From C. Darwin, Esq.
Down: June 4.
Sir Joseph Fayrer supplied me with cobra poison. It is very precious, but I have no doubt that by explaining your motive he would give you a little, and your best plan of applying would be through Lauder Brunton.
Your letter has made me as proud and conceited as ten peacocks. I am inclined to think that writing against the bigots about vivisection is as hopeless as stemming a torrent with a reed. Frank, who has just come here, and who speaks with indignation on the subject, takes an opposite line, and perhaps he is right; anyhow he had the best of an argument with me on the subject. By the way, I think Frank has made a fine discovery, but I won't say what, for fear it should break down. It seems to me the Physiologists are now in the position of a persecuted religious sect, and they must grin and bear the persecution, however cruel and unjust, as well as they can.
I shall be very glad to hear what you think about Häckel; perhaps I have shamefully misrepresented him. About the other subject (never mentioned to a human being) I shall be glad to hear, but I fear that I am a wretched bigot on the subject.[12]
Yours very sincerely,
Charles Darwin.
The rest has done me much good. We return on the 10th. My daughter is certainly better a good deal, but not up to her former poor standard.
From G. J. Romanes to C. Darwin, Esq.
Dunskaith, Nigg, Ross-shire: June 11.
We had a good laugh over some parts of your letter. I have not, as yet, had time to read any of Häckel's book.
I am delighted to hear about the discovery, and hope, if it turns out well, to have my stimulated curiosity satisfied with regard to it. If it is as interesting as the observations about the seeds, people will think Frank a very lucky fellow to hook so many good fish in such a short time.
Not having heard his arguments about the article-writing, I am still strongly of your opinion, and, being besides ill able to afford any time just now, I shall not bother with it. When I think that in this one county (Ross, and still more in Cromarty) there are more rabbits expressly bred every year for trapping than could be vivisected in all the physiological laboratories in Europe during the next thousand years, it seems hopeless to reason with people who, knowing such facts, expend all their energies in straining at a wonderfully small gnat, while swallowing, as an article of daily food, such an enormously large camel.
From C. Darwin, Esq.
Down: August 10.
Dear Romanes,—When I wrote yesterday, I had not received to-day's 'Nature,' and I thought that your lecture was finished. This final part is one of the grandest essays which I ever read.
It was very foolish of me to demur to your lines of conveyance like the threads in muslin, knowing how you have considered the subject, but still I must confess I cannot feel quite easy. Every one, I suppose, thinks on what he has himself seen, and with Drosera, a bit of meat put on any one gland on the disc causes all the surrounding tentacles to bend to this point; and here there can hardly be differentiated lines of conveyance. It seems to me that the tentacles probably bend to that point whence a molecular wave strikes them, which passes through the cellular tissue with equal ease in all directions in this particular case. But what a fine case that of the Aurelia is!
Forgive me for bothering you with another note.
Yours very sincerely,
C. Darwin.
From G. J. Romanes to C. Darwin, Esq.
Dunskaith, Ross-shire, N.B.: August 13, 1877.
I thought you had given me quite enough praise in your first letter, but am not on that account the less pleased at the high compliment you pay me in the second one. The ending up was what the people at the Institution[13] seemed to like best.
Pray do not think that I have yet made up my mind about the 'muslin.' On the contrary, the more I work at the tissues of Aurelia the more puzzled I become, so that I am thankful for all criticisms. If Aurelia stood alone, I should be inclined to take your view, and attribute blocking of contractile waves in spiral strips, &c., to some accidental strain previously suffered by the tissue at the area of blocking. But the fact that in Tiaropsis the polypite is so quick and precise in localising a needle prick, seems to show that here there must be something more definite in the way of conducting tissue than in Drosera, although I confess it is most astonishing how precise the localising function, as described by you, is in the latter. In 'Nature' I did not express my doubts, but it was because I feared there may yet turn out to be a skeleton in the cupboard that I kept all these more or less fishy deductions out of the R.S. papers. Further work may perhaps make the matter more certain one way or another. Possibly the microscope may show something, and so I have asked Schäfer to come down, who, as I know from experience, is what spiritualists call 'a sensitive'—I mean he can see ghosts of things where other people can't. But still, if he can make out anything in the jelly of Aurelia, I shall confess it to be the best case of clairvoyance I ever knew.
