(February 12, 1809–April 19, 1882), was a British naturalist. He propounded the evolutionary theory of origins. In his work, Origin of Species, 1859, Charles Darwin wrote:
To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.2382
May we not believe that a living optical instrument might thus be formed as superior to one of glass, as the works of the Creator are to those of man?2383
Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory.2384
For I am well aware that scarcely a single point is discussed in this volume on which facts cannot be adduced, often apparently leading to conclusions directly opposite to those at which I arrived.2385
There is a grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one.2386
Lady Hope, born Elizabeth Reic Cotton (1842–1922), who married widower retired Admiral Sir James Hope in 1877, writes of a conversation she had with Charles Darwin shrotly before his death. She was engaged in tent evangelism and is verified to have visited the sick and elderly in Kent in the 1880’s. In 1922, she died of cancer in Sydney, Australia, where her tomb may still be seen. Darwin’s biographer, James Moore, lecturer in the history of science and technology at The Open University in the United Kingdom, concluded that Lady Hope most likely visited Charles between Wednesday, September 28 and Sunday October 2, 1881, when his children, Francis and Henrietta were not present. Moore agrees that her report does contain authentic details, though the summer house referred to would have difficulty accommodating 30 people, and that Darwin’s family members are inimical to any conversion reports. The account of her conversation with Darwin was reprinted August 19, 1915, in The Watchman Examinter (Boston:American Baptist Journal), in the Christian Witness (147 Commonwealth St., Sydney, Australia) and the Christian Reader’s Digest, December 1941.
Reflecting on his work near the end of his life, Charles Darwin expressed:
I was a young man with unformed ideas. I threw out queries, suggestions, wondering all the time over everything; and to my astonishment the ideas took like wildfire. People made a religion of them.2387
Being bedridden many months before his death, Darwin was often found reading. When the visitor asked what it was he was studying, he replied:
Hebrews, still Hebrews. “The Royal Book,” I call it.2388
After speaking on “the holiness of God” and “the grandeur of this Book,”2389 Darwin is reported to have stated:
Christ Jesus and his salvation. Is not that the best theme?2390