Letter to Editor of Nineteenth Century in answer to Sully's criticisms of Mental Evolution in Man

 

George John Romanes' Mental Evolution in Man was published in 1888. Here he followed Darwin in supposing that man's mental evolution formed a continuum with the evolution of mental functions in animals. At GJR's instigation, his friend the philosopher James Sully (1842-1923) wrote a review. After some delay, the review was published in Nineteenth Century (30, 735-745, November 1891 - "Is Man the Only Reasoner?"). At what point GJR first saw the review we do not know, but he was not happy with it. What remains of GJR's reply to the published version consists of a 4 page handwritten draft (16 Nov 1891) and an undated 14p double-spaced typed revision. Mrs. Joan Westmacott (GJR's grand-daughter) kindly made these available to me circa 2002 with the understanding that their eventual resting place would be the Queen's University Archives. 

    I originally assumed (circa 2002) that the final version of GJR's reply was already available in Nineteenth Century, so there was little pressure to expedite this. But on returning to the matter in 2010, I searched for, but  could not find the reply. Thus, GJR's reply cannot have been submitted, or was declined, or was published elsewhere (in the same or a further derived form) in a location I have not traced. In view of GJR's ill-health and other demands, it seems most likely that GJR's Letter to the Editor was written in the spur of the moment and then put aside and never submitted. 

    Both versions are included here with GJR's cross-outs in square parentheses. Even if a final version eventually emerges, these intermediate versions reveal his mind at work sharpening and refining his arguments. That the Editor of Nineteenth Century, James Knowles, might have declined to publish Romanes' reply is a distinct possibility. But the cosy relationship between Knowles and Romanes (implied by Sully in 1918; see End Note below), suggests that it would eventually have been published.

    The first handwritten version sets out the argument in only 1144 words, but the typed version rambles on with much repetition and is more an article than a letter (3238 words). That neither version was destroyed, suggests that Romanes intended publication. These works from Romanes, a founder of evolutionary psychology, comparative psychology, and biosemiotics, may have something to tell us. The originals are now in the Queen's University Archives. As an introduction, you might find William Abberley's video (5 min) of help: (Click Here)

Donald Forsdyke, August 2010 revised July 2015



1. Handwritten letter

2. Typescript

       End-Note:_Sully's_Reminiscences_of_Romanes


1. Paper (4 sheets, 8" x 10") has horizontal line watermarks at 1" intervals. Writing is in ink in GJR's hand on one side, the whole being folded once vertically with the following description in pencil on the back of the last page in GJR's hand:

Letter in answer to J. Sully's Criticisms Mental Evolution in Man

Geo. J. Romanes  St. Algate's Oxford

16 Nov 1891

 

To the Editor of the Nineteenth Century.

Sir,

Not to trouble you with a [detailed reply] lengthy answer to Mr. Sully's criticisms of Mental Evolution in Man, I should nevertheless like to indicate the lines which such an answer would take.

   The criticism consists [entirely] of two objections [- yet]. These, therefore, I will [take] consider separately, beginning with the most general.

   This [?most] is, that I have not "approached the problem in the right way." Now, the "problem" is as to the transition from animal intelligence to human, and the "way" in which I have attempted to deal with it is, as Mr. Sully correctly observes, [is by] indicating the probable "stepping stones" whereby the transition has been effected. In his opinion, however, a better way would have been to [?develop ] have [say simply] argued thus:- "All intellection is at bottom a combination of two elementary processes, differentiation and integration": ergo "animal intelligence, just because it is intelligence, must be identical in substance with our own." There, then, we have two alternative methods - meaning the so-called historical method, and the so-called a priori method. It surprises me not a little to find Mr. Sully disparaging the former, and advocating the latter. For while the former is the method in which the whole theory of evolution, [has] in all its branches, has hitherto proceeded, the latter has been everywhere discredited by the spirit of modern research. Moreover, the only [criticism, stricture] objection which Mr. Sully [passes upon] makes with regard to my use of the historical method in the present case, is an [stricture to] objection which may equally well be [passed upon it] made with regard to its use in any other case - namely, that it [END OF PAGE 1] consists in the "interposition of links," or "stadia," each one of which "can be seen to have the essential characters" of [both] those on either side of it. But this is precisely the point wherein the evidential value of the historical method consists; and the more that each "interpolated link"["] can be seen to [participate in] have the "essential characters" of adjacent links, the better does the chain of proof become in favour of a continuous process. Therefore I do not see any [point in the] force in [whole] criticisms that "such intermediate forms as Dr. Romanes attempts to interpolate in the process of mental [evolution] development cannot in truth do away with the broad distinctions which naturalists were in the habit of drawing." Of course I may have failed to discover the true intermediate forms that ought to be interpolated; but this is quite a different question from that as to the validity of the interpolatory method itself - or, as Darwin terms it, "applying the great principle of gradation."

