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 subject 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 ('Transactions of the International Medical Congress,' 1881, volume iv. page 413. The expression "lackadaisical" (not fantastic), and "feeble sensuality," are used with regard to the feelings of the ant-vivisectionists.) (or some such term) of the many mistaken, but honest men and women who are half mad on the subject... [To Dr. Lauder Brunton my father wrote in February 1882:-- "Have you read Mr. [Edmund] Gurney's articles in the 'Fortnightly' ("A chapter in the Ethics of Pain," 'Fortnightly Review,' 1881, volume xxx. page 778.) and 'Cornhill?' ("An Epilogue on Vivisection," 'Cornhill Magazine,' 1882, volume xlv. page 191.) They seem to me very clever, though obscurely written, and I agree with almost everything he says, except with some passages which appear to imply that no experiments should be tried unless some immediate good can be predicted, and this is a gigantic mistake contradicted by the whole history of science."] CHAPTER 2.IX. -- MISCELLANEA (continued) A REVIVAL OF GEOLOGICAL WORK--THE BOOK ON EARTHWORMS--LIFE OF ERASMUS DARWIN--MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS. 1876-1882. [We have now to consider the work (other than botanical) which occupied the concluding six years of my father's life. A letter to his old friend Rev. L. Blomefield (Jenyns), written in March, 1877, shows what was my father's estimate of his own powers of work at this time:-- "My dear Jenyns (I see I have forgotten your proper names).--Your extremely kind letter has given me warm pleasure. As one gets old, one's thoughts turn back to the past rather than to the future, and I often think of the pleasant, and to me valuable, hours which I spent with you on the borders of the Fens. "You ask about my future work; I doubt whether I shall be able to do much more that is new, and I always keep before my mind the example of poor old --, who in his old age had a cacoethes for writing. But I cannot endure doing nothing, so I suppose that I shall go on as long as I can without obviously making a fool of myself. I have a great mass of matter with respect to variation under nature; but so much has been published since the appearance of the 'Origin of Species,' that I very much doubt whether I retain power of mind and strength to reduce the mass into a digested whole. I have sometimes thought that I would try, but dread the attempt..."