Memoir of Edward Forbes, F.R.S., late Regius Professor of Natural History in the University of Edinburgh / by George Wilson and Archibald Geikie.

Date:
1861
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Memoir of Edward Forbes, F.R.S., late Regius Professor of Natural History in the University of Edinburgh / by George Wilson and Archibald Geikie. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    monest of the sea-snails creeping over the wet sea-weed! In how many points of view may its history be con sidered! There are its origin and development, the mystery of its generation, the phenomena of its growth, all concerning each apparently insignificant individual; there is the history of the species, the value of its dis- tinctive marks, the features which link it with the higher and lower creatures, the reason why it takes its stand where we place it in the scale of creation, the course of its distribution, the causes of its diffusion, its antiquity or novelty, the mystery (deepest of mysteries) of its first appearance, the changes of the outline of continents and of oceans which have taken place since its advent, and their influence on its own wanderings. Some of these questions may be clearly and fairly solved; some of them may be theoretically or hypothetically accounted for; some are beyond all the subtlety of human intellect to unriddle. I cannot resolve in my mind the many queries which the consideration of the most insignificant of organized creatures, whether animal or vegetable, sug- gests, without feeling that the rejection of a mystery be- cause it is a mystery is the most besotted form of human pride/51 Such were some of the favourite paths of speculation in which Edward Forbes delighted to wander, and it was with the hope of following them out, and evolving thereby a broader philosophy of natural history, that he longed for a life of greater leisure. But the leisure never came, and we can only conjecture, from the jottings and fragments which he has left, how much he might have 1 Nat. Hist. Eitrop. Seas, p. 13.
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