My dear Sir

The way in which I have understood your meaning is one widely diffused & shared by some of the most scrupulously conscientious & intelligent of my friends. If therefore I have “greatly misrepresented” your “views & conclusions”, sorry as I should be for my own sake to have done such an unintentional injustice, yet for your sake, I should rejoice to have been the occasion of your correcting such wrong impressions & so for ever doing away with delusions which otherwise might impair your fame in the eyes of posterity.¹

Believe me I shall most willingly and gladly acknowledge myself to have misunderstood (& consequently misrepresented) you as soon as ever you give me the pleasure of reading a disclaimer of what, with all regret, I cannot but regard as fundamental intellectual errors.

You will I am sure on reflection, readily acknowledge that as a man of science I have no choice but to pursue “truth” to the best of my ability in spite of consequences in the accidentally painful effects of which I fully share.

Whatever may be the spirit in which you may be induced to judge my efforts I shall never be untrue to my published declaration as to these sentiments of esteem with which I am | Yours sincerely | S^t G. Mivart