To G. J. Romanes   16 April 1881

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

Ap. 16 1881

My dear Romanes.

My M.S. on worms has been sent to Printers, so I am going to amuse myself by scribbling to you on a few points; but you must not waste your time in answering at any length this scribble.—1

Firstly,—your letter on intelligence was very useful to me, & I tore up & rewrote what I sent you. I have not attempted to define intelligence, but have quoted your remarks on experience, & have shown how far they apply to worms.— It seems to me that they must be said to work with some intelligence, anyhow they are not guided by a blind instinct.2

Secondly, I was greatly interested by the abstract in Nature of your work on Echinoderms: the complexity, with simplicity & with such curious coordination of the nervous system is marvellous; & you showed me before what splendid gymnastic feats they can perform.—3

Thirdly, Dr Roux has sent me a book just published by him “Der Kampf der Theile &c” 1881.—(240 pages in length)4 He is manifestly a well read physiologist & pathologist & from his position a good anatomist. It is full of reasoning & this in German is very difficult to me, so that I have only skimmed through each page,—here & there reading with a little more care. As far as I can imperfectly judge it is the most important book on Evolution, which has appeared for some time. I believe that G. H. Lewis hinted at the same fundamental idea, viz that there is a struggle going on within every organism between the organic molecules, the cells & the organs.5 I think that his basis is that every cell which best performs its function is as consequence at the same time best nourished & best propagates its kind. The book does not touch on mental phenomena, but there is much discussion on rudimentary or atrophied parts, to which subject you formerly attended.— Now if you would like to read this book, I would send it, after Frank has glanced at it, for I do not think he will have time to read it with care.— If you read it & are struck with it (but I may be wholly mistaken about its value), you would do a public service by analysing and criticising it in Nature.6 Dr. Roux makes, I think, a gigantic oversight in never considering plants: these would simplify the problem for him.—

Fourthly, I do not know whether you will discuss in your book on the Mind of Animals, any of the more complex & wonderful instincts. It is unsatisfactory work, as there can be no fossilised instincts, & the sole guide is their state in other members of the same order & mere probability

But if you do discuss any (& it will perhaps be expected of you) I shd. think that you could not select a better case than that of the sand-wasps which paralyse their prey, as formerly described by Fabre in his wonderful paper in annl des Sc., & since amplified in his admirable ‘Souvenirs’.7

Whilst reading this latter book, I speculated a little on the subject. Astonishing nonsense is often spoken of the sand-wasp’s knowledge of anatomy. Now will anyone say that a Gauchos on the plains of La Plata have such knowledge, yet I have often seen them pith a struggling & lassoed cow on the ground with unerring skill, which no mere anatomist could imitate. The pointed knife was infallibly driven in between the vertebræ by a single slight thrust. I presume that the art was first discovered by chance, & that each young Gaucho sees exactly how the others do it & then with a very little practice learns the art.—8 Now I suppose that the sand-wasps originally merely killed their prey by stinging them in many places (see p. 129 of Fabre Souvenir & p. 241) on the lower & softer side of the body, & that to sting a certain segment was found by far the most successful method & was inherited, like the tendency of a bull-dog to pin the nose of a bull or of a ferret to bite the Cerebellum. It would not be a very great step in advance to prick the ganglion of its prey only slightly, & thus to give its larvæ fresh meat instead of old dried meat. Though Fabre insists so strongly on the unvarying character of instinct, yet it is shown that there is some variability, as at p. 176, 177.9

I fear that I shall have utterly wearied you with my scribbling & bad hand-writing—

My dear Romanes | Yours very sincerely | Ch. Darwin

1
Earthworms was printed by William Clowes & Sons for CD’s publisher, John Murray.
2
Romanes had sent CD comments on the nature of intelligence after reading an early version of part of Earthworms (see letter to G. J. Romanes, 7 March [1881] and n. 3, and letter from G. J. Romanes, 7 March 1881). In Earthworms, p. 95, CD cited Romanes on the nature of intelligence in animals.
3
An abstract of ‘Observations on the locomotor system of Echinodermata’ by Romanes and James Cossar Ewart (G. J. Romanes and Ewart 1881) was published in Nature, 7 April 1881, pp. 545–7. Romanes probably told CD about the echinoderm research during a visit to Down from 15 to 17 January 1881 (Emma Darwin’s diary (DAR 242); see also Correspondence vol. 28, letter from G. J. Romanes, 5 November 1880).
4
CD’s annotated copy of Wilhelm Roux’s Der Kampf der Theile im Organismus (The struggle of the parts in the organism; Roux 1881) is in the Darwin Library–CUL.
5
George Henry Lewes had discussed the ‘mutual limitations’ of tissues and organs, which resulted in a balance being reached within the organism, in Lewes 1877, pp. 104–7.
6
Francis Darwin was CD’s secretary. Romanes reviewed Roux 1881 in Nature, 29 September 1881, pp. 505–6.
7
Romanes was working on two books, Animal intelligence (G. J. Romanes 1882) and Mental evolution in animals (G. J. Romanes 1883a). Jean-Henri Fabre had published ‘Étude sur l’instincte et la métamorphose des sphégiens’ (Study on instinct and metamorphosis in the sphecids; Fabre 1856) in Annales des sciences naturelles, zoologie. Sphecidae is the family of digger wasps, sand wasps, and mud daubers. Fabre had described instinctive behaviour in wasps of the genus Sphex; he noted that the wasps always made two precise stings, the first under the neck and the second behind the prothorax of the Orthopteran (grasshopper) prey, and that the stings paralysed, but did not kill (ibid., p. 156). In Souvenirs entomologiques: études sur l’instinct et les mœurs des insectes (Entomological recollections: studies on the instinct and habits of insects; Fabre 1879), Fabre devoted two chapters to the behaviour of the yellow-winged sphex (Sphex flavipennis), and another to that of the Languedocian sphex, Sphex occitanicus (a synonym of Palmodes occitanicus).
8
In Narrative 3: 247, CD described how a gaucho delivered a fatal stab into the head of the spinal marrow of a wild cow that was struggling fiercely.
9
In Fabre 1879, p. 129, Fabre described how the common wasp (Vespa vulgaris, a synonym of Vespula vulgaris) stung its prey indiscriminately many times; in ibid., p. 241, he described similar behaviour in an unnamed species of Bembex (a synonym of Bembix, a genus of sand wasps) attacking a horsefly. Fabre had admitted that the yellow-winged sphex was not always fooled into rechecking her nest every time he removed an item of prey from the nest entrance, but referred to these ‘revolutionaries’ as being a tiny minority (ibid., pp. 176–7).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

0.1 (Railway … S.E.R.)] parentheses added
2.1 to me,] interl
2.4 they are] interl
2.5 guided] after del ‘b’
2.5 a blind] ‘a’ after del ‘any’
3.1 work] after omitted ‘—’
3.2 of … system 3.3] interl
4.10 at … best] above del ‘best’
4.14 If you] before del ‘a’
5.4 mere] above del ‘mere’
7.2 will] after del illeg
7.3 Gauchos] ‘s’ added
7.3 plains] ‘s’ added
7.3 have] above del ‘has’
7.3 often] interl
7.4 & lassoed] interl
7.4 cow] interl after del ‘cows’
7.5 mere] interl
7.7 young] interl
7.9 merely] above del ‘merely’
7.9 (see … 241) 7.10] interl
7.9 Souvenir] before del closing parenthesis
7.10 a certain] after del illeg
7.12 bite] after del ‘seize’
7.15 it] interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-13118,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-13118