Chapter III (2)

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

Yours very truly,
GEO. J. ROMANES.

_To F. Darwin, Esq._

Geanies: November 5, 1886.

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

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

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

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

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favour do not publish only because it may tend to choke off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

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

Yours very truly,
GEO. J. ROMANES.

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

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

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

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

Yours very truly,
GEO. J. ROMANES.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

_To Miss C. E. Romanes._

Edinburgh: Christmas Day, 1886.

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

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

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

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

'Upon that Christmas Eve
We saw thee pass away,

* * * * *

We heard the music of thy parting breath;
We saw a light of angels in thy face--
A beauty so ineffable, that Death
Was changed into a minister of Grace:

* * * * *

The mountains in their autumn hues,
Of mountain reds and mountain blues,
With heather and with highland bells,
Await thy step on hills and fells;
The spongy peat and dewy moss
Remember where we used to cross--
Remember how they loved thy tread,
Make for thy steps their softest bed:
The murmuring streams are calling thee,
The woodlands sigh in every tree;
Yet when I walk upon the shore,
The waves are whispering--nevermore!

Mournfully, mournfully whispering, they,
Whispering, whispering every day,
Thy soul in their waters, thy breath in their spray,
Thy spirit still speaking in all that they say.
They knew thee well, those weedy rocks,
And now they rear their rugged blocks
When I pass by,
To ask me why
They never feel thy tender hands;
And all the yellow of the sands
Is spread to greet
Thy tireless feet,
Which loved to walk them when the tide was low.

Now when I walk alone,
To hear the ocean moan,
The sea-birds circling round
Sweep almost to the ground,
And peep and pry above my head to know
Why thou dost never come,
To watch them flying home,
Upon the purple breast,
Where daylight sinks to rest.'

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

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

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

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

_To the Editor of the 'Times.'_

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

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

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

I am, Sir, yours, &c.,
LL.D.

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

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

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

_March 9._--Mr. Leslie Stephen lectured on Coleridge most
admirably.

_To Miss C. E. Romanes._

18 Cornwall Terrace: March 1, 1888.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In 1888 appeared 'Mental Evolution in Man.'

_To Miss C. E. Romanes._

Cornwall Terrace: May 18, 1888.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

_To J. Romanes, Esq._

March 15, 1889.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I am yours very faithfully,
GEORGE J. ROMANES.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(10) Remarks.

(Signature.)[57]

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

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

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

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

He wrote afterwards from Edinburgh:

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

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

_To Professor Poulton._

Newcastle: Monday, September 1889.

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

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

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

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

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

Yours very sincerely,
G. J. ROMANES.

Geanies, Ross-shire, N.B.: October 21. 1889.

My dear Poulton,--Many thanks for your interesting letter. From
it I quite understand your views about the relation between
reproduction and repair; are they those of Weismann or altogether
your own? And have they, as yet, been published anywhere? If
not, I suppose it is undesirable to allude to them in public? The
theory is ingenious, but seems to sail rather near Pangenesis
(as do many of the latter amendments of germ-plasm by W.); and I
should have thought that the limbs of salamanders, &c., are too
late products, both phylogenetically and ontogenetically, to fall
within its terms.

I also see better what you mean about Sphex. But Darwin's letter
in 'Mental Evolution in Animals' seems to me to meet (or rather
to anticipate) the 'difficulty.' Of course, he did not suppose
that the insects' knowledge of 'success' goes further than
finding out and observing the best place to sting in order to
produce the maximum effect. The analogy of Cymphs is apposite;
but is it the fact that there is any species whose localisation
is really comparable with that of Sphex? Contrasting Weismann's
account with Fabre's, I should say not.

As for neuter insects (which you mentioned at Newcastle), Darwin
allows that they constitute one of the most difficult cases to
bring under natural selection, seeing that this has here to act
at the end of a long lever of the wrong kind, so to speak. Read
Perrier's preface to French translation of 'Mental Evolution
in Animals,' and observe how good his suggestion is, on the
supposition that Lamarckian principles have any applicability at
all.

Lastly, at Newcastle you said something that seemed to imply a
doubt upon such facts as Lord Morton's mare. Do you really doubt
such facts? I cannot suppose it.