   And now as regards Mr. Sully's suggested substitute - the a priori method. If anybody were to say that the transmutation of species can be proved by the "the luminous idea that all "life" is at bottom a combination of two elementary principles, differentiation and integration,"* would he be regarded as [END OF PAGE 2] talking sense?{*Footnote to p. 2: Mr. Herbert Spencer applies this formula to all [physiological, as to all psychological, processes] "vital," as to all "mental," processes. (Princp. Psychol. 75, 383). Therefore the two cases are exactly parallel! And the formula is in both cases a good one as a philosophical reduction of the processes concerned to terms of their highest abstraction. But it is of no use for any purposes of scientific enquiry.} And even if he could be so regarded, how is it conceivable that [this] he should be able in any such "way" to further the theory of evolution? What the adherents of this theory want to know is, the history of the process - the causes and phases of the transmutations, the "links" the "stepping-stones or the "stadia" which have served to [b] join the [different] seeming interruptions. Yet this is what Mr. Sully's suggested method in this province of psychology expressly refused to attempt.

   Lastly, his only other line of criticism refers to one of the "stepping-stones" which I have "interpolated" between animal and human intelligence. [?] This stepping-stone is the "pre-conceptual" faculty of naming objects, qualities, or actions, which I show to be presented by talking-birds, and also by children when emerging from infancy. [Later on, or] Higher up in the psychological scale this faculty passes gradually into the "conceptual" kind of naming, or naming due to the power of introspective thought. Now my critic objects to this distinction. [Now, the o] But his objection proceeds entirely on a curious misapprehension. For it consists in attributing to me the "proposition, that before I can name an idea, I must reflect on the idea as mine." So obscure a "proposition," however, has never been enunciated by me. What I have said with regard to the conceptual order of naming is, not that there must be a precedent "act of subjective introspection as an essential factor in the process," but that there must be, as a precedent condition to it, a level of mental development which is capable of such an act. [Obviously this is a widely different thing from][END OF PAGE 3] I have said that the distinction between [naming] the bestowal of a "name" by a parrot or a young child, and the bestowal of a "name" by a naturalist or a philosopher, consists in the namer being capable or incapable of thinking about the name as a name. But this is a widely different thing from saying that the mind of adult man differs from all preceding grades of mind in not being capable of bestowing a name, unless in every case he does think about it as a name. It would, indeed, be a "curious theory" to maintain that we can never use our verbal symbols of thought without waiting to think about each of them as [such] a symbol; but it would be quite as curious a theory to maintain that these symbols could ever have come into existence, if, like parrots, we had not the capability of reflecting upon as such whenever we choose to do so. Therefore, notwithstanding what Mr. Sully says to the contrary, I must still maintain that there are names and names, - names which may be due to a pre-conceptual order of intelligence, and names which can only be due to a conceptual order, whether or not they be contemplated as names upon any particular occasion of their use.

    When once this [odd misconception] misunderstanding has been removed, the second branch of Mr. Sully's criticism falls to the ground. And this is the more satisfactory, because as regards all essential points of theory, as well as the collection of facts [of facts] which go to sustain them, he lays me under the obligation of thanking him for his approval.

George J. Romanes [END OF PAGE 4]


2. Typescript

2. Paper (14 sheets, 8.5" x 10.5") with horizontal line watermarks at 1" intervals, the whole being encased in a folded sheet of the same material (8.5" x 16.5") with horizontal line watermark and lettering "Bolton air-dried vellum."

Cover has text in GJR's hand: "Reply to Sully's Criticisms. [The best way would be for you]" The typed text that follows has hand-written amendments with the typed version crossed through. As above, the crossed items are retained here in square parentheses.

Mental Evolution

    Notwithstanding its friendly character, the review with which Mr. Sully has favoured me in the current issue of the Nineteenth Century, presents two points on which I should like to say a few words by way of reply. For, on the one hand, they are evidently points of importance to the science of psychology, and, on the other hand, they have been raised by a writer who is entitled to speak with no inconsiderable measure of authority as a psychologist.

