I went to the city for a turn on the Promenade. In the evening we
played kings again, but the game isn't sufficiently interesting. We
played like amateurs. For all that I had a good time and laughed
heartily.

G---- came and--I no longer remember in what connection--said that
human beings are degenerate monkeys. He is a little fellow who gets
his ideas from Uncle N----.

"Then," I said to him, "you don't believe in God?" He: "I can
believe only what I understand."

Oh, the horrid fool! All the boys who are beginning to grow
moustaches think like that. They are simpletons who believe that
women cannot reason and understand. They regard them as dolls who
talk without knowing what they are saying. With a patronising manner
they let them go on. He has doubtless read some book he did not
understand, whose passages he recites. He proves that God could not
create because at the poles bones and frozen plants have been found.
Then these lived, and now there are none.

I say nothing against that. But was not our earth convulsed by
various revolutions before the creation of man? We do not take
literally the statement that God created the world in six days. The
elements were formed during ages and ages. But can we deny God when
we look at the sky, the trees, and men themselves? Would we not say
that there is a hand which directs, punishes, and rewards--the hand
of God?