The Project Gutenberg eBook of The life and letters of George John Romanes, by George John Romanes

To Miss C. E. Romanes.

Aix-les-Bains: May 1886.

The Linnean Society paper went off admirably. There was a larger attendance than ever I saw there before. But this may have been partly due to the president (Lubbock) having had a paper down for the same evening. He was considerate enough to withdraw it at the last moment so as to leave all the evening for mine. I spoke for an hour and a half, and the discussion lasted another hour. The paper itself I have brought with me here, and am now putting the last touches upon it.

Probably I shall have to try the rat experiment again, if the young ones show no signs of piebalding. But look at them occasionally to see.

There would be no use in getting the parrot to make a gesture sign at the same time as he makes a verbal one; for, as you say, he would only show that he can establish an association between a phrase and a thing (whether object, quality, or action), and about this there is no question. The question is whether he can use verbal signs, not only as stereotyped in phrases (when they are really equivalent to only one word), but as movable types, which he can transpose for the purpose of expressing different ideas with the same words.

He writes concerning a Junior Scientific Society which had a meeting to discuss his theory:

'The meeting was the best fun imaginable, the paper was merely a statement of my theory by a young man who made it very clear. —— got up and expressed disapproval of the theory, but expressly declined to argue, so I had merely to give him some chaff. The young men highly enjoyed it. Afterwards they were enthusiastic in their applause.

'I have no doubt, if I had not been present, the class would have had a very different impression both of me and my theory.'

To Professor Meldola.

Geanies: September 16, 1886.

Dear Professor Meldola,—Physiological selection seems to have brought a regular nest of hornets about my head. If I had known there was to have been so much talk about it at the British Association I should have gone up to defend the new-born. If you were there, can you let me know the main objections that were urged? It seems to me there is a good deal of misunderstanding abroad, due, no doubt, to the insufficiency with which my theory has been stated. In 'studying' the paper, therefore, please keep steadily in view that the backbone of the whole consists in regarding mutual sterility as the cause (or at least, the chief condition) instead of the result of specific differentiation. This is just the opposite view to that now held by all evolutionists, and, I believe, by Darwin himself. (See 'Origin,' pp. 245-246; 'Variation,' ii. pp. 171-175.) Now, if this view be sound, my theory is obviously not restricted to any one class of causes that may induce mutual sterility. Such cases may be either extrinsic or intrinsic as regards the reproductive system; they may be either direct in their action on that system or indirect (e.g. natural selection, or use and disuse, &c., producing morphological changes elsewhere, which in turn react on that system); therefore these causes may act either on a few or on many individuals. Yet Wallace does not seem to see this, but argues in the 'Fortnightly' that they can only act on an individual here and there.

I sincerely hope you will give your attention to the subject, because the great danger I now fear is prejudice against the theory on account of people not taking the trouble to understand it. How absurd ——, for example, giving that quotation from 'Origin' in 'Nature,' as evidence of Mr. Darwin's having considered the theory. Read with its context, the passage is arguing (much against the writer's desire) that variations in the way of sterility with parent forms cannot be seized upon (or perpetuated as specific distinctions) by natural selection. But physiological selection says that such variations do not require to be seized upon by natural selection. Therefore, so far as the passage in question proves anything, it tends to show that nothing could have been further from the mind of the writer than a theory which would have rendered his whole argument superfluous, and I can scarcely believe that if the theory of physiological selection had ever occurred to him, he would not have mentioned it, if only to state his objections to it, as he has done with regard to so many ideas of a much less feasible character.

I write at length because I value your judgment more than that of almost anybody else upon a subject of this kind, and therefore I should like it to be given with your eyes open. Prejudice at first there must be, but there need not be misunderstanding; and private correspondence shows me that the theory has already struck root in some of the best minds who do understand it. Any explanation, therefore, will be gladly given you by

Yours very truly,

Geo. J. Romanes.

To F. Darwin, Esq.

Geanies: November 5, 1886.

Dear Darwin,—I am much interested by the enclosed, and therefore much obliged to you for letting me see it. But it would have been made a better 'answer' if it had gone on to say something about the relation of such an experiment (supposing it successful) to the question of originating a species. Some weeks ago I was planning with a friend a closely analogous experiment, but designed to produce a 'family' which would be sterile towards the majority of the parent form, or not only towards one other 'family.' And it seemed to me that if this could be done it would amount to the artificial creation of a new species by conscious selection of a physiological kind.

