The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication.

DARWIN, Charles.

$850.00

Item Number: 137161

New York: Orange Judd & Company, 1868.

First edition of Darwin’s hypothesis of pangenesis. Octavo, original publisher’s green cloth with gilt titles to the spine, illustrated with numerous in-text illustrations and a chart. Preface by Asa Gray. In near fine condition. An exceptional example.

Darwin's Variation Under Domestication “took up in detail that subject which had been confined to one chapter of the Origin. It contained [Darwin’s] hypothesis of pangenesis, by means of which he tried to frame an explanation of hereditary resemblance, inheritance of acquired characters, atavism, and regeneration. It was a brave attempt to account for a number of phenomena which were beyond the bounds of scientific knowledge in his day, such as fertilization by the union of sperm with egg, the mechanism of chromosomal inheritance, and the development of the embryo by successive cell division. His hypothesis of pangenesis could not therefore give a permanently acceptable account of the multitude of phenomena it was designed to explain. It was, however, a point of departure for particulate theories of inheritance in the later 19th century” (DSB).