George John Romanes

“ Wherever they pass, all the rest of the animal world is thrown into a state of alarm. They stream along the ground and climb to the summit of all the lower trees, searching every leaf to its apex, and, whenever they encounter a mass of decaying vegetable matter where booty is plentiful, they concentrate, like other Ecitons, all their forces upon it, the dense phalanx of shining and quickly-moving bodies, as it spreads over the surface, looking like a flood of dark-red liquid. ”

“ Now it is no doubt sufficiently desirable that girls, and especially young ladies, should be well educated; but, in my opinion, it is of far greater importance that schoolgirls should leave school with the maximum of bodily vigor that a wise and judicious nurture can impart, than that they should do so with minds educated to any level that you please to name within the limits of natural possibility. I should therefore like to see all girls' schools professedly regarded as places of recreation no less than as places of education—as places of bodily, no less than as places of mental culture. ”

“ And, indeed, even in this our time, which is marked by the first opening dawn of the science of psychology, we have but to look with eyes unprejudiced to see that the philosophy of evolution is here like a rising sun of truth, eclipsing all the lesser lights of previous philosophies, dispelling superstitions like vapors born of darkness, and revealing to our gladdened gaze the wonders of a world till now unseen. ”

“ Rowing, which is the favorite recreation of the undergraduate, is serious work to the bargeman; and we never find a gardener to resemble his master in showing a partiality to digging for digging's sake. If it is suggested that it is the need of bodily exercise which renders muscular activity beneficial to the one class and not to the other, I answer, no doubt it is so partly, but not wholly; for why is it that a man of science should find recreation in reading history, while an historian finds recreation in the pursuit of science? ”

“ There is not much to be said on the recreation of men belonging to the upper classes. That most objectionable of creatures, the gentleman at large without occupation, has a free choice before him of every amusement that the world has to give; but one thing he is hopelessly denied—the keen enjoyment of recreation. Living from year to year in a round of varied pastimes, he becomes slowly incapacitated for forming habits of work, while at the same time he is slowly sapping all the enjoyment from play. ”

“ No wonder, therefore, that, when any course of action is being contemplated, conscience asserts her voice within us as a voice of supreme authority, commanding us to look beyond all immediate issues, inclinations, and even sympathies, to those great principles of action which the united experience of mankind has proved to be best for the individual to follow in all his attempts to promote the happiness or to alleviate the misery of his race. ”

“ There seems, for instance, to be an almost total absence of the idea of right and wrong as such; so that the faculty of conscience, properly so called, can rarely be said to be present. Most of the higher idiots, indeed, experience a feeling of remorse on offending the sympathies of those whom they love, just as did my dog on tearing the window-curtains; but I have been able to obtain very little evidence of any true idiot whose action is prompted by any idea of right and wrong in the abstract, or as apart from the idea of approbation and disapprobation of those whose good feeling he values. ”

“ For such men, if past middle life, I have no advice to give. They have placed themselves beyond the possibility of finding recreation, and their only use in the world is to show the doom of idleness. They, more even than paupers, are the parasites of the social organism; and we can scarcely regret that their lumpish life, being one of stagnation self-induced, should be one of miserable failure, to the wretchedness of which we can extend no hope.
Turning next to gentlemen of active pursuits, I may most fitly begin with those who are beginning life at the universities. ”

“ Recreation is, or ought to be, not a pastime entered upon for the sake of the pleasure which it affords, but an act of duty undertaken for the sake of the subsequent power which it generates, and the subsequent profit which it insures. Therefore, expanding the philosophy which is thus condensed in our English word, we may define recreation as that which with the least expenditure of time renders the exhausted energies most fitted to resume their work. ”

“ And, as the theory of evolution supposes that all the latter forms of life are the lineal descendants of the former, it is clear that by the terms of this theory, no less than by those of geological fact, far more time has been allowed for the differentiation of aquatic than for that of terrestrial species. Indeed, looking to the degree in which water, as contrasted with land, has thus been favorably handicapped in the time allowed for the production of species, the only wonder is, that the water does not show a greater comparative wealth of specific forms than it does. ”

“ Turning next to the recreation of women, I shall begin, as in the case of men, with the upper classes. And here, for the sake of emphasis, I shall confine my remarks to the one topic of muscular exercise. For ladies, more than any other section of the community, have fallen into the habit of neglecting exercise, and I am sure that I can not draw too dreadful a picture of the consequences which here arise from the too general custom. These consequences are all the more to be feared because many of them are of so insidious a kind that the root of the evil may never be suspected. ”

“ Of course in thus claiming for animals the power of forming general conceptions, I mean only such general conceptions as can be arrived at by the logic of feelings. So far, then, as the logic of feelings can carry them, I maintain that the intellectual operations of animals are indistinguishable from those of ourselves. For having thus shown that animals possess the faculty of abstraction, I shall now go on to show that they possess the faculties both of judgment and of reason. ”

“ Remembering these things, I entertain no fear of contradiction when I conclude that, whether we look to the community as a whole, or restrict our view to our own individual selves, we have no duty to discharge of a more high and serious kind than this—rationally to understand and properly to apply the principles of all that in the full but only legitimate sense of the word we call recreation. ”

“ When arrived at the end of their long journey, and the migratory instinct has ceased to act, what an agony of remorse the bird would feel if, from being endowed with great mental activity, she could not prevent the image constantly passing through her mind of her young ones perishing in the bleak north from cold and hunger! ”

“ In many cases it is, no doubt, unavoidable that a girl's education should end when she leaves school; but I think that, in all cases, education ought to be less arduous than it is in many of our girls' schools. Even if education is to end with school-life, it is better that it should end with a little knowledge thoroughly acquired, than with a confused and half-forgotten medley of many subjects. ”

