ion, it is clear,
is still conceived as something to be KNOWN, a matter of true or
false OPINION. Orthodox religion was to Darwin a series of erroneous
hypotheses to be bit by bit discarded when shown to be untenable. The
ACTS of religion which may result from such convictions, i.e. devotion
in all its forms, prayer, praise, sacraments, are left unmentioned.
It is clear that they are not, as now to us, sociological survivals
of great interest and importance, but rather matters too private, too
personal, for discussion.

Huxley, writing in the "Contemporary Review" (1871.), says, "In a dozen
years "The Origin of Species" has worked as complete a revolution in
biological science as the "Principia" did in astronomy." It has done
so because, in the words of Helmholtz, it contained "an essentially
new creative thought," that of the continuity of life, the absence of
breaks. In the two most conservative subjects, Religion and Classics,
this creative ferment was slow indeed to work. Darwin himself felt
strongly "that a man should not publish on a subject to which he has
not given special and continuous thought," and hence wrote little on
religion and with manifest reluctance, though, as already seen, in
answer to pertinacious inquiry he gave an outline of his own views. But
none the less he foresaw that his doctrine must have, for the history
of man's mental evolution, issues wider than those with which he was
prepared personally to deal. He writes, in "The Origin of Species"
(6th edition, page 428.), "In the future I see open fields for far
more important researches. Psychology will be securely based on
the foundation already well laid by Mr Herbert Spencer, that of the
necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation."

Nowhere, it is true, does Darwin definitely say that he regarded
religion as a set of phenomena, the development of which may be studied
from the psychological standpoint. Rather we infer from his PIETY--in
the beautiful Roman sense--towards tradition and association, that
religion was to him in some way sacrosanct. But it is delightful to see
how his heart went out towards the new method in religious study which
he had himself, if half-unconsciously, inaugurated. Writing in 1871 to
Dr Tylor, on the publication of his "Primitive Culture", he says ("Life
and Letters", Vol. III. page 151.), "It is wonderful how you trace
animism from the lower races up the religious belief of the highest
r