Chapter IV: Oxford (4)

Looking back over these two years of illness, it is impossible not to be struck by the calmness and fortitude with which that illness was met. There were, as has been said, moments of terrible depression and of disappointment and of grief. It was not easy for him to give up ambition, to leave so many projects unfulfilled, so much work undone.

But to him this illness grew to be a mount of purification,

Ove l'umano spirito si purga,
E di salire al ciel diventa degno.[127]

More and more there grew on him a deepening sense of the goodness of God. No one had ever suffered more from the Eclipse of Faith, no one had ever been more honest in dealing with himself and with his difficulties.

The change that came over his mental attitude may seem almost incredible to those who knew him only as a scientific man; it does not seem so to the few who knew anything of his inner life. To them the impression given is, not of an enemy changed into a friend, antagonism altered into submission; rather is it of one who for long has been bearing a heavy burden on his shoulders bravely and patiently, and who at last has had it lifted from him, and lifted so gradually that he could not tell the exact moment when he found it gone, and himself standing, like the Pilgrim of never to be forgotten story, at the foot of the Cross, and Three Shining Ones coming to greet him.

It was recovery, to some extent discovery, which befell him, but there was no change of purpose, no sudden intellectual or moral conversion.

He had always cared more for Truth, for the knowledge of God, than for anything else in the world. In the years most outwardly happy he was crying out in the darkness for light, with a soul athirst for God, and, as was said before, he did most truly re-echo St. Augustine's words, '_Fecisti nos ad Te, et inquietum est cor nostrum, donec requiescat in Te_.'

It is difficult for anyone who has lived in closest intimacy with him to speak of him in words which will not to those who did not know him seem exaggerated, nay, extravagant; to those who knew and loved him, cold, inadequate, lifeless; for he bore 'the white flower of a blameless life' from boyhood onwards, and in heart and life he was unstained, pure, unselfish, unworldly in the truest sense.

When the Shadow of Death lay on him, and the dread messenger was drawing near, and he looked back on his short life, he could reproach himself only for what he called sins of the intellect, mental arrogance, undue regard for intellectual supremacy.

No one better understood him than the friend[128] who wrote:

When a man has lived with broad and strong interest in life,
neither discarding nor slighting any true part of it in home,
or society, or work, the various aspects of his character and
career are likely to be many and suggestive. And so there may be
some warrant for an attempt to disengage one line of advance in
the life, one trait in the example, and to concentrate attention
upon that, while the other and perhaps more widely recognised
elements are for the moment left unnoticed. There was one such
line of advance in the life of George Romanes, of which it may be
hard to speak, but wrong, perhaps, to be wholly silent. Few men
have shown more finely the simplicity and patience in sustained
endeavour which are the conditions of attainment in the quest of
truth. It is easy to see how the training and habits of a mind
devoted to natural science may render faith more difficult, and
cross or check the venture of the soul towards the things eternal
and unseen. But there is one quality proper to such a mind which
should have a different effect, and act as a safeguard against
a fault that often checks or mars the growth of faith. That
quality is tenacity of uncorrelated fragments; the endurance of
incompleteness; the patient refusal to attenuate or discard a
fact because it will not fit into a system; the determined hope
that whatsoever things are true have further truth to teach, if
only they are held fast and fairly dealt with. The sincerely
scientific mind shows such tenacity as that under every trial
of its faith and patience, howsoever long and unpromising and
unrelieved; for it knows itself responsible not for attainment,
but for perseverance; not for conquest, but for loyalty. It
resists even the temptation to dislike the untidy scraps of
observation or experience which will match nothing and go
nowhere; for it suspects and reveres in all the possibility of
new light.

And surely there is a like excellence of thought, rare, and
high, and exemplary, in regard to the things unseen, the things
that are spiritually discerned. Scattered up and down the world,
coming one way or another within the ken of all men, there are
facts of plain experience which will not really fit, unmutilated,
undisfigured, into any scheme or view of life that leaves God
out of sight. They are facts, it may be, of which a full account
can hardly, if at all, be given. They are fragmentary, isolated,
imponderable; clearer at one time than at another; largely
dependent, for anything like due recognition, upon the individual
mind, and heart, and will. Yet there they are, flashing out
at times with an intensity which makes all else seem pale and
cold; disclosing, or ready to disclose, to any quietness of
thought, great hints of worlds unrealised and possibilities of
overwhelming glory.

