Chapter I: Boyhood--Youth--Early Manhood (2)

My dear Mr. Darwin,--Many thanks for your kind letter. I am an
M.A. and a fellow of the Philosophical Society of Cambridge,
but otherwise I am nothing, nor have I any publication worth
alluding to. I suppose, however, this will not matter if I am
proposed by yourself, Dr. Hooker, and Mr. Dyer. I think there
would be no harm in saying 'attached to Physiology and Zoology.'
I may read a paper before the Linnean next November on some new
species of Medusæ, but I think it is better not to allude to any
contributions in advance.

Your letter about Pangenesis made me long for success more even
than does the biological importance of the problem.[8] Yesterday
I dug up all my potatoes. Some of the produce looked suspicious,
but more than this I should not dare to say. By this post I send
you a box containing some of the best specimens, thinking you may
like to see them. The lots marked A and B are sent for comparison
with the others, being the kinds I grafted together. If you think
it worth while to have the eyes of any of the other lots planted,
you might either do so yourself or send them back to me. Lot C is
the queerest, and to my perhaps too partial eye looks very like
a mixture. In the case of this graft the seed potato was rotten
when dug up yesterday, and this may account for the small size
of the tubers sent.

I did try dahlias and peonies, but in the former the 'finger and
toe' shape of the tubers, with the eyes situated in the worst
parts for cutting out clearly, prevented me from getting adhesion
in any one case. With the peonies I was too late in beginning.
It was also too late in the year when I began Pangenesis to try
the spring flowers, but I hope to do so extensively this winter.
Next year I shall try grafting beets and mangolds by cutting the
young white root into a square shape and placing four red roots
all round. In this way the white one will have a maximum surface
exposed to the influence of the red ones. I shall also try
grafting the crown of the red in the root of the white variety,
and _vice versâ_. I have already done this very successfully with
carrots--making a little hole in the top of the root, and fitting
in the crown like a cork in a bottle.

I shall look forward with great interest to the appearance of
the new edition of the 'Variation.' I only wish I had begun
Pangenesis a year earlier, when perhaps by this time the
graft-hybrid question might have been settled. Perhaps, however,
it is as well to have this question once more presented in its
_a priori_ form, for if it can soon afterwards be proved that a
graft hybrid is possible, the theoretical importance of the fact
may be more generally appreciated.

A day or two ago I saw on a farm near this a beautiful specimen
of striping on a horse. The animal is a dark dun cob, with a very
divided shoulder stripe coming off from the spinal one on either
side. Each shoulder stripe then divides into three prongs, and
each prong ends in a sharp point. All the legs are black as far
as the knees (_carpi_ and _tarsi_), and above the black part for
a considerable distance all four legs are deeply marked with
numerous stripes. I can get no history of parentage. If you would
like a drawing I can send one, but perhaps you have already as
many cases as you want in the 'Variation.'

Very sincerely and most respectfully yours,

GEO. J. ROMANES.

_To Professor E. Schäfer._

Dunskaith: Sept. 1875.

My dear Schäfer,--I have to apologise for having left your last
letter so long unanswered, but there has really been nothing
going on here to make it worth while writing.

I gave my careful consideration to all you said about publishing,
and at one time nearly decided to wait another year. But
eventually I sent in the paper.[9] It seems to me that the
histology can very well wait for future treatment--that its
absence is not sufficient justification for withholding the
results I have already observed. These results, after all,
are the most important; for they prove that some structural
modification there _must_ be; whether or not this modification
is _visible_ is of subordinate interest. Besides, I do not,
of course, intend to abandon the microscopical part of the
subject altogether. In my view, inquiry into function in this
case must certainly always precede inquiry into structure; for
although, when all the work shall have been collected into one
monograph, the histology must occupy the first place in order of
presentation, very little way could have been made by following
this order of investigation.

I also had to reflect, that if I postponed publication, it would
be impossible to expect the R.S. to publish the results _in
extenso_,--_i.e._, I should have to bring out the work through
some other medium.

And in addition to all this, there came a letter from Foster
preaching high morality about it being the duty of all scientific
workers to give their results to others as soon as possible.

As I said before, I thank you very much for the consideration and
advice you have given, but I know that you would not like me to
feel that the expression of your opinion in a matter with which
you are not so fully acquainted as myself should lay me under any
obligation to be led by it, after mature consideration seemed to
show that the best course for me to follow was the one which I
took.

Hoping soon to see you, I remain, very sincerely yours,

GEO. J. ROMANES.

P.S.--I forgot to say that I acted upon your suggestion about the
Linnean, and have been proposed by Darwin, Hooker, and Huxley.

_From C. Darwin to G. J. Romanes._

Down, Beckenham, Kent: July 12, 1875.

I am correcting a second edition of 'Var. under Dom.,' and
find that I must do it pretty fully. Therefore I give a short
abstract of potato graft hybrids, and I want to know whether I
did not send you a reference about beet. Did you look to this,
and can you tell me anything about it? I hope with all my heart
that you are getting on pretty well with your experiments; I have
been led to think a good deal on the subject, and am convinced
of its high importance, though it will take years of hammering
before physiologists will admit that the sexual organs only
collect the generative elements.

