On Germinal Selection as a Source of Definite Variation. Weismann August

Gedanken zur Vererbungsfrage, eine Antwort an Herbert Spencer. Jena. 1895.

2

See Boltzmann, Methoden der theor. Physik, Munich, 1892. (In the Catalogue of the Mathematical Exhibit.)

3

Of late this saying of Newton's is frequently quoted as if Newton were a downright contemner of scientific hypotheses. But if we read the passage in question in its original context, we shall discover that his renunciation of hypotheses referred solely to a definite case, viz., to that of universal gravitation, of whose character Newton could form no conception and hence was unwilling to construct hypotheses concerning it. Indeed, such a wholesale repudiation of hypotheses is antecedently incredible on the part of the inventor of the emission-theory of light, in which, to speak of only one daring conjecture, "fits" were ascribed to the luminous particles. Compare Newton, Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, second edition, 1714, page 484.

4

H. Hertz, Die Principien der Mechanik.

5

Hans Driesch, Die Biologie als selbstständige Grundwissenschaft, Leipsic, 1893, p. 31, footnote. The sentence reads: "An examination of the pretensions of the refuted Darwinian theory, so called, would be an affront to our readers."

6

Die Allmacht der Naturzüchtung. A Reply to Herbert Spencer. Jena, 1893, p. 27 et seq. [Also in the Contemporary Review for September, 1893.]

7

That is, by the law of exceedingly slow retrogression of superfluous characters, which may be designated the law of organic inertia.

8

Materials for the Study of Variation with Especial Regard to Discontinuity in the Origin of Species. London, 1895.