And it is on loyalty, on justice to such fragments of truth,
unaccounted for and unarranged, that for many men the trial of
faith may turn. All is not lost, and everything is possible, so
long as the mind refuses to doubt the reality of the light that
has come, perhaps, as yet only in broken rays. Of such justice
and loyalty George Romanes set a very high example. The strength
and simplicity and patience of his character appeared in nothing
else more remarkably, more happily, than in his undiscouraged
grasp of those unseen realities which invade this world in the
name and power of the world to come. The love of precision and
completeness never dulled his care for the things that he could
neither define, nor label, nor arrange; in their fragmentariness
he treasured them, in their reserve he trusted them, waiting
faithfully to see what they might have to show him. And they did
not fail him. This is not the place in which to try to speak
of the graces and the gladness which from such loyal sincerity
passed into his life, nor of the clearer light that grew and
spread before his wistful, hopeful gaze. But it hardly can be
wrong to have said thus much of so noble and so timely a pattern
of allegiance to all truth discerned; and of this great lesson
in a life which seemed even here to have the earnest of that
promise--'He that seeketh, findeth'--a life which seemed to be
moving steadily towards the blessing of the pure in heart, the
vision of Almighty God.[129]

F. P.

A letter from Mr. Gladstone cannot be omitted, and seems to come in fittingly at this place:

1 Carlton Gardens: June.

Dear Mrs. Romanes,--My present circumstances are not very
favourable to direct personal communication, and my personal
intercourse with Mr. Romanes was so scanty in its quantity as
hardly to warrant my present intrusion, but I cannot help writing
a few words for the purpose of conveying my deep sympathy on the
heavy bereavement you have sustained, and further of saying how
deep an impression he left upon my mind in the point of character
not less than of capacity. He was one of the men whom the age
specially requires for the investigation and solution of its
especial difficulties, and for the conciliation and harmony of
interests between which a factitious rivalry has been created.

Your heavy private loss is then coupled in my view with a public
calamity; but while I can rejoice in your retrospect of his
labour, I also trust it may please God in His wisdom to raise up
others to fill up his place and carry forward his work. May you
enjoy the abundance of the Divine consolations in proportion to
your great need.

Believe me, most truly yours,
W. E. GLADSTONE.

Not much remains to be said. The life here described would seem to have been cut short, but, as was said by a friend, 'in a short time he fulfilled a long time,'[130] and few have won for themselves more love in the home and beyond it. He left no enemy, and those who loved him and to whom his loss has left a blank and desolation of which it is not well to speak, can only be thankful for what he was and for what he is. Not indeed that one would forget those words of Dean Church quoted in the beautiful preface to his Life:[131]

'I often have a kind of waking dream: up one road, the image of a man decked and adorned as if for a triumph, carried up by rejoicing and exulting friends, who praise his goodness and achievements; and, on the other road, turned back to back to it, there is the very man himself, in sordid and squalid apparel, surrounded not by friends but by ministers of justice, and going on, while his friends are exulting, to his certain and perhaps awful judgment. That vision rises when I hear, not just and conscientious endeavours to make out a man's character, but when I hear the loose things that are said--often in kindness and love--of those beyond the grave.'

But there have been men and women who have lifted the minds and the hearts of those who knew and loved them to increasing love for goodness, to increasing loftiness of ideal, and for these, whom now no praise can hurt, no blame can wound, one can but lift one's heart in ever growing thankfulness for the gifts and graces which made them what they were, and which will grow and increase in them until the Perfect Day.

_Beati mundo corde, quoniam ipsi Deum videbunt._

May 23, 1895.

FOOTNOTES:

[68] Mr. Romanes had belonged for many years to the Aristotelian Society, and had contributed papers to the Journal of the Society. He also once belonged to the Psychological Club, which used to meet at Professor Croom Robertson's house. The other members of the club were Mr. Francis Galton, Mr. Sully, Mr. Shadworth Hodgson, Professor Edgeworth, Professor Dunstan, Mr. Edmund Gurney, Mrs. Bryant, and one or two others.

