PHYSIOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY 71 



the study of variation is associated that of inheritance, 

 based upon the work of Mendel, which, appearing 

 in 1865, was unknown to Darwin, and remained 

 unrecognised until the beginning of this century. 

 Professor W. Bateson (presidential address, 1914) 

 thus summarised the view which has come to be 

 widely held of Darwin's labours : 



' We have come to the conviction that the prin- 

 ciple of Natural Selection cannot have been the chief 

 factor in delimiting the species of animals and plants, 

 such as we now with fuller knowledge see them 

 actually to be. We are even more sceptical as to the 

 validity of that appeal to changes in the conditions 

 of life as direct causes of modification, upon which 

 latterly at all events Darwin laid much emphasis. 

 But that he was the first to provide a body of fact 

 demonstrating the variability of living things, what- 

 ever be its causation, can never be questioned.' 



PHYSIOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY 



A marked change is seen in the position of 

 physiology as between the first half of the nineteenth 

 century and the second. In the earlier time the 

 teaching of physiology was largely ancillary to 

 medical practice, although the case of W. Sharpey, 

 after the first few years of his working life, provides 

 a notable exception. Physiology was also closely 

 associated with zoology on its morphological and 

 anatomical side, and so remains; but it came to 

 stand more firmly on its own independent basis, 

 through the efforts of such men as Sharpey's famous 

 pupils, Michael Foster and Burdon- Sanderson, and 

 the brilliant band of students who sat under them 



