and New, he said I had written it "in the hope of
gaining some notoriety by deserving and perhaps receiving a contemptuous
refutation from" Mr. Darwin. {248a} In my reply to Mr. Romanes I said,
"I will not characterise this accusation in the terms which it merits."
{248b} Mr. Romanes, in the following number of _Nature_, withdrew his
accusation and immediately added, "I was induced to advance it because it
seemed the only rational motive that could have led to the publication of
such a book." Again I will not characterise such a withdrawal in the
terms it merits, but I may say in passing that if Mr. Romanes thinks the
motive he assigned to me "a rational one," his view of what is rational
and mine differ. It does not commend itself as "rational" to me, that a
man should spend a good deal of money and two or three years of work in
the hope of deserving a contemptuous refutation from any one--not even
from Mr. Darwin. But then Mr. Romanes has written such a lot about
reason and intelligence.

The reply to Evolution, Old and New, which I actually did get from Mr.
Darwin, was one which I do not see advertised among Mr. Darwin's other
works now, and which I venture to say never will be advertised among them
again--not at least until it has been altered. I have seen no reason to
leave off advertising Evolution, Old and New, and Unconscious Memory.

I have never that I know of seen Mr. Romanes, but am told that he is
still young. I can find no publication of his indexed in the British
Museum Catalogue earlier than 1874, and then it was only about Christian
Prayer. Mr. Romanes was good enough to advise me to turn painter or
homoeopathist; {249} as he has introduced the subject, and considering
how many years I am his senior, I might be justified (if it could be any
pleasure to me to do so) in suggesting to him too what I should imagine
most likely to tend to his advancement in life; but there are examples so
bad that even those who have no wish to be any better than their
neighbours may yet decline to follow them, and I think Mr. Romanes' is
one of these. I will not therefore find him a profession.

But leaving this matter on one side, the point I wish to insist on is
that Mr. Romanes is saying almost in my own words what less than three
years ago he was very angry with me for saying. I do not think that
under these circumstances much explanation is necessary as to the reasons
which have led Mr. Romanes to fight so s