HEKEDITY. 339 



extremely widespread, both in the animal and the vegetable kingdoms. 

 We are now acquainted with a large number of characters, very dif- 

 ferent from each other, that follow the hereditary law that I have 

 just explained. We find, what seems at first rather paradoxical, that 

 a man has just as many chances of transmitting to his children the 

 dominant characters visibly expressed in him as the latent characters 

 he may possess. 



This fundamental experiment in the history of heredity was made 

 quite a long time ago by an Austrian monk named Johann ]Mendel, 

 also called Gregory Mendel (Gregory being his monastic name). 

 The sagacious interpretation which he gave remained, however, 

 unappreciated for more than thirty years and exercised no influence 

 upon the theories of heredity advanced during that period. Weis- 

 mann, without any doubt, would have made nuich use of the Men- 

 delian hypothesis and its consequences, to moderate and modify his 

 celebrated theory. 



Johann JNIendel was born in 1833 at Heinzendorf, in Silesia. His 

 father was a peasant who Avas particularly interested in the culture 

 of fruit trees and who did not fail to take his son with him when 

 he Avent to care for his nursery. His uncle was a self-made man, 

 well informed, and, it would appear, very intelligent. Mendel, after 

 his studies at the gymnasium at Troppau, entered at Briinn, in 

 Moravia, a couAent of Augustine monks, which was surrounded by 

 large gardens. There he finished his theological studies and w^as 

 ordained a priest; he was then sent, at the expense of the convent, to 

 the University of Vienna, where from 1851 to 1853 he pursued courses 

 in mathematics, physics, and natural sciences. He was soon ap- 

 pointed professor at the technical school at Briinn, where he remained 

 for fourteen years; in 1868 he became the superior of the Augustine 

 convent. It was during the period of his professorship that he 

 made experiments in the convent gardens in hybridization Avith peas 

 and beans. He published his first notice in 1865 in a publication 

 having a limited circulation, the Bulletin of the Society of Natu- 

 ralists of Briinn, where it remained buried; also a second notice in 

 1869. With admirable clairvoyance, especially considering the 

 period in which he was working, he completely defined the law of 

 heredity to which his name is justly attached, escaping the attention 

 of the French naturalist, Naudin, who was working on the same 

 subject at the same time, and who merely suspected the existence of 

 the phenomena of disjunction. 



Mendel also experimented with the crossing of bees, but his expe- 

 riments were not finished and his notes have been lost. Unfortu- 

 nately for science, various administrative employments took up the 

 greater part of his time; besides his office as superior he was ap- 



