Cambridge:
PRINTED BY J. AND C. F. CLAY,
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.
PREFACE.
In the Study of Evolution progress had well-nigh stopped. The more vigorous, perhaps also the more prudent, had left this field of science to labour in others where the harvest is less precarious or the yield more immediate. Of those who remained some still struggled to push towards truth through the jungle of phenomena: most were content supinely to rest on the great clearing Darwin made long since.
Such was our state when two years ago it was suddenly discovered that an unknown man, Gregor Johann Mendel, had, alone, and unheeded, broken off from the rest—in the moment that Darwin was at work—and cut a way through.
This is no mere metaphor, it is simple fact. Each of us who now looks at his own patch of work sees Mendel’s clue running through it: whither that clue will lead, we dare not yet surmise.
It was a moment of rejoicing, and they who had heard the news hastened to spread them and take the instant way. In this work I am proud to have borne my little part.
But every gospel must be preached to all alike. It will be heard by the Scribes, by the Pharisees, by Demetrius the Silversmith, and the rest. Not lightly do men let their occupation go; small, then, would be our wonder, did we find the established prophet unconvinced. Yet, is it from misgiving that Mendel had the truth, or merely from indifference, that no naturalist of repute, save Professor Weldon, has risen against him?
In the world of knowledge we are accustomed to look for some strenuous effort to understand a new truth even in those who are indisposed to believe. It was therefore with a regret approaching to indignation that I read Professor Weldon’s criticism[1]. Were such a piece from the hand of a junior it might safely be neglected; but coming from Professor Weldon there was the danger—almost the certainty—that the small band of younger men who are thinking of research in this field would take it they had learnt the gist of Mendel, would imagine his teaching exposed by Professor Weldon, and look elsewhere for lines of work.
In evolutionary studies we have no Areopagus. With us it is not—as happily it is with Chemistry, Physics, Physiology, Pathology, and other well-followed sciences—that an open court is always sitting, composed of men themselves workers, keenly interested in every new thing, skilled and well versed in the facts. Where this is the case, doctrine is soon tried and the false trodden down. But in our sparse and apathetic community error mostly grows unheeded, choking truth. That fate must not befall Mendel now.
It seemed imperative that Mendel’s own work should be immediately put into the hands of all who will read it, and I therefore sought and obtained the kind permission of the Royal Horticultural Society to reprint and modify the translation they had already caused to be made and published in their Journal. To this I add a translation of Mendel’s minor paper of later date. As introduction to the subject, the same Society has authorized me to reprint with alterations a lecture on heredity delivered before them in 1900. For these privileges my warm thanks are due. The introduction thus supplied, composed originally for an audience not strictly scientific, is far too slight for the present purpose. A few pages are added, but I have no time to make it what it should be, and I must wait for another chance of treating the whole subject on a more extended scale. It will perhaps serve to give the beginner the slight assistance which will prepare him to get the most from Mendel’s own memoir.