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The Examination and the Return
1895 · 360 pages
The Examination and the Return
by George John Romanes
Why our edition. In the free scan at least 1 word in 210 is garbled. Ours corrects the damage. The full text is public domain and free — linked below.
On this page: a summary of The Examination and the Return, and our clean edition as a PDF or EPUB.
This edition sets both ends of one remarkable intellectual journey side by side: A Candid Examination of Theism (1878), the rigorous case for scientific agnosticism the young Romanes published anonymously as “Physicus,” and Thoughts on Religion (1895), the private notes — edited after his death by Charles Gore — in which a first-rank scientific mind audits its own unbelief and moves, deliberately, back toward Christian faith. A leading evolutionary biologist and friend of Darwin, Romanes argued God out of the reach of reason and then spent his last years reasoning his way home. Read together, the two works form a single arc, in his own words: the case against belief, and the return to it.
The changed life
As a young man Romanes made the leading Victorian scientific case against belief; these two works, read in sequence, record how the same rigorous mind reasoned its way back toward Christian faith before his death.
Darwin’s colleague, reasoning his way back
If you’re looking for a scientist who converted to Christianity, George John Romanes is the most striking Victorian case: an evolutionary biologist, Darwin’s friend and protégé, who as a young man published A Candid Examination of Theism — the period’s most respected scientific case for agnosticism — and whose posthumous Thoughts on Religion (1895) records the deliberate, unfinished journey back.
It is not a tidy conversion tract but a first-rank scientific mind auditing its own unbelief — here in a clean, readable edition, with the original linked free.
Summary
The Examination and the Return brings together two works by George John Romanes that, read in sequence, trace a single arc from unbelief back toward faith. Book One is A Candid Examination of Theism (1878), the rigorous case for scientific agnosticism Romanes first published anonymously as “Physicus.” Book Two is Thoughts on Religion (1895), the posthumous notes in which the same mind reconsiders that earlier position. Together they form one of the Victorian age’s rare firsthand records of a leading man of science moving back toward Christian belief.
Thoughts on Religion (1895) gathers the private notes and unfinished reflections that George John Romanes left at his death, edited for publication by Charles Gore. Romanes had made his name as a naturalist in the circle around Charles Darwin, and as a younger man had published a much-discussed defense of scientific agnosticism. These later papers show the same mind turning its scrutiny on that earlier position.
The notes proceed carefully rather than dramatically. Romanes weighs the limits of what science can settle about religion, the reasons he had once given for withholding belief, and the considerations that had begun to draw him back toward Christian faith. Because the material is fragmentary and posthumous, it preserves the texture of a thinker still working — arguing with himself, qualifying, and reaching rather than concluding.
For readers interested in the meeting of Victorian science and faith, the book is unusual: not a polished apologetic but the working papers of a serious scientist reconsidering the ground he had staked out. It stands as one of the era’s rare firsthand records of a leading man of science moving back toward belief.
Who was George John Romanes?
George John Romanes (1848–1894) was a Canadian-born British evolutionary biologist and physiologist, and one of the younger naturalists closely associated with Charles Darwin in Darwin’s final years. He is remembered in the history of science for his work on comparative psychology and animal intelligence and for his contributions to evolutionary theory.
As a young man Romanes published an influential argument for agnosticism, and his religious views shifted across his life. The reflections collected in Thoughts on Religion, edited after his death by the theologian Charles Gore, are the chief record of his later reconsideration of Christianity and the reason his name recurs in accounts of Victorian science and faith.
Which edition of The Examination and the Return is this?
Our public-domain edition presents Romanes’s text in a clean, readable modern format with clear type, and we link to a free source as well.
Common questions
- Who was George John Romanes?
- He was a British evolutionary biologist of the later nineteenth century, closely associated with Charles Darwin, and known for his work on animal intelligence and comparative psychology. Earlier in life he had defended scientific agnosticism.
- Did Romanes return to Christian faith?
- The posthumous notes in Thoughts on Religion, edited by Charles Gore, trace his late reconsideration of the agnosticism he had once defended and his movement back toward Christian belief. Because they are unfinished and were published after his death, they record a journey in progress rather than a tidy final statement.
- Did any scientists of Darwin’s circle return to Christianity?
- George John Romanes is the outstanding case: Darwin’s friend and protégé, author of the era’s leading scientific case for agnosticism, whose posthumous Thoughts on Religion records his reasoned journey back toward Christian faith before his death in 1894.
- What is Thoughts on Religion?
- Notes and essays Romanes left at his death, published in 1895 by his friend Charles Gore, in which the biologist re-examines his youthful case for agnosticism and reasons his way toward faith — candid, rigorous, and unfinished.
Answers a question people ask
George John Romanes’s words are quoted in our answers to:
A note on the text. The Examination and the Return is in the public domain. What you’re buying is our edition: the careful typesetting and correction. The original text is also available free here.
That free text is already well proofread — we measure about 0.8 errors per 1,000 characters. What our edition adds is the typesetting, not a rescue: one clean file, in the formats above, without the archive boilerplate.
Related reading
The same reversal, 130 years earlier
Observations on the History and Evidences of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ
Gilbert West · 1747
West set out in 1747 to write the book that would dispose of the resurrection, and published the opposite conclusion — the eighteenth century’s version of the argument Romanes ended up having with himself.
A skeptic who changed his mind
Who Moved the Stone?
Frank Morison · 1930
Morison set out to write the book that would put the resurrection to rest and found he could not — the same shape of reversal, and the same refusal to pretend the evidence had gone the other way.
On the same shelf
Transformed; or, The History of a River Thief
Jerry McAuley · 1876
Also listed in Christian Conversion Stories.
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