Chapter IV · OXFORD (continued 2)

On July 13 Dr. Paget gave him the Holy Communion.

He slowly recovered from this attack, and there were hopes—not of perfect health, but of life, and of power to work. Now, more resolutely than ever, he set himself to face the ultimate problems of Life and Being, to face the question of the possibility of a return to Faith.

It is impossible here to tell of the inner workings of that pure and unselfish soul, of those longings and searchings after God, of the gradual growth in steadfast endurance, in faith.

To one or two these are known, and the example of lofty patience and of single-heartedness is not one they are likely to forget. Of this more later.

It was almost pathetic to see how keen and vigorous his intellect was. In fact, the great difficulty was to keep the busy brain from thinking. Novels helped to some degree, and occasional visits from friends as he grew better. Dr. and Mrs. Burdon Sanderson, the President of Trinity and Mrs. Woods, the Dean, Mr. Gore, the President of Magdalen and Mrs. Warren, and Mr. Waggett, all helped, coming and paying brief visits, which did him good, for if he was not listening to reading or conversation, he would be planning experiments or pondering problems of theology, and ask by-and-by that his thoughts should be taken down from dictation, or that paper and pencil should be given him, or, worse than all, devising arrangements for finishing 'Darwin, and after Darwin.' He dictated some 'Thoughts on Things' in the very first days of his illness, and sent for Professor Lloyd Morgan, who came and received instructions about the unfinished books, instructions which he has carried out with unflagging diligence and never-failing kindness.

But still he grew better, and early in August he went back to Oxford, and by the first of September he was able to be present in the cathedral at the baptism by Dr. Talbot of his youngest son.

The fact that the Vicar of Leeds[116] and Mrs. Talbot were in Oxford during that August was a great pleasure to him, and he much enjoyed occasional talks with Dr. Talbot.

To Professor Ewart.

I do not know what account E. gave you of my illness, but it is much too serious an affair to admit of our going to the British Association. Indeed, I hardly anticipate being able to make any engagements or do much work during the rest of my life, which is not likely to be a long one. It is just such an attack as I expected when walking with you over Magdalen Bridge.[117]

Yours ever,

G. J. Romanes.

By September he was able to listen to, and discuss, Dr. Sanderson's Presidential Address, which was delivered in Nottingham at the British Association of 1893.

It was one of the great disappointments of that illness that he could not go to Nottingham. To be at the Association when his dear friend and master was president was a great wish of his, and early in the summer a kind invitation from Lady Laura Ridding, to stay with the Bishop of Southwell and herself for it, had been accepted.

Nottingham and a visit to Denton, to which Mr. Romanes had been looking forward, had to be given up.

These things were real trials. It was not the giving up particular bits of pleasure, but the realisation that he was too much of an invalid to do anything of the sort, which he found so hard to bear, and which he did bear with ever-increasing patience.

His letters sometimes show how hard he felt his trial.

To James Romanes, Esq.

Oxford: September 4.

My dearest James,—I have had two reasons for not writing to Dunskaith since my letter about the birth of Edmund.

I agree with all you say about Fritz and her numerous brothers, the last two of whom you have never seen. But, although I have been so signally blest in my family ... I am not disposed to fall in with your optimism in other respects. Rather am I disposed to agree with the Scotch minister, that 'Man is a mi-ser-able worrm, craaling upon the airth;' for, both as regards the misery and the craaling I am now a type.

And this brings me to my two reasons for not writing before. The first is, that I am almost unable to write; and the second is, that I did not want to let you and Charlotte know all the facts sooner than I could help.

The long and the short of it is that I believe I am dying. I have been gradually getting worse and worse, ... nor shall I be sorry when it comes. Such being the case, I should like to consult you about setting my house in order....

The photos which the children brought with them of Dunskaith make me realise what splendid work the buildings are, and even although it is now improbable that I shall ever see them, I am glad to think that they will be in the family.[118]

I cannot write more now. In fact I have not written so much since my attack. But I send you the best love of a life-time's growth and that of your only brother,

George.

To W. T. Thiselton-Dyer, Esq.

94 St. Aldate's, Oxford: September 15, 1893.

Dear Dyer,—Many thanks for your letter with enclosures. As you say, there does not seem to be anything remarkable about the hybrid; but I am glad to see that both its parent species are well marked and presumably both of mountain origin. The case thus well accords with my views, as explained in my previous letters. I met with many such (i.e. hybrids between originally isolated species) in Madeira and the Canaries.

There are none so blind as those who will not see. Where can your powers of 'observation' have been when you can still remark that I ignore the facts of hybridisation? I can only repeat that from the first I have regarded them as evidence of the utmost importance as establishing a highly general correlation between separate origin of allied species and absence of cross-sterility. In fact, for the last five years I have had experiments going on in my Alpine garden, which I helped in founding for the very purpose of inquiring into this matter. And Focke, with whom I have been in correspondence from the first, and who does understand the theory, writes that in his opinion it will 'solve the whole mystery' of natural hybridisation in relation to artificial.

Since my last letter to you I have been at death's door. On July 11, I was struck down by paralysis of the left side, and am now a wreck. Not the least of my sorrow is that I fear I shall have to leave the verification of phys. sel. to other hands in larger measure than I had hoped. I have little doubt that it will eventually prevail; but more time will probably be needed before it does.

Yours very sincerely,

G. J. Romanes.

Oxford: September 18, 1893.

Dear Dyer,—I am not a little touched by the kind sympathy expressed in your letter of the 16th. When one is descending into the dark valley, scientific squabbles seem to fade away in those elementary principles of good will which bind mankind together. And I am glad to think that in all the large circle of my friends and correspondents there is no vestige of ill will in any quarter, unless it be with —— and ——, who both seem to me half-crazy in their enmity, and therefore not of much count.

As for 'fortitude,' sooner or later the night must come for all of us; and if my daylight is being suddenly eclipsed, there is only the more need to work while it lasts. But, to tell the truth, I do not on this account feel less keenly the pity of it. With five boys—the eldest not yet in his teens and the youngest still in his weeks; with piles of note-books which nobody else can utilise, and heaps of experimental researches in project which nobody else is likely to undertake, I do bitterly feel that my lot is a hard one.