[69] See _Thoughts on Religion_, p. 92.

[70] The beautiful cemetery adjoining Holywell Church, Oxford.

[71] Dr. Liddon died in September 1890.

[72] The house which Mr. Romanes had taken was originally an almshouse.

[73] The Physiological Society has a yearly meeting at Oxford.

[74] Professor Victor Horsley, F.R.S., Univ. Coll. London.

[75] Professor of Physiology at Oxford.

[76] Professor W. Dunstan, F.R.S.

[77] 'Lights of the Church and of Science.'

[78] Professor Kitchen Parker, F.R.S.

[79] Mr. R. Scott, F.R.S.

[80] _The Colours of Animals_, by E. B. Poulton, M.A., F.R.S., International Scientific Series, vol. lxviii.

[81] A beautiful terrier.

[82] Two more dogs.

[83] This was the last summer at Geanies.

[84] Mr. E. B. Turner, F.R.C.S.

[85] Psalm xxvii.

[86] A pet name for his daughter.

[87] He had slipped on the rocks and hurt his arm.

[88] His third son.

[89] On 'Physiological Selection.' See _Nature_, vol. xlii. pp. 5, 7, and vol. xliii. pp. 79 and 127.

[90] The late Professor Sellar.

[91] The Oxford Natural History Society.

[92] The Astronomer Royal at the Cape and his wife.

[93] The Rev. Bartholomew Price, D.D., F.R.S.

[94] Mr. Gladstone had declined at first, but yielded to a second urgent request from the founder.

[95] The home of Sir William and the Hon. Lady Welby-Gregory.

[96] On the work alluded to in a letter to Professor Schäfer.

[97] The Rev. Philip Napier Waggett, now of Cowley St. John, who was one of Mr. Romanes' most intimate friends, Mr. Waggett's scientific attainments made him a valuable as well as a much loved friend.

[98] The Rev. E. Moore, D.D.

[99] Since this letter has been in type the world has had to lament Mr. Huxley's death.

[100] Privy Councillor.

[101] The proprietor of an hotel in Madeira.

[102] Miss Pollock's marriage to Mr. Vernon Boys, F.R.S., is here referred to.

[103] A pet name for his sister.

[104] A window to his memory is to be placed in Caius College Chapel.

[105] A favourite cousin, who died a few mouths after Mr. Romanes.

[106] See p. 289, above.

[107] His wedding-day.

[108] Dr. Paget had been very ill.

[109] Mr. Waggett.

[110] It was 'book-plate.'

[111] _Contemporary_, April 1892.

[112] His butler, an old and valued servant.

[113] F. J. Moulton, Esq., M.P., F.R.S.

[114] Professor W. Crookes, F.R.S.

[115] Mr. Herbert Spencer on 'Natural Selection,' _Contemporary Review_, April 1893.

[116] Now Bishop of Rochester.

[117] About eighteen months before, when a very temporary attack of aphasia had come on.

[118] His brother was making additions to the house at Dunskaith.

[119] He did see one more.

[120] See _Life and Letters of C. Darwin_, vol. iii. p. 358.

[121] Mr. G. R. Turner, F.R.C.S., one of Mr. Romanes's dearest friends; as was also his brother, Mr. E. B. Turner, F.R.C.S.

[122] Regius Professor of Pastoral Theology at Oxford.

[123] Of St. Giles's Parish Church.

[124] A pet name for the two babies.

[125] By Professor Knight of St. Andrews.

[126] The Dean of Christ Church.

[127] Dante's _Purgatorio_, I.

[128] The Dean of Christ Church.

[129] Reprinted from the _Guardian_ of June 6.

[130] Wisdom, iv. 13.

[131] Preface to _Life and Letters of Dean Church_, p. xxiv.

