CASPAR FRIEDRICH WOLFF. 4 1 



Berlin, in 1733. He was the son of a tailor, and studied 

 natural science and medicine at first in Berlin, at the 

 Medico-surgical College, under the celebrated anatomist 

 Meckel, and subsequently in Halle. Here, in the twenty- 

 sixth year of his age, he passed his examination for his 

 doctor's degree ; and on the 28th of November, 1759, in his 

 dissertation as doctor, he defended the new doctrine of true 

 evolution, the Theoria Generationis, founded on Epigenesis. 

 This dissertation, in spite of its small limits and difficult 

 language, ranks among the most important essays ever 

 written in the whole range of biological literature. It is 

 equally distinguished by its abundance of new and most 

 careful researches, and by its far-reaching and very sug- 

 gestive ideas given in connection with the observations, 

 which latter he developed into a brilliant Theory of Evolu- 

 tion entirely true to nature. Yet this remarkable publica- 

 tion had at first no results whatever. Although the study 

 of Natural Science was then flourishing in consequence of 

 the impetus given by Linnaeus; although botanists and 

 zoologists soon numbered, not dozens, but hundreds; yet 

 hardly anybody took any interest, in Wolff's Theory of 

 Generation. And the few who had read it, foremost among 

 whom was Haller, considered it totally false. 



Although Wolff proved the truth of Epigenesis by 

 means of the most accurate research, and refuted the un- 

 founded hypotheses of the Theory of Pre-formation, yet 

 the " exact " physiologist Haller continued to be the most 

 zealous adherent of the latter, and rejected the correct 

 doctrine of Wolff with his dictatorial decree : Nulla est 

 epigenesis ! It is not surprising that the entire body of 

 physiological scholars of the second half of the eighteenth 