Looking all the facts in the face, I do not expect ever to see another birthday,[119] and therefore, like Job, am disposed to curse my first one. For I know that all my best work was to have been published in the next ten or fifteen years; and it is wretched to think of how much labour in the past will thus be wasted.

However, I do not write to constitute you my confessor, but to thank you for your letter, and also to say that I am sending you a copy of my 'Examination of Weismannism,' just published by Longmans.

With our united kind regards to Mrs. Dyer and yourself, I remain, yours very sincerely,

Geo. J. Romanes.

94 St. Aldate's, Oxford: September 26, 1893.

My dear Dyer,—This is one of my bad days, and I have just exhausted my little store of energy by answering a kind letter from Huxley. So please excuse brevity, as I cannot leave your highly appreciated benevolence without an immediate response.

I am much concerned to hear what you say about yourself, and it makes me doubly desirous of seeing you. On Monday next I am to try to go to town for the purpose of consulting doctors. But any day before that we should be truly glad if you could come as you so kindly propose. Possibly I might be able to drive out to Kew on Tuesday or Wednesday of next week, should you find it impracticable to run down here before then. But I fluctuate so much from day to day that I cannot make any engagements.

Most fully do I agree with all that you say regarding criticism. And, especially from yourself, I have never met with any but the fairest. Even the spice of it was never bitter, or such as could injure the gustatory nerves of the most thin-skinned of men. I have, indeed, often wondered how you and —— and —— can have so persistently misunderstood my ideas, seeing that neither on the Continent nor in America has there been any difficulty in making myself intelligible. But this, of course, is quite another matter.

As regards Weismannism, I do not include under this term the question of the inheritance of acquired characters. That has been a question for me since the publication of Galton's 'theory of heredity' in 1875. Indeed, even before that, everybody knew the contrast between congenital and acquired characters in respect of heritability; and you may remember, the first time we met you gave me a lot of good advice regarding my experiments on this subject.

Please remember both of us very kindly to your wife when you write to her, and with our united best wishes to yourself,

Believe me, ever yours sincerely,

G. J. Romanes.

To Francis Darwin, Esq.

St. Aldate's, Oxford: October 8, 1893.

My dear Darwin,—Your very kind letter has been one ray of light to me in my gloom. Yet you must not think it is the only one.

It is comparatively easy to set our teeth and face the inevitable with 'a grin;' but the 'highest bravery' is to hide our anguish with a smile. I do think I make a decently good Stoic, but confess that in times like this Christians have the pull. Nevertheless, I have often thought of the words, 'I am not in the least afraid to die,'[120] and wondered, when my time should come, I would be able to say them. But now I know that I can, and this even in the bitterness of feeling that one's work is prematurely cut short.... 'Somewhat too much of this,' however. What I want to tell you is that I managed to get to London on Friday for the purpose of consulting my doctors as to my prospects. They take a more hopeful view than I expected, i.e. notwithstanding that I have had three attacks in one year (in both eyes and now in the brain), it is not inevitable that I should have another for years to come, provided that I become a strict teetotaller, vegetarian, hermit, and abstainer from work. In short, 'that my rule of life,' 'the exemplar' for my 'imitation,' is to be that of a tortoise. Hence it does not appear that there is any immediate necessity for saying farewell to my friends, and hence also I will not bother you by falling in with your kind proposal to come over from Cambridge to see me, much as I should like to see you in any case. But if you would care to pay a visit to Oxford any time between this and to-morrow week (16th), when I shall start for the vicinity of Nice, we should both be awfully glad to put you up. I think Dyer will probably be with us from Saturday to Monday (14 to 16).

With our united very kind regards to all,

Yours ever sincerely,

G. J. Romanes.

Then came the journey to Costebelle, which he describes as follows:

To James Romanes, Esq.

Hôtel l'Ermitage, Costebelle: November 4, 1893.

My dearest James,—I ought to have answered long ago the kind letter which I received from you just as I was driving to the Oxford station, and read in the train. But I am still such a wretched invalid that I shrink from the smallest exertion, whether of body or mind. I caught a violent cold in crossing the Channel, which kept me in bed for three days at Amiens, and left me so weak that I had to further break the journey at Paris, Lyons, and Marseilles—finally arriving here with a still feverish temperature. But this has now subsided.

We found not only Paris but quite as much Lyons and Marseilles in a state of delirium over the Russian fleet officers, with whom we were muddled up all the way, greatly to our inconvenience. This was especially the case on leaving Lyons, where the railway officials, after having put our luggage (containing our circular notes) in the railway station, locked the doors of the latter in our faces, when the police and military officials hurried us down the hill again in the town (in the rudest of ways) till the arrival of the Russians nearly an hour after our train was timed to depart. We had no doubt that our hand baggage had all been carried off in our railway carriage without us and without labels; but on at last getting into the station found that our train had not started.

This is one of the most charming places I have ever seen. The hotel is situated on the top of a hill which slopes for a mile to the sea, and which is thickly clothed with pine and olive woods in all directions. The climate admits of our sitting out of doors without overcoats or shawls till sunset, amid the most wonderful profusion of aromas I have ever met with.

To the Dean of Christ Church.

Costebelle: November 28, 1893.

My dear Dean,—In the firmament of my friendships there is no such star as yourself, and I find it belongs to them all that the darker and the colder the night becomes, the more brightly do they shine.

It is quite certain that 'the South has not yet rendered its full service,' inasmuch as it has not rendered me any service at all. If anything I am worse than when I left Oxford. My muscular power, indeed, has somewhat improved, but my nervous exhaustion seems to be growing upon me, week by week; so that I am now able to walk but very little—to hope, not much, to think, not at all.