But, as far as I can gather from the enclosed, the idea seems to be that of experimenting on the conditions leading to sterility; not that of regarding sterility, however conditional, as itself the condition of specific divergence. In other words, the passage seems to go upon the supposition that sterility is the result and not the cause of specific divergence. But if so, I do not see that it affects the question whether he ever contemplated the latter possibility.

I have just received Seebohm's British Association paper, which, except when it repeats Wallace's objection about the doctrine of chances, elsewhere curiously contradicts all the points in his criticism.

The editor of the 'Fortnightly' tells me that a further delay has arisen in bringing out my reply, on account of Wallace desiring to answer it. For my own part I think that all this fire of criticism at the present juncture is a mistake. As yet the theory is only a 'suggestion,' and, until tested, there can be no adequate data for forming a definite opinion.

Therefore I regret the published opposition—those who are in favour do not publish only because it may tend to choke off co-operation in carrying out the experiments; and it was for the sake of securing assistance in so laborious a research that I published the suggestion in outline.

I wonder who Catchpole is? His answer in 'Nature' to Wallace won't do.

Yours very truly,

Geo. J. Romanes.

18 Cornwall Terrace, Regent's Park, N.W.: January 7, 1887.

Dear Darwin,—Some time ago you write that I ought to read a book or paper by Jordan about varieties in relation to sterility. I cannot find any book or paper of his at the L.S. library which treats of this subject; could you give me the name of his essay?

I am making arrangements for trying whether there are any degrees of sterility to be found between well-marked and constant varieties of plants. But as I have never done anything in the way of hybridising, perhaps you would be good enough to let me know whether the enclosed plan of experimenting represents the full and proper way of going to work. I know that you do not believe in the object of it, but, even supposing it to be a wild goose chase, there would be no harm in your telling me the best way to run. Then, whether the results prove positive or negative, it will not be open for any one to doubt them on the ground of any fault in the method.

Do any objections occur to you re my answer to critics in the 'Nineteenth Century'? Of course I might have said more about the swamping effects of free intercrossing (which appears to me the only point in which I deviate at all from the 'Origin of Species'), but it is much too large a subject to be dealt with in a review. My greatest difficulty here is to conceive the possibility of differentiation (as distinguished from transmutation in linear series) without the assistance of isolation in some form or another.

Yours very truly,

Geo. J. Romanes.

Dear Darwin,—Criticism of an intelligent kind is what I feel most in need of, and therefore it is no merit on my part to like it when it comes.

The point about the combined action of natural and physiological selection is, after all, a very subordinate one, and, as I said in 'Nature' some weeks ago, is the most highly speculative and least trustworthy part of the theory. Moreover, it is the only part that is directly opposed to an expressed conclusion in the 'Origin,' though, even here, the opposition is not real. If natural selection can do anything at all in the way of bringing about sterility with parent forms, it can only do so by acting on the type or whole community (for I quite agree with the reasoning in the 'Origin,' that it cannot do so by acting on individuals); and whether natural selection could in any case act on a type is a question which your father has told me he could never quite make up his mind about, except in the case of social hymenoptera and moral sense of man.

You will see what I mean by 'secondary variations' by looking at page 366 of my paper. It is merely a short-hand expression for all other specific differences save the sexual difference of sterility. My view is that these secondary differences are always sure to arise sooner or later in some direction or another wherever a portion of a species is separated from the rest, whether by geographical or physiological isolation, which, indeed, as regards the former, is no more than you (following Weismann, &c.) acknowledge. Now, to me it seems obvious that Weismann's 'variations' (i.e. slight changes in the form of shells) cannot possibly be themselves my 'physiological sports,' although they may very well be the consequences of such a sport leading to physiological isolation, and so to independent variation in two or three directions simultaneously, till afterwards blended by intercrossing. And my reason for thinking this is that 'Weismann's variations' always arose in crops at enormously long intervals of time. On the mere doctrine of chances it therefore becomes impossible to suppose that each of these variations was due to a separate physiological sport, although it is easy to see how each crop of them might have been so. For, if not, why should they always have arisen in crops, each member of which was demonstrably fertile with the other members of that crop, while no less demonstrably sterile with the original parent form? Therefore, what I see in these facts is precisely what, upon my theory, I should expect to see, viz. first, a 'primary variation,' or 'physiological sport,' arising at long intervals; secondly, closely following upon this, a crop of 'secondary variations' in the way of slight morphological changes affecting two or three different 'strains' simultaneously; and thirdly, an eventual blending of these strains by intercrossing with one another without being able to intercross with the surrounding and (at first) very much more numerous parent form.

