PREFACE

Summary

IN the Study of Evolution progress had well-nigh stopped. The more vigorous, perhaps also the more prudent, had left this field of science to labour in others where the harvest is less precarious or the yield more immediate. Of those who remained some still struggled to push towards truth through the jungle of phenomena: most were content supinely to rest on the great clearing Darwin made long since.

Such was our state when two years ago it was suddenly discovered that an unknown man, Gregor Johann Mendel, had, alone, and unheeded, broken off from the rest—in the moment that Darwin was at work—and cut a way through.

This is no mere metaphor, it is simple fact. Each of us who now looks at his own patch of work sees Mendel's clue running through it: whither that clue will lead, we dare not yet surmise.

It was a moment of rejoicing, and they who had heard the news hastened to spread them and take the instant way. In this work I am proud to have borne my little part.

But every gospel must be preached to all alike. It will be heard by the Scribes, by the Pharisees, by Demetrius the Silversmith, and the rest. Not lightly do men let their occupation go; small, then, would be our wonder, did we find the established prophet unconvinced.