   One of the two points refers to method: Mr. Sully doubts whether I have "approached the problem in the right way". This is his most general objection, and therefore I will take it first.

   The "problem" is as to the transition from animal intelligence to human intelligence, and my method of dealing with this problem is, as Mr. Sully correctly observes, attempting to indicate what appear to me the probable "stepping stones" whereby the transition has been effected. In other words, I have sought to trace the presumable progress of mental evolution from the level at which we find it among the higher animals, to the level which it presents among the lowest representatives [representations] of existing man. This, then, is the method to which my critic objects. And he proceeds to suggest another method, which he thinks would have been a better one for me to have followed. This alternative method is thus stated. ["Small type" written vertically along the side of the next paragraph]

   ["]The luminous idea that all intellection is at bottom a combination of two elementary processes, differentiation and integration, seems to lift one at once high above the perplexities with which our author so laboriously deals. It enables us to say that animal intelligence, just because it is intelligence, must be identical in substance with our own ["], etc.

   What, then, is the method to which exception has thus been taken? It is the so-called historical method. In other words, it is the method on which the whole theory of evolution has always and everywhere proceeded. Whether in the region of inorganic or of organic nature - of astronomy, geology, biology, psychology, or sociology, of ethics, philology, technology, and, in short, of every branch of science where the principle of development is concerned - the historical method has been the distinguishing method of modern research. Moreover, in all cases where it is applied, it is open to precisely the same formal criticism as Mr. Sully passes upon it in the present case. For the only criticism he has to advance against it is tersely expressed in his own summary, thus:- "If our criticisms are just, Dr. Romanes cannot be said to have succeeded in his main object, viz., the obliteration of all qualitative difference between human and animal intellectation by the interposition of psychological links, which can be seen to have the essential characters of both".  But it is easy to show that such a formal criticism is not a real one, by simply naming any of the other cases where the historical method has ever been applied. The transmutation of species, for example, is best proved by the "interposition" of previously recorded "links"; and the greater the number of "links" that can thus be supplied, the better does the evidence become.  Yet of each one of these "links" it may be said, "they can be seen to have the essential characters of both the forms" on either side of it, - this, in point of fact, being the very feature wherein its evidential character consists. And similarly, in all other cases where a process of evolution is supposed to have occurred, the best evidence of continuity that can be given is given by showing a series of "links", each of which resembles those on either side of it - or in my critic's phraseology, "tries to be both at the same time". It is needless to add that such "links", or "stadia", are known to be either accidental or artificial. Evolution does not mount to higher things by way of a staircase, (as distinguished from an inclined plane); but in many cases such is the appearance presented, owing to the extinction of intermediate phases; while in other cases, even though all the intermediate phases be present, the evolutionist arbitrarily marks off this that and the other level merely for his own convenience - as, for instance, in his study of embryology. But whether the stadia be thus accidentally given by nature or artificially marked by man, at this time of day there can be no serious question as to the importance of recognizing them in the former case, and of imposing them in the latter.

   For these reasons, then, I am unable to apprehend why Mr. Sully should take exception to the historical method in the province of psychology. Nor can I see any force in the criticism that "such intermediate forms as Dr. Romanes here attempts to interpolate in the process of mental development cannot in truth do away with the broad distinctions which psychologists are in the habit of drawing".  With equal propriety might it have been said, that such intermediate forms as Mr. Darwin attempts to interpolate in the process of zoological development cannot in truth do away with the broad distinctions which naturalists were in the habit of drawing. I may, indeed, have failed to discover the true intermediate forms that ought to be interpolated; but this is [quite] a different question from that as to the validity of the interpolating method itself - or, as Darwin terms it, "applying the great principle of gradation."

