Mechanism of Mendelian Heredity

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. From ancient times heredity has been looked upon as one of the central problems of biological philosophy. It is true that this interest was largely speculative rather than empirical. But since Mendel's discovery of the fundamental law of heredity in 1865, or rather since its re-discovery in 1900, a curious situation has begun to develop. The students of heredity calling themselves geneticists have begun to draw away from the traditional fields of zoology and botany, and have concentrated their attention on the study of Mendel's principles and their later developments. The results of these investigators appear largely in special journals. Their terminology is often regarded by other zoologists as something barbarous, - outside the ordinary routine of their profession. The tendency is to regard genetics as a subject for specialists instead of an all-important theme of zoology and botany. No doubt this is but a passing phase; for biologists can little afford to hand over to a special group of investigators a part of their field that is and always will be of vital import.