'The Royal Commission and its report.'
Or any other topic connected with Vivisection on which you may feel the spirit most to move you to write.
Any further information that you may desire I shall be happy to give; but please remember how much your assistance is desired.
This is a very delightful place, though not very conducive to work. If any of your sons are in Scotland and should care for a few days' sport with other scientific men on the spree, please tell them that they will find open house and welcome here.
The proofs of my book on Animal Intelligence are coming in. I hope your work on Worms will be out in time for me to mention it and its main results.
Ewart has pitched his zoological laboratory at Oban, so as to be as near this as possible. I shall go down when I can to keep his pot of sea-eggs upon the boil.
I remain, very sincerely and most respectfully yours,
Geo. J. Romanes.
Down, Beckenham, Kent: September 2, 1881.
My dear Romanes,—Your letter has perplexed me beyond all measure. I fully recognise the duty of everyone, whose opinion is worth anything, expressing his opinion publicly on vivisection, and this made me send my letter to the 'Times.' I have been thinking at intervals all morning what I could say, and it is the simple truth that I have nothing worth saying. You, and men like you, whose ideas flow freely, and who can express them easily, cannot understand the state of mental paralysis in which I find myself. What is most wanted is a careful and accurate attempt to show what physiology has already done for man, and even still more strongly what there is every reason to believe it will hereafter do. Now I am absolutely incapable of doing this, or of discussing the other points suggested by you.