Sketch of the Life of the late Professor- Edward Forbes. 51 



parted companion^ friend and colleague, than by quoting the 

 statements made regarding him by four men of eminence, viz. — 

 an anatomist, a botanist, a geologist, and a zoologist, who well 

 knew his merits. Goodsir says, " Professor Edward Forbes was 

 pre-eminently a naturalist. His attention had never been ex- 

 clusively directed to any one of the Natural Sciences. He was 

 equally a botanist, a zoologist and a geologist, from first to last. 

 With a remarkable eye and tact for the discrimination of species 

 and the allocation of natural groups, he combined the utmost 

 delicacy in the perception of organic and cosmical relations. 

 He possessed that rare quality, so remarkable in the great 

 masters of Natural History, Linnaeus and Cuvier, the power of 

 availing himself of the labours of his brethren — not, as is too 

 often the case, by appropriating their acquisitions, but by asso- 

 ciating them voluntarily in the common labour. Entirely desti- 

 tute of jealousy in scientific matters, he rather erred in over- 

 rating than in underrating the services of his friends. He was 

 consequently as much beloved and confided in by his seniors in 

 science as by the youngest naturalists of his acquaintance. 



"Possessed of such comprehensive intellectual sympathies, Pro- 

 fessor Edward Forbes has always been considered by his friends 

 in Edinburgh and other places as the co-ordinating spirit of his 

 circle ; and his return as Professor of Natural History was con- 

 sidered by all who knew him as a guarantee of the steady pro- 

 gress of his favourite science in the metropolis of Scotland. 

 But, alas ! by a dispensation of Providence, wise, doubtless, 

 though inscrutable and painful to us, he has been cut ofi*. 

 Nevertheless, it may be, that short comparatively though his 

 career has been, he has already, in his writings and in his in- 

 fluences on his friends and pupils, left behind him such germs 

 of thought as shall hereafter develope themselves in the advanc- 

 ing science of the period, and so secure for our departed friend 

 that full measure of scientific results which he ever longed after, 

 not out of vain glory, for no man could be more free from such 

 a feeling, but for the good of mankind and the glory of God.'^^^ 



Dr. Joseph D. Hooker writes : — "Endowed with real genius, 

 possessing many and highly cultivated talents, no less conspi- 

 cuous as an original thinker than as a hard and conscientious 

 worker, accomplished in literature and art, equally graceful and 

 ready with pencil or pen, in the lecture-room as in the closet, 

 and with far rarer qualities than all these — the purest and most 

 disinterested love of science, and the most generous appreciation 

 of the labours of others — it is no wonder that he was beloved 

 and admired beyond any natural historian of his day." 



Hugh Miller, in the conclusion of his late admirable address 

 on the fossiliferous deposits of Scotland, when resigning the chair 



4* 



