Note 7 — Chapter V · IRRECONCILABLE DIFFICULTIES CONNECTED WITH EVOLUTION
Reading edition
In a recently-published letter,7 written by Charles Kingsley to a correspondent, we read: “My own belief in the general truth of my friend Darwin’s views—which deepen day by day as I verify them—has only given me wider and deeper and nobler notions of God’s works in the material universe.” He then proceeds to illustrate his own thoughts by a charming little story of a certain old heathen Khan, who was delighted with the idea of a God so wise that he made all things make themselves. This old Khan and Charles Kingsley overlook an objection which to myself, and to many others, seems quite insuperable—namely, that a God so wise and merciful would have seen his way to prevent that frightful wastefulness and cruelty which is part and parcel of the evolutionary process. But more of this difficulty anon.