course of events in
Austria.

Father Mendel's introduction to his paper on plant hybridization,
which describes the result of the experiments made by him in deducing
the law which he announces, is a model of simple straightforwardness.
It breathes the spirit of the loftiest science in its clear-eyed
vision of the nature of the problem he had to solve, the factors which
make up the problem, and the experimental observations necessary to
elucidate it. We reproduce the introductory remarks here from the
translations made of them by the Royal Horticultural Society of
England. [Footnote 16] Father Mendel said at the beginning of his
paper as read 8 February, 1865:--

[Footnote 16: The original paper was published in the
"Verhandlungen des Naturforscher-Vereins," in Bruenn, Abhandlungen,
iv, that is, the proceedings of the year 1865, which were
published in 1866. Copies of these transactions were exchanged
with all the important scientific journals, especially those in
connexion with important societies and universities throughout
Europe, and the wonder is that this paper attracted so little
attention.]

Experience of artificial fertilization such as is affected with
ornamental plants in order to obtain new variations in color, has
led to the experiments, the {206} details of which I am about to
discuss. The striking regularity with which the same hybrid forms
always reappeared whenever fertilization took place between the same
species, induced further experiments to be undertaken, the object of
which was to follow up the developments of the hybrid in a number of
successive generations of their progeny.

Those who survey the work that has been done in this department up
to the present time will arrive at the conviction that among all the
numerous experiments made not one has been carried out to such an
extent and in such a way as to make it possible to determine the
number of different forms under which the offspring of hybrids
appear, or to arrange these forms with certainty, according to their
separate generations, or to ascertain definitely their statistical
relations.

These three primary necessities for the solution of the problem of
heredity--namely, first, the number of different forms under which the
offspring of hybrids appear; secondly, the arrangement of these forms,
with definiteness and certainty, as regards their relations in the
separate ge