Darwin on religion

From The Descent of Man, Chapter 3: “There is no evidence that man was aboriginally endowed with the ennobling belief in the existence of an Omnipotent God. On the contrary there is ample evidence, derived not from hasty travelers, but from men who have long resided with savages, that numerous races have existed, and still exist, who have no idea of one or more gods, and who have no words in their languages to express such an idea. The question is of course wholly distinct from that higher one, whether there exists a Creator and Ruler of the universe; and this has been answered in the affirmative by some of the highest intellects that have ever existed.”

At first blush this may suggest that Darwin believed in God, however I think one must read it quite another way. Darwin is in fact quite careful not to say that he believes in God, but merely that “some of the highest intellects that have ever existed” stated that God exists. This statement is of course true, but is only of historical validity. Darwin himself does not affirm that God exists, nor that he believes it.

He goes on to write, “Nor is it difficult to comprehend how it [belief in spiritual beings or religion] arose. As soon as the important faculties of the imagination, wonder, and curiosity, together with some power of reasoning, had become partially developed, man would naturally crave to understand what was passing around him, and would have vaguely speculated on his own existence. As Mr. M’Lennan has remarked, ‘Some explanation of the phenomena of life, a man must feign for himself, and to judge from the universality of it, the simplest hypothesis, and the first to occur to men, seems to have been that natural phenomena are ascribable to the presence in animals, plants, and things, and in the force of nature, of such spirits prompting to action as men are conscious they themselves possess.’”

In other words, man explains that which he doesn’t understand by ascribing to these phenomenon spiritual or mental life. As Feuerbach noted, man is not created in the image of god, but god in the image of man. Of course once we begin to understand these things scientifically, the religious or spiritual interpretation is no longer necessary.

Darwin continues a bit further on: “The belief in spirtutal agencies would easily pass into the belief in the existence of one or more gods. For savages would naturally attribute to spirits the same passions, the same love of vengeance or simplest form of justice, and the same affection which they themselves feel.”

Further, “The feeling of religious devotion is a highly complex one, consisting of love, complete submission to an exalted and mysterious superior, a strong sense of dependence, fear, reverence, gratitude, hope for the future, and perhaps other elements. No being could experience so complex an emotion until advanced in his intellectual and moral faculties to at least a moderately high level. Nevertheless, we see some approach to this state of mind in the deep love of a dog for his master…”

In case one missed it, Darwin is here comparing the belief in God with the devotion of a dog for his master.

Continuing, “Professor Braubach goes so far as to maintain that a dog looks on his master as on a god. The same high mental faculties which first led man to believe in unseen spiritual agencies, then in fetishism, polytheism, and ultimately in monotheism, would infallibly lead him, as long as his reasoning powers remained poorly developed, to various strange superstitions and customs,” such as human sacrifices and witchcraft. “[I]t is well to occasionally reflect on these superstitions, for they shew us what an infinite debt of gratitude we owe to the improvement of our reason, to science, and to our accumulated knowledge….These miserable and indirect consequences of our highest faculties may be compared with the incidental and occasional mistakes of the instincts of the lower animals.”

I find very little to disagree with in this analysis, though certainly more could be said about the sociology of religion. While Darwin is careful here to draw a line between the higher forms of religion and backward superstitions, the line he draws is actually quite fuzzy. He properly places monotheism along the continuum of various kinds of superstition, and he clearly indicates that reason and science undermine these superstitions.