I will send the books off by railway on Monday or Tuesday. You
may keep that on Medusæ until I ask for it, which will probably
be never. That on Siphonophora I should like to have back at some
future time.
So far from thinking that you have neglected Pangenesis, I have
been astonished and pleased that your splendid work on the
jelly-fishes did not make you throw every other subject to the
dogs. Even if your experiments turn out a failure, I believe
that there will be some compensation in the skill you will have
acquired.
P.S.--I have been having more correspondence with Galton about
Pangenesis, and my confusion is more confounded with respect to
the points in which he differs from me.
About this time Mr. Romanes made the acquaintance of Mr. Herbert
Spencer and also that of Mr. G. H. Lewes, and of the wonderful woman
known to the outer world as George Eliot, and to a small circle of
friends as Mrs. Lewes.
Mr. Romanes was one of the favoured few who were allowed to join the
charmed circle at the Priory on Sunday afternoons. He enjoyed the few
talks he had with George Eliot, and, amongst other reminiscences, he
told a characteristic story of Lewes. One afternoon, when there were
very few people at the Priory, the conversation drifted on to the
Bible, and George Eliot and Mr. Romanes began a discussion on the
merits of the two translations of the Psalms best known to English
people--the Bible and the Prayer Book version. They 'quoted' at each
other for a short time, and then Lewes, who had not his Bible at his
finger ends to the extent the other two had, exclaimed impatiently,
'Come, we've had enough of this; we might as well be in a Sunday
school.' Both George Eliot and Mr. Romanes, by the way, preferred the
Bible version.
In one of the letters to Mr. Darwin, Mr. Romanes alludes to the
question of spiritualism, and his own determination to investigate
the question so far as in him lay for himself.
He worked a good deal at spiritualism for a year or two, and he
never could assure himself that there was absolutely nothing in
spiritualism, no unknown phenomena underlying the mass of fraud,
and trickery, and vulgarity which have surrounded the so-called
manifestations.
He was always willing to investigate such subjects as hypnotism,
thought reading, &c., and in 1880 he wrote an article for the
September number of the 'Nineteenth Century.' in which he pleads for
a candid and unprejudiced investigation of the facts. The article was
a review of Heidenhain's "Der sogenannte thierische Magnetismus."
The work on Pangenesis and on Medusæ went on through 1876, and some
letters to and from Mr. Darwin are here inserted.
_From C. Darwin, Esq., to G. J. Romanes._
Dear Romanes.--As you are interested in Pangenesis, and will
some day, I hope, convert an 'airy nothing' into a substantial
theory, therefore I send by this post an essay by Häckel,
attacking 'Pan.,' and substituting a molecular hypothesis. If I
understand his views rightly, he would say that with a bird which
strengthened its wings by use, the formative protoplasm of the
strengthened parts becomes changed, and its molecular vibrations
consequently changed, and that their vibrations are transmitted
throughout the whole frame of the bird. How he explains reversion
to a remote ancestor I know not. Perhaps I have misunderstood
him, though I have skimmed the whole with some care. He lays much
stress on inheritance being a form of unconscious memory, but how
far this is part of his molecular vibration I do not understand.
His views make nothing clearer to me, but this may be my fault.
No one, I presume, would doubt about molecular movements of
some kind. His essay is clever and striking. If you read it (but
you must not on my account), I should much like to hear your
judgment, and you can return it at any time.
We have come here for rest for me, which I much needed, and shall
remain here for about ten days more, and then home to work, which
is my sole pleasure in life. I hope your splendid Medusæ work
and your experiments on Pan. are going on well. I heard from my
son Frank yesterday that he was feverish with a cold, and could
not dine with the Physiologists, which I am very sorry for, as
I should have heard what they think about the new Bill.[10] I
see that you are one of the secretaries to this young society.
I was very much gratified by the wholly unexpected honour of
being elected one of the hon. members. This mark of sympathy has
pleased me to a very high degree.
Believe me, yours very sincerely,
CH. DARWIN.
Häckel gives reference to a paper on Pan. of which I have never
heard.