“ It is not to be expected that the majority of those who read the criticism can themselves be in a position to estimate the full extent of its impudence; and for this reason I have taken the trouble to show how, as a criticism, it is beneath contempt—useful only as a warning to those whom it concerns to abstain from meddling with any subject which, neither by mental constitution, thought, nor training, are they in the lowest degree competent to treat.—Fortnightly Review. ”

“ Indeed, any one who investigates this subject cannot fail to become convinced that it is wholly impossible to over-estimate the value of language as thus the handmaid of thought; for, as we have seen, in the absence of language it would be impossible for thought to rise above the very simplest of abstract ideas, while in the presence of language it becomes possible for us consciously to predicate qualities, and so at last to feel that we are conscious of our own consciousness. ”

“ School-life is the time when, most of all, healthful recreation is needed. It is then that the organism, being in a state of active growth, most requires the purifying and strengthening influences of muscular exercise to be in frequent operation; and the development which the organism, during the years of its growth, receives, is carried through its life as an unalterable possession. Yet in the majority of girls' schools how miserable is the provision that is made for securing this development! ”

“ Thus we see that, in a physiological no less than in a psychological sense, the term re-creation is a singularly happy one; for we see that, as a matter of fact, the whole physiology of recreation consists merely of a re-building up, re-forming, or re-creation of tissues which have become partly broken down by the exhausting effects of work. So that in this physiological sense recreation is partial sleep, while sleep is universal recreation. And now we see why it is that the one essential principle of all recreation must be that of variety of organic activity ”

“ Of course, the moral sense, as it occurs in ourselves, involves ideas of high abstraction, so that in animals we can only expect to meet with a moral sense in a very rudimentary form; and, therefore, even if it is true that no indications of such a sense are to be met with in animals, the fact would not establish any difference in kind between animal intelligence and human. But I am inclined to believe that in highly-intelligent, highly-sympathetic, and tolerably well-treated animals, the germs of a moral sense become apparent. ”

“ When we consider what an amount of health, happiness, and refining influence these numbers represent as produced by a single cause, we blush for the narrow fanaticism which, in the name of religion, does all it can to deny to the working-classes the elevating influence of music on the only day that the toil of life admits of their obtaining it. ”

“ The man of observation, prone to notice and apt to discern the peculiarities of form and substance—all, in short, that comes within the cognizance of the senses—is by no means equally apt to discern, or competent to appreciate, the conclusions to which they are calculated to conduce; while, on the other hand, the man of reasoning, accustomed to deal with the suggestions of the mind rather than of the senses, prone to speculation rather than to experiment, is comparatively unfitted for the more matter-of-fact employment of investigation and research. ”

“ A stimulus applied to a nerveless muscle can only course through the muscle by giving rise to a visible wave of contraction, which spreads in all directions from the seat of disturbance as from a centre. A nerve, on the other hand, conducts the stimulus without undergoing any change of shape. Now, in order not to forget this distinction, I shall always speak of muscle-fibres as conveying a visible wave of contraction, and of nerve-fibres as conveying an invisible, or molecular, wave of stimulation. ”

“ Do you ask me why I close this lecture with such a panegyric on the philosophy of evolution? My answer is: If we have found that in the study of life the theory of descent is the key-note by which all the facts of our science are brought into harmonious relation, we cannot doubt that in our study of mind the theory of descent must be of an importance no less fundamental. ”

“ Such an idea is applicable only to the pursuits of a species-hunter, or "systematist"—a man who holds merely the rank of a private in the scientific army. For the discovery of all that deserves the name of scientific truth, for the classifying of hidden analogies and the unveiling of general principles, the highest faculties of the human mind, in the highest degree of their development, must be taxed to the highest degree of their power. ”

“ I am inclined to think that a still more interesting book might be written on the stupidity of savages. For it is a matter of not the least interest how much stupidity any number of animals may present, so long as some animals present sufficient sagacity to supply data for the general theory of evolution; while, on the other hand, it is of the utmost importance for the science of this century to ascertain the lowest depths in which the mind of man is known to exist as human. ”

“ By maintaining our own health at the highest point of its natural efficiency, we are doing all that in us lies to secure for ourselves the prime condition for work—that is, the prime condition for benefiting the community to whatever extent our powers may be capable. And, similarly, by promoting the health of others, we are, in proportion to our success, securing to the community a certain amount of additional capacity for work on the part of its constituent members, as well as increasing the individual capacity for happiness on the part of all the members whom our efforts may reach. ”

“ Darwin's theory concerning the genesis of conscience, it would be no valid objection to any satisfactory instances of conscientious action in an animal to say that such action is partly due to a desire of praise or a fear of blame. This would be no valid objection, because, in the first place, it would in most cases be impossible to say how far the implication is true—how far the animal may have acted from pure sympathy or regard for the feelings of others, and how far from an admixture of sympathy with self-love ”

“ It has been known since the observations of Huber that all the ants of the same community recognize one another as friends, while an ant introduced from another nest, even though it be an ant of the same species, is known at once to be a foreigner, and is usually maltreated or put to death. Huber found that, when he removed an ant from a nest and kept it away from its companions for a period of four months, it was still recognized as a friend, and caressed by its previous fellow-citizens after the manner in which ants show friendship, viz., by stroking antennæ. ”

“ At our larger universities both the provisions for recreation and the manner in which they are used are in a high degree satisfactory, and ought to serve as a model to universities all over the world. It may be true that at the Continental universities rowing would not inspire a tenth part of the enthusiasm which it creates at Oxford and Cambridge; and I know from experience that it is hopeless to persuade German students, as a class, to adopt what they consider childish toys—the bats and balls of cricket. ”