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From G. J. Romanes   14 December 1880

Linnean Society, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London, W.:

December 14, 1880.

My dear Mr. Darwin,—

I am glad that you think the experiment worth trying. As you say you have not got the requisite apparatus for trying it, I have written to Professor Tyndall to see if he would allow it to be carried through at the Royal Institution.1

If I had known you were in town I should have called to tell you about the Echinoderms.2 My paper on them is now written (70 pages), so I have begun to come here (Burlington House) to read up systematically all the literature I can find on animal intelligence. Hence it is that, having left your letter at home, and not remembering the address upon it, I have to send this answer to Down.3

[Butler] is a lunatic beneath all contempt—an object of pity were it not for his vein of malice.4

Very sincerely and most respectfully yours, | geo. j. romanes.

Footnotes

1
See letter from G. J. Romanes, 10 December 1880, and letter to G. J. Romanes, 13 December 1880. Romanes had suggested that experiments similar to those he had performed on medusae could be tried on plants. John Tyndall was superintendent of the Royal Institution of Great Britain.
2
The Darwins were in London from 7 to 11 December 1880 (CD’s ‘Journal’ (Appendix II)). Echinodermata is the phylum of sea urchins, starfishes (sea stars), brittle stars, sea lilies, and sea cucumbers.
3
Romanes’s paper, co-authored with James Cossar Ewart, was on the locomotor system of echinoderms (G. J. Romanes and Ewart 1881 (see letter from G. J. Romanes, 5 November 1880). It was delivered as the Croonian lecture of the Royal Society of London on 24 March 1881. Romanes was working on his book, Animal intelligence (G. J. Romanes 1882; see letter from G. J. Romanes, 22 April 1880).
4
A dash was printed instead of the name in the printed source of this letter. Samuel Butler had devoted a chapter of his latest book, Unconscious memory (Butler 1880), to an attack on CD and Ernst Krause for unacknowledged reaction to Butler’s work (see letter to G. J. Romanes, 13 December 1880 and n. 6).

Bibliography

Butler, Samuel. 1880. Unconscious memory: a comparison between the theory of Dr. Ewald Hering, … and the ‘Philosophy of the unconscious’ of Dr. Edward von Hartmann. London: David Bogue.

Romanes, George John. 1882a. Animal intelligence. International Scientific Series, vol. 41. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, & Co.

Romanes, George John and Ewart, James Cossar. 1881. Observations on the locomotor system of Echinodermata. [Read 24 March 1881.] Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 172: 829–85.

Summary

Glad CD thinks experiment worth trying [see 12904]. Has written to John Tyndall for permission to do it at Royal Institution.

Paper on echinoderms written [with J. C. Ewart, "Locomotor system of Echinodermata", Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. 172 (1881): 829–85].

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-12913
From
George John Romanes
To
Charles Robert Darwin
Sent from
Linnean Society
Source of text
E. D. Romanes 1896, p. 104

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 12913,” accessed on 23 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-12913.xml

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