Ɛpsilon

From G. J. Romanes   8 August 1881

18 Cornwall Terrace, Regent’s Park, N.W.:

August 8, 1881.

Many thanks for the notice of Roux’s book.1 I have not yet looked at the latter, but Preyer, of Jena (who has been our guest during the Congress meeting, and who knows the author), does not think much of it.2

I am delighted that the portrait has pleased those who are the best judges. I saw it the day it came up, and feel no doubt at all that it is far and away the best of the three.3 But I did not like to write and venture this opinion till I knew what you all thought of it.

I have been very busy this past week with the affairs of the Congress in relation to Vivisection. It has been resolved by the Physiological Section to get a vote of the whole Congress upon the subject, and I had to prepare the resolution and get the signatures of all the vice-presidents of the Congress, presidents and vice-presidents of sections, and to arrange for its being put to the vote of the whole Congress at its last general meeting to-morrow. The only refusal to sign came appropriately enough from the president of the section ‘Mental Diseases.’4

We leave for Scotland to-morrow, when I shall hope to get time to read Roux’s book, though I shall first review ‘The Student’s Darwin.’5

I remain, very sincerely and most respectfully yours, | Geo. J. Romanes.

1
CD had sent a notice of Wilhelm Roux’s Der Kampf der Theile im Organismus (The struggle of the parts in the organism; Roux 1881). See letter to G. J. Romanes, 7 August [1881] and n. 2.
2
William Preyer had been one of Roux’s professors at the University of Jena (Richards 2008, p. 190). The seventh International Medical Congress met in London from 2 to 9 August 1881.
3
Romanes had arranged for CD’s portrait to be painted by John Collier for display at the Linnean Society (see letter to G. J. Romanes, 7 August [1881]). Two other portraits had been made of CD in recent years: one by Walter William Ouless (see Correspondence vol. 23, frontispiece), and one by William Blake Richmond (see Correspondence vol. 27, frontispiece).
4
The president of the section on mental diseases was Charles Alexander Lockhart Robertson. The following resolution was passed at the general meeting: ‘That this Congress records its conviction that experiments on living animals have proved of the utmost service to medicine in the past, and are indispensable for its future progress; and accordingly, while strongly deprecating the infliction of unnecessary pain, it is of opinion that, alike in the interests of man and of animals, it is not desirable to restrict competent persons in the performance of such experiments’ (Nature, 11 August 1881, p. 332).
5
Romanes’s review of The student’s Darwin (Aveling 1881) appeared in Nature, 8 September 1881, pp. 429–30.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-13282,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-13282