The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication
The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication
Looking for an examination copy?
If you are interested in the title for your course we can consider offering an examination copy. To register your interest please contact collegesales@cambridge.org providing details of the course you are teaching.
Charles Darwin (1809–1882) first published this work in 1868 in two volumes. The book began as an expansion of the first two chapters of On the Origin of Species: 'Variation under Domestication' and 'Variation under Nature' and it developed into one of his largest works; Darwin referred to it as his 'big book'. In volume 2, concerned with how species inherit particular characteristics, Darwin first published his 'provisional hypothesis' of pangenesis. This theory of 'gemmules' was not met with much acceptance and today is not valuable as scientific explanation, but it was important in laying down the key questions that needed to be answered regarding the processes of genetic inheritance. Darwin also used volume 2 to challenge the theories of evolution by design, expounded by the botanist Asa Gray. Darwin's arguments were some of the very first in a long debate that remains hot today.
Product details
- Published: June 2010
- Format: Paperback
- ISBN: 9781108014236
- Length: 500 pages
- Dimensions: 216 × 28 × 140 mm
- Weight: 0.63kg
- Availability: Available
Table of Contents
- 12. Inheritance
- 13. Inheritance continued: reversion or atavism
- 14. Inheritance continued: fixedness of character, prepotency, sexual limitation
- correspondence of age
- 15. On crossing
- 16. Causes which interfere with the free crossing of varieties, influence of domestication on fertility
- 17. On the good effects of crossing, and on the evil effects of close interbreeding
- 18. On the advantages and disadvantages of changed conditions of life: sterility form various causes
- 19. Summary of the four last chapters, with remarks on hybridism
- 20. Selection by man
- 21. Selection continued
- 22. Causes of variability
- 23. Direct and definite action of the external conditions of life
- 24. Laws of variation, use and disuse, etc.
- 25. Laws of variation continued, correlated variability
- 26. Laws of variation continued, summary
- 27. Provisional hypothesis of pangenesis
- 28. Concluding remarks
- Index.
- Show more