The truth is that my ailment, whatever it is, is not to be reached by climatic influences: it belongs to those mysterious internal changes, which Darwin ascribes to what he calls 'the nature of the organism'—'variations which to our ignorance appear to arise spontaneously.' Hence, I am out of harmony with my environment, whatever the environment may be. And, as this Spencerianism applies to my spiritual, no less than to my bodily organisation, it would seem that somehow or other I have been born into a wrong world—like those poor Porto Santo rabbits, which I took home with me last year, and the history of which I think I told you. However, I do not intend to grumble at the visible universe until I shall have had an opportunity of looking round the edge and seeing what is behind.

Most of our time is spent in sheer idleness, or rather, I should say, all of my time, and that proportion of my wife's which is spent in reading to me—chiefly novels, poetry, and history. Yesterday, we had Coppée's play 'Le Pater,' which I know you have read. For the length of it, I think it is as powerful a piece of dramatic writing as I have ever read.

Very few worries find their way to L'Ermitage. The worst at present is the choice of the next 'Romanes Lecturer.' Owing to his accident, Helmholtz has blocked the way for the last two months, but now promises a final reply in the course of a few days. If he does come, I hope the University will give him the D.C.L.

With our united kindest regards to Mrs. Paget, whose messages to me are of more benefit than all my doctor's drugs (now that is a thing I 'would rather have expressed otherwise'!) and yourself,

I remain, ever your affectionate friend,

G. J. Romanes.

For a while all went well, he liked the place, and was able to work a little, and to have many books read to him. He had taken out Dr. Martineau's 'Study of Religion,' and other philosophical books, and he also plunged into poetry, reading Wordsworth chiefly.

In December came what seemed to be a severe gastric attack, with other alarming symptoms, and for a few hours he seemed to be dying. But this passed off, and although he was kept in bed for three weeks he grew better, and in some ways there seemed grounds for fresh hope.

For a few days in January he was under the care of a cousin with two trained nurses, and his letters home were surprisingly bright.

His wife's maid, of whom he was very fond, was terribly ill in January, and he writes:

Give Jane my love, and tell her I never forget how good she was to me when I thought I was dying in her arms at Boar's Hill.

And again he wrote:

So glad to hear the operation has been successful. Congratulate her from me. Tell her I heartily wish I were in her place as to this, but that nevertheless I have not 'lost heart.' I am now certainly stronger, and if I could only submit my cranial cavity to Tom's[121] hands for removal of anything disagreeable, I should be comparatively joyful.

The weather is glorious. Marian is at mass, having read me one of Church's sermons.

Please tell John to send me a couple of hundred cigarettes (to prevent influenza!).

When you come out you will not find me a kill-joy; the danger will rather be that of my scandalising you all by riotous conduct on Sunday.

And certainly he was astonishingly bright when his wife returned to him. It was on a Sunday afternoon, and his first proposition was, 'The church bell is tinkling, let's go to church.' It was the twenty-eighth of January, and the brightness and gladness of two of the Evening Psalms were oddly appropriate, and chimed in with feelings of a greater gladness dawning on him, for he was leaving the strange land in which for years he had not been able to sing 'The Lord's Song.'

And then began a time, often saddened by hours of intense physical exhaustion and physical depression, but also of what can only be called growth in holiness, in all that comes from nearness to God.

In the early autumn and winter there had been sad moments when still the clouds of darkness, of inability to grasp the Hand of God stretched out to meet him, hung over him, but in these months there had been the same growth.

One to whom he often spoke of the deepest things of life and of death will never forget his saying one day just after the attack of illness in December: 'I have come to see that cleverness, success, attainment, count for little; that goodness, or, as F. (naming a dear friend) would say, "character," is the important factor in life.'

For in early days Mr. Romanes had attached, so it seemed to some of those who knew him best, an undue importance to intellect, to cleverness, to intelligence, and the same person to whom he said the few words just quoted had often discussed with him the relative value of goodness and of intellect.

By goodness is meant perfect and complete goodness, not such as that of which it has been said, 'It is the business of the wise to rectify the mistakes of the good.'

And as weeks passed on he would often plan a country house and a life in which 'good works' were to have a share.

He had always had a high ideal of what Love and Faith should bring about, and in the last months of his life he said to one whom he dearly loved, 'Darling, if you believe what you say you believe, why should you mind so much?' With absolute resignation he gave up all his ambitions, the old longing for distinction, for greater fame, and yet he did not lose for one moment the old interest in his scientific work.

Two papers of his were read at the Royal Society in October 1892. The first described experiments undertaken by Mr. Romanes, the primary object of which was to ascertain whether seeds which had been kept out of contact with air for a lengthy period of time still possessed the power of germination. The method adopted was as follows: a certain number of seeds were taken from each packet, mustard, cress, beans, peas, &c., being the kinds employed, and having been weighed in a chemical balance were sealed up in tubes which had previously been exhausted of air, and kept exposed to the vacuum for a period of fifteen months. At the end of that time they were removed from the tubes and sown in flower-pots buried in moist soil. In some cases, after the seeds had been in the vacuum tubes for three months, they were transferred to other tubes charged with pure gases, such as oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, carbon monoxide, or with aqueous or chloroform vapour, and there kept for a further period of twelve months, when they were sown as before.

In all cases the same number of seeds, of similar weights to those sealed up in the tubes, were taken from each packet, kept in ordinary air for the fifteen months, and then sown as control experiments.

The results clearly showed that the germinating power of the seeds was hardly, if at all, affected either by being exposed to the vacuum or to the atmospheres of the various gases and vapours. Further, in no single case, in the hundreds of seeds so treated, did the plants produced from them differ from the standard types grown from the control seeds even in the smallest degree.

The second paper described experiments in heliotropism, which had been undertaken by Mr. Romanes with the object of ascertaining whether plants would bend towards a light that is not continuous, but intermittent.

