Ɛpsilon

From Francis Darwin to G. J. Romanes   7 June 1877

Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.

June 7. 1877

My dear Romanes,

My father is going off tomorrow morning for a rest of a month & asks me to write to you—1 He thanks you for your letter which has amused him much (as it did me)   he says you should publish it in Nature.2 From a letter lately received from Fritz Müller I know there are some stinging plants ⁠⟨⁠(⁠⟩⁠Dalechampia) in Brazil, & from the way in which he spoke of the European stinging nettle I think it doesn't grow there. I sent his letter to nature & it will soon come out.3 He thinks plants protected by stinging hairs from ants, or by milky acrid juice, are specially well fitted for pasture for caterpillars. Try a sloth with stinging nettles. I believe the protecting ants keep the sloths from the Brazilian Cecropia peltata.4 My father thinks the guinea pig theory very probable. He has shown (I think in Animals & Plants) that the guinea pig is distinct from the Apereæ of La Plata: the wild parent of guinea pig is unknown5   My father will write about crossing if he has anything to say.6

I shall be delighted to do anything to help your Kew work. I am going to S’hampton in a few days so I fear I cannot look you up as you kindly suggest, I will some day however.7

My father thought there might be something in the ‘veneration’ theory.8 The religious or feudal feeling seems to me to give a nervous system to a community; not only by connecting all parts of the society by something that ⁠⟨⁠they⁠⟩⁠ feel to be powerful. But it seems ⁠⟨⁠to⁠⟩⁠ have the explosive or intensify⁠⟨⁠ing⁠⟩⁠ power of nervous tissue. If ⁠⟨⁠one⁠⟩⁠ thinks of Cromwells Ironside⁠⟨⁠s as⁠⟩⁠ an organism & compare them ⁠⟨⁠ ⁠⟩⁠ an organism with a body of ⁠⟨⁠  ⁠⟩⁠ one feels how the theocratic feeling “The Lo⁠⟨⁠rd is⁠⟩⁠ on our side” gives such contr⁠⟨⁠  ⁠⟩⁠ force to the Puritan organism tha⁠⟨⁠t⁠⟩⁠ the Royalist one is smashed.9

Yrs sincerely | Francis Darwin

1
CD was away from Down from 8 June to 4 July 1877, visiting family at Leith Hill Place, Surrey, and in Southampton (CD’s ‘Journal’, Correspondence vol. 25, Appendix II).
2
See Correspondence vol. 25, letter from G. J. Romanes, 6 June 1877, and enclosure; Romanes did not publish his remarks in Nature.
3
Francis published extracts from Fritz Müller’s letter in a letter to the editor of Nature published on 7 June 1877, pp. 100–1. Francis’s letter was dated 21 May and headed ‘Nectar-secreting glands’. Dalechampia is a genus in the family Euphorbiaceae. The stinging nettle, Urtica dioica, is in the family Urticaciae.
4
On ants and Cecropia peltata, see F. Darwin 1876b (he did not mention sloths in this paper).
5
In his letter of 6 June 1877 (Correspondence vol. 25), Romanes had suggested that guinea pigs evolved in an area where stinging nettles were not endemic, given that they persisted in trying to eat them while rabbits avoided them. On the domestic guinea pig (Cavia porcellus) and Cavia aperea (the Brazilian guinea pig), see Variation 2d ed. 2: 134–5 and n. 20.
6
See Correspondence vol. 25, letter to G. J. Romanes, 11 June [1877].
7
In his letter of 6 June 1877 (Correspondence vol. 25), Romanes had suggested that Francis might help him with his grafting experiments at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and had invited Francis to look him up if he was in London in the next fortnight.
8
No previous reference to ‘veneration theory’ has been found in letters; however, Francis, CD, and Romanes may have discussed it when Romanes visited Down on 30 May 1877 (Emma Darwin’s diary (DAR 242)). The discussion may have been inspired by the chapter on ‘the ideal’ in Grant Allen’s Physiological aesthetics, which Romanes and CD had recently read (Allen 1877; see Correspondence vol. 25, letter to G. J. Romanes, 23 May 1877).
9
Francis alludes to the English Civil War, conceived as a conflict between Oliver Cromwell’s Puritan parliamentary forces (popularly known as Ironsides) and the royalist cavaliers.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-10989F,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-10989F