Mendel's principles of heredity / by W. Bateson.

  • William Bateson
Date:
1930
Catalogue details

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

Credit: Mendel's principles of heredity / by W. Bateson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    12/470 page VI
    vi Preface obviously in a subject fast extending under the influence of many workers there can be no finahty, yet at the present time our knowledge of the main facts has reached a definite stage, and a useful and relatively permanent pre¬ sentation of the phenomena can be attempted. The range and diversity of facts, zoological and botani¬ cal, from which the material is drawn are so wide that it has been difficult to present them adequately within a moderate compass. Many of the types studied might singly provide the subject of a treatise, and the temptation to annotative excursion has been very great ; but the course which seemed most useful was to admit only such detail as had a clear significance in the exposition of principle, or as a suggestion for further inquiry. The reader therefore will understand that if he turns to the original records specified he will almost always find information, perhaps important, which is omitted here. In the original plan of the book it was intended to discuss somewhat fully the bearing of the new facts on the great problems of Biology, but it is perhaps more fitting that these theoretical considerations should be detached from a presentation of the concrete phenomena. In 1907 I had the honour of delivering the Silliman Lectures in Yale University, and I then took these wider aspects of Genetics as my theme, showing the bearing of the new knowledge on current theory, especially on that of Evolu¬ tion, and the nature of Variation. The substance of these lectures I propose to publish separately with amplifications, and on the present occasion allusion to these matters has been restricted to the briefest possible indication of the lines of thought which Mendelism inevitably suggests. A chapter dealing with practical applications of Mendelian principles has been introduced. Such applications will probably far exceed any limits we can yet perceive. Among them we must foresee not merely advances in the art of
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