I am very glad you have drawn my attention prominently to the localising function in Drosera, as it is very likely I have been too keen in my scent after nerves; and I believe it is chiefly by comparing lines of work that in such novel phenomena truth is to be got at. And this reminds me of an observation which I think ought to be made on some of the excitable plants. It is a fact not generally known, even to professed physiologists, that if you pass a constant current through an excised muscle two or three times successively in the same direction, the responses to make and break become much more feeble than at first, so that unless you began with a strong current for the first of the series, you have to strengthen it for the third or fourth of the series in order to procure a contraction. But on now reversing the direction of the current, the muscle is tremendously excitable for the first stimulation, less so for the second, and so on. Now this rapidly exhausting effect of passing the current successively in the same direction, and the wonderful effect of reversing it, point, I believe, to something very fundamental in the constitution of muscular tissue. The complementary effects in question are quite as decided in the jelly-fish as in frog's muscle; so I think it would be very interesting to try the experiment on the contractile tissues of plants. But there are so many things to write about that I am afraid of 'bothering you,' and this with much more reason that you can have to be afraid of 'bothering' me.
Aurelia is, as you say, 'a fine case,' and I often wish you could see the experiments.
Very sincerely and most respectfully yours,
Geo. J. Romanes.
The leading Physiologists felt the importance of co-operation and of alliance, and a society entitled the Physiological Society was formed of which Mr. Romanes and Professor Gerald Yeo were the first honorary secretaries.
In 1876 Mr. Romanes made his first appearance at the British Association; he recounts his experiences in the following letter.
To Miss C. E. Romanes.
British Association, Glasgow: Monday, 1876.
My dearest Puffin,—I have received all your letters, and had a good laugh over them; it is evident that I must get back soon to pilot the way. We shall indeed have a jolly time.
I have just got out from the section room, and my work is over. I had a splendid audience both as to number and quality.
When I had finished, all the great guns had their say, Professor Häckel leading off with a tremendous eulogium on the work, laying special stress on the great difficulty of conducting an inquiry of the kind, and complimenting me highly on the success obtained. Sanderson then made a long speech, and then Stirling and Balfour, &c.
The latter stated it as his opinion that my investigation is the most important that has as yet been conducted in any department of invertebrate physiology. The discussion was then cut short by the president to leave time for the other papers, my own exposition having taken so long. I replied briefly.
Shortly after this, Mr. Romanes delivered a lecture on the Evidences of Organic Evolution, which he reprinted in the 'Fortnightly,' and afterwards worked up into a little book called 'The Scientific Evidences of Organic Evolution.' About this lecture Mr. Darwin wrote:—
Down.
My dear Romanes,—I have just finished your lecture. It is an admirable scientific argument and most powerful. I wish that it could be sown broadcast throughout the land. Your courage is marvellous, and I wonder that you were not stoned on the spot. And in Scotland! Do please tell me how it was received in the Lecture Hall. About man being made like a monkey (p. 37) is quite new to me; and the argument in an earlier place on the law of parsimony admirably put. Yes, p. 21 is new to me. All strikes me as very clear, and considering small space you have chosen your lines of reasoning excellently.
But I am tired, so good night!
C. Darwin.
The few last pages are awfully powerful in my opinion.
Sunday Morning.—The above was written last night in an enthusiasm of the moment, and now this dark, dismal Sunday morning I fully agree with what I said.
I am very sorry to hear about the failure in the graft experiments, and not from your own fault or ill-luck. Trollope, in one of his novels, gives us a maxim of constant use by a brick-maker, 'It is dogged as does it!' and I have often and often thought this is the motto for every scientific worker. I am sure it is yours if you do not give up Pangenesis with wicked imprecations. By the way, G. Jäger has just brought out in 'Kosmos' a chemical sort of Pangenesis, bearing chiefly on inheritance.
I cannot conceive why I have not offered my garden for your experiments. I would attend to the plants, as far as mere care goes, with pleasure, but Down is an awkward place to reach.
C. D.
(Would it be worth while to try if the 'Fortnightly' would publish it?)
To this Mr. Romanes replied:
18 Cornwall Terrace: Dec. 2, 1877.
It was most kind of you to write me such a long and glowing letter. In one way it is a good thing that all the world are not so big-hearted as yourself—it would make young men awfully conceited. Yet I value your opinion more than the opinion of anybody, because in other things I have always found your judgment more deep and sound than anybody's. However, I will go to Huxley next Saturday for an antidote, as it is quite true what he said about himself at Cambridge, that he is not given to making panegyrics.
On the whole, as I have said, I was surprised how well it was taken. And still more so in Yorkshire last week—where I was lecturing at Leeds and Halifax on Medusæ, and took occasion to wind up about you and your degree. I was perfectly astonished at the reception you got among such popular audiences. What a change you have lived to see! If ever human being had a right to cry 'Vici'—but you know it all better than I do.