   And now, what is Mr. Sully's suggested substitute? As we have already seen, it is the exact reverse of the modern historical method; it is the old a priori method. Give us, he says, as common to all "intellection" the two elementary processes of differentiation and integration, and we are immediately able to deduce the consequence that animal intelligence, just because it is intelligence, must be identical in substance with our own. But even allowing, for the sake of argument, that this is a valid deduction,* to what does it amount? {Footnote to page 5: *It is not a valid deduction, because we know that differentiation and integration take place also and equally "in substances" other than "intelligence" - e.g., in physiological processes, even in a calculating machine. (See Herbert Spencer, Prin. Psychol 383.)} It amounts merely to an a priori argument in favour of the derivative origin of human intelligence: it does not so much as attempt to trace the mode of derivation, or to indicate the process whereby the enormous gulf between animal and human intelligence has been bridged. But is it not self evident that this "short way with the sceptics" would neither be an effective way with them, nor a fruitful way to those who already believe in the continuity of mental evolution? If anybody were to say that the transmutation of species can be proved by "the luminous idea that all" life "is at bottom a combination of two elementary principles" (say, nutrition and generation), would he be regarded as talking sense? And, even if he could be so regarded, how is it conceivable that he should be able in this way to further the theory of evolution? What the adherents of this theory want to know is the history of the process - the causes and phases of the transmutations, - the "links", the "stepping-stones", or the "stadia", which have served to connect in the past those sundry disconnected products of transmutation which are observable at present. Yet this is what Mr. Sully's suggested method in the province of psychology expressly refuses to attempt. 

   Be it observed, I am not disputing the value of Mr. Spencer's analysis of all mental processes into processes of differentiation and integration. But the value of this analysis consists in its formally reducing all mental processes to terms of their highest abstraction; and for this very reason the resulting ["]definition["] of all mental processes considered collectively, * can be of no service to any investigation touching the mode or the history of mental evolution. [Footnote to page 6: *"Under its most general aspect, all mental action whatever is therefore definable as the continuous differentiation and integration of states of consciousness". Princp. Psychol. 382. (Italics mine.)] An exactly parallel analysis is made by Mr. Spencer of all physiological processes, and it yields a precisely identical definition - viz., that all vital processes are processes of differentiation and integration. Here again I can understand the value of such an analysis for the purpose which Mr. Spencer has in view - i.e., the reduction of all vital, as of all mental, processes to terms of their highest abstraction. But, as already stated, I cannot understand why any one should regard the resulting definition as sufficient in either case to prove the fact of the transmutation - still less, of course, the history of it. "All vital processes are, in their ultimate analysis, processes of differentiation and integration", with the result that they may be defined, in regard to their development, as "a continuous change from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity, to a definite, coherent heterogeneity": this may be perfectly true as a matter of philosophical generalization; but does Mr. Sully mean to say that it renders superfluous any further enquiry touching the origin of species on the one hand, or the history of their evolution on the other? If not, what can be the relevancy of his statement that the very same verbal formulae* {Footnote:*Prin. Psy., 75.} when applied to "the origin of human faculty", and the history of its evolution, "seems to lift one at once above the perplexities" which have to be encountered by any one who attempts in this case to follow the historical method, or "to apply the great principle of gradation"?

   Of course, as above remarked, I may have failed entirely in my attempts to follow that method by applying this principle. But here, as likewise above remarked, we have quite a distinct question. I may conclude, however, by briefly showing that, if I have thus failed, it is as certain that I have not done so on account of the reasons assigned to my critic, as it is certain that I have not "approached the problem" in other than "the right way".

   And this is easily shown, because the whole of this more special line of criticism consists in a misapplication of the doctrine of "recepts". A recept, as Mr. Sully correctly states, is one of my suggested "stepping-stones": it is a "link" between the "percept" and the "concept", and is formed by sensuous association alone, without the need of introspective thought. But, it is needless to say, there are degrees of receptual ideation as there are of conceptual.  Therefore I have spoken of lower recepts and higher recepts, as I have spoken of lower concepts and higher concepts - making in all four arbitrary stages of mental evolution, which are thus marked off for the sake of descriptive psychology, - just as in embryology, for instance, stages of what is known to be a continuous process are similarly marked off for the sake of descriptive anatomy. Now these four stages together comprise the whole area of ideation, animal as well as human; and, therefore, it is difficult to understand why Mr. Sully should regard this confessedly artificial classification as showing that I "have been over-anxious, with a view to making the transit smooth, to multiply distinctions." Letting this pass, however, he further says - and quite correctly - that I have similarly marked off the faculty of sign-making into four stages, which answer respectively to the four stages of ideation. These, therefore, are likewise arbitrary divisions, avowedly made for the purpose of describing what I believe to have been one continuous growth. The most important of these divisions is made at the place where there is apparently a breach of continuity, viz., between animal ideation and human. It is to this place only that Mr. Sully's second line of criticism applies. For while I have recognised that there is a psychological distinction to be observed between naming as "conceptual" and "preconceptual"[,] - or as performed by a self-conscious mind and [on] a not self-conscious mind, - Mr. Sully argues that there is no such distinction. He maintains that a "name" is everywhere and equally a "name", and therefore that the advent of self-conscious thought makes no difference either in the character of names, or in the act of naming. Hence he argues that the more I have shown the faculty of sign-making to have been developed in animals (and he approves of all this part of my work), the less justification can I have for the distinction which I draw between this kind of sign-making and the kind which occurs in the full light of self-conscious introspection. And he concludes by remarking that even adult man does not require to employ his faculty of introspection in order to bestow a name. 

