Prayer played a very different part in Moody’s later life from what it did in Darwin’s, so far as any tangible evidence goes. It is true that probably a good many men pray whom one would never suspect of doing so. I had an old friend, who had been brought up devoutly but had been a Unitarian for years, rarely going to church, apparently indifferent to religion, and discussing speculative, ultimate problems with annihilating freedom. Yet he told me, in an outburst of confidence, that every night, when he went to bed, he repeated, in substance, if not in words, the prayers that he had learned at his mother’s knee. ‘I don’t know what it means,’ he said; ‘I don’t know whether there is a God, or whether He hears me, or what I want of Him; but I pray.’ And I, who had not prayed for thirty years, heard him with amazement. Nevertheless, I do not believe that Darwin repeated ‘Now I lay me’ to the end, or prayed for triumph with evolution as he had prayed for triumph in the foot-race.
The question of a future life seems to have had as little actuality for Darwin as that of prayer, and we have more explicit evidence on the point, because correspondents were always writing for a statement of his beliefs. He never committed himself to any complete assertion of disbelief. On the contrary, he is quite ready to admit some forcible positive arguments: ‘Believing as I do that man in the distant future will be a far more perfect creature than he now is, it is an intolerable thought that he and all other sentient beings are doomed to complete annihilation after such long-continued slow progress. To those who fully admit the immortality of the human soul, the destruction of our world will not appear so dreadful.’[304] Yet the difficulties seem insuperable, and he is hardly able to accept any definite belief: ‘Many persons seem to make themselves quite easy about immortality ... by intuition; and I suppose I must differ from such persons because I do not feel any innate conviction upon such points.’[305]
The supreme test as to the future is the death of those we love and the thought of our own death. In 1851 Darwin lost a little daughter whom he loved tenderly. His intimate letters at that time have affectionate and pathetic references to her; but there is not one word in them to indicate the slightest hope of ever meeting her again. When he himself was close to the end, mentally clear but with no prospect of recovery, his calm words were: ‘I am not the least afraid of death.’[306]
As to the question of God, Darwin’s statements are as elaborate as in regard to immortality, and for the same reason, because eager inquirers were determined to find out where he stood. In early life, while he still believed in the theory of special creations, he accepted the deistic view without hesitation: ‘Many years ago, when I was collecting facts for the “Origin,” my belief in what is called a personal God was as firm as that of Dr. Pusey himself.’[307] As the years went on, the working out of his theories involved a profound change, but still he never at any time admitted an absolute disbelief or a militant atheism. He goes over and over the old, old arguments. How could an omnipotent God, who desired the good of all his creatures, inflict upon the travailing creation such an infinity of misery? Again, there is the puzzle of design and providential interference. He is reluctant to believe that this vast and ordered whole came together by mere chance; yet he debates with Asa Gray the possible providence in the fall of a sparrow: ‘An innocent and good man stands under a tree and is killed by a flash of lightning. Do you believe (and I really should like to hear) that God designedly killed this man? Many or most persons do believe this; I can’t and don’t. If you believe so, do you believe that when a swallow snaps up a gnat that God designed that that particular swallow should snap up that particular gnat at that particular instant? I believe that the man and the gnat are in the same predicament.’[308] Nor does the Pantheistic solution appeal much more than the anthropomorphic one. Darwin is constantly personifying Nature, with a capital N; but he is careful to specify that he does this for convenience, and that Nature means only the sum of natural laws in their eternal working, not any mysterious force of Divinity. The Pantheistic solution also creates as many puzzles as it solves. So the conclusion is, to leave all such questions as hopeless and insoluble, beyond the intelligence of man so completely that it does not seem intended that he should grapple with them. And Darwin at least was satisfied to weigh and measure and experiment and let God go.
It does not appear that he felt the need and the longing and the desire that torture some of us. Like some other men, perhaps like many others, the life of this world, the work of this world, the pleasure of this world, the interest of this world, were enough for him, and the other world might simply wait its turn. And as in beginning this chapter I compared the evangelist Moody with the scientist Darwin in their extreme limitation of interests, so at the end I would compare them again to bring out the enormous difference. To Darwin the mere fact of life in the universe and the endless curiosity about it were enough. Whether God was there or not was a matter that could not be settled and need not be discussed. To Moody both life and the universe were nothing without God.
CHAPTER V
DARWIN: THE LOVER
I
If Darwin was not conspicuous as a lover of God, he was at least notable in every way as one who loved his fellow men. He liked to meet people, liked to talk with them, liked to have them about him. He was interested in humanity, enjoyed the contact of it, and felt in others the warm throb of a heart that beat as kindly and sympathetically as his own. Men, women, and children were drawn to him and recognized a friend.
Of his personal appearance the chief impression that comes to us is naturally in age. He was tall and powerfully built, and in his youth must have been attractive to look at, though there is no definite record of this. In later years his aspect was dignified without being severe. ‘His face is massive,’ writes Norton to Ruskin, with ‘little beauty of feature, but much of expression.’[235] What seems to have chiefly impressed observers was the eyes and the look in them. Professor Osborn says: ‘The impression of Darwin’s bluish-gray eyes, deep-set under overhanging brows, was that they were the eyes of a man who could survey all nature.’[236] And Bryce agrees: ‘The feature which struck one most was the projecting brow with its bushy eyebrows, and deep beneath it the large gray-blue eyes with their clear and steady look. It was an alert look, as of one accustomed to observing keenly, yet it was also calm and reflective. There was a pleasant smile which came and passed readily, but the chief impression made by the face was that of tranquil, patient thoughtfulness, as of one whose mind had long been accustomed to fix itself upon serious problems.’[237]
There is general testimony as to Darwin’s ready hospitality and eager kindliness in greeting all those who came into his household. There was no reserve or assumption of dignity, but a perfectly natural and cordial desire and disposition to make every one feel at home. I do not know any more impressive witness to this charm of manner than Leslie Stephen, who was certainly not a man to be unduly carried away. Stephen speaks of ‘the charm which no one to whom I have ever spoken failed to perceive in his presence and in his writings.’[238] And he elsewhere dwells upon it more elaborately: ‘He was in town for a few days and most kindly called upon me. You may believe that I was proud to welcome him, for of all eminent men that I have ever seen he is beyond comparison the most attractive to me. There is something almost pathetic in his simplicity and friendliness. I heard a story the other day about a young German admirer whom Lubbock took to see him. He could not summon up courage to speak to the great man; but, when they came away, burst into tears. That is not my way; but I sympathize to some extent with the enthusiastic Dutchman.’[239]