About the grafts, I thought it most natural that you should not like the bother of having them done at Down, when there are such a multitude of other gardens belonging to do-nothing people. But as you have mentioned it, I may suggest that in the case of onions there is a difficulty in all the gardens I know—viz., that they are more or less infested with onion worms. If, therefore, you should know any part of your garden where onions have not grown for some years, I might do the grafts here in pots, and bring the promising ones to plant out at Down in May. Seed could then be saved in the following autumn. All the other plants could be grown in the other gardens, and well attended to.
That is a very interesting letter in 'Nature.' What do you think of Dr. Sanderson's paper in the same number, as to its philosophy and expression? I have sent a letter about animal psychology which I think will interest you.
With kind regards to all, I remain, very sincerely and most respectfully (this is a bow which I specially reserve for you, and would make it lower, but for the fear of making myself ridiculous),
Geo. J. Romanes.
P.S.—I fear Mr. Morley would think my lecture too long, and not original enough for the 'Fortnightly.'[14]
Early in the year 1878, a great sorrow fell on the Romanes family. The elder of the two sisters, Georgina, died in April, and to her brother, her junior by two or three years, her loss was very great. She was a brilliant musician, and had done much to prevent her young brother from becoming too entirely absorbed in science, and in keeping alive in him the passionate love for music which was always one of his characteristics.
They went much together to concerts, and the house was the centre of a good deal of musical society. Among the many musicians who came and went may be mentioned Gounod. He had a great admiration and liking for Miss Romanes, and used to make her sing to him. And also there was Dr. Joachim who with characteristic kindness came in the last days of Georgina's life and played, as only he can play, to her.
From G. J. Romanes to C. Darwin, Esq.
18 Cornwall Terrace: April 10, 1878.
Many thanks for your kind expressions of sympathy. When the sad event occurred I had some thoughts of sending you an announcement; but as you had scarcely ever seen my sister, I afterwards felt that you might think it superfluous in me to let you know.
The blow is indeed felt by us to be one of dire severity, the more so because we only had about a fortnight's warning of its advent. My sister did not pass through much suffering, but there was something painfully pathetic about her death, not only because she was so young and had always been so strong, but also because the ties of affection by which she was bound to us, and we to her, were more than ordinarily tender. And when in her delirium she reverted to the time when our positions were reversed, and when by weeks and months of arduous heroism she saved my life by constant nursing—upon my word it was unbearable.[15] The blank which her death has created in our small family is very distressing. She always used to be so proud of my work that I feel that half the pleasure of working will now be gone—but I do not know why I am running on like this. Of course it will give me every pleasure to go to Down before leaving for Scotland. If you have no preference about time, I suppose it would be best to go when you return home in May, as the onions might possibly be then ready for grafting. Unless, therefore, I hear from you to the contrary, I shall write again some time between the middle and end of May.
Then came a second appearance at the British Association. Mr. Romanes was asked to deliver one of the evening lectures at the meeting of 1878, which took place at Dublin.
The subject was animal intelligence, and seems to have excited a good deal of attention. The following letters relate to the lecture and to his book on Animal Intelligence:
To C. Darwin, Esq.
18 Cornwall Terrace, Regent's Park, N.W.: June 18.
Very many thanks for your permission to use your observations, as well as for the additional information which you have supplied. If all the manuscript chapter on instinct is of the same quality as the enclosed portion, it must be very valuable. Time will prevent me from treating very fully of instinct in my lecture, but when I come to write the book for the International Science Series on Comparative Psychology, I shall try to say all that I can on instinct. Your letter, therefore, induces me to say that I hope your notes will be published somewhere before my book comes out (i.e. within a year or so), or, if you have no intention of publishing the notes, that you would, as you say, let me read the manuscript, as the references, &c., would be much more important for the purposes of the book than for those of the lecture. But, of course, I should not ask to publish your work in my book, unless you have no intention of publishing it yourself. I do not know why you have kept it so long unpublished, and your having offered me the manuscript for preparing my lecture makes me think that you might not object to lending it me for preparing my book. But please understand that I only think this on the supposition that, from its unsuitable length, isolated character, or other reason, you do not see your way to publishing the chapter yourself.
From C. Darwin, Esq.
Down: June 19.
My dear Romanes,—You are quite welcome to have my longer chapter on instinct. It was abstracted for the Origin. I have never had time to work it up in a state fit for publication, and it is so much more interesting to observe than to write. It is very unlikely that I should ever find time to prepare my several long chapters for publication, as the material collected since the publication of the Origin has been so enormous. But I have sometimes thought that when incapacitated for observing, I would look over my manuscripts, and see whether any deserved publication. You are, therefore, heartily welcome to use it, and should you desire to do so at any time, inform me and it shall be sent.
