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MENDEL’S
PRINCIPLES OF HEREDITY
AVE MARIA LANE,
Leipzig: F. A. BROCKHAUS.
New York: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Bombay and Calcutta: MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd.
Abbot of Brünn
Born 1822. Died 1884.
From a photograph kindly supplied by the Very Rev. Dr Janeischek,the present Abbot.
MENDEL’S
PRINCIPLES OF HEREDITY
A DEFENCE
PAPERS ON HYBRIDISATION.
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.
1902
PRINTED BY J. AND C. F. CLAY,
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.
v
PREFACE.
In the Study of Evolution progress had well-nighstopped. The more vigorous, perhaps alsothe more prudent, had left this field of scienceto labour in others where the harvest is less precariousor the yield more immediate. Of those whoremained some still struggled to push towards truththrough the jungle of phenomena: most were contentsupinely to rest on the great clearing Darwin madelong since.
Such was our state when two years ago it wassuddenly discovered that an unknown man, GregorJohann Mendel, had, alone, and unheeded, broken offfrom the rest—in the moment that Darwin was atwork—and cut a way through.
This is no mere metaphor, it is simple fact. Eachof us who now looks at his own patch of work seesMendel’s clue running through it: whither that cluewill lead, we dare not yet surmise.
It was a moment of rejoicing, and they who hadheard the news hastened to spread them and take the...