August Friedrich Leopold Weismann. xxvii 



dwindle away. He had to submit to the gradual loss of capacity to carry on 

 the occupations of his leisure. He was one of the most companionable of 

 people, and he had to submit to be deprived of much of the companionship 

 of his friends. He bore all this uncomplainingly and indeed with almost 

 constant cheerfulness. His character had a fine touch of fortitude that 

 commanded the admiration of all. 



J. K L. 



AUGUST FBLEDBICH LEOPOLD WEISMANN", 1834-1914. 



August Feiedeich Leopold Weismann was born January 17, 1834, at 

 Frankfort-on-the-Main. His father was Professor of Classical Philology at a 

 " Gymnasium," his mother a refined woman with considerable talent in music 

 and painting. Weismann, the eldest of four children, looked back upon a 

 simple happy home life and always spoke with great admiration of his parents, 

 holding them up as examples to his own children. 



Weismann's supreme interest in natural history was evident in early boy- 

 hood. He tells us that when he was about 14 his mother asked him what 

 he intended to be, and, when he was unable to give an answer, she went on : 

 " I know what you will be, but I will not tell you lest it should never come 

 to pass." !N"or could he persuade her to say any more. Much later, long 

 after her death, Weismann understood and knew that she had recognised the 

 naturalist in him. She had observed the eagerness with which, as a child, he 

 had collected butterflies and bred caterpillars, and how he was inspired and 

 charmed by all living things. 



Weismann's father did not altogether approve of absorbing interests which 

 naturally tended to draw a schoolboy away from his work. But he did well 

 as a student, and his father, content with a warning, allowed the collecting 

 to go on. After butterflies and moths Weismann took to beetles, and then 

 to plants. Toward the end of his school days his herbarium contained nearly 

 all the higher plants, including the grasses, which grew wild within a 10 hours 

 journey of Frankfort. . 



When the time came to decide upon a career many of Weismann's friends 

 thought that he was intended by nature for a botanist, but his father 

 considered that he ought to choose some subject with better prospects of 

 making a living. About this time Weismann attended the lectures given by 

 Prof. Bottcher to the Senckenberg Society in Frankfort and was inspired to 

 become a chemist. But Wohler, who in the holidays often returned to his 



vol. lxxxix. — b, e 



