Dear Professor Gray,—I sent you my papers as a return for those which you so kindly sent to me, and for which I have written to thank you before. I quite agree with your view, that the doctrine of the human mind having been proximately evolved from lower minds is not incompatible with the doctrine of its having been due to a higher and supreme mind. Indeed, I do not think the theory of evolution, even if fully proved, would seriously affect the previous standing of this more important question.
The sorrow is, that this question is so far removed from the reach of any trustworthy answer. Or, at least, such is the sorrow if that answer when it comes is to prove an affirmative. If it is to be an eternal sleep, no doubt it is better to live as we are than in the certainty of a Godless universe. But although we cannot find any sure answer to this momentous question, I cannot help feeling that it is reasonable (although it may not be orthodox) to cherish this much faith, that if there is a God, whom, when we see, we can truly worship as well as dread, He cannot ex hypothesi be a God who will thwart the strong desire which He has implanted in us to worship Him, merely because we cannot find evidence enough to believe this or that doctrine of dogmatic Theology.
But I do not know why I should thus trouble you with my troubles, unless it is that the kindness of your letters has broken through the bars by which we usually imprison such feelings from the world. Anyhow, I thank you for that kindness, and hope you will forgive this somewhat odd requital.
Very sincerely yours,
G. J. Romanes.
'The desire to worship Him.'
These words are the key-note of the religious history of the pure and noble character which I am trying to describe.
The letters, so touching in the momentary breaking down of reserve, give, as it were, a glimpse of the inner life, give an indication of the struggle, the perplexity, the sorrow which eleven years later ended in 'Eternal Peace.'
Readers of the lately published 'Thoughts on Religion' will see how gradually he grew to perceive the reasonableness of the Christian Faith; he had never doubted the beauty, the moral worth, the attraction of that faith. And with him it was what Dante in his 'Paradiso' puts into S. Bernard's mouth:
'A quella luce cotal si diventa,