WEISMANN'S THEORIES— THE BEGINNING AN1> 

 END OF LIFE. 



Assays upon Heredity and kindred Biological Problems. By Dr. August 

 Weismann. The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1889. 



ONE noteworthy characteristic of the latter half of the 

 present century has been the increasing interest taken 

 by the general public in the deeper problems which underhe 

 the natural history of living organisms. At its commence- 

 ment, the veteran anatomist, Sir Richard Owen, facile 

 princeps of his class, had drawn the attention of man}' 

 thoughtful minds to questions of biology. He had done so 

 by his skilful restoration of the extinct gigantic birds of New 

 Zealand ; his elaborate monographs on the man-hke apes — 

 especially the gorilla — and his fascinating theories concern- 

 ing the archetypal principles of our own bodily structure, 

 and the essential nature of the processes of generation and 

 repair. We recollect a brilliant lecture given at the CoUege 

 of Surgeons to a distinguished audience — whereof one of the 

 most interested was the then Bishop of Oxford, Dr. Wilber- 

 force- — wherein were expounded certain far-reaching suggest 

 tions concerning the then little known lucina sine concuhitu 

 — a process termed Parthenogenesis by the learned Hunterian 

 Professor of that day. But however industriously and well 

 Professor Owen may have prepared the way for him who was 

 to follow, it was Charles Darwin who first compelled attention 