The edition will be published in November, and then you will see
all that I have collected, but I believe that you saw all the
more important cases. The case of vine in 'Gardeners' Chronicle'
which I sent you I think may only be a bud-variation, not due to
grafting.

I have heard indirectly of your splendid success with nerves of
Medusæ. We have been at Abinger Hall for a month for rest which I
much required, and I saw there the cut-leaved vine, which seems
splendid for graft hybridisation.

Yours very sincerely,
CH. DARWIN.

_To C. Darwin_, _Esq._

Dunskaith: July 14, 1875.

I was very glad to receive your letter, having been previously
undecided whether to write and let you know how I am getting on,
or to wait until I got a veritable hybrid.

In one of your letters you advised me to look up the 'beet'
case, but I could nowhere find any references to it. Dr. Hooker
told me that although he could not then remember the man's name,
he remembered that the experimenter did not save the seed, but
dug up his roots for exhibition. I forget whether it was Dr.
Masters, Bentham, or Mr. Dyer who told me that the experiment
had been performed in Ireland, although they could not remember
by whom. But if the experimenter did not save the seed, the mere
fact of his sticking two roots together would have no bearing on
Pangenesis, and so I did not take any trouble to find out who the
experimenter was.

As you have heard about the Medusæ, I fear you will infer that
they must have diverted my attention from Pangenesis; but
although it is true that they have consumed a great deal of
time and energy, I have done my best to keep Pangenesis in the
foreground.

The _proximate_ success of my grafting is all that I can desire,
although, of course, it is as yet too early in the year to know
what the _ultimate_ success will be. I mean that, although I
cannot yet tell whether the tissue of one variety is affecting
that of the other, I have obtained intimate adhesion in the great
majority of experiments. Potatoes, however, are an exception,
for at first I began with a method which I thought very cunning,
and which I still think would have been successful but for one
little oversight. The method was to punch out the eyes with an
electroplated cork-borer, and replace them in a flat-bottomed
hole of a slightly smaller size made with another instrument in
the other tuber. The fit, of course, was always perfect; but
what I went wrong in was not having the cork-borers made of the
best steel; for after I got about one hundred potatoes planted
out, I found that the inserted plugs did not adhere. I therefore
tried some sections with an exceedingly sharp knife that surgeons
use for amputating, and the surfaces cut with this always adhered
under pressure. The knife, however, must be set up in a guide,
in order to get the surfaces perfectly flat. Next year I shall
get cork-borers made of the same steel as this knife is made
of, and then hope to turn out graft-hybrids by the score. Even
this year, however, a great many of my potatoes are coming up,
so I hope that some of the eyes may have struck. I think it is
desirable to get some easy way of experimenting with potatoes
(such as the cork-boring plan), and one independent of delicacy
in manipulation, for then everybody could verify the results for
himself, and not, as now, look with suspicion upon the success of
other people.

With beans I get very good adhesion of the young shoots, but the
parts which grow after the operation always continue separate. In
some cases I am trying a succession of operations as the plant
grows.

With beetroots and mangold-wurzel of all varieties, adhesion is
certain to occur with my method of getting up great pressure by
allowing the plants to grow for a few days inside the binding. I
have therefore made grafts of all ages, beginning with roots only
an inch or two long and as thin as threads.

The other vegetables also are doing well, but with flowers I have
had no success. The vine-cuttings were too young to do anything
with this year, but I hear from my cousin, who has charge
of them, that they are doing well. They certainly have very
extraordinary leaves.

This year I never expected to be more than one in which to gain
experience, for embryo grafting, as it has never been tried by
anybody, cannot be learned about except by experiments. But as I
am a young man yet, and hope to do a good deal of 'hammering,' I
shall not let Pangenesis alone until I feel quite sure that it
does not admit of being any further driven home by experimental
work; and even if I never get positive results, I shall always
continue to believe in the theory.

I am very sorry to hear that you 'much needed rest,' and do
earnestly hope that you will not work too hard over the new
edition of one of the most laborious treatises in our language--a
treatise to which we always refer for every kind of information
that we cannot find anywhere else.

Dunskaith: November 7.

I have to-day sent you a beautifully successful graft. It is
of a red and white carrot, each bisected longitudinally, and
two of the opposite halves joined. You will see that the union
is very intimate, and _that the originally red half has become
wholly white_. The graft was made about three months ago, at
which time the carrots were very small, but the colours very
decided. I think, therefore, that unless red carrots ever turn
into white ones--which, I suppose, is absurd--the specimen I
send is a graft-hybrid so far as the parts in contact are
concerned. It will be of great importance, as you observed in
your last letter, in a case like this, to see if the other parts
are affected--_i.e._ to get the plant to seed if possible. This,
I suppose, can only be done at this late season with so young
a plant by putting it in a greenhouse. Perhaps, therefore, you
might pot it, as soon as it arrives, and keep it till I go up.
If you do not care, to take charge of it altogether, I can then
get a home for it somewhere in the South. It will not require a
deep pot, for I see that I have cut through the end of one of
the roots. It would be as well, before potting, to cut off the
end of the other root also, so that the one half may not grow
longer than the other, and thus perhaps assert an undue amount
of influence during the subsequent history of the hybrid. If
the plant when you get it, or after potting, shows signs of
drooping, I should suggest clipping off the older leaves to check
evaporation: having found this a good plan with beets, &c.

