Biographies
George John Romanes (1848-1894)
George John Romanes (1848-1894) was born in Kingston, Canada and educated in England at Cambridge. A researcher in biology, who came to specialise in the nervous systems of jelly-fish, he formed a close friendship with Darwin in the mid 1870s becoming one of his leading protégées. Darwin gave him full access to his notes on animal behaviour while Romanes did much to popularise Darwin’s theories. His Animal Intelligence (1881) and Mental Evolution in Animals (1883) traced parallels between the development of intelligence in man and animals, and this broader line of research culminated in Mental Evolution in Man in 1888. Towards the end of his life he was tormented by the need to re-establish some kind of intellectual foundation for religious faith and Thoughts on Religion (1895) was written shortly before his death.