From G. J. Romanes 1 June 1876
Dunskaith, Nigg, Ross-shire, N.B.:
June 1, 1876.
Many thanks for your long and kind letter. Also for the accompanying essay.1 It seems to me, from your epitome of the latter, that if Pangenesis is ‘airy,’ Perigenesis must be almost vacuous. However, I anticipate much pleasure in reading the work, for anything by Häckel on such a subject cannot fail to be interesting.
I am sorry to hear that you ‘much needed rest,’ and also about Frank.2 I had hoped, too, that you would have mentioned Mrs. Litchfield.3
Having been away from London for several weeks, I cannot say anything about the feeling with regard to the Bill.4 Sanderson and Foster5 think it ‘stringent,’ and so I suppose will all the Physiologists. The former wants me to write articles in the ‘Fortnightly,’ ‘to make people take more sensible views on vivisection:’ but I cannot see that it would be of any use.6 The heat of battle is not the time for us to expect fanatics to listen to ‘sense.’ Do you not think so?
I am sure the Physiological Society will be very pleased that you like being an hon. member, for it was on your account that honorary membership was instituted.7 At the committee meeting which was called to frame the constitution of the Society, the chairman (Dr. Foster) ejaculated with reference to you—‘Let us pile on him all the honour we possibly can,’ a sentiment which was heartily enough responded to by all present; but when it came to considering what form the expression of it was to take, it was found that a nascent society could do nothing further than make honorary members. Accordingly you were made an hon. member all by yourself; but later on it was thought, on the one hand, that you might feel lonely, and on the other that in a Physiological Society the most suitable companion for you was Dr. Sharpey.8
Perhaps a ‘secretary’ ought not to be giving all the details about committee meetings, but if not, I know you will take it in confidence. It seems to me that you never fully realise the height of your pedestal, so that I am glad of any little opportunity of this kind to show you the angle at which the upturned faces are inclined. I am glad, too, to see from the inscription in Häckel’s essay, that he is still doing his best to show that in Germany this angle is fast being lost in horizontality.9
As this spring was so backward, the plants at Kew were too small to graft before I had to leave for the Medusæ. But this does not much matter, as I had a lot of vegetables planted down here also, which are doing well. Pangenesis I always expected would require a good deal of patience, and one year’s work on such a subject only counts for apprenticeship.10 If, by the time I am a skilled workman, I am not able to send anything to the international exhibitions, I shall not envy any one else who may resolve to enter the same trade.
I am working hard at the jelly-fish just now, and have succeeded in extracting several new confessions. The nerve-plexus theory, in particular, is coming out with greater clearness. The new poisons, too, are giving very interesting results.11 I suppose you do not happen to know where I could get any snake poison. The ‘Phil. Trans.’ seem very long in coming out. I have not yet got the proofs of my paper.12
Footnotes
Bibliography
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Haeckel, Ernst. 1876b. Die Perigenesis der Plastidule, oder die Wellenzeugung der Lebenstheilchen. Ein Versuch zu mechanischen Erklärung der elementaren Entwickelungs-Vorgänge. Berlin: Georg Reimer.
Romanes, Ethel Duncan. 1896. The life and letters of George John Romanes M.A., LL.D., F.R.S. London, New York, and Bombay: Longmans, Green, and Co.
Romanes, George John. 1875b. The Croonian lecture.— Preliminary observations on the locomotor system of medusæ. [Read 16 December 1875.] Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 166 (1876): 269–313.
Romanes, George John. 1876–7. An account of some new species, varieties, and monstrous forms of medusæ. [Read 6 April 1876 and 18 January 1877.] Journal of the Linnean Society (Zoology) 12 (1876): 524–31; 13 (1878): 190–4.
Romanes, George John. 1876. The physiology of the nervous system of medusae. [Read 28 April 1876.] Proceedings of the Royal Institution of Great Britain 8 (1875–8): 166–77.
Sharpey-Schafer, Edward Albert. 1927. History of the Physiological Society during its first fifty years, 1876–1926. London: Cambridge University Press.
Summary
Anticipates reading Haeckel’s Perigenesis der Plastidule [1876].
Physiologists will think vivisection bill stringent.
Honorary memberships of Physiological Society created expressly to honour CD.
Working hard at jellyfish just now. Needs snake poison.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-10524
- From
- George John Romanes
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Dunskaith
- Source of text
- E. D. Romanes 1896, pp. 52–4
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 10524,” accessed on 26 September 2022, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-10524.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 24