To John Balfour   18 February 1868

18/2/68

 

I feel much gratified with your friendly attention, dear Prof. Balfour, of sending me successively so many of your valued communications. Your necrolog of Prof Goodsir I read with deep affection.1 I held always a very high opinion of this truly great man, but this feeling of appreciation is still more hightened when I reflect on his forcibly expressed views against the Doctrines, which lower so much the psychical position of man and his rank in the living creation. To me it is a comfort that men like Owen, Goodsir and yourself defend the truths, on which our faith and our hopes depend and that thus also Goodsirs telling words are on record.

In the introduction to the “Chatham Island Vegetation” I expressed my own views on this great question.2

 
 

Pray let me know whether you still need for the Edinburgh Garden seeds of Australian Shrubs. I fear your glassroom is not sufficiently spacious for many additions.

Trusting you are well

I remain

your very  regardful

Ferd. von Mueller.

1
Balfour (1867). Balfour reports visiting Goodsir during his final illness, and that Goodsir ‘entered on one occasion with great earnestness on the developmental views of man, and condemned strongly the doctrines of Huxley and others. He considered that no true anatomistcould adopt those views. He looked at the mental and moral aspects of man’s nature as well as the physical. His lectures on man, in which he maintained that his moral and religious constitution ought not to be separated from his anatomical and physiological, will long be remembered by those who heard him. We believe that there are materials extant from which they can be published. Their publication would be an important contribution to science in these sceptical times.’ (p. 125).
2
B64.13.02. See Lucas (2010).

Please cite as “FVM-68-02-18,” in Correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller, edited by R.W. Home, Thomas A. Darragh, A.M. Lucas, Sara Maroske, D.M. Sinkora†, J.H. Voigt† and Monika Wells accessed on 25 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/68-02-18