Yours very sincerely,
Charles Darwin.
From G. J. Romanes to C. Darwin, Esq.
18 Cornwall Terrace: June 21, 1878.
I am of course very glad to hear that you have no objection to letting me have the benefit of consulting your notes.
Most observers are in a frantic hurry to publish their work, but what you say about your own feelings seems to me very characteristic. Like the bees, you ought to have some one to take the honey, when you make it to give to the world—not, however, that I want to play the part of a thieving wasp. I will send you my manuscript about instinct (or the proofs when out), and you can strike out anything that you would rather publish yourself.
I shall not be able to begin my book till after the jelly-fish season is over. This will be in September or October; but I will let you know when I want to read up about instinct.
With very many thanks, I remain, yours very sincerely and most respectfully,
Geo. J. Romanes.
The Palace, Dublin: August 17, 1878.
Your letter and enclosure about the geese arrived the day after I left Dunskaith, but have been forwarded here, which accounts for my delay in answering, for I only arrived in Dublin a few days ago.
I am sorry to hear about the onions, and can only quote the beatitude which is particularly applicable to a worker in science, Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, for he shall not be disappointed.
But I am still more sorry to hear of your feeling knocked up. I meet your son here, who tells me about you.
Yesterday was the evening of my big lecture, and I send you a copy as well as a newspaper account. (The latter was in type before delivery, and so no 'applauses,' &c. are put in.) The thing was a most enormous success, far surpassing my utmost expectations. I had a number of jokes which do not appear in the printed lecture, and I never saw an audience laugh so much. The applause also was really extraordinary, especially at some places, and most of all at the mention of your name at the grand finale. In fact, it was here tremendous, and a most impressive sight to see such a multitude of people so enthusiastic. I expected an outburst, but the loud and long-continued cheering beat anything that ever I heard before. I do not know whether your son was there, but if so he will tell you.
Hooker, Huxley, Allen, and Sir W. Thomson, Flower, D. Galton, and a lot of other good men were present, and had nothing but praise to give, Captain Galton going so far as to say that it was the most successful lecture he had ever heard. So I am quite conceited.
Ever your devoted worshipper,
Geo. J. Romanes.
From C. Darwin, Esq.
August 20, 1878.
My dear Romanes,—I am most heartily glad that your lecture (just received and read) has been so eminently successful. You have indeed passed a most magnificent eulogium on me, and I wonder that you were not afraid of hearing 'Oh! oh!' or some other sign of disapprobation. Many persons think that what I have done in science has been much overrated, and I very often think so myself; but my comfort is that I have never consciously done anything to gain applause. Enough and too much about my dear self. The sole fault that I find with your lecture is that it is too short, and this is a rare fault. It strikes me as admirably clear and interesting. I meant to have remonstrated that you had not discussed sufficiently the necessity of signs for the formation of abstract ideas of any complexity, and then I came on to the discussion on deaf mutes. This latter seems to me one of the richest of all the mines, and is worth working carefully for years and very deeply. I should like to read whole chapters on this one head, and others on the minds of the higher idiots. Nothing can be better, as it seems to me, than your several lines or sources of evidence, and the manner in which you have arranged the whole subject. Your book will assuredly be worth years of hard labour, and stick to your subject. By the way, I was pleased at your discussing the selection of varying instincts or mental tendencies, for I have often been disappointed by no one ever having noticed this notion.
I have just finished La Psychologie, son présent et son avenir, 1876, by Delbœuf (a mathematician and physicist of Belgium), in about one hundred pages; it has interested me a good deal, but why I hardly know; it is rather like Herbert Spencer; if you do not know it, and would care to see it, send me a post-card.
Thank Heaven we return home on Thursday, and I shall be able to go on with my humdrum work, and that makes me forget my daily discomfort.
Have you ever thought of keeping a young monkey,[16] so as to observe its mind? At a house where we have been staying there were Sir A. and Lady Hobhouse, not long ago returned from India, and she and he kept three young monkeys, and told me some curious particulars. One was that the monkey was very fond of looking through her eyeglass at objects, and moved the glass nearer and further so as to vary the focus. This struck me, as Frank's son, nearly two years old (and we think much of his intellect!), is very fond of looking through my pocket lens, and I have quite in vain endeavoured to teach him not to put the glass close down on the object, but he will always do so. Therefore I conclude that a child just under two years is inferior in intellect to a monkey.
Once again I heartily congratulate you on your well-earned present and I feel assured grand future success.
Yours very truly,
Ch. Darwin.
