My life : a record of events and opinions - Wallace-online.org

120 MY LIFEin my then frame of mind it seemed equally conclusiveto me, and helped to complete the destructionof whatever religious beliefs still lingered in my mind.It was not till many years afterwards that I sawreason to doubt this whole argument, and to perceivethat it was based upon pure assumptions which werenot in accordance with admitted historical facts.My brother never went to church himself, but forthe first few years I was with him he sent me onceevery Sunday ;but, of course, the only effect of thiswas to deepen my spirit of scepticism, as I found noattempt inany of the clergymen to reason on any ofthe fundamental questions at the root of the Christianand every other religion. Many of our acquaintanceswere either church- or chapel-goers, but usually as amatter of form and convention, and, on the whole,religion seemed to have no influence whatever ontheir conduct or conversation. The majority, especiallyof the younger men, were either professors of religionwho thought or cared nothing about it, or were opensceptics and scorners.In addition to these influences my growing tastefor various branches of physical science and my increasinglove of nature disinclined me more and morefor either the observances or the doctrines of orthodoxreligion, so that by the time I came of age I wasabsolutely non-religious, I cared and thought nothingabout it, and could be best described by the modernterm " agnostic."The next four years of my life were also of greatimportance both in determining the direction of myactivity, and in laying the foundation for my study ofspecial subjects through which I have obtained mostadmiration or notoriety. These will form the subjectof the following chapter.