I fear that you will have difficulty in reading my scrawl.
Do you know who are the other hon. members of your Society?
_From G. J. Romanes to C. Darwin._
Dunskaith, Nigg, Ross-shire, N.B.: June 1, 1876.
Many thanks for your long and kind letter. Also for the
accompanying essay. It seems to me, from your epitome of the
latter, that if Pangenesis is 'airy,' Perigenesis must be almost
vacuous. However, I anticipate much pleasure in reading the
work, for anything by Häckel on such a subject cannot fail to be
interesting.
I am sorry to hear that you 'much needed rest,' and also about
Frank. I had hoped, too, that you would have mentioned Mrs.
Litchfield.
Having been away from London for several weeks, I cannot say
anything about the feeling with regard to the Bill. Sanderson
and Foster think it 'stringent,' and so I suppose will all the
Physiologists. The former wants me to write articles in the
'Fortnightly,' 'to make people take more sensible views on
vivisection:' but I cannot see that it would be of any use. The
heat of battle is not the time for us to expect fanatics to
listen to 'sense.' Do you not think so?
I am sure the Physiological Society will be very pleased that
you like being an hon. member, for it was on your account that
honorary membership was instituted. At the committee meeting
which was called to frame the constitution of the Society, the
chairman (Dr. Foster) ejaculated with reference to you--'Let us
pile on him all the honour we possibly can,' a sentiment which
was heartily enough responded to by all present; but when it came
to considering what form the expression of it was to take, it was
found that a nascent society could do nothing further than make
honorary members. Accordingly you were made an hon. member all
by yourself; but later on it was thought, on the one hand, that
you might feel lonely, and on the other that in a Physiological
Society the most suitable companion for you was Dr. Sharpey.
Perhaps a 'secretary' ought not to be giving all the details
about committee meetings, but if not, I know you will take it
in confidence. It seems to me that you never fully realise
the height of your pedestal, so that I am glad of any little
opportunity of this kind to show you the angle at which the
upturned faces are inclined. I am glad, too, to see from the
inscription in Häckel's essay, that he is still doing his
best to show that in Germany this angle is fast being lost in
horizontality.
As the spring was so backward, the plants at Kew were too small
to graft before I had to leave for the Medusæ. But this does not
much matter, as I had a lot of vegetables planted down here also,
which are doing well. Pangenesis I always expected would require
a good deal of patience, and one year's work on such a subject
only counts for apprenticeship. If, by the time I am a skilled
workman, I am not able to send anything to the international
exhibitions, I shall not envy any one else who may resolve to
enter the same trade.
I am working hard at the jelly-fish just now, and have succeeded
in extracting several new confessions. The nerve-plexus theory,
in particular, is coming out with greater clearness. The new
poisons, too, are giving very interesting results. I suppose you
do not happen to know where I could get any snake poison. The
'Phil. Trans.' seem very long in coming out. I have not yet got
the proofs of my paper.
June 6, 1877.
I am very glad you sent me the extract from Lamarck, for I had
just been to the R.S., hunting up several of the older authors
to see whether any mention had been made of the theory before
Spencer wrote.
While at Down I forgot my speculations about inter-crossing, and,
therefore, although I do not think they are much worth, I send
you a copy of my notes. The ideas are not clearly put--having
been jotted down a few years ago merely to preserve them--but
no doubt you will be able to understand them. Do not trouble to
return the MS.
I had intended to ask you while at Down if you happen to know
whether stinging nettles are endemic plants in South America.
The reason I should like to know is, that last year it occurred
to me that the stinging property probably has reference to some
widely distributed class of animals, and being told--rightly or
wrongly, I do not know--that ruminants do not object to them, I
tried whether my tame rabbits would eat freshly plucked nettles.