P.S. 28th.—Can you spare time to come down here any day this week, except Saturday, to dine and sleep here? We should be very glad indeed if you can come. If so, I would suggest your leaving Charing Cross by the 4.12 train, and we would send a carriage to Orpington to meet you, and send you back next morning. In this case let us have a line fixing your day. It will be dull for you, for none of my sons except Frank are at home.
The extraordinary modesty, the absolute simplicity, the fatherly kindness, which breathe in this letter, cannot but give some idea of what Mr. Darwin was and why he was so much loved.
Dunskaith, Ross-shire: August 29, 1878.
My dear Mr. Darwin,—I only returned here yesterday and found your letter awaiting me.
Your letter has made me as proud as Punch, and as you have such a good opinion of the line of work, I think I shall adopt your plan of working up the subject well before I publish the book. The greatest difficulty I had in writing the lecture was to make it short enough, but it will be splendid to be able to spread oneself over the whole subject in a book. I was at one time in doubt whether it would be better to spend time over this subject or over something more purely physiological, but of late I had begun to incline towards the former, and your opinion has now settled mine.
I have not previously heard of the book by the Belgian physicist, and should much like to read it. I have already such a number of your books that I fear you must sometimes miss them; but I can return any of them at a minute's notice.
I had thought of keeping a monkey and teaching its young ideas how to shoot, and wrote to Frank Buckland for his advice as to the best kind to get, but he has never answered my letter. The case about the lens is a capital one.
I have such a host of letters to answer, which have accumulated during my absence, that I must make this a short one. Your 'congratulations' are of more value to me than any of the others, and I thank you for them much.
Ever your devoted disciple,
Geo. J. Romanes.
P.S.—Science is not a world where a man need trouble himself about getting more credit than is due.
From C. Darwin.
Down: Sept. 2, 1878.
My dear Romanes,—Many thanks for your letter. I am delighted to hear that you mean to work the comparative psychology well. I thought your letter to the 'Times' very good indeed. Bartlett, at the Zoological Gardens, I feel sure, would advise you infinitely better about hardiness, intellect, price, &c., of monkeys than F. Buckland, but with him it must be vivâ voce.
Frank says you ought to keep an idiot, a deaf mute, a monkey, and a baby in your house!
Ever yours sincerely,
Ch. Darwin.
Dunskaith, Ross-shire, N.B.: Sept. 10, 1878.
My dear Mr. Darwin,—Having been away for a week's deer-stalking in the hills, I have only to-day received your letter together with the book. Thank you very much for both, and also for the hints about Espinas and Bartlett. I am glad you thought well of the letter to the 'Times.' In a book I shall be able to make more evident what I mean.
Frank's idea of 'a happy family' is a very good one; but I think my mother would begin to wish that my scientific inquiries had taken some other direction.
The baby too, I fear, would stand a poor chance of showing itself the fittest in the struggle for existence.
I am now going to write my concluding paper on Medusæ, also to try some experiments on luminosity of marine animals.
Ever sincerely and most respectfully yours,
Geo. J. Romanes.
In addition to other scientific and purely philosophical work, Mr. Romanes had, even while writing his Burney Prize, entered on that period of conflict between faith and scepticism which grew more and more strenuous, more painful, as the years went on, which never really ceased until within a few weeks of his death, and which was destined to end in a chastened, a purified, and a victorious faith. His was a religious nature, keenly alive to religious emotion, profoundly influenced by Christian ideals, by Christian modes of thought. As time went on he felt, like all philosophically minded men, the impossibility of a purely materialistic position, and as he pondered on the final, ultimate mysteries, on[17] 'God, Immortality, Duty,' he arrived very slowly, very painfully, but very surely, at the Christian position.
But these years were, to him and to many, years of peculiar and of extraordinary difficulty. Roughly speaking, the time between 1860 and 1880 was a time of great perplexity to those who wished to adhere to the faith of Christendom.
It is impossible to exaggerate the influence which Mr. Darwin's great work has had on every department of science, of literature, and also of art. Thirty-six years have passed away since the publication of the 'Origin of Species,' and we have lived to see that again tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis. Now we see that a man can fully accept the doctrine of evolution, and yet can also believe in a personal God and in the doctrines which logically follow on such a belief. But it was not so at first. To many on both sides the new teaching seemed to threaten destruction to Theism, at least to Theism as understood either by Newman or by Martineau.
Again, in philosophy Herbert Spencer seemed to many to have constructed a lasting system of philosophy, a system sufficient to account for all things in heaven, in earth, and under the earth. And German criticism seemed to many to be rapidly destroying the credibility of the early documents of Christianity.
