In My Simplicity, I Remember Wondering Why

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... I Gradually Came To Disbelieve In Christianity As A Divine Revelation.

It Is Certain That There May Be Extraordinary Mental Activity With An Extremely Small Absolute Mass Of Nervous Matter: Thus The Wonderfully Diversified Instincts, Mental Powers, And Affections Of Ants Are Notorious, Yet Their Cerebral Ganglia Are Not So Large As The Quarter Of A Small Pin's Head. Under This Point Of View, The Brain Of An Ant Is One Of The Most Marvelous Atoms Of Matter In The World, Perhaps More So Than The Brain Of A Man.

So Great Is The Economy Of Nature, That Most Flowers Which Are Fertilised By Crepuscular Or Nocturnal Insects Emit Their Odour Chiefly Or Exclusively In The Evening.

I Think It Inevitably Follows, That As New Species In The Course Of Time Are Formed Through Natural Selection, Others Will Become Rarer And Rarer, And Finally Extinct. The Forms Which Stand In Closest Competition With Those Undergoing Modification And Improvement Will Naturally Suffer Most.

About Weak Points [of The Origin] I Agree. The Eye To This Day Gives Me A Cold Shudder, But When I Think Of The Fine Known Gradations, My Reason Tells Me I Ought To Conquer The Cold Shudder.