THE METHODS AND SCOPE
OF
GENETICS
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
London: FETTER LANE, E.C.
C. F. CLAY, Manager
Edinburgh: 100, PRINCES STREET
Berlin: A. ASHER AND CO.
Leipzig: F. A. BROCKHAUS
New York: G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
Bombay and Calcutta: MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd.
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THE METHODS AND SCOPE
OF
GENETICS
AN INAUGURAL LECTURE DELIVERED
23 OCTOBER 1908
by
W. BATESON, M.A., F.R.S.
PROFESSOR OF BIOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Cambridge:
at the University Press
1912
First Edition 1908
Reprinted 1912
PREFATORY NOTE
The Professorship of Biology was founded in 1908 for a period of fiveyears partly by the generosity of an anonymous benefactor, and partly bythe University of Cambridge. The object of the endowment was thepromotion of inquiries into the physiology of Heredity and Variation, astudy now spoken of as Genetics.
It is now recognized that the progress of such inquiries will chiefly beaccomplished by the application of experimental methods, especiallythose which Mendel's discovery has suggested. The purpose of thisinaugural lecture is to describe the outlook over this field of researchin a manner intelligible to students of other parts of knowledge.
W. B.
28 October, 1908
THE METHODS AND SCOPE OF
GENETICS
The opportunity of addressing fellow-students pursuing lines of inquiryother than his own falls seldom to a scientific man. One of these rareopportunities is offered by the constitution of the Professorship towhich I have had the honour to be called. That Professorship, thoughbearing the comprehensive title "of Biology," is founded with theunderstanding that the holder shall apply himself to a particular classof physiological problems, the study of which is denoted by the termGenetics. The term is new; and though the problems are among the oldestwhich have vexed the human mind, the modes by which they may besuccessfully attacked[Pg 2] are also of modern invention. There is thereforea certain fitness in the employment of this occasion for the deliveranceof a discourse explaining something of the aims of Genetics and of themethods by which we trust they may be reached.
You will be aware that the claims put forward in the name of Geneticsare high, but I trust to be able to show you that they are not highwithout reason. It is the ambition of every one who in youth devoteshimself to the search for natural truth, that his work may be foundsomewhere in the main stream of progress. So long only as he keepssomething of the limitless hope with which his voyage of discoverybegan, will his courage and his spirit last. The moment we most dread isone in which it may appear that, after all, our effort has been spent inexploring some petty tributary, or worse, a backwater of the greatcurrent. It is because[Pg 3] Genetic research is still pushing forward in thecentral undifferentiated trunk of biological science that we confess noguilt of presumption in declaring boldly that whatev