Mustard seedlings, grown in the dark until they were about one or two inches high, were used in all the experiments; they were either placed in a dark room and exposed to flashes of light in the form of electric sparks passed at regular intervals, or they were put in a camera obscura, before which was placed a Swan burner or arc lamp, the light from which was rendered intermittent by the regular opening and shutting of the photographic shutter. The heliotropic effect on the seedlings was found in all cases to be very marked, the most vigorous ones beginning to bend towards the light ten minutes after the flashing began, bending through 45° in as many minutes, and often through another 45° in as many minutes more. By protecting half of the seedlings from the interrupted light, by means of a cardboard cap, then after the experiment uncovering them and exposing that half for the same duration of time to constant sunlight, Mr. Romanes found that the bending was less in this latter case, that is, when the light was continuous. This result was confirmed by placing two sets of plants under exactly similar conditions before a Swan burner, the light from which was constant for one set of seedlings, and rendered intermittent for the other set by working the flash shutter; in all cases the interrupted light caused the plants to start bending more quickly, and through a greater angle in a given time.

As regards the rate the flashes must succeed one another to produce this heliotropic effect, Mr. Romanes found that sparks passed at the rate of fifty in an hour would cause considerable bending in half an hour. It is of interest to note that in no single case was there any green colouring matter produced, the seedlings remaining colourless even when the sparks were passed at the rate of 100 per second continuously during forty-eight hours.

Dr. Sanderson writes:

Friday, November 17.

My dear Romanes,—There was a rather interesting discussion at the R.S. on your paper about the fresh experiments with seedlings. It was objected that there was no evidence that the effects were not due to one-sided drying of the stems of the seedlings, and —— wanted to know whether sufficient precautions were taken to guard against this. I suppose that he meant heat effects. I said that, under the conditions of this experiment, I could not see how any 'drying effect' could possibly take place.

My suggestion is that it would be worth while to add a note, if you think of the impossibility of any effect, excepting a light effect, being concerned. I asked Foster just now, and he agreed with me that it would be useful. I ought to add that it was admitted that the observation was a new one which promised to have very important bearings.

I am writing this in great haste. I trust that you are enjoying Costebelle.

Very truly yours,

T. Burdon Sanderson.

At this time Mr. Romanes had a very interesting correspondence with the Rev. G. Henslow, on the subject of the direct action of the environment on plant structures.

Ealing: October 19, 1893.

Dear Mr. Romanes,—If you are in town on November 16, I should be very glad indeed if you could come to the Linnean Society, and criticise my paper which I am going to read: 'On the origin of plant structures by self-adaptation to the environment, exemplified by desert and xerophyllous plants.'

In this and in subsequent letters Mr. Henslow explained the subject-matter of his paper, and as it formed the basis of the correspondence, a brief analysis, furnished by Mr. Henslow in a later letter, is here inserted.

The object of the paper is to show that the origin of varieties and species—as far as the vegetative organs are concerned—is solely due to climatic causes. For the acquired (somatic) characters become more or less hereditary if the same environment be maintained. But plants possess every degree in their capacities either of reverting, changing, or of stability.

The result is that I do not see any necessity for natural selection at all in Nature, for the following reasons.

Variations are often indefinite in cultivation, especially after several years. Therefore to secure a useful race artificial selection is necessary. On the other hand, variation is definite in Nature, all the seedlings varying in one and the same direction, i.e. towards equilibrium with the environmental forces. Darwin knew of this fact, and you have abundantly described it. But Darwin failed to see that this definite variation in Nature is the rule, and not the exception. Hence, as he admits, natural selection is not wanted at all [i.e. if all variations are definite in Nature].

Moreover, it is contended that climatic variations are of no great, even of any useful importance. This may be so, for all I know, with animals; but it is precisely the reverse with plants. I took my illustrations from desert plants, and showed that their remarkable characteristics, which give the facies to desert plants, are on the one hand the direct results of the excessive drought, heat, light, &c. On the other, they are just those features which enable the plants to live under their extremely inhospitable environment. These characters are the minute leaves, hardening of woody tissues, thick cuticle, dense clothing of hair, wax, storage of water tissues, &c.; so that the whole economy of the plant, including its specific characters, is all climatically acquired. Although some may vary when the plants are grown in ordinary gardens, such is no more than one would expect on a priori grounds to be the case.

I would limit natural selection, as far as plants are concerned, to three things:

1. Mortality among seedlings with the survival of the strongest.

I do not say 'fittest,' because it is ordinarily understood to mean that the survivors have some morphological features, by which they are benefited, which lead on finally to specific characters.

I do not find this to be the case. Take an instance of great contrast. Sow 100 seeds of the water (submerged) Ranunculus fluitans in a garden. They all grow up as aërial plants, i.e. they vary as they grow precisely in the same way. It is only the weakest (from badly nourished seeds) which get crowded out of existence. Here, then, is definite variation without the aid of natural selection. Ex uno disce omnes.

2. Delimitation of varieties and species by the non-reproduction of intermediate forms.

It is generally said that if 'good species' are isolated, the intermediate forms have been killed off by natural selection. I maintain that they were never reproduced. Thus if A has passed by successive generations, A′, A″, A‴, &c., to Aⁿ; A and Aⁿ being now only in existence, then A′, A″, &c., represented a single generation apiece, each offspring being one degree nearer to Aⁿ, but could never be reproduced, as the environment was continually acting upon the whole series, urging each generation forwards till it became stable in Aⁿ.

This is precisely what takes place in cultivating a wild plant like the parsnip. Each year the grower selects a slightly improved form, till the required type is fixed. The 'Student' is now Aⁿ, a more or less permanently fixed form, each of the intermediate forms, lasting one year, having ceased to be reproduced.

3. The geographical distribution of varieties and species by self-adaptation.

That is, if a number of plants migrate to a new locality with new environmental conditions, half of them may die; because they cannot adapt themselves; the other half may live—change, and become fixed forms, by their power of adaptation. The final conclusion of the whole is that plants require nothing more than climatic influences, to which their protoplasm may respond. The result is new varietal or specific characters. Then, if the same environment lasts, these become gradually more and more fixed and hereditary, but one can never tell beforehand but that the oldest plant in creation may not change again as soon as it finds a new environment.... This is what a long study of plants and experiments has led me to; and it is not a conclusion arrived at solely by 'thinking out' or evolving from my own consciousness—like the German camel!

Hoping you are progressing,

Believe me, yours sincerely,

George Henslow.

Hôtel l'Ermitage, Costebelle, Hyères, France: October 29, 1893.

