160 MODES OF RESEARCH IN GENETICS 



able to list at the meeting in commemoration of 

 Mendel at Brunn, as comprising those attributes 

 of organisms about the inheritance of which some- 

 thing definite is known. 



There is a very widespread assumption that 

 coincident with this advance in our knowledge of 

 the fundamental laws of inheritance there has been 

 an equal advance in the practical art of breeding. 

 This has perhaps resulted from the somewhat over- 

 enthusiastic prophecies of the early Mendelian 

 workers. Many will remember the glittering 

 possibilities set forth to the practical breeders in 

 the early meetings of this association. They were 

 told in effect that at last the key to the genetic 

 riddle had been found ; that by the application of 

 these simple Mendelian laws existing races of 

 animals could be brought up to desired ideals with 

 more certainty and dispatch than had hitherto 

 been possible, and that new races could be created 

 which would surpass in usefulness, anything now 

 existing. There was, of course, an element of 

 truth in all this. But it raised unwarranted hopes 

 in the minds of many laymen. The apparent 

 failure of these prophecies to be realized has prob- 

 ably done real harm to the cause of science in 

 the minds of some practical men — representa- 

 tives of the class to which in last analysis science 

 must look, for its material support — and very 

 generally has led animal breeders to underrate the 

 real value of Mendelian investigations. 



