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THE RELIGION OF CHARLES DARWIN. S U P P L E M E N T TO 11 T H E L I T E R A R Y G U ID E , " O C TO B E R , iS g g . A ll the creeds of the world are like different shades of one colour. They are different passions in one vast human soul. They are different processes in one life. What we have to do is to lead people to see the oneness of true religion—to help them feel the oneness of the souls of all mankind. This religion which expresses the oneness of all mankind is the religion of the good life. It is the creed of Thomas Paine, who said, “ To do good is my religion.” It is the Ethical Religion. Men go to that religion by many steps These steps are God ; the B ible; Allah; the Koran , Brahma; the Vedas of the Hindus. By these steps men try to climb to the good life—that is to say, to what is true and to what is brotherly. The religious man is the man who tries to think what is true and do what is fair. If he believes in God, he will believe in God because he thinks God will teach him to be true and fair. That to him is God’s value. It is only that which gives God a value. Without that, God is of no value even to an infant. On the other hand, if a man seeks after the true and the just, it is of no account whether he believes in God or not. He has the pearl of great price. He has the value of which the belief in God is only one of many tokens. There are many men who say, Lord, L o r d ; Hut they are not religious. A man may be learned in the things of the Church, and speak, like an eloquent angel, of the secrets of the palace of God;'but, if he is not true in his thought and fair in his dealing, he is an outcast from true religion. He may carry all the charters of heaven in his bag, but, if he will not do honest deeds, true religion knows him not. On the other hand, a man like CHARLES DARWIN, who said no prayers, and declared in plain English that he was an Agnostic, was really a follower of the Ethical Religion He understood the way of life. He had entered the kingdom of righteousness by the same little wicket-gate which Christian passed in his Pilgrim’s Progress. move. Day after day he watched as eagerly as a man pays court to a maid. He fastened delicate threads of glass to the leaves and stems and flowers ; he watched the motions of the glass threads, and mapped out their course on paper diagrams. In his book we see these maps. They showhow, in twenty-four hours, a flower went this way and that way, to right or left, up, down, according as the sunlight led it, or the shadows passed over it, or the air changed in its environment. What wonderful loyalty, what quiet obedience, what meek waiting upon facts! It was like a Jew keeping the law of his fathers, as if God would be angry unless every tithe w-as paid, every dish cleaned, every prayer uttered, every Sabbath kept. That is the test of religion—discipline ; obedience ; MORAL PURPOSE. That was the same essential religion in the Jew and in Darwin. The Jew thought to be great by doing every jot and tittle of the law of Moses. The Jew was splendidly sincere. Darwin was great in the study of the little facts of nature. To twist a fact, to hide a fact, to misinterpret a fact was sin. This also was splendid sincerity ; this also was religion. In the year i860 Darwin was spending an idle hour in the fields—if, indeed, such a mind ever could be idle—and he noticed how a number of insects were entrapped in the leaves of a certain plant, the Drosera. He carried specimens of the Drosera home. He searched into the habits of the plant until he unravelled the mystery. The plant secreted in its vessels an acid which dissolved and digested the insects which were caught by the deadly leaves. The Drosera plant was a tomb, and the plant drew nourishment from the insects that it slew. For fifteen years Darwin continued his experiments, and in 1875 he published a work on Insectivorous P lan ts, which showed how the Drosera in the meadow built up its life on the death of the insects trapped in its leaves. It was a tragedy of nature. Darwin passed on in his search, never stopping because he met with tragic facts. He that worships truth must be ready to look with calmness at all things—life, death, sorrow, or pleasure. Darwin gave himself, body and soul, to the service of truth. But what is truth ? Is it only the study of God, or the study of other men’s thoughts and beliefs about God ? Or is it the study of books ? Darwin worshipped truth in the midst of animals and plants. How did animals and plants come to be what they are? What are the forces that act in them ? What are the forces that act on them ? These were the questions he tried to solve. Now, the old way of solving these questions was to ask what the Bible said, or what the Pope said, or what a college said. Darwin onlyasked what the plants said, what the animals said, what the facts said. Owing to clerical education (another name for bad education), people thought it was more dignified to go to the Bible for truth, or to go to a university, than it was to go to the animals, the plants, the rocks. To go to an archbishop—that was ideal, spiritual. To go to-plants and animals__that was common, unclean, materialistic! Whereas nothing is common or unclean which gives us more light and knowledge. Darwin had the courage to resist the pressure of public prejudice. He acted as Jesus Christ acted. Tesus protested against the creed which put all religion into prayer and the Temple. Jesus, on the contrary, went among publicans and sinners in order to plan out the Kingdom of Justice. And so Darwin put aside libraries, dogmas, churches, and priesthoods; and he startled the world by worshipping truth in the midst of pigeons, rabbits, worms; in gardens and woods; on moors and hill-sides. That is the highest genius—a genius that can stoop to the lowest in order to find the highest. You can always tell the finest natures by that mark. They are patient with things that are low. They see that low things may be sublime. In a mere pebble they see a glory like a star. In some simple man or woman they see majesty of soul and character. Darwin wrote a book on the Power o f Movement in P lants. He tells us how he watched the plants in his nursery year after year. He watched the leaves move, and the stems move, and the petals move, and the fibres of the roots There is the same patient service of truth in Darwin’s study of worms. This man, who first unrolled the history of the human race, did not despise the lowly worm. He wrote a book on Vegetable Mould and Earth-worm s. Here we see Darwin kneeling on the damp earth to watch the worms come and go in and out of their burrows. He counts the leaves they eat. He tests their power of hearing. He even plays the piano to them by way of experiment ! And the point of all his labours is this : he wants to find out their relation to the soil and what amount of earth passes through their bodies. And he discovers the great MIRACLE OF THE WORM (for the facts of every-day life are the only true miracles). Darwin discovers that the worm eats up and throws out again the vast plains of Russia, of America, of India. These vast plains, which give us our harvests and our bread, have all passed, atom by atom, through the bowels of worms. In one acre of land the worms, in the course of one year, will pass ten tons of dry earth through their bodies At the end of this book—this Bible of the Worm—Darwin looks out over a wide plain, and thus he writes :— “ It is a marvellous reflection that the whole of the superficial mould over any such expanse has passed, and will pass again every few years, through the bodies of worms. The plough is one of the most ancient and most valuable of man’s inventions ; but long before he existed the land was, in fact, regularly ploughed, and still continues to be ploughed, by earth worms. It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world as have these lowlyorganized creatures.” That was Darwin’s reverence. That was his insight. He gave the worm a place and a rank amid the powers that make the globe and rule the destiny of nations.