Dear Mr. Henslow,—You will correctly infer from this address that I shall not be able to attend the Linnean Society meeting on the 16th prox. For two or three years past my health has been breaking up, and several months ago I had a stroke of paralysis. So I have had to knock off all work, and have just arrived here to spend the winter—finding your letter, forwarded from Oxford, awaiting me.

It has interested me very much, and some time I should like to see the paper to which it refers, whether in MS. or print. As far as I can gather, you are spontaneously following in the footsteps of Asa Gray, Nägeli, and some other botanists. But, it seems to me, this self-adaptation doctrine is equivalent to an a priori abandoning of all hope to obtain any naturalistic explanation of the phenomena in question. It simply refers the facts of adaptation immediately to some theory of design, and so brings us back again to Paley, Bell, and Chalmers. As when a child asks why a flower closes at night, and we answer him: Because God has made it so, my dear. C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la science.

But do not mistake me. My quarrel is with the term self-adaptation, which seems to imply causes of a non-naturalistic kind. Which, of course, is quite a different thing from doubting whether the naturalistic explanation given by Darwin is adequate to meet all the facts. I am myself more and more given to question 'the all-sufficiency of natural selection,' and this, whether or not use-inheritance is one of the supplementary factors. But that there are some hitherto undiscovered factors of this kind where many of the phenomena of adaptation are concerned, I am more and more disposed to suspect. Nevertheless I believe, in the light of analogy, that they will all prove to be natural causes, and therefore not correctly definable as due to 'self-adaptation.'

My hemiplegia has given me a terrible shake, so I cannot write much. Indeed, this is the longest of the few letters which I have written since my attack. So please excuse seeming bluntness, and believe me to remain,

Ever yours, very truly and most interestedly,

Geo. J. Romanes.

P.S.—Of course you would not in any case expect to find so much variability of the conspicuously indefinite kind in nature as in cultivation. For, by hypothesis, natural selection is present in the one case (to destroy useless variations) while absent in the other. But I allow this does not apply to the examples you give me. Only remember the point in publishing your paper.

Hôtel Costebelle, Hyères: February 10, 1894.

Dear Mr. Henslow,—I am much indebted to you for all your most interesting letters, and also for prospect of receiving your books. Although forbidden to write letters myself, or to think about anything as yet, I must send a few lines, pending arrival of the books and papers, giving my general impression of your views as set out in your correspondence.

Briefly, it seems to me that your argument is perfectly clear up to a certain point, but then suddenly becomes a petitio principii. In other words, so far as your view is critical of natural selection considered as a hypothetical cause of adaptive evolution, I can well believe you have adduced a formidable array of facts. But I fail to follow, when you pass on to the constructive part of your case—or your suggested substitute for natural selection in self-adaptation. For self-adaptation, I understand, consists in results of immediate response to stimuli supplied by environment. But, if so, surely the statement that all the adaptive machinery of plant-organisation is due to self-adaptation is a mere begging of the question against natural selection unless it can be shown how self-adaptation works in each case. Now I do not find any suggestion as to this. And yet this is obviously the essential point; since, unless it can be shown how self-adaptation works—i.e. that it is a vera causa, and not a mere word serving to re-state the facts of adaptive evolution. We have got no further in the way of explanation than the physician, who said, that the reason why morphia produces sleep is because it possesses a soporific quality.

Observe, I purposely abstain from considering your criticism of natural selection, which, although perfectly lucid and possibly justifiable, yet certainly does admit of the answer that incipient variations of a fortuitous kind under nature may often be inconspicuous (while Wallace shows that in animals they are, as a matter of fact, usually considerable). But we need not go into this. The interesting point to all of us must be the constructive part of your work; and I have tried to explain my difficulty with regard to it. Why should protoplasm be able to adapt itself into the millions of diverse mechanisms of nature by converse with environment? The theory of natural selection gives a logically possible, even if it be a biologically inadequate answer. But I cannot see that the theory of self-adaptation does, unless it can be shown that there is some sufficient reason why, say a direct-environment should produce self-adaptation in the direction of hairs, a marine one in that of fleshiness, &c. &c.

I have been very frank, because I know you, and therefore that this is what you would prefer. But I am too ill to make myself clear in a letter. I wish you could stop here for a day on your way home, by which time I shall probably have read your books, and we might discuss the whole business before I publish mine on the Post-Darwinian Theories.

With very many thanks,

I remain yours very truly,

G. J. Romanes.

Hôtel Costebelle, Hyères: February 24, 1894.

Dear Mr. Henslow,—Nothing can be more clear than are all your letters, and the last one, I take it, sets at rest the only question which I had to ask. For it expressly answers that, in your own view, hypothesis of 'self-adaptation' is a statement rather than an explanation of the facts. Nevertheless, it is also to some certain extent advanced as an explanation on Lamarckian lines, for in your books (for which I much thank you) you attribute adaptive mechanism in flowers to thrusts, strains &c. caused by insects. But here, if I may say so, it does not seem to me that you sufficiently deal with an obvious criticism, viz. How is it so much as conceivable that protoplasm should always respond to insect irritation adaptively, when we look to the endless variety and often great elaboration of the mechanism? Similarly as regards the inorganic environment, Lamarck's hypothesis of use-inheritance (i.e. mere increase and decrease of parts as due to inherited efforts of greater or less development by altered flow of nutrition) was at least theoretically valid. But how can you extend this to structures which, though useful, are never active, so as to modify flow of nutrition, e.g. hard shells of nuts, soft pulp of fruits, &c.? Here it is that natural selection theory has the pull. And so of adaptive colours, odours, and secretions? I confess that, even accepting inheritance of acquired characters, I could conceive of 'self-adaptation' alone producing all such innumerable and diversified adjustments only by seeing with Newman (in his 'Apologia') an angel in every flower.

Besides, I do not see why you are shut up to this, even on your own principles. For surely, be there as much self-adaptation in Nature as ever you please, it would still be those individuals (or incipient types) which best respond to stimulation (i.e. most adaptively do so) that, other things equal, would survive in the struggle for existence, and so be naturally selected. In other words, I do not see why you should accept natural selection as regards 'vigour' of seedlings, and nowhere else.

