Ch. Darwin.
Dunskaith, Ross-shire, N.B.: Sept. 10, 1878.
My dear Mr. Darwin,—Having been away for a week's deer-stalking in the hills, I have only to-day received your letter together with the book. Thank you very much for both, and also for the hints about Espinas and Bartlett. I am glad you thought well of the letter to the 'Times.' In a book I shall be able to make more evident what I mean.
Frank's idea of 'a happy family' is a very good one; but I think my mother would begin to wish that my scientific inquiries had taken some other direction.
The baby too, I fear, would stand a poor chance of showing itself the fittest in the struggle for existence.
I am now going to write my concluding paper on Medusæ, also to try some experiments on luminosity of marine animals.
Ever sincerely and most respectfully yours,
Geo. J. Romanes.
In addition to other scientific and purely philosophical work, Mr. Romanes had, even while writing his Burney Prize, entered on that period of conflict between faith and scepticism which grew more and more strenuous, more painful, as the years went on, which never really ceased until within a few weeks of his death, and which was destined to end in a chastened, a purified, and a victorious faith. His was a religious nature, keenly alive to religious emotion, profoundly influenced by Christian ideals, by Christian modes of thought. As time went on he felt, like all philosophically minded men, the impossibility of a purely materialistic position, and as he pondered on the final, ultimate mysteries, on[17] 'God, Immortality, Duty,' he arrived very slowly, very painfully, but very surely, at the Christian position.