CHAPTER 3 



KASPAR FRIEDRICH WOLFF 

 AND SUBSTANTIATION OF THE THEORY OF EPIGENESIS 



If in the works of Buffon and other naturalists of the 

 eighteenth century it is possible to find timid attempts to 

 oppose the idea of preformation in its indistinctly formulated 

 and inconsistent form, the predominating doctrine of preforma- 

 tion met a decisive and courageous opponent in K. F. Wolff. 

 Wolff presented logically complete and well-founded facts 

 of the theory of epigenesis, i.e., that the development of 

 individuals involved a new formation. 



With great effort B. E. Raikov extracted from undeserved 

 oblivion Wolff's great manuscript and, in addition, included in 

 his book the contents of some of Wolff's published works. 

 However, he was interested mainly in Wolff's transformist 

 presentations, and, supposing that Wolff's embryological works 

 were well known,! Raikov elucidated the latter only briefly. He 

 considered in particular Wolff's remarkable embryological work 

 on the development of the chick's digestive canal. He insuf- 

 ficiently reviewed Wolff's last published theoretical work, 

 "About the Essential Power." Therefore, in order to form an 

 appreciation of Wolff's importance as the forefather of 

 embryological science, it is necessary to elucidate his work 

 in more detail, particularly that on embryonic development. 

 This is also necessary because the biographical and critical 

 literature about Wolff is scanty (19), and sometimes his life 

 and scientific activity is misrepresented. 



Even Goethe was interested in Wolff's personality and works, 

 because Wolff was his direct predecessor in the doctrine of the 

 metamorphosis of parts of plants. In relation to the epigenesis 

 theory, Goethe collected only scanty data on Wolff, and, 



1 . The printed works of Wolff were little known even by his 

 contemporaries . 



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