Studies in the theory of descent / by Dr. August Weismann...with notes and additions by the author; tr. and ed., with notes, by Raphael Meldola...with a prefatory notice by Charles Darwin...with eight coloured plates.

  • Weismann, August, 1834-1914.
Date:
1882
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Studies in the theory of descent / by Dr. August Weismann...with notes and additions by the author; tr. and ed., with notes, by Raphael Meldola...with a prefatory notice by Charles Darwin...with eight coloured plates. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    24/698 (page XVI)
    xvi Preface to the English Edition. cally justifiable hypothesis of the origin of the organic world. The materials accumulated in all the provinces of biology now for the first time acquired a deeper meaning and significance ; unexpected inter-rela¬ tions revealed themselves as though spontaneously, and what formerly appeared as unanswerable enigmas now became clear and comprehensible. Since that time what a vast modification has the subject of animal embryology undergone ; how full of meaning appear the youngest develop¬ mental stages, how important the larvae ; how significant are rudimentary organs ; what depart¬ ment of biology has not in some measure become affected by the modifying influence of the new ideas ! But the doctrine of development not only enabled us to understand the facts already existing ; it gave at the same time an impetus to the acquisition of unforeseen new ones. If at the present day we glance back at the development of the biological sciences within the last twenty years, we must be astonished both at the enormous array of new facts which have been evoked by the theory of development, and by the immense series of special investigations which have been called forth by this doctrine. But while the development theory for by far the greater majority of these investigations served as a light which more and more illuminated the