Many a noble soul made shipwreck of its faith, nor is this disaster wonderful. For popular theology had made many unwise, many untenable claims, and the ground had to be cleared before the battle could be fought out on its real issues. There were some who, amidst all the strife of tongues, kept their heads, remembered bygone storms, and did not lose their courage, their whole-heartedness, but they were few, and were not over much heard or heeded.[18] For the most part, those on the Christian side adopted the line taken by the Bishop of Oxford in his review of Mr. Darwin's 'Origin of Species' in the 'Quarterly Review,' and in his famous speech at Oxford during the British Association of 1860.
Certainly the outlook now is more encouraging than it was twenty years ago.
It has been well and eloquently said by one than whom none is more qualified to speak on this subject:[19] 'It is quite certain that this scientific obstacle has been, in the main, removed. In part, it has been through the theologians abandoning false claims, and learning, if somewhat unwillingly, that they have no "Bible revelation" in matters of science; in part, it has been through its becoming continually more apparent, that the limits of scientific "explanation" of nature are soon reached; that the ultimate causes, forces, conditions of nature are as unexplained as ever, or rather postulate as ever for their explanation a Divine mind. Thus, if one "argument from design" was destroyed, another was only brought into prominence. No account which science can give, by discovery or conjecture, of the method of creation, can ever weaken the argument which lies from the universality of law, order, and beauty in the universe to the universality of mind. The mind of man looks forth into nature, and finds nowhere unintelligible chance, but everywhere an order, a system, a law, a beauty, which corresponds, as greater to less, to his own rational and spiritual intuitions, methods, and expectations. Universal order, intelligibility, beauty, mean that something akin to the human spirit, something of which the human spirit is an offshoot and a reflection, is in the universe before it is in man.
'Or, again, a prolonged period of controversy and reflection has resulted in making it fairly apparent that no scientific doctrine or conjecture about the dim origins of the spiritual life of man can affect the argument from its development and persistence. It has developed and persisted, as one of the most prominent features of human life, solely on the postulate of God. And is it not out of analogy with all that science teaches us to imagine that so important, continuous, and universal a development of human faculty could have arisen and persisted unless it were in correspondence with reality?
'In fact we may almost say that the obstacles to belief on the side of science were gone when once it was admitted that God Who has revealed to us His nature and ours, and made this revelation in part through an historical process and in the literature of a nation, has yet, and for obvious reasons, given us no revelation at all on matters which fall within the domain of scientific research.
'A similar removal of obstacles must be claimed in the region of historical criticism. There, again, it has become apparent that, whatever turns out true about this or that Old Testament narrative, no question really vital to the Christian religion can be said to be at stake in this field; while in the region of the New Testament the most sifting criticism has had a result emphatically reassuring. The critical evidence justifies, or more than justifies, the belief of the Church which is expressed in her Creeds.'
But this has been a hard-won fight for most—
'Friends, companions, and train
The avalanche swept from our side,'[20]
and no one felt the strain, the positive agony of soul, in greater degree than did George Romanes. Step by step he abandoned the position he had maintained in his Burney Prize, with no great pauses, rather, as it seems, with startling rapidity, and with sad and with reluctant backward glances he took up a position of agnosticism, for a time almost of materialism. He wrote a book, published in 1876, which was entitled 'A Candid Examination of Theism.' It is almost needless to discuss the work, as it has been dealt with by its author in his posthumous 'Thoughts on Religion.' It is an able piece of work, and is marked throughout by a lofty spirit, a profound sadness, and a belief (which years after he criticised sharply) in the exclusive light of the scientific method in the Court of Reason.
His education had been on strictly scientific lines, and the limitations of thought produced by such education are clearly seen in that essay; 'limitations' which the philosophical and the metaphysical tendencies of his mind soon led him to overstep.
The reaction against the conclusions of the essay set in far sooner than has been at all suspected. Perhaps the first published mark of reaction is the Rede Lecture[21] of 1885.
Yet anyone who reads carefully the conclusion of the 'Candid Examination'[22] will see the note of 'longing and thirsting for God.'
There are many who abandon belief for various reasons, and who in various methods stifle regret and call in stoicism to their aid. There are those who really care very little about the 'ultimate problems,' and who find the world of sense quite enough to occupy them. And there are souls who seem to be constantly crying out in their darkness for light, the burden of whose cry seems to be: 'Fecisti nos ad te, Domine, et inquietum est cor nostrum donec requiescat in te.' These last have within them the capacity for holiness, the capacity for a real and tremendous power to witness for the truth, to do and to suffer pro causa Dei. To this class George Romanes belonged. By nature he was deeply and truly religious, and interested and absorbed as he was in science, it is no exaggeration to say he was just as keenly interested in theology, that is to say, in the deepest and ultimate problems of theology. By the questions which divide Christians he was not greatly attracted, and he never could see any reason for the bitterness which exists between e.g. Roman and Anglican.
