124 GEOEGE JOHN EOMANES issi- 



at intervals all morning what I could say, and it is the 

 simple truth that I have nothing worth saying. You, 

 and men like you, whose ideas flow freely, and who can 

 express them easily, cannot understand the state of 

 mental paralysis in which I find myself. What is most 

 wanted is a careful and accurate attempt to show what 

 physiology has already done for man, and even still 

 more strongly what there is every reason to believe it 

 will hereafter do. Now I am absolutely incapable of 

 doing this, or of discussing the other points suggested 

 by you. 



If you wish for my name (and I should be glad 

 that it should appear with that of others in the same 

 cause), could you not quote some sentence from my 

 letter in the ' Times,' which I inclose, but please return 

 it. If you thought fit you might say that you quoted 

 it with my approval, and that, after still further re- 

 flection, I still abide most strongly in my expressed 

 conviction. For Heaven's sake, do think of this ; I 

 do not grudge the labour and thought, but I could 

 write nothing worth anyone's reading. 



Allow me to demur to your calling your conjoint 

 article a 'symposium,' strictly a ' drinking-party ; ' 

 this seems to me very bad taste, and I do hope every- 

 one of you will avoid any semblance of a joke on the 

 subject. I know that words like a joke on this sub- 

 ject have quite disgusted some persons not at all 

 inimical to physiology. One person lamented to me 

 that Mr. Simon, in his truly admirable address at the 

 Medical Congress (by far the best thing which I have 

 read), spoke of the ' fantastic sensuality ' ^ (or some such 



1 See ' Life &e. of C. Darwin,' vol. iii. p. 210. 