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THE RELIGION OF CHARLES DARWIN.

S U P P L E M E N T TO 11 T H E L I T E R A R Y G U ID E , " O C TO B E R , iS g g .

A ll the creeds of the world are like different shades of one colour. They are different passions in one vast human soul. They are different processes in one life. What we have to do is to lead people to see the oneness of true religion—to help them feel the oneness of the souls of all mankind. This religion which expresses the oneness of all mankind is the religion of the good life. It is the creed of Thomas Paine, who said, “ To do good is my religion.” It is the Ethical Religion. Men go to that religion by many steps These steps are God ; the B ible; Allah; the Koran , Brahma; the Vedas of the Hindus. By these steps men try to climb to the good life—that is to say, to what is true and to what is brotherly. The religious man is the man who tries to think what is true and do what is fair. If he believes in God, he will believe in God because he thinks God will teach him to be true and fair. That to him is God’s value. It is only that which gives God a value. Without that, God is of no value even to an infant. On the other hand, if a man seeks after the true and the just, it is of no account whether he believes in God or not. He has the pearl of great price. He has the value of which the belief in God is only one of many tokens. There are many men who say, Lord, L o r d ; Hut they are not religious. A man may be learned in the things of the Church, and speak, like an eloquent angel, of the secrets of the palace of God;'but, if he is not true in his thought and fair in his dealing, he is an outcast from true religion. He may carry all the charters of heaven in his bag, but, if he will not do honest deeds, true religion knows him not. On the other hand, a man like

CHARLES DARWIN,

who said no prayers, and declared in plain English that he was an Agnostic, was really a follower of the Ethical Religion He understood the way of life. He had entered the kingdom of righteousness by the same little wicket-gate which Christian passed in his Pilgrim’s Progress.

move. Day after day he watched as eagerly as a man pays court to a maid. He fastened delicate threads of glass to the leaves and stems and flowers ; he watched the motions of the glass threads, and mapped out their course on paper diagrams. In his book we see these maps. They showhow, in twenty-four hours, a flower went this way and that way, to right or left, up, down, according as the sunlight led it, or the shadows passed over it, or the air changed in its environment. What wonderful loyalty, what quiet obedience, what meek waiting upon facts! It was like a Jew keeping the law of his fathers, as if God would be angry unless every tithe w-as paid, every dish cleaned, every prayer uttered, every Sabbath kept. That is the test of religion—discipline ; obedience ;

MORAL PURPOSE.

