AUGUST WEISMANN. v 



fessors was a member of the " National Liberal " party. In phi- 

 losophy he held tenaciously to a mechanistic conception of nature, 

 but he believed that extreme mechanism was consistent with extreme 

 teleology, indeed he held that " The most complete mechanism con- 

 ceivable is likewise the most complete teleology conceivable. With 

 this conception vanish all apprehensions that the new views of evo- 

 lution would cause man to lose the best that he possesses — morality 

 and purely human culture." In his philosophy as in his scientific 

 controversies he was extremely tolerant. He was interested in the 

 promotion of knowledge but was not aggressive nor offensive in 

 manner. 



Inasmuch as his life was so largely given to the extension and 

 support of the Darwinian theory it is interesting to hear from him- 

 self how that theory first came to his attention. After remarking, 

 " I never heard evolution referred to in my student days," he de- 

 scribes the influence on himself of Darwin's book in these words : 



" I myself was at the time in the stage of metamorphosis from a physician 

 to a zoologist, and as far as philosophical views of nature were concerned I 

 was a blank sheet of paper, a tabula rasa. I read the book [" Origin of 

 Species"] first in 1861 at a single sitting (sic) and with ever growing en- 

 thusiasm. When I had finished I stood firm on the basis of the evolution 

 theory, and I have never seen reason to forsake it." 



With just pride he mentions the fact that he was one of the first 

 scientific men in Germany to defend publicly Darwin's theory ; Fritz 

 Miiller was the first to publish a work in favor of that theory ('' Fiir 

 Darwin," 1864), Haeckel was the second ("Generelle Morpho- 

 logic," 1866) and Weismann was the third, his Inaugural Address 

 at Freiburg on the " Justification of the Darwinian Theory " (" Uber 

 die Berechtigung der Darwin'schen Theorie") being published in 

 1868. 



Thereafter his contributions to the Darwinian theory were 

 numerous and important. They appeared from 1872 to 1902 as a 

 series of books and contributions. Five of these earlier contribu- 

 tions were translated into English by R. Meldola and were published 

 as two large volumes in 1882 with an introduction by Charles Dar- 

 win. Subsequent studies on evolution were so intimately associated 

 with his theories of heredity that they can best be considered under 

 that topic. 



