Studies in the theory of descent / by Dr. August Weismann...with notes and additions by the author; tr. and ed., with notes, by Raphael Meldola...with a prefatory notice by Charles Darwin...with eight coloured plates.

  • August Weismann
Date:
1882
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Studies in the theory of descent / by Dr. August Weismann...with notes and additions by the author; tr. and ed., with notes, by Raphael Meldola...with a prefatory notice by Charles Darwin...with eight coloured plates. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    61/698 (page 571)
    The Transformation of the Mexican Axolotl. 571 has remaiiied at an inferior stage of phyletic development. All zoologists who have expressed an opinion upon the transformation of the Axolotl, and who are not, like the first observer of this fact, embarrassed by Cuvier's views as to the immuta¬ bility of species, regard the phenomenon as though a species, which owing to some special conditions had hitherto remained at a low stage of develop¬ ment, had now through some other influences been compelled to advance to a higher stage. I believed for a long time that the phenomenon could not otherwise be comprehended, so little was I then in a position to bring all the facts into har¬ mony with this view. Thus in the year 1872 I expressed myself as follows Why should not a sudden change in all the conditions of life (trans¬ ference from Mexico to Paris) have a direct action on the organization of the Axolotl, causing it sud¬ denly to reach a higher stage of development, such as many of its allies have already attained, and which obviously lies in the nature of its organiza¬ tion—a stage which it would perhaps itself have [Eng. ed. Seidlitz is an exception, since in his work on Parthenogenesis (Leipzig, 1872, p. 13) he states that In the Axolotl, Psedogenesis, which is not in this case .... mono¬ gamous, but sexual, and indeed gynsekogenetic, has already become so far constant that it has perhaps entirely super¬ seded the orthogenetic reproduction.] Über den Einfluss der Isolirung auf die Artbildung. Leipzig, 1872, p. 33. P P: