to my imagination, to invent evidence which would
suffice to convince me. Thus disbelief crept over me at a very slow
rate, but was at last complete. The rate was so slow that I felt no
distress.

Although I did not think much about the existence of a personal God
until a considerably later period of my life, I will here give the vague
conclusions to which I have been driven. The old argument from design in
Nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me so conclusive,
fails, now that the law of natural selection has been discovered. We can
no longer argue that for instance the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell
must have been made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by
man. There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic
beings, and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which
the wind blows. But I have discussed this subject at the end of my book
on the 'Variations of Domesticated Animals and Plants'; and the argument
there given has never, as far as I can see, been answered.

But passing over the endless beautiful adaptations which we everywhere
meet with, it may be asked, How can the generally beneficent arrangement
of the world be accounted for? Some writers indeed are so much impressed
with the amount of suffering in the world, that they doubt, if we look
to all sentient beings, whether there is more of misery or of happiness;
whether the world as a whole is a good or bad one. According to my
judgment happiness decidedly prevails, though this would be very
difficult to prove. If the truth of this conclusion be granted, it
harmonizes well with the effects which we might expect from natural
selection. If all the individuals of any species were habitually to
suffer to an extreme degree, they would neglect to propagate their kind;
but we have no reason to believe that this has ever, or at least often,
occurred. Some other considerations moreover lead to the belief that all
sentient beings have been formed so as to enjoy, as a general rule,
happiness.

Every one who believes as I do, that all the corporeal and mental organs
(excepting those which are neither advantageous nor disadvantageous to
the possessor) of all beings have been developed through natural
selection, or the survival of the fittest, together with use or habit,
will admit that these organs have been formed so that their possessors
may compete successfully with other beings, and thus increase in numbe