August Friedrich Leopold Weismann. xxxi 



Prussian militarism. It was the German victory he rejoiced in, and above 

 all the united Germany which sprang from it. 



Weismann was among those who publicly renounced the marks of dis- 

 tinction which had been conferred on them in this country. A few weeks 

 before the war broke out, his daughter, Mrs. W. 1ST. Parker, her husband, 

 and little girl, went to stay with Weismann, near Lindau, on the Lake of 

 Constance. They found him much aged, and were rather anxious about his 

 heart, though he was able to take short walks and to enjoy his daughter's 

 playing, and even, in spite of his increasing blindness, to do some work on the 

 colours of butterflies, the subject of his last letters to the present writer. 

 The war news excited and upset him very much, and they decided to remain 

 with him until they could be replaced. Julius appeared on Sunday, 

 August 2, and the next day they thought it advisable to cross to Switzerland, 

 and were only just in time. Professor and Mrs. Parker felt that, if they had 

 been able to stay with him, Weismann would not have signed the memorial. 

 It is known that for a long time he refused to sign it, and only gave way to 

 persistent persuasion. But, excited and unwell, and with all the sudden anxiety 

 about Julius and so many other members of the family, it is hardly to be 

 wondered at that he was not in a state to judge calmly and fairly ; and we 

 may be sure that he did not know the truth about England's participation. 

 We can imagine, too, how terribly grieved a man of his affectionate dis- 

 position must have been at the knowledge that members of his family were 

 ranged on opposite sides. Weismann's many friends and admirers in this 

 country will feel the force of these considerations, and will realise the effect of 

 such a sudden and awful shock upon a man of over eighty and in failing health. 



The outbreak of war brought on an attack of heart trouble, but he 

 recovered sufficiently to return to his Freiburg home, where he was tended by 

 his eldest daughter. He began to lose strength about the middle of October, 

 and his son, who was engaged at the base hospital at Lindau, obtained leave 

 to go to his father. Weismann sank gradually, and died without pain on 

 the evening of November 5, 1914. His age was eighty years and nine 

 months. 



It would be inappropriate to describe or discuss at any length the splendid 

 series of memoirs by which Zoology was enriched by this great man, and I 

 therefore reproduce the brief account of his scientific labours, drawn up for 

 1 Nature ' (vol. 94, 1914, p. 342). 



"Weismann's earliest researches were physiological and histological, the 

 first publication, on hippuric acid (1858), being followed by a series of six 

 papers on the nervous and contractile tissues (1859-1862). Abandoning this 

 subject, except for a single paper on muscle, published in 1865, he threw 

 himself with the utmost energy into his classical work upon the embryonic 

 and post-embryonic development and metamorphosis of insects, producing 

 five memoirs between 1862 and 1864 and a sixth in 1866. In the great 

 monograph on the post-embryonic development of Muscidre (1864), the 