   Well, in the first place, I am of course quite in agreement with Mr. Sully as to the process of naming having been throughout a continuous process; and if he is antecedently pursuaded of this as a self-evident proposition, there is no need for us to argue the point any further. But the work which he is reviewing was written mainly for those who, far from accepting this proposition as self-evident, expressly base their argument against the derivative origin of human ideation on an alleged difference of origin, or kind, between the faculty of naming as it occurs before and after the advent of self-conscious introspection. Hence, it was only for the sake of analysing what these psychologists had said with regard to their distinction, that I conceded the distinction to be so far valid as to deserve a careful analysis. Or, as this matter is stated in the book itself:- ["Small type" written vertically along the side of the next paragraph, which is in single-space]

    "Either there is a distinction, or else there is not a distinction, between connotation that is receptual, and connation that is conceptual. If there is no distinction, all argument is at an end; the brute and man are one in kind. But I allow that there is a distinction, and I acknowledge that it resides where it is alleged to reside by my opponents - namely, in the presence or absence of self-consciousness on the part of a mind which bestows a name".*{Footnote: *Mental Evolution in Man, p.403.}

   It only remains to show that Mr. Sully's objection to my analysis of the distinction which has been drawn by my predecessors is not a valid objection. And this again is easily shown, because the criticism here goes entirely upon attributing to me the "proposition, that before I can name an idea, I must reflect on the idea as mine". But I have never given utterence to any "proposition" so self-evidently absurd.

   What I have maintained with regard to the conceptual order of naming is, not that there must be a precedent "act of subjective introspection as an essential factor in the process"; but that there must be as a precedent condition to this order of naming, a level of mental development which is capable of thinking about a name as [as] a name. And I have pointed out that in order to do this a mind must have reached a level at which it is capable of subjective introspection: it must have acquired the power of thinking about its own ideas: it must have attained to self-consciousness. But this is a widely different thing from saying that in every case of naming by a self-conscious mind there must be an exercise of the self-consciousness in an act of introspective thought. I can scarcely imagine that even Mr. Sully will dispute that there is some distinction to be drawn - even if it be only for purposes of descriptive psychology -  between "names" which are bestowed by a naturalist or a philosopher. If so, the place at which I have consented to draw the distinction is the place at which my opponents had drawn it - namely, where a mind first becomes capable of thinking about names as names. But this does not mean that such a mind differs from all preceding grades of mind in not being capable of bestowing a name unless in every case it does think about the name as a name. Nevertheless, although it would thus indeed be a "curious theory", and "psychologically wrong", to maintain that we can never use our verbal symbols of thought without waiting to think about each of them as a symbol, it is not equally obvious that these symbols of human "intellection" could never have come into existence at all, had it not been for the capability which such intellection possesses of reflecting upon them as such whenever we choose to do so? But to say this is to say that there are names and names - names which may be due to a pre-conceptual order of intelligence, and names which can only be due to a conceptual order, whether or not they be contemplated as names upon every occasion of their use.* When once this curious misunderstanding has been removed [it becomes obvious the whole criticism which arises therefrom collapses] the second branch of Mr. Sully's criticism falls to the ground. And this is the more satisfactory, because as regards [the] all essential points of theory as well as the collection of facts which go to sustain them, [Mr. Sully represents that I have not been unsuccessful in narrowing the psychological distance between animal and human intelligence.] he lays me under the obligation of thanking him for his approval.

