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Title: Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation
Author: Hugo DeVries
Release Date: January, 2005 [EBook #7234]
[This file was first posted on April 24, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SPECIES AND VARIETIES ***
Their Origin by Mutation
Lectures delivered at the University of California
By
Edited by
Daniel Trembly MacDougal
Director Department of Botanical Research
Carnegie Institution of Washington
CHICAGO
The Open Court Publishing Company
LONDON
Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co., Ltd.
1906
COPYRIGHT 1904
BY
The Open Court Pub. Co.
CHICAGO
THE purpose of these lectures is to point out the means and methods by which the origin of species and
varieties may become an object for experimental inquiry, in the interest of agricultural and horticultural
practice as well as in that of general biologic science. Comparative studies have contributed all the evidence
hitherto adduced for the support of the Darwinian theory of descent and given us some general ideas about the
main lines of the pedigree of the vegetable kingdom, but the way in which one species originates from another
has not been adequately explained. The current belief assumes that species are slowly changed into new types.
In contradiction to this conception the theory of mutation assumes that new species and varieties are produced
from existing forms by sudden leaps. The parent-type itself remains unchanged throughout this process, and
may repeatedly give birth to new forms. These may arise simultaneously and in groups or separately at more
or less widely distant periods.
The principal features of the theory of mutation have been dealt with at length in my book "Die
Mutationstheorie" (Vol. I., 1901, Vol. II., 1903. Leipsic, Veit & Co.), in which I have endeavored to present
as completely as possible the detailed evidence obtained from trustworthy historical records, and from my
own experimental researches, upon which the theory is based.
The University of California invited me to deliver a series of lectures on this subject, at Berkeley, during the [vii] summer of 1904, and these lectures are offered in this form to a public now thoroughly interested in the progress of modern ideas on evolution. Some of my experiments and pedigree-cultures are described here in a manner similar to that used in the "Mutationstheorie," but partly abridged and partly elaborated, in order to give a clear conception of their extent and scope. New experiments and observations have been added, and a wider choice of the material afforded by the more recent current literature has been made in the interest of a clear representation of the leading ideas, leaving the exact and detailed proofs thereof to the students of the larger book.
Scientific demonstration is often long and encumbered with difficult points of minor importance. In these
lectures I have tried to devote attention to the more important phases of the subject and have avoided the
details of lesser interest to the general reader.
Considerable care has been bestowed upon the indication of the lacunae in our knowledge of the subject
and the methods by which they may be filled. Many interesting observations bearing upon the little known
parts of the subject may be made with limited facilities, either in the garden or upon the wild flora. Accuracy
and perseverance, and a warm love for Nature's children are here the chief requirements in such
investigations.
In his admirable treatise on Evolution and Adaptation (New York, Macmillan & Co., 1903), Thomas Hunt Morgan has dealt in a critical manner with many of the speculations upon problems subsidiary to the theory of descent, in so convincing and complete a manner, that I think myself justified in neglecting these questions here. His book gives an accurate survey of them all, and is easily understood by the general reader.
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6th edition of Darwin's masterpiece.
The theory of organic evolution explained in detail by Charles Darwin
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