1851. LINES TO FOKBES'S MEMORY. 403 



" The lines seek to apply, mutatis mutandis, to the mystery of 

 the great Naturalist's death, certain canons which he enforced in 

 reference to the existence of living things, both plants and 

 animals. Their purport was, to teach that an individual plant 

 or animal cannot be understood, so far as the full significance of 

 its life and death is concerned, by a study merely of itself ; but 

 that it requires to be considered in connexion with the variations 

 in form, structure, character, and deportment, exhibited by the 

 contemporary members of its species spread to a greater or less 

 extent over the entire globe ; and by the ancestors of itself, and 

 of those contemporary individuals throughout the whole period 

 which has elapsed since the species was created. 



" He further held, that the many animal and vegetable tribes . 

 or races (species) which once flourished, but have now totally 

 perished, did not die because a ' germ of death' had from the 

 first been present in each, but suffered extinction in consequence 

 of the great geologic changes which the earth had undergone, 

 such as have changed tropical into arctic climates, land into sea, 

 and sea into land, rendering their existence impossible. Each 

 species, itself an aggregate of mortal individuals, came thus from 

 the hands of God, inherently immortal ; and when He saw fit to 

 remove it, it was slain through the intervention of such changes ; 

 and replaced by another. The longevity, accordingly, of the 

 existing races can, according to this view, be determined (in so 

 far as it admits of human determination at all) only by a study 

 of the physical alterations which await the globe ; and every 

 organism has thus, through its connexion with the brethren of 

 its species, a retrospective and prospective history, which must 

 be studied by the naturalist who seeks fully to account even for 

 its present condition and fate. 



" Those canons were applied by Edward Forbes to the humbler 

 creatures ; he was unfailing in urging that the destinies of man 

 are guided by other laws, having reference to his possession 

 individually of an immaterial and immortal spirit. 



" The following lines, embodying these ideas, contemplate his 

 death, solely as it was a loss to his fellow-workers left behind 

 him ; their aim is to whisper patience, not to enforce conso- 

 lation :"-- 