INDEX

Acton, Lord, 286

Agassiz, 15, 31, 32

Allen, Grant, 55

Allman, Professor, 149, 150

Arnold, M., 82

Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J., 142

-- Mr. Francis, 15, 148

Bishop of Oxford (Wilberforce), 81

Boys, Mrs. Vernon, letter to, 294

Bramwell, Sir F., 222, 223

British Association, 65, 71

Browning, Robert, 142, 149

Brunton, Dr. Lauder, 61, 148

Brydon, Dr., 14

Burney prize, won by G. J. Romanes, 9, 83

Butcher, Professor, 148, 193, 266, 277

Caird, Professor (now Master of Balliol), 40, 348

Cats, sense of direction in, 107

Cautley, Rev. Proby, 6, 7

Children, poem to, 139

Church, Dean, 156, 157, 229, 343, 356

Churchill, Mr., 204, 209

Clodd, E. M., 149

Compton, Earl and Countess, 272, 273, 276, 277, 286

Correvon, Professor, 177, 212, 213

Crookes, Professor, 303, 304

Croonian Lectures, 15, 92

Curteis, Canon, 151

Darwin, Charles, first introduction to, 12

-- first meeting with, 14

Darwin, Charles, letters from, 32, 34, 35, 45, 47, 49, 56, 60, 62, 65,
66, 72, 74, 75, 76, 78, 85, 97, 101, 102, 105, 108, 109, 114,
115, 117, 120, 123, 126

-- letters to, 19, 20, 33, 34, 38, 42, 45, 50, 53, 55, 57, 61, 63, 68,
70, 71, 73, 77, 79, 86, 93, 98, 99, 100, 103, 104, 106, 112,
116, 118, 119, 120, 121, 125

-- quoted, 196, 200, 203, 211, 220, 221, 224, 307, 320, 339

-- death of, 130

-- memorial volume, 133

-- Mr. F., 8, 50, 51, 54, 59, 78, 73, 105, 130, 131, 132, 135, 170,
171, 186, 209, 303, 317

_Darwin and after Darwin_, 177, 279

Dawkins, Professor Boyd, 151

Delbœuf, _La Psychologie, son Présent et son Avenir_, 74

Dyer, Mr. Thiselton, 90, 198, 200, 211, 213, 239, 304, 307, 314, 315,
316

Eimer, Dr., 45, 224, 290

Eliot, George, 48

Evidences of Organic Evolution, lectures on, 66

Ewart, Professor Cossar, 14, 92, 100, 128, 150, 256, 290, 311

Fabre, M., 111, 113, 196

Flower, Sir W., 74, 302

Foster, Dr. Michael, 8, 13, 31, 38, 51

Galton, Mr. Francis, 55, 161, 162, 239, 262, 302, 317

Germination, experiments on, 303, 324

Gill, Mr. and Mrs., 272

Gotch (Professor), 258

Gladstone, Rt. Hon. W. E., 162, 231, 275, 286, 355

Gore, Rev. C., 81, 272, 278, 303, 311, 342, 349, 351

Gosse, Mr. E. W., 229, 277

Gounod, 69

Graham, Mr. H. M., M.P., 273, 277

Gray, Professor Asa, 153, 154

Green, Mr. J. R., 144

Gulick, Rev. J., 216, 217, 232, 236, 255

Häckel, 47, 49, 51, 52, 61, 66, 93

Heliotropism, experiments on, 325

Helmholtz, Professor, 320

Henslow, Rev. George, letters to and from, 327-341

Hobhouse, Sir A., 76

-- Rev. W., 277, 297

Holland-Scott, Rev. H., 144, 185, 284

Hooker, Sir Joseph, 20, 54, 74, 176

Horsley, Mr. Victor, 222, 259, 265

Huxley, Professor, 16, 55, 74, 144, 259, 278, 286, 287, 303, 316

Hybridism, 101, 102, 103

Instinct, article on, 129

Joachim, Dr. Joseph, 70, 273

Lamarck, 222, 224, 308

Lankester, Professor, 46, 90, 277

Latham, Dr., 9

Lawless, Hon. E., 56, 57

Lecky, Mr., 162, 285

Le Conte, Professor, 238, 278

Liddon, Rev. Dr., 143, 160, 257, 258, 259

Lincoln, Bishop of, 348

Linnean Society, 38, 116

Lister, C. E., 5, 256

Lockyer, Mr. Norman, 126, 142, 148

Logan, Mr. C., 193

_Lux Mundi_, 249, 250, 259

McKendrick, Professor, 91

Medusæ, work on, 15, 16, 17, 18, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30,
31, 32, 33, 37, 47