There are plenty of white stoats hereabouts, I believe, though I
have never actually seen them, because I do not stay late enough
in the year. I have told my keeper to try to catch some without
injuring them, and, if he succeeds, to send them straight to
the Zoo. The experiment would be a very interesting one. But
the keeper says that even here the whiteness depends as to its
intensity upon the amount of snow in different seasons. He is
most positive about this; he says it depends upon snow, and not
on cold. However, I do not quote him as an authority in science,
although he certainly is an intelligent and observing man.

Regarding the Royal Institution, an after Easter course by you
would be doubly interesting, because before Easter I have to
give one on the 'Post-Darwinian Period,' which will be mainly
concerned with Weismann. Your lectures might then serve as a
counter-irritant, therefore I will do anything I can to bring
them about, only, not being on the managing body, I can help
merely by backing any application you may make. And, of course,
there ought to be no difficulty about it. Only let me know if you
should want backing.

Would it not be worth while to get also some mountain hares for
observation at the Zoo? These, I think, I could get.

Yours very truly,
GEO. J. ROMANES.

Geanies, Ross-shire, N.B.: October 15.

Would you mind sending me the part of your MS. dealing with
Sphex? I do not know that I quite caught your objection to my
difficulty, and want to allude to it in lectures which I am now
preparing for my Edinburgh class.

Also, did I correctly understand you to say that you refused
to acknowledge any fundamental identity between processes of
reproduction and those of repair? For this identity is to my mind
the most important of all objections to W.'s theory.

G. J. ROMANES.

18 Cornwall Terrace, Regent's Park, N.W.: December 3, 1889.

My dear Poulton,--I returned here a day or two ago, and now
send you my copy of Perrier's remarks about the neuters of
hymenopterous insects. But he said a good deal more in subsequent
and private correspondence. His preface, however, will serve to
show you the general tone of argument.

With regard to Panmixia, it occurs to me that very likely you
have not seen all that I wrote upon it, as the three papers were
scattered over several months in 'Nature.' The following are the
references: Vol. ix. pp. 361, 440; vol. x. p. 164.

You will see that I took up a decided stand upon the principle of
Panmixia not being able altogether to supersede that of disuse.
This was for the reasons stated in my last letter; and I still
see no further reason for changing the opinion that was then
formed under the influence of Darwin's judgment.

With reference to the difference that you alluded to--and which,
as far as I can see, is the only difference between Weismann's
presentation of the principle and my own--I enclose an extract
from the lecture which I have just been giving in Edinburgh.
From this extract I think you will see that the one point of
difference does not redound to the credit of Weismann's logic.
After reading the extract in conjunction with the papers in
'Nature,' perhaps you will let me know whether you now understand
my view any better, or still believe that the cessation of
selection _alone_ can reduce the average of a useless organ below
fifty per cent, of its original size--so long, that is, as the
force of heredity continues unimpaired.

G. J. ROMANES.

Some further letters to Mr. Thiselton-Dyer and to Mr. F. Darwin follow.

_To Professor Thiselton-Dyer._

December 20, 1888.

Dear Dyer,--Would you mind sending me on a postcard the name of
the genus of plants the constituent species of which you alluded
to in the train as being mutually fertile, and also separated
from one another topographically? I want to get as many of such
cases as I possibly can, so, if any others occur to you, please
mention them likewise.

By reading pages 401 and 404 of my paper, you will see why such
cases are of quite as much importance to me as the converse, viz.
where closely allied species inhabiting _continuous_ areas are
more or less mutually sterile (see p. 392).

If you have hitherto failed to apply these converse tests to
my theory, I cannot conceive by what other principle you have
sought to test it. Pray read the passages referred to, which
present the shortest summary of what I regard as the very
backbone of my evidence.

If your large knowledge of geographical distribution should
enable you to supply me with specific cases of the general
principle mentioned by Darwin in the quotation given on page 392
('Origin of Species,' 6th ed., pp. 134-5), I should much like to
try experiments on the sterility which I should expect to find
between these interlocking species.

It seems comical to ask a scientific opponent for assistance, but
the fact of being able to do so proves the superiority of science
to politics.

December 25, 1888.

It is very good of you to write such a long and suggestive letter.