But I can now quite understand why you thought these facts were 'dead against' me; you thought that every single slight change of morphology must (on my theory) have had a separate 'physiological sport' to account for it. This, however, most emphatically is not my theory. Physiological isolation I regard as having morphological consequences precisely analogous to those of geographical isolation; and you would not think of arguing that there must be a separate geographical isolation for every slight change of structure—for example, that a peculiar species of plant growing on a mountain top must have had one isolation to explain its change of form, and another isolation to explain its change of colour.

Lastly, if you will look up Hilgendorf's paper about these snails of Steinheim, I think you will find it impossible to suppose that all these little changes (thus arising at long intervals in crops) can have been useful. Or, if you can still doubt, look up the closely analogous but much larger case of the ammonites investigated by Neumayr and Wurtenberger.

What I meant about the sexual system being specially liable to variation is, that it is specially liable to variation in the way of sterility. In other words, changed conditions of life more readily effect variations in the primary functions of the sexual system than they do in general morphology. But at the same time, I quite agree with your view that in the last resort all changes of structure may be regarded as due to variations of this system. And, as you will see by turning to pp. 371-72 of my paper, important capital is made out of this doctrine.

Now about making too much of the inutility of specific characters; if I do so, it is erring on the side of natural selection; for it clearly follows from this theory that, if there are any useless structures at all, they ought to occur with (greater?) frequency among species, where (as?) yet natural selection has not had time to remove them. But I cannot think I have here unduly favoured natural selection. For although there are not a few instances of apparently useless structures running through even an entire class (as the 'Origin' remarks), these are not only infinitely less numerous than apparently useless structures in species, but are also very much more rarely trivial.

Now the latter fact, coupled with that of the greatly wider range of their occurrence, appears to me intensely to strengthen 'the argument from ignorance,' i.e. to give us much more justification for believing that they are now, or once were, of use. For in the case of species, the 'once were' possibility is virtually excluded.

A propos to this point, I do not believe that anyone yet has half done justice to natural selection in respect of its action subsequent to the formation of species—at least, not expressly. But I must shut up.

I should greatly like to see Jordan's paper. Sir J. Hooker and Professor Oliver have sent me references to literature, but neither of them mention this.

Why my answer to Wallace has not appeared in this month's 'Fortnightly' I am at a loss to understand. The editor bullied me with letters and telegrams to have it ready in time, till I laid everything else aside, and sent him back the proof on the 15th.

This new theory roused the public interest (so far as the scientific public were concerned) and produced much criticism.

There is a scientific orthodoxy as well as a theological orthodoxy 'plus loyal que le roi,' and by the ultra-Darwinians. Mr. Romanes was regarded as being strongly tainted with heresy.

The 'Times' devoted a leader in August 1886 to the theory, and the president of Section D at the British Association at Bath in the same month also criticised it.

A sharp discussion took place in the columns of 'Nature,' and it is characteristic of those who took the chief part in this controversy that their friendly relations remained undisturbed. Mr. Wallace criticised the theory in the 'Fortnightly,' and Mr. Romanes wrote an article in the 'Nineteenth Century' describing his beliefs on the subject. This theory was very close to his heart, and perhaps no part of his work was left unfinished with more keen regret.

He planned a course of experiments on plants in an alpine garden which, through the kindness of M. Correvon, Professor of Botany at Geneva, he was able to begin on a plot of ground near Bourg St. Pierre, on the great St. Bernard.

Other work diverted him a good deal from this, but Mr. Romanes had always large plans of work, looking forward through a course of years.

There were some experiments on the power dogs possess of tracking by scent, in the autumn of 1886.