In the same box with the hybrid there is another carrot. This is
for comparison, it having been from the same seed and grafted
(upon the crown) at the same time as the originally red half of
the hybrid.

I am doubtful about the potatoes I sent. On looking over a number
of 'red flukes,' I find some here and there are mottled. At any
rate, I shall try other varieties next year, and not say anything
about this doubtful case.

I forgot to say that the hybrid carrot is the only specimen
of longitudinal grafting which I tried with carrots, having
been somewhat disheartened with this method by the persistent
way in which beets and mangolds refuse to blend when grafted
longitudinally. There have thus been no _failures_ with carrots
grafted in this way.

If it is not too late, I may suggest that the passage in the
'Variation' about the deformity of the sternum in poultry had
better be modified. I have this year tried some experiments
upon Brahma chickens, and find that the deformity in question
is caused by lazy habits of roosting--the constantly recurring
pressure of the roost upon the cartilaginous sternum causing
it to yield at the place where the pressure is exerted. The
experiments consisted merely in confining some of a brood of
young chickens in a place without any roost, and allowing the
others to go about with all the March chickens. The former lot
have the sternum quite straight, and the latter lot have it
deeply notched.

I write to thank you for the copy of the new edition of the
'Variation' which I received a few days ago. I am very glad to
see that you have thought my views about rudimentary organs worth
a place, and that you speak so well of them.

The chapter on Pangenesis is admirable. The case is so strong,
that it makes me more anxious than ever to get positive results
in this year's experiments. I mean there seems less doubt
than ever that such results must be obtainable if one hammers
long enough. I did not know that there were so many cases of
graft-hybridisation in potatoes. Perhaps it will be better this
year to give one's _main_ energies to other vegetables.

I find that a German, Dr. Eimer, is on the scent of the
jelly-fish, but he does not seem to have done much work as
yet. It is arranged that I am to have a Friday evening at the
Institution soon after Easter, to tell the people about my own
work.

_From C. Darwin to G. J. Romanes._

6 Queen Anne Street: April 29, 1876.

I must have the pleasure of saying that I have just heard that
your lecture was a splendid success in all ways. I further hear
that you were as cool as the Arctic regions. It is evident
that there is no occasion for you to feel your pulse under the
circumstances which we discussed.

Yours very sincerely,
CH. DARWIN.

_To C. Darwin, Esq._

I write to thank you for the slip about graft hybrids, and to
say that as yet I have obtained no results myself. This place
is too far north to admit of the seeds ripening properly after
the plants have been thrown back several weeks by the operation.
This applies especially to onions, so next year--the neck of
Medusæ having now been broken--I intend to wait in London till
all the grafting and planting out is finished. I do not think you
will regret my not having followed such a course this year when
you come to read the paper I am now writing. I never did such a
successful four months' work, and if as many years suffice to
answer all the burning questions that are raised by it, I think
they will require to be years well spent.

And this makes me remember that I have to apologise for the
inordinate time I have kept your copy of Professor Häckel's essay
on Perigenesis. Since you sent it I have scarcely had any time
for reading, and as you said there was no hurry about returning
it, I have let it stand over till this paper is off my hands.

Lankester seems to have doubled up Slade in fine style. I suppose
the latter has always trusted to his customers not liking to
resort to violent methods. His defence in the 'Times' about the
locked slates was unusually weak. 'Once a thief always a thief'
applies, I suppose, to his case; but it is hard to understand
how Wallace could not have seen him inverting the table on his
head. In this we have another of those perplexing contradictions
with which the whole subject appears to be teeming. I do hope
next winter to settle for myself the simple issue between Ghost
_versus_ Goose.

Very sincerely and most respectfully yours,
GEO. J. ROMANES.

_To C. Darwin, Esq._

18 Cornwall Terrace.

Professor Häckel's paper on the Medusæ is called 'Beitrag zur
Naturgeschichte der Hydromedusen' (Leipzig, 1865). Professor
Huxley has lent me his copy, but says he wants it returned in
a week or two. I ought certainly to have the work by me next
summer, so I thought that if you happen to have it and can
spare it till next autumn, I need not send to Germany for it,
remembering what you said when I last saw you. I should also much
like to see the other paper of Häckel's about cutting up the ova
of Medusæ.

I have an idea that you are afraid I am neglecting Pangenesis for
Medusæ. If so, I should like to assure you that such is not the
case. Last year I gave more time to the former than to the latter
inquiry; and although the results proved very disproportionate,
this was only due to the fact that the one line of work was more
difficult than the other. However, I always expected that the
first year would require to be spent in breaking up the ground,
and I am quite satisfied with the experience which this work has
brought me. I confess, however, that but for personal reasons
I should have postponed Pangenesis and worked the Medusæ right
through in one year. There is a glitter about immediate results
which is very alluring.

_From C. Darwin to G. J. Romanes._

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.

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.