This is anticipating. In 1878 he had touched the very depths of scepticism, and he would have rejected the idea of a possibility of return, and would have rejected it in terms of unmeasured regret.
A letter from Mr. Darwin is interesting.
Down: December 5, 1878.
My dear Romanes,—I am much pleased to send my photograph to the future Mrs. Romanes.
I have read your anonymous book—some parts twice over—with very great interest; it seems admirably, and here and there very eloquently written, but from not understanding metaphysical terms I could not always follow you. For the sake of outsiders, if there is another edition, could you make it clear what is the difference between treating a subject under a 'scientific,' 'logical,' 'symbolical,' and 'formal' point of views or manner? With regard to your great leading idea, I should like sometimes to hear from you verbally (for to answer would be too long for letters) what you would say if a theologian addressed you as follows:
'I grant you the attraction of gravity, persistence of force (or conservation of energy), and one kind of matter, though the latter is an immense admission; but I maintain that God must have given such attributes to this force, independently of its persistence, that under certain conditions it develops or changes into light, heat, electricity, galvanism, perhaps even life.
'You cannot prove that force (which physicists define as that which causes motion) would inevitably thus change its character under the above conditions. Again I maintain that matter, though it may in the future be eternal, was created by God with the most marvellous affinities, leading to complex definite compounds and with polarities leading to beautiful crystals, &c. &c. You cannot prove that matter would necessarily possess these attributes. Therefore you have no right to say that you have "demonstrated" that all natural laws necessarily follow from gravity, the persistence of force, and existence of matter. If you say that nebulous matter existed aboriginally and from eternity with all its present complex powers in a potential state, you seem to me to beg the whole question.'
Please observe it is not I, but a theologian who has thus addressed you, but I could not answer him. In your present 'idiotic' state of mind, you will wish me at the devil for bothering you.[23]
Yours very sincerely,
Ch. Darwin.
18 Cornwall Terrace, Regent's Park: Sunday, Dec. 1878.
My dear Mr. Darwin,—Many thanks for your portrait—not only from myself but also from the 'future Mrs. Romanes.'
I am glad that you think well of the literary style of the book on Theism. As regards the remarks of the supposed theologian, I have no doubt that he is entitled to them. The only question is whether I have been successful in making out that all natural cases must reasonably be supposed to follow from the conservation of energy. If so, as the transmutations of energy from heat to electricity &c. all take place in accordance with law, and as the phenomena of polarity in crystals &c. do the same, it follows that neither these nor any other class of phenomena afford any better evidence of Deity than do any other class of phenomena. Therefore, if all laws follow from the persistence of force, the question of Deity or no Deity would simply become the question as to whether force requires to be created or is self-existent. And if we say it is created, the fact of self-existence still requires to be met in the Creator.
Of course it may be denied that all laws do follow from the persistence of force. And this is what I mean by the distinction between a scientific and a logical proof. For in the last resort all scientific proof goes upon the assumption that energy is permanent, so that if from this assumption all natural laws and processes admit of being deduced, it follows that for a scientific cosmology no further assumption is required; all the phenomena of Nature receive their last or ultimate scientific explanation in this the most ultimate of scientific hypotheses. But now logic may come in and say, 'This hypothesis of the persistence of force is no doubt verified and found constantly true within the range of science (i.e. experience), so that thus far it is not only an hypothesis but a fact. But before logic can consent to allow this ultimate fact of science to be made the ultimate basis of all cosmology, I must be shown that it is ultimate, not merely in relation to human modes of research, but also in a sense absolute to all else.'
But the more I think about the whole thing the more am I convinced that you put it into a nutshell when you were here, and that there is about as much use in trying to illuminate the subject with the light of intellect as there would be in trying to illuminate the midnight sky with a candle. I intend, therefore, to drop it, and to take the advice of the poet, 'Believe it not, regret it not, but wait it out, O Man.'
G. J. R.
I return the papers, having taken down the references. The books I shall return when read, but honey-mooning may prolong the time.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Robert, the second son, died in childhood.
[2] Dr. Brydon resided on a small but beautiful property overlooking the Cromarty Firth, and, after his death, Dr. Romanes rented the place from its owners, who were distant cousins of Mrs. Romanes, in order that 'George might have some shooting.'
[3] His younger sister records an odd experience of hers. At the time of her brother's accident she was travelling in Spain with her father and sister, and one day was taken suddenly ill, became slightly delirious, and expressed great anxiety on George's account. Afterwards, on comparing notes, it was found that the time of his accident coincided with that of her illness.
