Man of science; was born at Kingston, Canada West, 1848, but came with his parents to England at an early age: B.A. Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, 1870; honorary fellow, 1872; Burney prizeman, 1873; formed friendship with Darwin; studied physiology at University College, London, 1874–6; engaged in researches on medusæ and echinoderms; F.R.S., 1879; made investigation respecting mental faculties of animals in relation to those of man, 1881–3; held professorship at Edinburgh, 1886–90; Fullerian professor of physiology at Royal Institution, 1888–91; expounded in paper contributed to Linnean Society, 1886, theory of physiological isolation, dealing with the possible evolution of a distinct species from an isolated group of an original species; zoological secretary of Linnean Society; incorporated M.A. Oxford; founded Romanes lecture at Oxford, 1891; Hon. LL.D. Aberdeen, 1882. His publications include “Candid Examination of Theism,” 1878, “Animal Intelligence,” 1881, “Mental Evolution in Animals,” 1883, “Mental Evolution in Man,” 1888, and “Darwin and after Darwin,” 1892.

Personal

  He was one of the men whom the age specially requires for the investigation and solution of its especial difficulties, and for the conciliation and harmony of interests between which a factitious rivalry has been created.

  The strength and simplicity and patience of his character appeared in nothing else more remarkably, more happily, than in his undiscouraged grasp of those unseen realities which invade this world in the name and power of the world to come. The love of precision and completeness never dulled his care for the things that he could neither define, nor label, nor arrange; in their fragmentariness he treasured them, in their reserve he trusted them, waiting faithfully to see what they might have to show him. And they did not fail him.

  Looking back over these two years of illness, it is impossible not to be struck by the calmness and fortitude with which that illness was met. There were, as has been said, moments of terrible depression and of disappointment and of grief. It was not easy for him to give up ambition, to leave so many projects unfulfilled, so much work undone. But to him this illness grew to be a mount of purification.

	Ove l’umano spirito si purga,
	E di salire al ciel diventa degno.

More and more there grew on him a deepening sense of the goodness of God. No one had ever suffered more from the Eclipse of Faith, no one had ever been more honest in dealing with himself and with his difficulties. The change that came over his mental attitude may seem almost incredible to those who knew him only as a scientific man; it does not seem so to the few who knew anything of his inner life. To them the impression given is, not of an enemy changed into a friend, of antagonism altered into submission; rather is it of one who for long has been bearing a heavy burden upon his shoulders bravely and patiently, and who at last has had it lifted from him, and lifted so gradually that he could not tell the exact moment when he found it gone, and himself standing, like the Pilgrim of never to be forgotten story, at the foot of the Cross, with Three Shining Ones coming to greet him. It was recovery, to some extent discovery, which befell him, but there was no change of purpose, no sudden intellectual or moral conversion.

  For some time before his death Romanes suffered from a disease—a condition of the arteries resulting in apoplexy—the gravity of which he fully realised, facing the inevitable event with admirable fortitude…. Romanes was through the greater part of his career an ardent sportsman, and frequently visited Scotland to indulge his sporting tastes. In private life he was a genial and delightful companion, and to those who knew him intimately a warm and staunch friend.

General

  We hail, then, with much pleasure and very sincere satisfaction, the publication by Mr. Romanes of his recent work on human mental evolution. In him we have at last a Darwinian who, with great patience and thoroughness, applies himself to meet directly and point-blank the most formidable arguments of the anti-Darwinian school, as well as to put forward persuasively the most recent hypotheses on his side. Mr. Romanes is exceptionally well qualified—amongst the disciples of Mr. Darwin—to assume the task he has assumed. For a long time past he has made this question his own, and has devoted his energies to the task of showing that there is (as Mr. Darwin declared) no difference of kind, but only one of degree, between the highest human intellect and the psychical faculties of the lowest animals. Mr. Romanes has become the representative of Mr. Darwin on this special and most important field of inquiry, and he has accumulated, in defence of the position he has taken up, an enormous mass of facts and anecdotes, which he regards as offering decisive evidence in his favour. His new book on this subject is written with great clearness and ability, and though it is, of course, possible that other advocates might have avoided this or that erroneous inference and mistaken assertion (as we deem them) of Mr. Romanes, we are convinced that no one could, on the whole, have made out a better case for his side than he has done; no other naturalist could, we are persuaded, have done more, or done better, to sustain Mr. Darwin’s great thesis.

  He had a keen love of public discussion and a native skill in dialect, which may sometimes have led him to seek too eagerly an argumentative triumph. But his writings bear evidence of the most extensive knowledge and of a conscientious examination of all sources of information, combined with independence of judgment and much subtlety of analysis…. Whilst it would be premature to claim for Romanes the merit of a great discoverer or originator in psychology or in the philosophy of evolution, it is nevertheless true that by his keen criticism, careful mastery of details, and great literary fertility, he has exercised a most important influence—stimulating the thought and research of others by his example and enthusiasm, and by those contests in the arena of the “reviews” with Wallace, Spencer, and Weismann, which have made his name so widely known. It is not generally known, though a fact, that Romanes produced, in addition to his numerous scientific writings, a considerable volume of verse, which was printed for private distribution, as well as occasional poems. These poems deal with philosophic and emotional subjects, and are often of great beauty.

  His investigations were by no means confined to observations and experiments upon the lower forms of sea-life, but they concerned also the signs and symptoms of mental evolution among animals in general…. In the year 1885, Lord Rosebery founded a professorship at Edinburgh for the special behoof of Mr. Romanes, who delivered there his lectures on the “Philosophy of Natural History.” The same matter, or practically the same, was incorporated in the more extensive course which Mr. Romanes gave when appointed, in 1888, Fullerian Professor of Physiology at the Royal Institution in London. These lectures were published under the title of “Before and After Darwin,” and should be distinguished at least chronologically from Mr. Romanes’s “Darwin and After Darwin,” published in 1892…. Not the least interesting among the traits of this strictly scientific scholar was the poetic temperament which found private expression in verses known to his friends. The wideness of his view of life is further exemplified in the active sympathy given by him to the movement in favor of opening galleries, museums, and libraries on Sunday. While in London he gave many Sunday lectures, and thus contributed by efforts of his own toward the practice of the sort of Sunday observance in which he believed. Such a man was not in his element where controversy was at its height, but still he had a fair share even of that.

  There was something very winning and attractive about Romanes. But the deepest thing in him was his love of truth, and his honest, fearless, unselfish pursuit of it. Quite early in his career he had signalised his abandonment of the Christian faith by the publication of a work entitled “A Candid Examination of Theism.” Towards the close of his brief life he returned to the faith of his earlier years. This was made known by the fine “Life” of Romanes by his widow, and still more emphatically by his own notes published by Canon Gore after his death, under the title, “Thoughts on Religion.”