I quite accept the validity of your criticism of my physiological selection in your book, supposing your 'self-adaptation' true to the extent you suppose. But otherwise what you say tells in favour of physiological selection, at least, excepting the statement as to new allied species originating as a rule on distant areas from parent types. This, however, is certainly an erroneous statement, though I should like to know how you came to make it.

I much wish I could write more or meet you. For, notwithstanding apparent bluntness (for brevity's sake), I see you are one of the few evolutionists who think for yourself.

With many thanks, yours very truly,

G. J. Romanes.

I am not against your criticism of natural selection, for I have always thought there must be some other additional principle of adaptation at work.

Grand Hôtel, Costebelle, Hyères (Var): March 12.

Dear Mr. Henslow,—My husband has much enjoyed your long and clear letter which I have just read to him. He is too ill to reply himself, but he will dictate a few notes to me to send to you.

Yours very truly,

Ethel Romanes.

(A) I cry 'Peccavi' as regards natural selection co-operating with self-adaptation. Since you show that, even if it does, you are not concerned with this fact—i.e. of the development of the adaptation, but only with its origin.

(B) All the same, however, we must remember that where high elaboration of mechanism is concerned, the question as to the causes of its development become of more importance than those of its origin; e.g. even if self-adaptation be conceived capable of making a first step towards producing the exquisite mechanism of a bivalve shell, by discriminate variation, how is it conceivable that it should go on through the odd millions of successive steps of improvement needed to produce the perfect mechanism in which the great wonder of adaptation really occurs?

I can conceive of no natural process to accomplish this development even in one such case of mechanism other than natural selection. Let alone the 'endless variety' of elaborate mechanism elsewhere.

(C) Of course, if you could prove that indiscriminate variations have not occurred in wild plants, but only under cultivation, you would destroy Darwinism—in toto. But is the proposition credible a priori; or sustainable a posteriori, &c.?

I suppose you have read Wallace on the subject as regards wild animals, and if you were to make similar measurements with regard to wild plants, you would obtain analogous results.

I remember as a boy having a game of who could find most specimens of fern-leaved clover in a given time, or even two leaves of clover which would be exactly alike in all respects. But I have already discussed the matter of definite and indefinite variability in 'Darwin and after Darwin.'

(D) I will let the question of Use-Inheritance in relation to seemingly Passive Organs, go by default against me, as it is rather a side issue and would need much writing to discuss. The same applies to your remarks on Teleology. As regards both points I agree with your observations.

(E) Touching varieties as found in different areas from parent types, I suppose you heard how carefully Nägeli has gone into the subject, with the result that after making allowances for defects of isolation, change of environment, &c., only about five per cent. of species of plants seem to have originated on distant areas, while Wallace has shown that some such proportion applies to animals.

(F) As regards plants having been brought under cultivation, and yielding variations that prove heredity, I knew there were innumerable cases where artificial selection had been brought into play. But of course they are all out of court until the question on which you are engaged has been decided in your favour, i.e. until you have succeeded in disproving natural selection as analogous or parallel to artificial. It was for this reason I mentioned the case of parsnips, where the hereditary variations seem to have taken place in the first generation after transplanting, and therefore without leaving time for selection of any kind to have come into play.

Hôtel Costebelle, Hyères: March 29.

Dear Mr. Henslow,—I am still terribly ill and cannot write much. We must have a talk. Could you come to Oxford any day you like and be our guest? I think we might derive mutual benefit. I shall be there from the middle of April till I do not know when. Why not come on May 2, to hear Weismann give his lecture in the afternoon?

I much wish you would save seed of any fixed local varieties of plants you may find to be in seed, while you are in Malta (or bulbs), in order to see whether plants grown from them in England will or will not prove fully fertile. This is in relation to my own theory of physiological selection, according to which isolation produces segregation of type; in the same way as it does that of a language—viz. by prevention of intercourse with the parent type and consequently with an independent history of variation. Where the isolation is due to physical barriers (as at Malta) there is no need for any sexual differentiation to originate a species. But on common areas, sexual differentiation is the only means of securing the isolation. Therefore (I say) we can see why Jordan's French varieties all prove sterile with their parent forms, and I should expect your Malta varieties to prove fertile with theirs elsewhere.

G. J. R.

Costebelle: April 15, 1894.

Dear Mr. Henslow,—Yes, please write when you get back, suggesting any time you may find convenient for spending a day or two with us at 94 St. Aldate's, Oxford (immediately opposite Christ Church). I cannot talk long at a time, but I think the meeting will be of use to both.

Of course 'Isolation produces segregation of type,' is only a short-hand expression, meaning—indiscriminate variation being supposed—isolation supplies a necessary condition to segregation of type by upsetting the previous stability that was due to free inter-crossing.

I quite agree that Darwin very greatly over-estimated the benefit of inter-crossing, as I am showing in my forthcoming book on 'Physiological Selection.' But this is quite a different thing from his having made too much of inter-crossing as a condition to stability of type; I do not think that this can be made too much of. Indeed, how is it conceivable that there ever can be divergence of type without isolation of some kind having first occurred at the origin, and throughout the growth of every branch? Moreover, I agree with you about self-fertilisation, but see in it a form of physiological selection; it is one kind of sexual isolation, or prevention of inter-crossing with neighbouring individuals. So that the more perfectly it obtains in any given type, the better chance there is for that type to become a new species by independent variability—and this whether or not the independent variability is likewise indiscriminate (or in your terminology 'indefinite').

In my last letter I referred to the works of Jordan and Nägeli for any number of 'facts in Nature of varieties arising among the type forms.' I will show you the passages when we meet. But even in cases of 'local varieties,' where a variety has a habitat of its own surrounded by the type-form, I should expect experiment would often (though by no means always) show some degree of cross-infertility between the two, pointing to pre-potency (i.e. early stages of physiological selection) being the origin of the divergence.