[4] Mr. Cautley writes: 'I have never seen Romanes, under the greatest provocation, out of temper. Always gentle, always kind, never overbearing ... never forgetful of friends.'
[5] Prof. E. R. Lankester in Nature, May 1894.
[6] But he also communicated a paper to the Royal Society entitled, 'The Influence of Injury on the Excitability of Motor Nerves.' Of this paper Professor Burdon Sanderson says that the observations were made with great care, and that the new facts recorded have been fully confirmed by later observers. This work was done at Cambridge.
[7] The following extract from 'An Examination of Weismannism,' pp. 2, 3, will possibly explain the theory of Pangenesis, which assumes:
1. That all the component cells of a multicellular organism throw off inconceivably minute germs, or 'gemmules,' which are then dispersed throughout the whole system.
2. That these gemmules, when so dispersed and supplied with proper nutriment, multiply by self-division, and, under suitable conditions, are capable of developing into physiological cells like those from which they were originally and severally derived.
3. That, while still in this gemmular condition, these cell-seeds have for one another a mutual affinity, which leads to their being collected from all parts of the system by the reproductive glands of the organism; and that, when so collected, they go to constitute the essential material of the sexual elements—ova and spermatozoa being thus aggregated packets of gemmules, which have emanated from all the cells of all the tissues of the organism.
4. That the development of a new organism out of the fusion of two such packets of gemmules is due to a summation of all the developments of some of the gemmules which these two packets contain.
5. That a large proportional number of the gemmules in each packet, however, fail to develop, and are then transmitted in a dormant state to future generations, in any of which they may be developed subsequently, thus giving rise to the phenomena of reversion or atavism.
6. That in all cases the development of gemmules into the form of their parent cells depends on their suitable union with other partially developed gemmules which precede them in the regular course of growth.
7. That gemmules are thrown off by all physiological cells, not only during the adult state of the organism, but during all stages of its development. Or, in other words, that the production of these cell-seeds depends upon the adult condition of parent cells, not upon that of the multicellular organism as a whole.
[8] The experiments in graft-hybridisation were to prove that formative material (or gemmules) was actually present in the general tissues of plants and was capable of uniting with the gemmules of another plant and thus of reproducing the entire organism. For if the hybrid, afterwards produced, presents equally the characters of the scion and the stock, then formative material must have been present in the tissues of the scion, and it is demonstrated that the somatic tissues of the scion have exercised an effect on the germinal elements of the stock, inasmuch as it has caused their offspring in part to resemble it. Such facts Romanes considered to be fully in harmony with the theory of Pangenesis, and inconsistent with any theory which supposes that no part of the parent organism generates any of the formative material.
[9] To the Royal Society.
[10] For the Suppression of Vivisection.
[11] Mr. Grant Allen.
[12] Spiritualism.
[13] He had just lectured at the Royal Institution.
[14] It was subsequently published in the Fortnightly.
[15] He refers to the attack of typhoid fever in 1873.
[16] Mr. Romanes carried out this suggestion, or rather his sister, Miss C. E. Romanes, did; she kept a monkey for observation for several months, as is recorded at p. 484 of 'Animal Intelligence.'
[17] Cf. F. Myers's 'Essay on George Eliot,' Modern Essays, p. 269.
[18] Cf. 'Life and Letters of Dean Church,' p. 154.
[19] 'Buying up the Opportunity,' a sermon by the Rev. C. Gore, preached before the University of Oxford, and published by the S.P.C.K.
[20] 'Rugby Chapel', M. Arnold.
[21] Now republished in a book called 'Mind and Motion.'
[22] And forasmuch as I am far from being able to agree with those who affirm that the twilight doctrine of the 'new faith' is a desirable substitute for the waning splendour of 'the old,' I am not ashamed to confess that with this virtual negation of God the universe to me has lost its soul of loveliness; and although from henceforth the precept to 'work while it is day' will doubtless but gain an intensified force from the terribly intensified meaning of the words that 'the night cometh when no man can work,' yet when at times I think, as think at times I must, of the appalling contrast between the hallowed glory of that creed which once was mine, and the lonely mystery of existence as now I find it, at such times I shall ever feel it impossible to avoid the sharpest pang of which my nature is susceptible. For whether it be due to my intelligence not being sufficiently advanced to meet the requirements of the age, or whether it be due to the memory of those sacred associations which to me at least were the sweetest that life has given, I cannot but feel that for me, and for others who think as I do, there is a dreadful truth in those words of Hamilton, philosophy having become a meditation not merely of death but of annihilation, the precept know thyself has become transformed into the terrific oracle to Œdipus—
'Mayest thou ne'er know the truth of what thou art.'
[23] He was engaged to be married.