384 GENERAL BIOLOGY 



working on fermentation problems, and it is from his work that all mod- 

 ern medicine dates, for he was the founder of the science of Bacteriology. 



In Genetics or Inheritance, from a purely biological angle, August 

 Weismann's (1834-1914) work, The Germ Plasm, stands out prominently. 

 It was Weismann who called our attention to the fact that the bodily 

 characteristics of any individual have but little, if any, effect on succeed- 

 ing generations. He held that germ-plasm alone carries inheritance.. In 

 other words, that acquired characteristics are not likely to be inherited, 

 and that if we are to make any change in future generations, we must 

 first learn how to make a change in the germ-cells. 



Francis Galton (1822-1911) gathered a great quantity of statistics 

 on the stature of parents and children and published the result of his 

 research in the eighties. 



The most important name in the study of inheritance is that of the 

 Augustinian Monk, Johann Gregor Mendel (1822-1884), who combined 

 experimental breeding of plants with a thoroughly scientific philosophy 

 and evolved from this combination the Mendelian laws which are now 

 used wherever breeding experiments are performed, whether on plants 

 or animals. 



In the field of Organic Evolution, one may find among the ancients 

 many thoughts which show conclusively that they were not unaware of 

 a gradual change from smaller beginnings to greater and more developed 

 products. And St. Augustine (died 604) also calls attention to the fact 

 that a God is the greater, the more potentialities he can enclose within a 

 smaller area, which potentialities can then unfold and evolve. 



Among the moderns, Buffon (1707-1778), was the first to obtain a 

 clear inkling of geographical isolation, struggle for existence, and arti- 

 ficial and natural selection, and he propounded a theory of how variations 

 came about through environment. 



Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802) wrote on changes going on in the ani- 

 mal world and embodied his ideas in verse. 



Lamarck (1744-1829) is the most philosophical, which means the 

 most profound, of all the writers of the evolutionary school, as he actually 

 tried to explain WHY changes took place in the organic world. 



Cuvier (1769-1832), who was a contemporary of Lamarck, and who 

 at that time held the highest attainable place in the zoological world, was 

 a consistent opponent of Lamarck, but Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire (1772- 

 1844), though never attaining the rank of Lamarck, was a staunch up- 

 holder of the Lamarckian principles, and Goethe (1749-1832), the famous 

 poet, who was also a famous scientist of his day, became a disciple of 

 the new doctrine. 



Lyell (1797-1875), the Englishman, in the early thirties of the last 

 century wrote his Principles of Geology which convinced men that the 

 same causes now in action always had been, and that we could therefore, 



