On Germinal Selection as a Source of Definite Variation

On Germinal Selection as a Source of Definite Variation

The present paper was read in the first general meeting of the International Congress of Zologists at Leyden on September 16, 1895. Several points, which for reasons of brevity were omitted when the paper was read, have been re-embodied in the text, and an Appendix has been added where a number of topics receive fuller treatment than could well be accorded to them in a lecture. The address was first printed in The Monist for January, 1896, and afterwards in a German pamphlet. The basal idea of the essaythe existence of Germinal Selectionwas propounded by me some time since,[1] but it is here for the first time fully set forth and tentatively shown to be the necessary complement of the process of selection. Knowing this factor, we remove, it seems to me, the patent contradiction of the assumption that the general fitness of organisms, or the adaptations necessary to their existence, are produced by accidental variationsa contradiction which formed a serious stumbling-block to the theory of selection. Though still assuming that the primary variations are "accidental," I yet hope to have demonstrated that an interior mechanism exists which compels them to go on increasing in a definite direction, the moment selection intervenes. Definitely directed {4}variation exists, but not predestined variation, running on independently of the life-conditions of the organism, as Naegeli, to mention the most extreme advocate of this doctrine, has assumed; on the contrary, the variation is such as is elicited and controlled by those conditions themselves, though indirectly. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 34077
Author: Weismann, August
Release Date: Oct 15, 2010
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Translator: McCormack, Thomas J. (Thomas Joseph), 1865-1932