94 St. Aldate's, Oxford: March 27, 1892.
My dear Schäfer,—I think I have found a new ordinal character peculiar to the Primates—viz. a nude condition of the terminal phalanges. This does not occur in any other order of mammals that I have looked at, but in all species of primates from Lemurs to Man, as far, at all events, as I have been able to examine. Now I want to see whether hair-follicles, or vestiges thereof, can be found in the terminal phalanges of any species of the order. So I am making a number of sections of the skin of the backs of the terminal phalanges of fingers and toes, of man (adult and fœtal) apes, monkeys, baboons, and lemurs. Hitherto I cannot detect (nor can Kent) any signs or vestiges of follicles. But I should much like you to look over some of the specimens (a few would be enough), in order to see whether your trained eyes would be also unable to trace any rudiments of follicles. If you would care to do this, of course I should acknowledge my obligations in a paper which I am preparing on the subject.
Yours very truly,
G. J. Romanes.
'Darwin, and after Darwin' appeared in the spring of 1892.
It was a book which was written, so to speak, with the writer's life-blood, it was a great burden on him from the moment he commenced it, and one of his greatest sorrows was his inability to finish it.
It is curious to those who know Mr. Romanes' mind intimately to note the exceeding severity, the almost harsh manner in which he treated the theological questions involved in the doctrines called, for convenience sake, 'Darwinism.' As more and more he found himself yielding on the side of emotion, of moral convictions, inducement, of spiritual need to the relinquished faith, so much the more did he resolve to be utterly true, to face every difficulty, to push no objection aside, to leave nothing unsaid—to be, in fact, absolutely and entirely honest. As a friend after his death, speaking of this very book, said, 'It was his righteousness which made him seem so hard.'
Yet there is a ring of hope of something which will one day turn to faith in the words which end the book:
'Upon the whole, then, it seems to me that such evidence as we have is against rather than in favour of the inference, that if design be operative in animate nature it has reference to animal enjoyment or well-being, as distinguished from animal improvement or evolution. And if this result should be found distasteful to the religious mind—if it be felt that there is no desire to save the evidences of design unless they serve at the same time to testify to the nature of that design as beneficent—I must once more observe that the difficulty thus presented to theism is not a difficulty of modern creation. On the contrary, it has always constituted the fundamental difficulty with which natural theologians have had to contend. The external world appears, in this respect, to be at variance with our moral sense; and when the antagonism is brought home to the religious mind, it must ever be with a shock of terrified surprise. It has been newly brought home to us by the generalisations of Darwin, and therefore, as I said at the beginning, the religious thought of our generation has been more than ever staggered by the question—Where is now thy God? But I have endeavoured to show that the logical standing of the case has not been materially changed; and when this cry of reason pierces the heart of Faith it remains for Faith to answer now, as she always answered before—and answered with that trust which is at once her beauty and her life—Verily thou art a God that hidest Thyself.'
June 1892 brought the first warnings of serious illness. One day Mr. Romanes announced at lunch that he noticed a blind spot in one eye. He consulted his friend Mr. Doyne, the well-known oculist, who from the first thought seriously of the case.