Meldola, Professor, 90, 161

Mivart, Professor St. George, 100

Moberly, Rev. Dr., 342, 343

Moore, Rev. Aubrey, 249, 250, 251, 252, 253

Morgan, Professor Lloyd C., 311

Myers, Mr. F. W., 80

Newall, Mr., 99

Paget, Rev. H. L., 2, 232

-- Miss M. M., 139, 140, 286

-- Very Rev. Francis, 2, 143, 149, 151, 157, 159, 228, 297, 310, 320,
343, 346, 351

-- Sir James, 344, 349

Palgrave, Professor, 229, 278

Pangenesis, letters on, 18, 19, 21, 35, 47, 49, 107, 108, 195, 223,
225, 254

Panmixia, 198, 212, 224, 239, 254

Pascal, 342

Pembroke, Master of, 346

Perrier, M., 196, 198, 222

Pfleiderer, Professor, 160

Physiological selection, 162-176, 201-208, 209-217, 235

Physiological Society, 51, 65

Pollock, Mr. W. H., 92

-- Mrs. H., letters to, 263, 288

Poulton, Professor E. B., 192, 193, 195, 197, 220

Psychology, work on, 188, 190

Rede Lecture, 153

Romanes, Rev. Dr., 1, 2

-- Mr., 1, 9, 92

-- Miss C. E., letters to, 65, 129, 142, 144, 161, 166, 178, 184, 185

-- Miss Georgina, 69

-- Mrs. G. J., letters to, 91, 262, 266, 296-301, 346

-- Mr. James, letters to, 11, 151, 187, 240, 289, 292, 295, 312, 319

Rosebery Lectureship, 177

Roux, Dr., 109, 110, 125

Ruskin, John, 98

St. Albans, Bishop of, 156

'Sally,' letter on, 241

Sanderson, Professor Burdon, 13, 18, 51, 66, 69, 117, 130, 148, 192,
259, 311, 326

Schäfer, Professor, letters to, 22, 25, 28, 37, 279, 348

Sharpey, Professor, 13

Shorthouse, Mr., 144

Smith, Rev. Robert, 1

Spencer, Herbert, 48, 93, 96, 144, 221, 239, 301, 305, 307

Spottiswoode, Mr. William, 14, 142, 149

Sully, Mr., 96, 277

Tait, Lawson, 21

Talbot, Dr., 311

Taylor, Canon Isaac, 291, 296

Teesdale, Mr. J. M., 99, 100, 129

_Theism, a Candid Examination of_, 83, 149, 153, 154, 342

Thompson, Sir W. (Lord Kelvin), 91

_Thoughts on Religion_, 342

Tyndall, Professor, 104, 143

Vivisection, 61, 62, 117, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126

Waggett, Rev. P. W., 311, 348, 350

Wallace, Mr., 55, 90, 170, 210, 211, 219, 255, 261, 337

Wedgwood, Miss, 99, 100, 101

Weismann, Professor, 194, 195, 196, 197, 211, 220, 223, 224, 225, 226,
235, 236, 237, 239, 240, 253, 254, 266, 288, 300, 301, 347

Yeo, Professor Gerald, 65

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TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE

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Obvious punctuation errors have been corrected after careful
comparison with other occurrences within the text and consultation
of external sources.

Except for those changes noted below, all misspelling in the text,
and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained. For example:
develop, develope; dulness; inclose; starfish, star-fish.

Table of Contents. '228' replaced by '248'.
Pg 18, Footnote [7]. 'Weissmannism' replaced by 'Weismannism'.
Pg 50. 'Rosshire' replaced by 'Ross-shire'.
Pg 126. 'You letter' replaced by 'Your letter'.
Pg 190. 'Fetichism' replaced by 'Fetishism'.
Index: Huxley. '237' replaced by '287'.