With this year came the appointment to a Lectureship in the University of Edinburgh on 'The Philosophy of Natural History.'[50] This lectureship Mr. Romanes held for five years, and he enjoyed the fortnight's residence in Edinburgh it involved, and the meetings with Edinburgh people. He gave to his class a course on the History of Biology, and then proceeded to take them through a course of lectures on the Evidences of Organic Evolution, on the theories of Lamarck, of Mr. Darwin himself, and on post-Darwinian theories. These lectures he worked up into the three years' course he gave as Fullerian Professor at the Royal Institution, with many additions and alterations. The substance of them now appears in 'Darwin and after Darwin,' parts i. and ii. A third volume was to have been devoted to Physiological Selection, and enough was prepared in the form of notes to justify publication.

At the end of 1886 there fell on the Romanes family a bitter sorrow. Of the Geanies 'brotherhood,' the brightest and merriest, a remarkably handsome, joyous girl, absolutely unselfish and sweet, most dearly loved and loving, was the first to die. Her death was a terrible sorrow not only to her own immediate circle of relations, but to the friends to whom she had been as a very dear sister. On Mr. Romanes this death, so sudden and so startling, made a deep and lasting impression. From this time more and more he turned in the direction of faith, and his feelings found an outlet in poetry more frequently and more effectually than before.

To Miss C. E. Romanes.

Edinburgh: Christmas Day, 1886.

My dearest Charlotte,—The time has come when it is some relief to write, but how shall I begin to tell the sadness of the saddest tragedy that has ever been put together? First the hours of fluctuating hope, and then the growing darkness of despair. She had previously asked whether Ethel and G. J.[51] had come down from London, and on being told that we were in the house was so glad. We were admitted at night, and only had to watch for three hours the peaceful breathing, slower, slower, slower, until the last. Oh, the unearthly beauty of that face! Nothing I have ever seen in flesh or in marble—nothing I could have ever conceived could approach it. But try to picture it as you knew it in life changed into something so yet more beautiful that it seemed no longer human, but the face of the angel that she was. Then in one room her little child, in another her mother, utterly broken by illness. For my own part I have never had a grief so great as this. Even in our sister's case there were elements of mitigation; but here absolutely none. Oh, it is bitter, bitter; so much of life's happiness emptied out and Edith, our own Edith, no longer here!

In memory of this friend Mr. Romanes wrote a little poem called 'To a Bust,' and from this a few lines are given.

There is one point to which the writer of this memoir would like to call attention.

Mr. Romanes was incapable of exaggeration, of writing for effect, of insincerity. What he wrote he felt, and his very simplicity and sweetness of character, his childlike trust in the sympathy of others, made him unreserved to his friends, to those whom he loved.

The Journal 1887, 1888, and 1889 is full of mention of pleasant dinners and meetings with interesting people. Young as Mr. Romanes was, he attained long before he died 'that which should accompany old age—honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,' and as one turns over the brief records of the Journal one is struck with the brightness of his outward life. He enjoyed constant pleasant intercourse with men and women differing widely in pursuits, in opinions, in social position; he was full of plans for work, work which led him into many different phases of intellectual life, and he had every year an admixture of country life and country pursuits, and the love for music and for poetry, which increased each year, kept him from growing too absorbed in science, from being at all one-sided. He used sometimes to say he had too many interests, but be that as it may, these interests gave him much enjoyment and made him the most delightful of companions.

A dear friend wrote of him after his death that 'In the home few men have been more surrounded by love, or have better deserved it,' and few men have been more loved by those outside his home. He had an unlimited capacity for loyal, true-hearted friendship. As one most truly said, 'Romanes was the most loyal of friends.'

There was something womanly in the tenderness which he felt for anyone in trouble of mind or body, and he was—what perhaps is even more rare—always ready to put aside his own work to help other people. He never grudged time or trouble to write letters or testimonials; he was always ready to go and see people who were sad or lonely; he was never too busy to be kind. He was intensely loved by those who served him, and few have been better served. There were very few changes in his household, and no one was ever more unwilling to give needless trouble, to find fault without cause, than he, or more ready to be really grateful for the ungrudging and loving and devoted service he received. 'You were the nicest master I ever served,' wrote a gamekeeper. 'To think I have lived for fifteen years with him and never heard a cross word,' was said the day he was taken from his home. In money matters he was generous and almost lavish in readiness to give and also to lend.

