THE DOCTRINE OF DESCENT AND DARWINISM BY OSCAR SCHMIDT PROFESSOR IN THE UNIVERSITY OF STRASBURG WITH TWENTY-SIX WOODCUTS NEW YORK D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1896 PREFACE. THE important chapter which closes this work was included in a public lecture which I delivered at the meeting of Naturalists and Physicians held this year at Wiesbaden; my purpose being, as I am willing to confess, to ascertain, by experience, whether on this significant subject I had struck the right note to suit a circle of hearers and readers not hampered by prejudice. After the reception given to this fragment, which I also issued in a separate pamphlet, under the title of "The Doctrine of Descent, in its application to Man' (Die Anwendung der Descendenzlehre auf den Menschen), I venture to hope that the whole may find a welcome. With the exception of the Ecclesiastico-political question, no sphere of thought agitates the educated classes of our day so profoundly as the doctrine of descent. On both subjects the cry is, "Avow your colours!" |