CHAPTER XXVII 
MENDEL’S LAWS OF HEREDITY: 
J. ARTHUR THOMSON 
MENDEL’S LIFE AND CHARACTER 
Gregor Johann Mendel was born in 1822, the son of well-to-do 
peasants in Austrian Silesia. He became a priest in 1847, and studied 
physics and natural science at Vienna from 1851 to 1853. Thence he 
returned to his cloister and became a teacher in the Realschule at 
Briinn. It was his hobby to make hybridisation experiments with 
peas and other plants in the garden of the monastery, of which he 
eventually became abbot. Apart from two papers, one dealing with 
peas and a shorter one with hawkweeds, and some meteorological 
observations, he does not seem to have published much. But what 
he did publish, if small in quantity, was large in quality. He died in 
1884. 
MENDEL’S DISCOVERIES 
In 1866 Gregor Johann Mendel, Abbot of Briinn, published what 
some regard as one of the greatest of biological discoveries. After 
many years of patient experimenting, chiefly with the edible pea, he 
reached a very important conclusion in regard to the inbreeding of 
hybrids, which is often briefly referred to as “Mendel’s Law.” His 
publication was practically buried in the Proceedings of the Natural 
History Society of Briinn; those who knew of it, as Niageli for instance 
did, failed to realise its importance: in fact, Mendel’s epoch-making 
work was lost sight of amid the enthusiasm and controversy which the 
promulgation of Darwinism (1858) had evoked. Mendel’s Law seems 
to have been rediscovered independently in 1900 by the botanists, 
De Vries, Correns, and Tschermak; and to Mr. Bateson we owe much, 
not only for his recognition of the far-reaching importance of the 
abbot’s work, but also for a notable series of experiments in which he 
has confirmed and extended it. 
tFrom J. Arthur Thomson, Heredity (copyright 1907). Used by special 
permission of the publishers, John Murray, London. 
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