In Mr. Romanes there was a certain chivalrous temper which could be roused to strong indignation where it was encountered by injustice and oppression, and the following letter to the 'Times' is one of many such:

To the Editor of the 'Times.'

Sir,—On several previous occasions I have been instrumental in obtaining remission of grievous sentences at the police-courts by simply drawing attention in your correspondence columns to the cases as they appear in your police reports. Adopting this course, I think that the following, which appeared in your issue of the 29th ult., requires some explanation:

'At Wandsworth, James Clarke, aged 17, a weakly-looking lad, residing at Byegrove Road, Mitcham, was charged with stealing two turnips, value 3d., growing in a field belonging to Mr. H. Bunce, at Merton. The prosecutor having lost a quantity of produce, Police Constable Whitty was set to watch the property, and saw the prisoner pull the turnips and put them in his pocket. The accused said he had had nothing to eat all day, and being very hungry, he took the turnips! A previous conviction was proved against him for felony, and he was now committed by Mr. Denman for six weeks' hard labour.'

One would like to possess a good large field of turnips, where each turnip can be fairly valued at 1½d. But, taking this as the true value of the particular turnips in question, it appears that a starving man is now serving a week's hard labour for every half-penny's worth of the cheapest possible kind of food that he could steal. It is, of course, very right that he should have received some measure of punishment, if only as a warning to others in the neighbourhood; but the measure of punishment which he did receive seems, in the face of the matter, monstrous. We are not told what was the 'felony' for which this 'weakly-looking lad' was previously convicted; but, at any rate, we do know that on the present occasion his theft was not for any purpose of gain. It must have been, as he said, merely to alleviate the pains of hunger, for otherwise he would have carried some more capacious receptacle than either his pockets or his stomach. On the whole, therefore, I say—and say emphatically—this case demands some explanation.

I am, Sir, yours, &c.,

LL.D.

He was always ready to listen to what younger men (and women) had to say, to talk to them about his own subjects, his own work, to draw out their abilities, to discuss their difficulties. What Mr. Lionel Tollemache has written of Professor Owen is not less applicable to him:

'His innate modesty enabled him, when speaking upon his own subject, so to let himself down to the level of the ordinary listeners that they not only felt quite at their ease with him, but fancied for the moment that they were experts like himself.'

Journal, Jan. 1888.—Met Mr. Burne-Jones at the Humphry Wards', and had much interesting talk anent Rossetti. Burne-Jones said Rossetti was like an emperor; his voice was that of a king who could quell his subjects. Also that he had a wonderful memory for metre, but that Swinburne's is better still, inasmuch as he can remember prose. On one occasion Swinburne recited to Burne-Jones several pages of Milton's prose which he had read once twenty years previously. Burne-Jones went on to say that Rossetti worked a great deal at his poetry, and added, 'That's what you can do with words, worry them as much as you like, but you can't tease a picture.'

March 9.—Mr. Leslie Stephen lectured on Coleridge most admirably.

To Miss C. E. Romanes.

18 Cornwall Terrace: March 1, 1888.

My dearest Charlotte,—I find that neither of us wrote yesterday, so I have two of your letters to answer to-day.

You certainly seem to be having much the best time of it as regards weather. Every week and every day here is worse than the last—the month which has just ended having been the most savage February in the memory of living Londoners. You will have seen that poor Cotter Morison has not survived it. He died last Sunday, just too soon to see his son, who had been telegraphed home from India. He had a great desire to live long enough to have had this meeting, and it seems hard that when he struggled on so long and painfully at the end, that he should just have missed it.

For Mr. Morison Mr. Romanes had a great regard, and his death was a real sorrow.

Journal.—Sir F. Bramwell lectured on the 'Faults of the Decimal System,' calling it a lecture without a point. He was killingly amusing. Dinner at Sir H. Thompson's, met Mr. J. Froude, Hannen, and others.

We met the author of 'The New Antigone' the other night at the Lillys'. He reviewed 'Mental Evolution in Man' in a R.C. paper the other day; according to him it's the Gospel of Dirt! Last Sunday we went to hear Spurgeon; of his personal goodness there is no doubt.