As a result of attentively reading your letter, it appears to me
that you think I suppose sterility in a high degree to be much
more usual among allied species than I do suppose it. I well know
the large amount of natural as well as artificial hybridisation
that goes on. But, on the other hand, there are so many species
which either will not cross at all, or produce sterile hybrids,
that, taking a general view of all species together, mutual
sterility does become by far the most generally distributed
single peculiarity--_i.e._ is the one peculiarity which, more
than any other that can be named, is common to numberless species.

Thus much for mutual sterility that is absolute, either in first
crosses or in their hybrid progeny. But now, the most important
thing for me is mutual sterility that is _not_ absolute (though,
on my theory, perhaps on its way to becoming so) but relative,
_i.e._ there being a _lower degree of fertility_ between A × B or
B × A, than there is between A × A or B × B.

Hitherto very few experiments have been made on these comparative
degrees of fertility, yet it is by such alone, it seems to me,
that physiological selections can be tested. Thus, _e.g._, my
point about the 'interlocking' species (p. 392) is that in such
cases I should expect a higher degree of fertility in A × A
and B × B than crosswise. Indeed, my fear is that when I shall
have proved by experiment that such is the general rule in such
cases, naturalists will turn round and say: 'Well, of course, on
merely _a priori_ grounds you might have known that such _must_
have been the case; for otherwise the two interlocking species
could never have existed as separate species, they would have
hybridised freely along the whole frontier line and eventually
blended over the whole area.' And still more may this be said
in the case of allied species, not merely interlocking, but
intermixed through common areas. Therefore, as a believing
F.R.S. said to me the other day, 'Your letters in "Nature" will
at least have the effect of blunting the edge of such possible
criticism in the future.' Of course you will laugh at the
robustness of my faith in thus forecasting the line of future
opposition, but I would like to ask you this much: Supposing,
for the sake of argument, that twenty years hence I publish one
hundred instances of allied species which grow intermixed in
common areas, proving by experiment that in all the cases there
is _some_ comparative degree of sterility between them (if only
due to pre-potency of their own pollen), would you regard this as
making in favour of physiological selection? Or are you already
prepared to admit that such _must_ be the case, since otherwise
the species A and B could not exist without fusion into one? If
you say that you are prepared to admit this, it seems to me that
you have already accepted the theory of physiological selection
on _a priori_ grounds.

Again, if I should publish one hundred other instances of allied
species topographically isolated from one another, all of which
were proved by experiment to present no degree at all of mutual
infertility (so that A × A and B × B are not more fertile than
crosswise), would you allow that, taken in conjunction with the
previous set of experiments, these finally prove the theory of
physiological selection to be true? If not, I do not see how it
is possible to verify the theory at all: it is only by means of
these two complementary lines of research that, as it seems to
me, the theory can be experimentally tested.

In the former case--_i.e._ where allied species intermix in
common areas--sometimes they intercross freely (e.g. _Primula
vulgaris_ and _veris_, _Geum urbanum_ and _rivale_, _Rumex_,
_Epilobium_, &c.), while in other instances they don't (e.g.
_Ranunculus repens_ and _bulbosus_, _Lepidium Smithii_ and
_campestre_, _Scrophularia nodosa_ and _aquatica_, &c.). Now, as
regards the latter, I suppose you would not question that the
'physiological isolation' has to do with preventing the species
from fusing? But, if so, by parity of reasoning, should we not
expect to meet with _some degree_ of the same thing in the other
cases, which, although not here sufficiently pronounced to block
off frequent hybridisation, is nevertheless sufficient to prevent
the species from blending over their common area?

And here, I may say, I should not at all object to the charge of
misunderstanding Darwin on any merely trivial point such as the
one you mention. But in this instance it so happens that it is
rather you who have misunderstood me. I know that 'a hybrid is
not an intermediate form in his sense,' and this is just what
constitutes my difficulty against his paragraphs quoted on p. 392
of my paper. For what I say is, these intermediate forms _ought_
to be hybrids, _unless physiological selection_, (i.e. _mutual
sterility_) _has been at work_. 'In his sense' I cannot conceive
how such 'intermediate forms' can exist in the circumstances
described, seeing that they are _not_ hybrids, and yet that (in
the absence of any hypothesis of physiological isolation for
which I am contending) there is no reason given why the two
interlocking species should not freely intercross.