ns fully,--nor indeed can they be answered.
Science has nothing to do with Christ, except in so far as the habit of
scientific research makes a man cautious in admitting evidence. For
myself, I do not believe that there ever has been any revelation. As for
a future life, every man must judge for himself between conflicting
vague probabilities....

During these two years [October 1836 to January 1839] I was led to think
much about religion.

Whilst on board the Beagle I was quite orthodox, and I remember being
heartily laughed at by several of the officers (though themselves
orthodox) for quoting the Bible as an unanswerable authority on some
point of morality. I suppose it was the novelty of the argument that
amused them. But I had gradually come by this time--_i.e._ 1836 to
1839--to see that the Old Testament was no more to be trusted than the
sacred books of the Hindoos. The question then continually rose before
my mind and would not be banished,--is it credible that if God were now
to make a revelation to the Hindoos, he would permit it to be connected
with the belief in Vishnu, Siva, etc., as Christianity is connected with
the Old Testament? This appeared to me utterly incredible.

By further reflecting that the clearest evidence would be requisite to
make any sane man believe in the miracles by which Christianity is
supported,--and that the more we know of the fixed laws of nature the
more incredible do miracles become,--that the men at that time were
ignorant and credulous to a degree almost incomprehensible by us,--that
the Gospels cannot be proved to have been written simultaneously with
the events,--that they differ in many important details, far too
important, as it seemed to me, to be admitted as the usual inaccuracies
of eye-witnesses;--by such reflections as these, which I give not as
having the least novelty or value, but as they influenced me,--I
gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation. The
fact that many false religions have spread over large portions of the
earth like wild-fire had some weight with me.

But I was very unwilling to give up my belief; I feel sure of this, for
I can well remember often and often inventing day-dreams of old letters
between distinguished Romans, and manuscripts being discovered at
Pompeii or elsewhere, which confirmed in the most striking manner all
that was written in the Gospels. But I found it more and more difficult,
with free scope given