor of established religious propriety is so overwhelming that one wonders how Darwin could ever have shaken himself intellectually free from it.

Mrs. Darwin was a wise and a charming woman, and she was invaluable to her husband, but, oh, she was English. She took a proper wifely interest in Darwin’s scientific adventures, and was sometimes of assistance to him. She had her anxieties about the animosity of his critics and also about the drift of his speculations, and her daughter implies that in later years these speculations effected a change in the mother’s religious beliefs.[210] But I relish very much this lovely passage of solicitude for the husband’s eternal welfare, written in the year of the publication of the ‘Origin’: ‘I am sure you know I love you well enough to believe that I mind your sufferings, nearly as much as I should my own, and I find the only relief to my own mind is to take it as from God’s hand, and to try to believe that all suffering and illness is meant to help us to exalt our minds and to look forward with hope to a future state. When I see your patience, deep compassion for others, self-command, and above all gratitude for the smallest thing done to help you, I cannot help longing that these precious feelings should be offered to Heaven for the sake of your daily happiness.’[211] Also, Mrs. Darwin was a careful observer of that augustly hideous institution, the Victorian Sunday: ‘I remember she persuaded me,’ writes a reminiscent relative, ‘to refuse any invitation from the neighbors that involved using the carriage on that day, and it was a question in her own mind whether she might rightly embroider, knit, or play patience.’[212] It strikes me as peculiarly delightful that the Sabbath should be treated with such reverence in the house of one who was to do more than any one else to smash the God of the Sabbath altogether.

So it is evident that Darwin grew up with a strong religious habit. There was even serious talk of his entering the church, till his hopeless lack of vocation made it clearly impossible. The net of religious inheritance and circumstance was woven closely about him and in the early days he recognized himself as in general orthodox enough. I like particularly the reply he made to his Catholic friends in South America, who conjured him to see the light: ‘Why do you not become a Christian—for our religion is certain?’ ‘I assured them I was a sort of Christian.’[213] A sort of Christian! Isn’t that charmingly characteristic? You can imagine millions of fanatics to-day howling, ‘What sort of Christian?’

One thing at least is certain: Darwin never was cynical or mocking in his attitude toward religion. Without the least trace of affectation or cant, he always spoke of the church and the clergy and religious practice with respect, and with the same gentle tolerance that he displayed towards those who differed from him in any line. Peculiarly significant in this regard are his references to the missionaries with whom he came into contact on his southern voyage. He was at first disposed to speak of them without enthusiasm, to say the least, and Admiral Sullivan, who was with him on the Beagle, tells of his scepticism about missionary work, ‘his conviction that it was utterly useless to send missionaries to such a set of savages as the Fuegians.’[214] Many years later Darwin was entirely converted, and, as usual, did not hesitate to say so: ‘He wrote me that he had been wrong and I right in our estimates of the native character, and the possibility of doing them good through missionaries; and he requested me to forward to the Society an enclosed cheque for £5, as a testimony of the interest he took in their good work.’[215] Other passages could be adduced to the same effect.

And the religious training and the constant presence of high-minded and earnest living and meaning people about him had established in Darwin a secure habit of morals and a vivid activity of conscience. He might subject the moral habit in theory to cold analysis, ‘The moral nature of man has reached its present standard, partly through the advancement of his reasoning powers and consequently of a just public opinion, but especially from his sympathies having been rendered more tender and widely diffused through the effects of habit, example, instruction, and reflection.’[216] But the analysis did not in the least affect his own personal instinct of right and upright living.

It is not only that there is no appearance or record of irregularity of conduct of any kind. But, much more than this, there is repeated evidence of the nicest scrupulousness and a tender conscience which would not be surpassed in the most devout and anxious Christian. It was perhaps ‘a sort of Christian,’ but assuredly not a bad sort, who, as I have before mentioned, got up in the middle of the night to correct a fancied misstatement, not about a scientific fact, but about an æsthetic experience.[298] And a clerical friend records a similar incident, equally striking: ‘On one occasion, when a parish meeting had been held on some disputed point of no great importance, I was surprised by a visit from Mr. Darwin at night. He came to say that, thinking over the debate, though what he had said was quite accurate, he thought I might have drawn an erroneous conclusion, and he would not sleep till he had explained it.’[299] With the members of his own family there was the same scrupulous, tender anxiety not to do or say anything unjust or unkind. After some quite warrantable and reasonable outburst of indignation over the levity of one of his sons, ‘The next morning at seven o’clock he came to my bedroom and said how sorry he was that he had been so angry and that he had not been able to sleep; and with a few kind words he left me.’[300] This ‘sort of Christian’ is perhaps not even yet so common as might be wished.

On the other hand, when we come to the more intimate, personal aspects of the religious life, Darwin’s record appears to be largely negative, and what earlier traces there are gradually disappear. Take prayer. Here again, in the study of Expression, we have the scientific analysis, of prayer as an attitude at any rate: ‘Hence it is not probable that either the uplifting of the eyes or the joining of the open hands under the influence of devotional feelings, are innate or truly expressive actions, and this could hardly have been expected, for it is very doubtful whether feelings, such as we should rank as devotional, affected the hearts of men, whilst they remained during past ages in an uncivilized condition.’[301] Also, there are other occasional references to the external aspects of religious petition, as in the Beagle Journal: ‘He prayed as a Christian should do, with fitting reverence, and without the fear of ridicule or any ostentation of piety.’[302]

But to prayer as a personal experience I find only one single allusion. When Darwin was a boy, he was a good runner, often took part in races, and was often successful. His explanation of his success at that time is interesting: ‘When in doubt I prayed earnestly to God to help me, and I well remember that I attributed my success to my prayers and not to my quick running, and marveled how generally I was aided.’[303] This recalls the youthful experience of Moody, who was caught under a fence rail and could not move, but put up earnest prayers to God, and then was able to lift the rail quite easily.