EDWARD FORBES 35 



making communication upon "The Tendency of Species to 

 form Varieties " before the Linnean Society of London. 



Forbes, at the time of his death, was, in the opinion of his 

 contemporaries, the most original naturaUst of the time, 

 and he had certainly had as much to do with the recognition 

 and description of species— species of animals, of plants, and 

 of fossils — as anyone of his day. Would this knowledge have 

 helped him to appreciate Darwin's new views, or would it 

 have confirmed him in the more orthodox opinions of the 

 time ? Huxley was his junior by ten years, and Huxley was 

 the protagonist of Darwinian Evolution. Would Forbes 

 have been found in the same camp, or would he have been 

 one of those more senior men in regard to whom Darwin said 

 that he did not expect to convince experienced naturalists 

 whose minds had been accustomed during many years to 

 an opposite point of view, but looked with confidence " to 

 young and rising naturalists, who will be able to view both 

 sides of the question with impartiality " ? ^ 



When reading Forbes 's views on specific and generic centres 

 of distribution, or his work in tracing the migrations of 

 species both in space and time, or the description of his 

 great map of '' homoiozoic belts," one feels that surely he 

 was not far from a belief in the mutability and community 

 of descent of organic forms, and that, had he lived, he must 

 have readily seen that the Darwinian theory gave a reason- 

 able explanation of the great series of facts in distribution 

 which his industry had collected and his genius had mar- 

 shalled. These, taken along with his unrivalled palaeonto- 

 logical knowledge, are the grounds for hoping that Forbes 

 would have been found with Huxley in the Darwinian camp. 



In the entrance hall of the Port Erin Biological Station, 

 the most conspicuous object is the large white bust of Edward 

 Forbes (Plate IV, Fig. 1), whose clear-cut, intellectual features 

 and genial expression at once arrest the eye, and appear to 

 preside over the activities and destiny of the institution. And 



^ Origin of Species, 6th Edition, p. 423. 



