192 READINGS IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE 



ing only one of the two genes of one pair. We call this fundamental theo- 

 retical law the "Law of the Purity of the Gametes." Through combination 

 of the different kinds of sex cells, which are produced by the hybrid, the 

 law of segregation and the law of independent assortment can be easily 

 explained. 



Just as the chemist thinks of the most complicated compound as being 

 built from a relatively small number of invariable atoms, so Mendel re- 

 garded the species as a mosaic of genes, the atoms of living organisms. It was 

 no more nor less than an atomistic theory of the organic world which was 

 developed before the astonished audience. The minutes of the meeting in- 

 form us that there were neither questions nor discussions. The audience 

 dispersed and ceased to think about the matter — Mendel was disappointed 

 but not discouraged. In all his modesty he knew that by his discoveries a 

 new way into the unknown realm of science had been opened. "My time 

 will come," he said to his friend Niessl. 



Mendel's paper was published in the proceedings of the society for 1866. 

 Mendel sent the separate prints to Carl Naegeli in Munich, one of the 

 outstanding biologists of those days, who occupied himself with experi- 

 ments on plant hybridization. A correspondence developed and letters and 

 views were exchanged between the two men. But even Naegeli didn't ap- 

 preciate the importance of Mendel's discovery. In not one of his books or 

 papers dealing with heredity did he even mention Mendel's name. So, the 

 man and the work were forgotten. 



When Mendel died in 1884, hundreds of mourners, his pupils, who re- 

 membered their beloved teacher, and the poor, to whom he had been al- 

 ways kind, attended the funeral. But although hundreds realized that they 

 had lost a good friend, and other hundreds attended the funeral of a high 

 dignitary, not a single one of those present recognized that a great scientist 

 and investigator had passed away. 



The story of the rediscovery and the sudden resurrection of Mendel's 

 work is a thrilling one. By a peculiar, but by no means an accidental, coin- 

 cidence three investigators in three different places in Europe, DeVries in 

 Amsterdam, Correns in Germany, Tschermak in Vienna, came almost at 

 the same time across Mendel's paper and recognized at once its great im- 

 portance. 



Now the time has arrived for understanding, now "his time had come" 

 and to an extent far beyond anything of which Mendel had dreamed. The 

 little essay, published in the great volume of the Bruenn Society, has given 

 stimulus to all branches of biology. The progress of research since the be- 

 ginning of the century has built for Mendel a monument more durable and 

 more imposing than any monument of marble, because not only has "Men- 

 delism" become the name of a whole vast province of investigation, but all 

 living creatures which follow "Mendelian" laws in the hereditary transmis- 

 sion of their characters are said to "Mendelize." 



