PREFACE
In offering this book to you, reader, I feel that I must justify its publication. I admit freely that more could be said for a finished study in which hypotheses were replaced by exact fact. But to get together assured results in a field so little explored is a great task, calling for time and much labour.
I remembered the adage, “Ars longa, vita brevis,” and I decided to publish what is really a programme of work to be carried out as fully as circumstances may permit. At all events, I hope that such a programme may have its value for younger investigators, who wish a point of orientation for their labours.
My book is addressed to disciplined minds, and in especial to biologists. As I wrote it, I had not the general public in my mind, and so I did not hesitate to devote nearly the whole of a chapter to “disharmonies in the apparatus of reproduction.” I see in that apparatus the clearest proof of the essential disharmony in the organisation of man.
I have to thank those friends who were familiar with my views and whose advice and assistance have helped me to develop them.
In particular, I desire to thank my friends Dr. E. Roux, who was at the pains to make my French more French; and Dr. J. Goldschmidt and Dr. Mesnil, who have read and revised the proof-sheets.
Paris, February 8, 1903.