I found they would not do so even when very hungry, but in the
same out-house with the rabbits there were confined a number
of guinea-pigs, and these always set upon the nettles with
great avidity. Their noses were tremendously stung, however,
so that between every few nibbles they had to stop and scratch
vigorously. After this process had been gone through several
times, the guinea-pig would generally become furious, and
thinking apparently that its pain must have had some more obvious
cause than the nettles, would fall upon its nearest neighbour
at the feast, when a guinea-pig fight would ensue. I have seldom
seen a more amusing spectacle than twenty or thirty of these
animals closely packed round a bunch of nettles, a third part or
so eating with apparent relish, another third scratching their
noses, and the remaining third fighting with one another. But
what I want to ask you is this. Does it not seem that the marked
difference in the behaviour of the rabbits and the guinea-pigs
points to inherited experience on the part of the former which
is absent in the case of the latter? If nettles are not endemic
in South America, this inference would seem almost irresistible.
Dr. Hooker tells me nettles grow there now, but he does not know
whether they did so before America was visited by Europeans.
Possibly there might be some way of ascertaining.
I have now made a number of grafts at Kew. In about a month, I
should think, one could see which are coming up as single and
which as double sprouts. If, therefore, Frank is going to work
in the laboratory in July, he might perhaps look over the bed
(which is just outside the door), and reject the double-stalked
specimens. I could trust him to do this better than any one at
Kew, and if the useless specimens were rejected, there would
afterwards be much less trouble in protecting the valuable
ones. But do not suggest it unless you think it would be quite
agreeable to him. If he is in town within the next fortnight, I
wish he would look me up.
June 16.
I have deferred answering your letter until having had a talk
with Mr. Galton about rudimentary organs. He thinks with me that
if the normal size of a useful organ is maintained in a species,
when natural selection is removed, the average size will tend to
become progressively reduced by inter-crossing, and this down to
whatever extent economy of growth remains operative in placing a
premium on variations below the average at any given stage in the
history of reduction.
I think I thoroughly well know your views about natural
selection. In writing the manuscript note, so far as I remember,
I had in view the possibility which Huxley somewhere advocates,
that nature may sometimes make a considerable leap by selecting
from single variations. But it was not because of this point that
I sent you the note; it was with reference to the possibility of
natural selection acting on organic _types_ as distinguished from
individuals--a possibility which you once told me did not seem at
all clear, although Wallace maintained it in conversation.
I do not myself think that Allen[11] made out his points,
although I do think that he has made an effort in the right
direction. It seems to me that his fundamental principle has
probably much truth in it, viz. that æsthetic pleasure in its
last analysis is an effect of normal or not excessive stimulation.
Very sincerely and most respectfully yours,
GEO. J. ROMANES.
_From C. Darwin, Esq._
Down, Beckenham, Kent: August 9.
My dear Romanes,--I have read your two articles in 'Nature,' and
nothing can be clearer or more interesting, though I had gathered
your conclusions clearly from your other papers. It seems to me
that unless you can show that your muslin (in your simile) is
rather coarse, the transmission may be considered as passing in
any direction from cell or unit of structure to cell or unit; and
in this case the transmission would be as in Dionæa, but more
easily effected in certain lines or directions than in others.
It is splendid work, and I hope you are getting on well in all
respects. The Mr. Lawless to whom you refer is the Hon. Miss
Lawless, as I know, for she sent me a very good manuscript about
the fertilisation of plants, which I have recommended her to send
to 'Nature.'
As for myself, Frank and I have been working like slaves on
the bloom on plants, with very poor success; as usual, almost
everything goes differently from what I had anticipated. But I
have been absolutely delighted at two things: Cohn, of Breslau,
has seen all the phenomena described by Frank in Dipsacus, and
thinks it a very remarkable discovery, and is going to work with
all reagents on the filaments as Frank did, but no doubt he will
know much better how to do it. He will not pronounce whether the
filaments are some colloid substance or living protoplasm; I
think he rather leans to latter, and he quite sees that Frank
does not pronounce dogmatically on the question.
The second point which delighted me, seeing that half of the
botanists throughout Europe have published that the digestion
of meat by plants is of no use to them--(a mere pathological
phenomenon as one man says!)--is that Frank has been feeding
under exactly similar conditions a large number of plants of
Drosera, and the effect is wonderful. On the fed side the leaves
are much larger, differently coloured, and more numerous--flower
stalks taller and more numerous, and, I believe, far more
seed-capsules, but these not yet counted. It is particularly
interesting that the leaves fed on meat contain very many more
starch granules (no doubt owing to more protoplasm being first
formed), so that sections stained with iodine of fed and unfed
leaves are to the naked eye of very different colour.