That was the same essential religion in the Jew and in Darwin. The Jew thought to be great by doing every jot and tittle of the law of Moses. The Jew was splendidly sincere. Darwin was great in the study of the little facts of nature. To twist a fact, to hide a fact, to misinterpret a fact was sin. This also was splendid sincerity ; this also was religion.

In the year i860 Darwin was spending an idle hour in the fields—if, indeed, such a mind ever could be idle—and he noticed how a number of insects were entrapped in the leaves of a certain plant, the Drosera. He carried specimens of the Drosera home. He searched into the habits of the plant until he unravelled the mystery. The plant secreted in its vessels an acid which dissolved and digested the insects which were caught by the deadly leaves. The Drosera plant was a tomb, and the plant drew nourishment from the insects that it slew. For fifteen years Darwin continued his experiments, and in 1875 he published a work on Insectivorous P lan ts, which showed how the Drosera in the meadow built up its life on the death of the insects trapped in its leaves. It was a tragedy of nature. Darwin passed on in his search, never stopping because he met with tragic facts. He that worships truth must be ready to look with calmness at all things—life, death, sorrow, or pleasure.

Darwin gave himself, body and soul, to the service of truth. But what is truth ? Is it only the study of God, or the study of other men’s thoughts and beliefs about God ? Or is it the study of books ? Darwin worshipped truth in the midst of animals and plants. How did animals and plants come to be what they are? What are the forces that act in them ? What are the forces that act on them ? These were the questions he tried to solve. Now, the old way of solving these questions was to ask what the Bible said, or what the Pope said, or what a college said. Darwin onlyasked what the plants said, what the animals said, what the facts said. Owing to clerical education (another name for bad education), people thought it was more dignified to go to the Bible for truth, or to go to a university, than it was to go to the animals, the plants, the rocks. To go to an archbishop—that was ideal, spiritual. To go to-plants and animals__that was common, unclean, materialistic! Whereas nothing is common or unclean which gives us more light and knowledge. Darwin had the courage to resist the pressure of public prejudice. He acted as Jesus Christ acted. Tesus protested against the creed which put all religion into prayer and the Temple. Jesus, on the contrary, went among publicans and sinners in order to plan out the Kingdom of Justice. And so Darwin put aside libraries, dogmas, churches, and priesthoods; and he startled the world by worshipping truth in the midst of pigeons, rabbits, worms; in gardens and woods; on moors and hill-sides. That is the highest genius—a genius that can stoop to the lowest in order to find the highest. You can always tell the finest natures by that mark. They are patient with things that are low. They see that low things may be sublime. In a mere pebble they see a glory like a star. In some simple man or woman they see majesty of soul and character.

Darwin wrote a book on the Power o f Movement in P lants. He tells us how he watched the plants in his nursery year after year. He watched the leaves move, and the stems move, and the petals move, and the fibres of the roots

There is the same patient service of truth in Darwin’s study of worms. This man, who first unrolled the history of the human race, did not despise the lowly worm. He wrote a book on Vegetable Mould and Earth-worm s. Here we see Darwin kneeling on the damp earth to watch the worms come and go in and out of their burrows. He counts the leaves they eat. He tests their power of hearing. He even plays the piano to them by way of experiment ! And the point of all his labours is this : he wants to find out their relation to the soil and what amount of earth passes through their bodies. And he discovers the great

MIRACLE OF THE WORM

(for the facts of every-day life are the only true miracles). Darwin discovers that the worm eats up and throws out again the vast plains of Russia, of America, of India. These vast plains, which give us our harvests and our bread, have all passed, atom by atom, through the bowels of worms. In one acre of land the worms, in the course of one year, will pass ten tons of dry earth through their bodies At the end of this book—this Bible of the Worm—Darwin looks out over a wide plain, and thus he writes :—

“ It is a marvellous reflection that the whole of the superficial mould over any such expanse has passed, and will pass again every few years, through the bodies of worms. The plough is one of the most ancient and most valuable of man’s inventions ; but long before he existed the land was, in fact, regularly ploughed, and still continues to be ploughed, by earth worms. It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world as have these lowlyorganized creatures.” That was Darwin’s reverence. That was his insight. He gave the worm a place and a rank amid the powers that make the globe and rule the destiny of nations.

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