“Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed.” (James 5:16)
“It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution.”
Oscar Wilde
Charles Darwin begins his famous On the Origin of Species with a confession. After relating some details of his early journey on the H.M.S. Beagle, he explains that questions he asked during his trip accumulated into “a sketch of the conclusions” that he now presents in this volume (95). He writes, “I hope that I may be excused for entering on these personal details, as I give them to show that I have not been hasty in coming to a decision” (95).