There, I have boasted to my heart's content; and do you do the
same, and tell me what you have been doing.
Yours very sincerely,
CH. DARWIN.
_From G. J. Romanes._
Dunskaith, Ross-shire: August 11, 1877.
I was very pleased to get your long and genial letter, which I
will answer _seriatim_.
The 'muslin' in the hypothetical plexus seems to be very coarse
in some specimens and finer in others--the young and active
individuals enduring severer forms of section than the old.
And in exploring by graduated stimuli, areas of different
degrees of excitability may be mapped out, and these areas are
pretty large, averaging about the size of one's finger-nails.
I am rather inclined to think that these areas are determined
by the course of well-differentiated nerve-tracts, while the
less-differentiated ones are probably more like muslin in their
mesh. But the only reason why I resort to the supposition
of nerve-tracts at all is because of the sudden blocking of
contractile waves by section, and the fact that stimulus
(tentacular) waves very often continue to pass after the
contractile ones have been thus blocked.
I am sorry I made the ungallant mistake about Miss Lawless, but I
had no means of knowing. If I had known I should not have written
the letter, because I am almost sure the movements of the Medusa
were accidental, and my pointing out this source of error may be
discouraging to a lady observer.
I remember thinking you were too diffident about the bloom, but
I suppose that is the advantage of experience; it keeps one from
forming too high hopes at the first.
The rest of your letter contains glorious news. Cohn, I suppose,
is about the best man in Europe to take up the subject, and
although I cannot conceive what else he can do than Frank has
done already, it is no doubt most desirable that his opinion
should be formed by working at the problems himself.
The other item about the effects of feeding Drosera is really
most important, and in particular about the starch. I have heard
the doubts you allude to expressed in several quarters, but this
will set them all at rest. It was just the one thing required to
cap the work on insectivorous plants. What capital work Frank is
doing!
I have nothing in the way of boasting to set off against it. The
year has been a very bad one for jelly-fish, so that sometimes I
have not been able to work at them for several days at a time.
The most important new observation is perhaps the following.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.]
Suppose a portion of Aurelia to be cut into the form of a pair
of trousers, in such a way that a ganglion, _a_, occupies the
bottom of one of the legs. Usually, of course, contractile
waves starting from _a_ course along to _b_, and thence round
to _c_ and backwards to _d_. But in one specimen I observed
that every now and then the exact converse took place--viz. the
contractile wave starting at _d_ to course to _c_, _b_, and _a_.
On now excising the ganglion at _a_ both sets of contractile
waves ceased--thus showing that even in the case where they
started from _d_ it was the ganglion at _a_ which started them.
This power on the part of Medusoid ganglia to discharge their
influence at a distance from their own seat I have also observed
in other forms of section, and it affords the best kind of
evidence in favour of nerves.
On the days when I could get no jelly-fish I took to star-fish.
I want, if possible, to make out the functions of the sand-canal
and the aviculæ; but as yet I have only discovered the
difficulties to be overcome. I had intended to make a cell to
cover the calcareous plate at the end of the sand-canal, and to
fill the cell with dye, in order to test Siebold's hypothesis
that the whole apparatus is a filter for the ambulacral system;
but Providence seems to have specially designed that no substance
in creation should be adapted for sticking to the back of a
starfish.
The aviculæ are very puzzling things. I am sure Allen is wrong
in his hypothesis of their function being to remove parasitical
growths; for, on the one hand, parasites are swarming around them
unheeded, and on the other, they go snapping away apparently at
nothing. It is more easy, however, to say what they are not than
what they are.
I went a few days ago to see the vine. It is now five feet
high and vigorous, but I believe spring is the proper time for
grafting.
With best thanks for your 'boasting' and good wishes, I remain
very sincerely and most respectfully yours,
GEO. J. ROMANES.
_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.