George J. Romanes

94 St. Aldates. Oxford [written in ink]

{Footnote to page 13: *It appears to me that all this was sufficiently clear in my original essay, and therefore I do not understand why my present critic should have supposed that while attributing the origin and development of human speech to the distinctively human power of self-conscious reflection upon names as names, I was arguing that mankind could never employ a name without first reflecting upon it as a name. For instance, I have elaborately shown that the naming of a "recept" does not presuppose any self consciousness at all. Proof is drawn from children emerging from infancy, where I show that the names which they employ "must evidently be what I term receptual; for it is impossible that at that tender age the child is capable of thinking about the term as a term, or of setting the term before the mind as an object of thought". (Mental Evolution in Man, p. 160). Yet Mr. Sully says, "Mr. Romanes tells us that before we can bestow a name upon a recept, we must be able to set this recept before our mind as an object of our own thought". Again, a little lower down he asks, "Is a child when inventing a name for his toy-horse or doll reflecting on his idea as his, and naming this idea? Is he not rather thinking wholly about the object?" Of course he is, and so I have said in the passage above quoted, as well as in others too numerous to mention.}


End-Note (March 2013) Sully's Reminiscences of Romanes

In "My Life and Friends. A Psychologist's Memories," Fisher Unwin Ltd, London, 1918) James Sully writes (p. 171):

"Among younger men, I got to know about this time G. J. Romanes, the promising biologist. He was much depressed at this moment by the illness of a beloved sister, which prove fatal. A fellow-feeling drew me to him, for I myself had just had to pay my toll to death by losing a brother who had been the close companion of my earlier years. It was, I was told, the loss of this sister, that led Romanes to brood on religious questions, and to pen a volume which he published anonymously under the title of "A Candid Examination of Theism, by Physicus."

Later in the book (p. 193-4) Sully describes how he came to write the review that triggered Romanes' above response that, as far as we know, Sully never saw.

"I managed to publish in the Nineteenth Century and other magazines three or four papers upon the Psychology of Genius (its precocity, relation to insanity, etc.). Up to this time my relations with editors had been particularly happy. Now I was to have my single passage of arms with one of these formidable officials. Although I had seen but little of the man, my work for James Knowles, the editor of the Nineteenth Century, had run smoothly enough: I had given him my name for his list of supporters when, after a dispute with Strahan (the editor of Contemporary Review), he started that periodical.

     On talking one day with Romanes about his recently published book, "Mental Evolution in Man," he made the suggestion that I should write an article on it; which, he thought, Knowles would probably accept for the Nineteenth Century. I wrote to Knowles proposing the article, and he agreed to take it, providing I left him free as to the date of publication. To this I replied I was fully prepared to give him a 'reasonable margin' - 'reasonable' to be interpreted in the light of the fact that the article would be on a new book which had been out long enough to secure more than one review. As Knowles did not answer the letter, I assumed, rather weakly perhaps, that it would be all right.

     The article, entitled "Is Man the Only Reasoner?" was duly set up in type; but it did not appear for over a year. I had spoken to Romanes about the delay, and he had asked Knowles, once at least, when it was to be published. Soon after I had received the proof Knowles sent me a cheque for the article, a proceeding which, I was told, he adopted when a contributor grew impatient. I felt distinctly uncomfortable in this new situation. My previous dealings with editors like John Morley and Leslie Stephen had not prepared me for such treatment. I knew that Romanes and Knowles were 'friends,' and I suspected that Knowles had accepted the article, primarily at least, to please Romanes.

     But further: my article was anything but a laudation of the more original part of the book, which tried to build an evolutional bridge over the gap between animal and human intelligences. Had the editor, I asked myself, assumed that my proposal implied that I was prepared to accept and praise Romanes' book? I could not but think it likely, and felt a real chagrin on realizing how dangerously near I had come to joining in a bit of log-rolling."

[Logrolling definition, the exchange of support or favors, especially by legislators for mutual political gain as by voting for each other's bills].

Later (p. 249) Sully classified Romanes as one of the "old friends" he met during an Easter weekend in 1892 at Lady Victoria Welby's Denton Manor.

Romanes and Evolution of Mind (Click Here)

Romanes and Evolutionary Biology (Click Here)

Romanes & Physiological Selection (1886) (Click Here)

Romanes Meets His Critics (1887) (Click Here)

Romanes Correspondence (Click Here)

Romanes Early Career & Religion (Click Here)

Romanes, Grant Allen, Wallace & Gould (Click Here)

Romanes Versus Newton (Click Here)

History of Queen's University (Click Here)

Video Lecture on Bateson & Romanes (Click Here)


This page was established in August 2010 and last edited 12 Nov 2020 by Donald R. Forsdyke