VI FOREWORD 



and pointed out by Karl Pearson many years ago. His words, how- 

 ever, went largely unheeded for a long time. But in the last fifteen 

 years we have seen more light thrown upon the problems of popula- 

 tion by the work of such mathematicians as Lotka and Volterra, such 

 statisticians as Yule, and such experimentalists as Allee and Park, 

 than in the entire previous history of the subject. There can be no 

 doubt of the fact that population problems now constitute a major 

 focal point of biological interest and activity. 



The author of the present treatise, Dr. G. F. Gause (who stands in 

 the front rank of young Russian biologists, and is, it gives me great 

 pleasure and satisfaction to say, a protege of my old student and 

 friend, Prof. W. W. Alpatov) makes in this book an important con- 

 tribution to the literature of evolution. He marshals to the attack 

 on the old problem of the consequences of the struggle for existence 

 the ideas and the methods of the modern school of population stu- 

 dents. He brings to the task the unusual and most useful equipment 

 of a combination in his own person of thorough training and com- 

 petence in both mathematics and experimental biology. He breaks 

 new ground in this book. It will cause discussion, and some will 

 disagree with its methods and conclusions, but no biologist who 

 desires to know what the pioneers on the frontiers of knowledge are 

 doing and thinking can afford not to read it. I hope and believe 

 that it is but the beginning of a series of significant advances to be 

 made by its brilliant young author. 



Raymond Pearl. 

 Department of Biology, 



School of Hygiene and Public Health, 

 The Johns Hopkins University. 