Before we meet I wish you would try to think of any plants which can be propagated by cuttings (or otherwise asexually) which are known to be modifiable by changed conditions of life in the first generation. I understand you that in some cases the seed of such a plant will not revert—when sown in its natural environment, though, of course, the rule is that it does. Well, in either case, I should much like to try whether a cutting &c. from the transplanted (and therefore modified) tubers &c. would revert to its ancestral character. When retransplanted to its natural environment, much would follow from result of such an experiment as regards Weismannism.

Yours very and always truly,

G. J. Romanes.

P.S.—Of course in saying 'on common areas, sexual differentiation is the only means of securing the isolation,' I did not include self-fertilising plants—any more, e.g. than insect fertilising where changes in the instincts of insects may cause sexual isolation.

I leave for Oxford to-morrow.

These months were made very happy to him by the fact that three friends, Mrs. and Miss Church and the Rev. R. C. Moberly,[122] were staying in the same hotel. He often alludes in his letters to the intense pleasure these friends gave him, and speaks of how much he owed to their tenderness and sympathy, and to their perception when to come and when to stay away.

Many books were heard and read by him. Mr. Gore's Bampton Lectures were read aloud to him, and he liked them even better than when he heard them preached. Several other theological books were read, and of all these the one which bears marks of most careful study is Pascal's 'Pensées.' He used Mr. C. Kegan Paul's translation. The copy he had at Costebelle, which used to lie by his bedside, is marked and annotated. It is the last book he read to himself in his own careful and student-like fashion. He also wrote some notes of advice to his boys.

At this time he began to make notes for a work which he intended to be a supplement or an answer to the 'Candid Examination of Theism.' As he went on, his notes grew—so it seemed to one who read them—increasingly nearer Faith, but of them the world can now judge.

He said one day, while scribbling down notes, 'If anything happens to me before I can work them up into a book, give them to Gore. He will understand.'

Nothing can be more erroneous than to suppose that the change in point of view was sudden, or due to any fear of death, or that it caused mental suffering to the author of 'Thoughts on Religion,' or that he was influenced by anyone, priest or layman.

There will always be unconscious influence, and it probably was not altogether in vain that two or three of Mr. Romanes' greatest and most intimate friends were Christian as well as intellectual men. But of influence and argument and persuasion, as most people imagine them, there was nothing. Discussions many, during the past years, but to these he owed little.

It is written, that those who seek find, and to no one do these words more fitly apply.

During these months Mr. Romanes read many books of a religious nature; particularly and pre-eminently he liked to have Dean Church read aloud, and he also liked Mr. Holland's 'City of God' and Mr. Illingworth's sermons, particularly one on 'Innocence,' which he asked for more than once. He also read much poetry, Miss Rossetti and Archbishop Trench being especial favourites at this time.

To himself he read or had read to him the Bible and Thomas à Kempis, and he liked Dr. Bright's Ancient Collects, and in part Bishop Andrewes' Devotions. He never would read or have anything read to him which did not ring true to him and which he could not appreciate; for instance, the Pleadings of Our Lord's Physical Sufferings in Andrewes' Devotions for Friday were very distasteful to him.

He often went to the English Church for short services, and on Easter Monday Dr. Moberly gave him Holy Communion, for which he had asked and for which he wished.

In the week before Easter he felt very ill, and said, 'I wish Moberly (who had gone away for a few days) were here, and we could have that Celebration; I don't think I shall live till Easter.' But this passed away, and on Easter Day he was peculiarly bright, and in the evening said, 'I have written this poem to-day.'

It is impossible to resist the wish to insert it here:

HEBREWS xi. 10 (or ii. 10).

From the manuscript it is difficult to determine what was the motto of the poem, Hebrews xi. or Hebrews ii.; the latter is more probable, at least so it seems to the present writer.

On the 28th Mr. Romanes wrote a letter to the Dean of Christ Church, which, besides some items of personal interest, and of expressions of affection too intimate to be given, contains the following:

Costebelle: March 28, 1894.

My dear Paget,—I have had to abandon letter writing for several weeks past, as the least effort, even in the way of conversation, produces exhaustion in a painful degree. So, as usual, I had to ask my wife to answer your kind letter yesterday. But this morning I feel a little bit better, so I should like to have a try. She has gone to church, and therefore, as I could not even hear her read the letter which she posted to you yesterday, there is likely to be some repetition.

Oddly enough for my time of life, I have begun to discover the truth of what you once wrote about logical processes not being the only means of research in regions transcendental. It is too large a matter to deal with in a letter, but I hope to have a conversation with you some day, and ascertain how far you will agree with a certain 'new and short way with the Agnostics.'

Yours ever sincerely and affectionately,

Geo. J. Romanes.

He had all his old interest in psychical research, and a friend, Mrs. Crawfurd, of Auchinames, who shared this interest, used to beguile many weary hours with ghost stories, and he and she used to 'cap' each other's narratives.

There were pleasant people in the hotels around, and the bright sunshine and balmy air were great sources of enjoyment to him. Dr. Bidon, of Hyères, was unfailing in constant kindness, and it would be ungrateful not to say how much was owed to the kind landlord, M. Peyron, and to Madame Peyron.

The journey to England was apparently borne without undue fatigue, and the home coming was very bright, with joyous meeting with his children and with various friends. The only difficulty was to keep him quiet enough. It was said one day, 'When you go home you must not see too many people.' 'Oh, no,' he replied, 'I only want to see Paget, and Dr. Sanderson, and Gore, and Philip (Waggett), and Mrs. Woods, and Ray Lankester, and ——' but he stopped, laughing, the list was already so long and would soon have been doubled. For a few days his wife was away, and during this brief absence a very dear friend, Miss Rose Price, the daughter of the Master of Pembroke, died.

He writes:

To Mrs. Romanes.

How glad I am you are still mine! I have just returned from Rose's funeral, which was all but too much for me. As you know, I have seen other such things on a grander scale, but never any approach to this one in point of beauty and pathos. The College Chapel was completely filled with members of the University, with wives and daughters, yet all personal friends of hers, including all members of the family, the poor Master separated from the rest in his official seat. All the undergraduates of Pembroke were present, each provided with a lovely wreath, carried in procession to the grave. The whole of the east end was one mass of white flowers, the coffin with its own flowers being placed in the middle of the aisle. The procession walked first all round the quad, and then through Christ Church Meadows, being met at Holywell by the choir.[123]

This is the last letter I shall write. All well here, and the Interlopers[124] know me now. Weismann accepts invitation to lecture, and is on his way on purpose. I have obtained an invitation from the Royal Society for him to the 'soirée.'