May 14.—Stayed in Christ Church with the Pagets. G. had a most interesting talk with Aubrey Moore. [Mr. Romanes had already, at the Aristotelian Society, met Mr. Aubrey Moore.] Lunched on Sunday with the Max Müllers. He showed us a letter from Mr. Darwin most characteristic in its humility and sweetness.

May 20.—Very fine sermon from Mr. Scott-Holland on the Evidence of the Gospels. Tea at the Deanery, and G. had a little talk with the Dean.

There are frequent mentions now of Mr. Scott-Holland, whom Mr. Romanes often went to hear.

To Miss C. E. Romanes.

Cornwall Terrace: May 18, 1888.

My own book is certain to make a 'commotion,' if not among 'the angels' in heaven,[52] at least among 'the saints' upon earth. One of these same saints has been behaving outrageously in print, and everybody is full either of jubilation or indignation at what he has been writing about Darwin and Darwinism. F. Darwin asked me to do the replying, and to-day I am returning proof of an article for the 'Contemporary Review.'

I am ashamed to have been so long in writing, but the truth is that, notwithstanding having put down Finis to my M.S., other things occurred to me to add, which required recasting some of the chapters, and so I have been fighting against time, and am still.

It will not be long now before you have the children.

They are looking forward with great glee to Dunskaith; but you must take care that they do not make it too lively. I never saw such nice children myself, but James may find them over-noisy when they are particularly high-spirited. His godson is the most comical chap that ever was born. He has a passion for what he calls 'loaded matches,' i.e. matches unused, and so ready to 'go off.' Yesterday his fingers were found to be burnt. Asked as to the cause, he said he had lighted some loaded matches and held his fingers in the flames so as to see if he could 'keep back crying.' This he seems to have done to his own satisfaction, and now wants to prove his prowess in public. Little Ethel was found bathed in tears a few days ago in a room by herself, and the grief turned out to have been on account of the death of the Emperor.[53]

You ask how the lectures are 'going on.' They are 'going on' rather too well. Owing to Schäfer having been taken ill with bronchitis, I agreed to relieve him of some engagements he had entered into for giving lectures to a Highgate Institution. Consequently I had to give two lectures on Tuesday (in the afternoon at the Institution, and in the evening at Highgate), and another yesterday, besides attending Council meetings, &c. The Institution lectures give much more satisfaction than I anticipated, as I thought the historical character of this year's course would appeal but to a small number of people. But the audience keeps up to between one hundred and two hundred very steadily (usually one hundred and fifty), and is in part made up of outsiders. But I shall not be sorry when they are over, as it will leave me more time for better work.

I am sorry that there still continue to be so many ups and downs in your daily reports.[54] The case is, indeed, dreadfully tedious. How would you like me to run down to see you after my lectures are over?

I enclose a photo which has just come from a man who is photographing the Royal Society.

We are all well and flying about in all directions. Such a time for dinners and concerts and all manner of things; it is a wonder that we are living at all, as old Jean [55] used to say.

To J. Romanes, Esq.

March 15, 1889.

I am glad you think so well of what I write, for it often seems to me that, amid so many distractions and in so many directions, I work to very little purpose. The 'Guardian' reviewer [56] has written to me a private letter, from which it appears that he is a man I know very well. He is Aubrey Moore, of Oxford, and is considered one of the ablest men there. I enclose his letter, which I failed to send before.

It is indeed a change for you to like being nursed, and perhaps not altogether a bad one from the character point of view. The only 'explanation' I can give is that of the 'adaptation of the organism to changed conditions of life.'

About this time Mr. Romanes drew up a paper, which is given here, as it may interest some readers.

18 Cornwall Terrace, Regent's Park, London, N.W.

Dear Sir or Madam,—While engaged in collecting materials for a work on Human Psychology, I have been surprised to find the greatness of the differences which obtain between different races, and even between different individuals of the same race, concerning sentiments which attach to the thoughts of death. With the view, if possible, of ascertaining the causes of such differences, I am addressing a copy of the appended questions to a large number of representative and average individuals of both sexes, various nationalities, creeds, occupations, &c. It would oblige me if you would be kind enough to further the object of my inquiry by answering some or all of these questions, and adding any remarks that may occur to you as bearing upon the subject.

