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Excerpt from Lectures on Biology
This book consists of Lectures which were given by me during the winter terms of 1905 to 1907 at the Humboldt Academy and the Urania in Berlin.
My object in delivering them was to show that it is no longer possible, having regard to the advances of modern research, to find complete satisfaction in being an out-and-out believer in the Darwinian or Lamarckian or any other theory.
Each of these doctrines has rendered important service in promoting our knowledge, but the marks of their limitations have of recent years become increasingly distinct.
The factors which the different doctrines assume to be at work in the genesis and evolution of the organic world are, however, not exclusive, for the Theory of Selection, the Doctrine of Adaptation and of Use and Non-use, and finally de Vries' Theory of Mutations, offer each for a certain section of organic evolution a sufficient and satisfactory explanation.
That, on the other hand, a vast field of vital processes remains still hidden and unexplained only dogmatic prejudice will venture to deny.
If I have succeeded in conveying to a wider circle this conception of con¿icting theories, and if I have further succeeded in showing that incomprehensible does not mean impossible to comprehend, my object in publishing these Lectures in book form has been attained.
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