THE GENESIS OF LIVING ORGANISMS 183 



from the beaten paths, Mendel's contemporaries, strolling 

 confidently along the comfortable high-road of Darwinism, did 

 not understand in the least what his inquiry meant. And so 

 this great discovery was quite lost, until, eighteen years after 

 the master's death, it was rediscovered by three scientific 

 men simultaneously. 



What Mendel discovered was an entirely new natural 

 factor, which only to his peculiarly endowed spirit appeared 

 self-evident. To Mendel it seemed so obvious indeed that he 

 gave it no name, and was interested only in the law in which 

 this factor expressed itself. 



It was Johannson who first recognised the necessity for 

 naming the new factor, and he called it a " gene." This 

 name tells us nothing about the nature of the factor. And 

 those investigators who first tested the general applicability 

 of Mendel's law were not concerned with the conceptual 

 classification of the new natural factor. The new knowledge 

 led to practical results of the first importance in the cultiva- 

 tion of plants and animals, which called for the undivided 

 energy of these distinguished scientists. 



And so it happens that the theoretical importance of 

 Mendel's discovery is not realised even at the present day. 

 In order to grasp it, we must enter on theoretical considera- 

 tions seemingly remote from it. 



THE GENESIS OF IMPLEMENTS 



As already emphasised, all human appliances agree in 

 that they are supposed to have a rule of genesis in addition to 

 a rule of use. And this fact requires that we shall make the 

 genesis of implements the basis of our consideration of the 

 genesis of organisms. If we wish to apply conscientiously 

 the comparison between human appliances and organisms, we 

 must make up our minds as to fundamental concepts, so that 



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