In order to save unnecessary trouble, I may explain that, in the event of your not caring to answer any of the questions, I shall not expect you to acknowledge this letter; and that, if you should reply, answers to many of the questions may be most briefly furnished by underlining the portion of each, which by its repetition would serve to convey your answer.

It is needless to add that the names of my correspondents will not be published.

I am yours very faithfully,

George J. Romanes.

(1) Do you regard the prospect of your own death (A) with indifference, (B) with dislike, (C) with dread, or (D) with inexpressible horror?

(2) If you entertain any fear of death at all, is the cause of it (A) prospect of bodily suffering only, (B) dread of the unknown, (C) idea of loneliness and separation from friends, or (D) in addition to all or any of these, a peculiar horror of an indescribable kind?

(3) Is the state of your belief with regard to a future life that of (A) virtual conviction that there is a future life, (B) suspended judgment inclining towards such belief, (C) suspended judgment inclining against such belief, or (D) virtual conviction that there is no such life?

(4) Is your religious belief, if any, (A) of a vivid order, or (B) without much practical influence on your life and conduct?

(5) Is your temperament naturally of (A) a courageous or (B) of a timid order as regards the prospect of bodily pain or mental distress?

(6) More generally, do you regard your own disposition as (A) strong, determined, and self-reliant; (B) nervous, shrinking, and despondent; or (C) medium in this respect?

(7) Should you say that in your character the intellectual or the emotional predominates? Does your intellect incline to abstract or concrete ways of thought? Is it theoretical, practical, or both? Are your emotions of the tender or heroic order, or both? Are your tastes in any way artistic, and, if so, in what way, and with what strength?

(8) What is your age or occupation? Can you trace any change in your feelings with regard to death as having taken place during the course of your life?

(9) If ever you have been in danger of death, what were the circumstances, and what your feelings?

(10) Remarks.

(Signature.)[57]

This communication well exemplifies the spirit in which Mr. Romanes approached the problems of animal faculty. He spent, indeed, much time and labour in collecting and classifying the observations and anecdotes which he published in 'Animal Intelligence'; but he lost no opportunities of observing and experimenting for himself. In this, as in other departments of inquiry, his constant effort was to be in direct and immediate touch with facts. His observations on his own dogs, especially those which he published in his article [58] on 'Fetishism in Animals,' wherein he describes the effects on a terrier of the apparent coming to life of a dry bone which the dog had been playing with, and to which a fine thread had been attached, and those which dealt with the power of tracking their master by scent,[59] further exemplify his careful methods and his resort, wherever possible, to experimental conditions. His observations, too, on the 'homing' of bees,[60] by which he showed that the insects find their way back to the hive through their experience of the topography and by knowledge of landmarks, rather than through any mysterious innate faculty or sense of direction, are the work of a scientific observer, and very different from the chance tales of a mere anecdotist.

The whole subject of comparative psychology had a special and peculiar fascination for Mr. Romanes, partly on account of its intimate connection with the theory of evolution, and partly from its bearing on those deeper philosophic problems which were never long absent from his thoughts. His treatment of the phenomena of instinct in 'Mental Evolution in Animals,' and elsewhere, was both comprehensive and exact, and still forms, in the opinion of competent authorities, the best general account of the subject that we have; though, had he lived to review and consolidate his work, some changes would probably have been introduced in view of later discussions on the nature and method of hereditary transmission. His arguments in 'Mental Evolution in Man,' in support of the essential similarity of the reasoning processes in the higher animals and in man, created a stir, at the time of their publication, which was in itself evidence that his critics felt that they had a writer and thinker that must be seriously and sharply met. He hoped by this work to win over the psychologists to the evolution camp; and he himself felt strongly that in some cases, when he failed fully to convince them of the adequacy of his method of treatment and of the arguments he adduced, it was rather in matters of definition than in matters of fact that the source of their differences lay. He was somewhat disappointed that his terms 'recept' and 'receptual' for mental products intermediate between the 'percept' and the 'concept' were not more generally accepted by psychologists, since, in his matured opinion, they and the conception they represent were eminently helpful in bridging the debatable space between the intellectual powers of man and the faculties of the lower animals.

