by Mike Gray
“[Charles] Darwin was clearly a very troubled man and suffered from severe emotional problems for most of his adult life, especially when he was in the prime of life. The exact cause of his mental and many physical problems has been much debated and may never be known for certain. Since Darwin wrote extensively about his mental and physical problems, we have much material on which to base a reasonable conclusion about this area of his life. The diagnosis of the cause of his mental and physical problems includes a variety of debilitating conditions, but agoraphobia with the addition of psychoneurosis is most probably correct. Unfortunately, most writers have shied away from this topic, partly because Darwin is now idolized by many scientists and others.” — Jerry Bergman, Ph.D., ICR
It has been well documented that Charles Darwin was a chronically ill man. The only questions are from what did he suffer and why.
Differing somewhat from Bergman’s assessment, Russell Grigg at CMI believes the roots of Darwin’s ailments were psychogenic in origin, induced by cognitive dissonance resulting from the implications of his anti-theistic theory:
Psychologically there can be little doubt that Charles Darwin suffered from feelings of guilt. These undoubtedly arose from his desire to escape from God and from the force of [William] Paley’s arguments about design in his Natural Theology. That is, Darwin’s theory of natural selection was his attempt to explain design without the need for an intelligent Designer. Professor Stephen Jay Gould of Harvard University concurs; he believes that ‘Darwin constructed the theory of natural selection in large measure as a direct refutation of the argument from design.’