The New Student's Reference Work/Romanes, George John

Romanes (rṓ-mä′ nĕs), George John, British biologist, author and lecturer, was born at Kingston, Canada, May 20, 1848, and died at Oxford, May 23, 1894. Educated at Cambridge, England, his taste for natural science led him to study, investigate and write upon that branch of knowledge and to lecture at the Royal Institution, London, and later at Oxford, on natural history, physiology and animal and plant life. Making acquaintance with, he devoted much of his talent to the scientific exposition of evolution, taking ground adverse at first to the accepted Christian view of that doctrine, though finally expressing belief in the theistic position and opposing the mechanical theories of the origin of things. His publications include (besides a number of articles on instinct, hybridism and animal intelligence) A Candid Examination of Theism, Mental Evolution in Animals, Mental Evolution in Man, Organic Evolution, Darwin and after Darwin, Jelly-Fish, Star-Fish and Sea-Urchins, Examination of Weismannism and Thoughts on Religion. See Life and Letters, edited by his wife.