It was Mr. Romanes' intention to continue the mental evolution series and to deal, in further instalments of his work, with the intellectual emotions, volition, morals, and religion. This intention, however, he did not live to fulfil. His further development of mental evolution in the light of his later conclusions in the region of philosophical and religious thought would have been profoundly interesting. But one's regret that this part of his life work remained incomplete is tempered by the recollection that what he did complete was so worthily done. For, in the words of Mr. Lloyd Morgan, which were quoted with approval by Dr. Burdon Sanderson in his Royal Society obituary notice: 'by his patient collection of data; by his careful discussion of these data in the light of principles clearly and definitely formulated; by his wide and forcible advocacy of his views; and, above all, by his own observations and experiments, Mr. Romanes left a mark in this field of investigation and interpretation which is not likely to be effaced.'

In 1889 Mr. Romanes attended the British Association which met that year at Newcastle. Here, he and Professor Poulton had a long discussion on the 'Inheritance of Acquired Characters'; he spoke so much, and was so much en évidence, at this Association that the Newcastle papers described him as a most belligerent person.

Things progress as usual. After my lecture I played chess with Mrs. Butcher and dined with the Logans. Margaret, in telling me the pretty things she had heard, drew from her husband the rebuke that she was not judicious. So I told them your estimate of my merits, and Charles [61] was quite satisfied that I was in good keeping.

You have made a 'philosophical' mistake about the dinner party to the R.'s which, of course, I imitated. Butcher has given me a MS. of his to read on the 'Psychology of the Ludicrous.' Seems very good.

To Professor Poulton.

Newcastle: Monday, September 1889.

My dear Poulton,—I am very glad to receive your long and friendly letter; because, although I have the Ishmael-like reputation of finding my hand against every man, and every man's against mine, my blastogenetic endowments are really of the peaceful order. Moreover, in the present instance the 'row' was not one that affected me with any feelings of real opposition, although it seemed expedient to point out that a somewhat hasty inference had not been judiciously stated. Therefore, I take it, we may now cordially, as well as formally, shake hands, and probably be better friends than ever. In token of which I may begin by furnishing the explanation of what was meant by the passage in the 'Contemporary Review' to which you alluded.

I quite agree that Weismann's suggestion about causes of variability is an admirable one. But it has always seemed to me that it is comprised under Darwin's general category of causes internal to the organism (or, in his terminology, causes due to 'the nature of the organism'). But besides this, he recognised the category of causes external to the organism (or the so-called Lamarckian principles of direct action of environment, plus inherited efforts of use and disuse). Now, anyone who accepts this latter category as comprising veræ causæ, obviously has a larger area of causality on which to draw for his theoretical explanations of variability, than has a man who expressly limits the possibility of such causes to the former category. This is all that I had in my mind when writing the line in the 'Contemporary Review' which led you to suppose that I was expounding W. without having read him; and although I freely allow that the meaning was one that required explanation to bring out, you may remember that this meaning had nothing whatever to do with the subject which I was expounding, and therefore it was that I neglected to draw it out. You will observe that, so far as the present matter is concerned, it does not signify what views we severally take touching the validity of Lamarckian hypotheses. The point is, that anyone who sees his way to entertaining them thereby furnishes himself with a larger field of causality for explaining variations than does a man who limits that field to causes internal to organisms—even though, like W., he suggests an extension of the latter.

And now about the 'Athenæum.' I fear you think I have been taking an unfair opportunity of giving you a back-hander. In point of fact, however, I never do such things; and the more reason I have for anything like hitting back (which, however, is entirely absent on the present occasion), the more careful should I be to avoid any appearance of doing so in an unsigned review. I neither wrote, nor have I read the particular review in question.

Regarding articulation, read in my 'Mental Evolution in Man,' Mr. Hales' admirable remarks on children having probably been the constructors of all languages. I believe this theory will prove to be the true solution of the origin of languages, as distinguished from the faculty of language. What you say about the latter being blastogenetic, requires you to unsay what is said by W.

Please let me know whether there is anything that you see in my 'cessation of selection' different from W.'s 'Panmixia.' The debate to-day failed to furnish any opposition.

Yours very sincerely,

G. J. Romanes.