Four weeks more, and the writer of this letter was also borne through Christ Church Meadow, and laid to rest near the young girl whom he had made his friend, and whose death he deeply mourned.

It was thought at this time that a country home would be possibly better for him. Many drives were taken in search of houses or of possible sites for building, and he was often positively boyish and merry during these expeditions.

He began to devise experiments again, and also set to work to arrange his papers and manuscripts in the most methodical way. As has been said he had already arranged that if he died before completing 'Darwin, and after Darwin,' Professor Lloyd Morgan should finish it and publish it, and any other scientific papers, an arrangement to which Mr. Lloyd Morgan most kindly consented. To Mr. Gore were bequeathed the fragmentary notes now published under the title 'Thoughts on Religion.'

On May 3 came the third Romanes Lecture. It was given by Professor Weismann, and was a worthy successor to the two which had preceded it.

Mr. Romanes was glad to meet Professor Weismann, and enjoyed the pleasant talk he and his distinguished opponent had in his house after the lecture.

On the seventh of May he went to London to consult doctors, and for the last time he stayed with his two dear friends, Sir James and Lady Paget.

He saw one or two people and was, as one friend said, 'just his dear merry old self, chaffing and being chaffed.'

He enjoyed music as much as ever, and on the nineteenth of May he went to a concert given by the Ladies' Orchestral Society.

He was often at the Museum, and he wrote frequently of the experiments he was devising, all bearing on Professor Weismann's theory; in these he was assisted by Dr. Leonard Hill.

He wrote several times to Professor Schäfer, and on May 19, four days before his death, in the midst of a long letter too technical to be given, he says, 'All I can do now for science is to pay.'

He still took much interest in Oxford life, and one of the last things he did was to vote against the introduction of the English Language and Literature School.

Cathedral was more than ever a pleasure to him, and he used often to slip in for bits of the service, particularly if some particular service or anthem was going to be given. Especially he loved a few special anthems; Brahms' 'How lovely are Thy dwellings fair' being a great favourite.

He used to go down to the 'Eights' when they began, and on almost the very last day of his life he was with difficulty dissuaded from writing a letter to the 'Times,' strongly supporting the Christ Church authorities whose proceedings in some disturbances in the College had been criticised. On Whit Sunday, for the last time, he went to the University Sermon, which happened to be preached by the Bishop of Lincoln, and which greatly impressed Mr. Romanes, brought as he was for the first time under the spell of one who has influenced more than one generation of Oxford men.

And as the days went on, there was a curious feeling of preparation for some change. He made all his arrangements and was quite calm, quite gentle, even merry at times; now and then the weary fits of physical lassitude or of headache would prostrate him, but when these were past he would placidly begin some bit of work.

On Thursday in Whit week he went to the eight o'clock Celebration of Holy Communion in the Latin Chapel of Christ Church, and in the course of that day he said, 'I have now come to see that faith is intellectually justifiable.' By-and-by he added, 'It is Christianity or nothing.'

Presently he added, 'I as yet have not that real inward assurance; it is with me as that text says, "I am not able to look up," but I feel the service of this morning is a means of grace.'

This was almost the last time he ever spoke on religious subjects.

With Mr. Philip Waggett there had been in these last days some talks, and the two friends, united as they had been in earlier years by their common interest in science, and in those problems which all who think at all must sooner or later face, now found themselves in closer and fuller agreement than either could at one time have believed possible.

Sunday, the twentieth of May, was his birthday and that of his eldest son, and had always been a family festa. He was bright and merry, went to Magdalen to see Mrs. Warren, saw for the last time Dr. Paget, and had a little talk about his 'Thoughts on Religion' with Mr. Gore, whom he went to hear preach in one of the Oxford churches. And on Monday he keenly enjoyed a small luncheon party, consisting of the Master of Balliol, Mr. Gore, and Miss Wordsworth, saying that Poetry, Science, Theology, Philosophy were all represented, and that he would have such-like little parties every now and then, they were so refreshing and did not tire him.

One or two special friends came in to see him on these last days, and he had planned to go and stay at a country house belonging to the President of Trinity, which had been with characteristic kindness put at his disposal.

On Wednesday, May 23, he seemed particularly well; he wrote a letter to the Editor of the 'Contemporary Review' and did some bits of work. It was Sir James and Lady Paget's Golden Wedding day, and he despatched a telegram of congratulation to them. (The very last bit of shopping he ever did was to buy a present for that Golden Wedding, which reached those for whom it was intended after he was dead.)

He came into his study about twelve, and asked that the book in which he was then interested, 'Some Aspects of Theism,'[125] might be read aloud; but before the reading began he changed his mind, and said he would lie down in his bedroom and be read to there. On lying down he complained of feeling very ill, said a few loving words to one who was with him, and became unconscious. His children and the Dean came to him, but he did not recover enough to know them, and passed away in less than an hour: Ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem.

Five days later he was laid to rest in Holywell Cemetery, after an early Celebration in Christ Church, the first part of the service being said in the cathedral which he had loved so much, and which had brought him so much comfort in the last weeks of life.

His favourite hymn, 'Lead, kindly Light,' was sung, and the service was said in part by the friend who had been with him on his wedding-day, given him his first Communion after the illness began, and who had been bound up with many joys and sorrows;[126] and in part by Mr. Philip Waggett, who had been to him as a young brother, more and more loved, during the seven years in which they had walked and talked as friends, the friend known as 'Carissime.' (One other special friend, Mr. Gore, was prevented by illness from coming.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

F. P.

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

1 Carlton Gardens: June.

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

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

Believe me, most truly yours,

W. E. Gladstone.

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

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

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

Beati mundo corde, quoniam ipsi Deum videbunt.

May 23, 1895.

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