Solitude of a Humble Genius - Gregor Johann Mendel: Volume 1: Formative Years

Chapter One

Prelude: Heredity, Sex, and Species - the Greek View

The Mutiny of Reason

Change or No Change?

Plato's Myth

Enter Aristotle and His Inventory of Reality

The Hylomorphic Doctrine

Aristotle's Theory of Change

Aristotle's Concept of Animal Reproduction

The Kinds of Animal

The Origin of the Semen

The Quest for the Female Semen

The Origin of a New Individual

Embryonic Development

Generation in Plants

Spontaneous Generation

Aristotle's Theory of Inheritance

Aristotle's Species Concept

Where Modern Genetics Meets Old Aristotle

How Does Mendel Fit Into All This?

Chapter Two

Silesia and Moravia - Mendel's Tortured Homeland

Geographica Mendeliana

The Birth of the Land

Prehistoric Moravia/Silesia

The Language Tree of Europe

The Path to Modern Europe

The Ascension of the Slavs

Western Slavs' Search for New Homeland

Lands of the Czech Crown

Luzice (Lusacia)

Slezsko (Silesia)

Morava (Moravia)

Čechy (Bohemia)

A Kingdom Granted and a Kingdom Stolen

Islets of German-speaking People in the Czech Lands

Origin of Mendel's Genes

Chapter Three

The First Decade: The Childhood of a Farmer's Son

Kravařsko

The Odry Domain

Hynčice and Vesel?

Ancestors

The Surname

Parents

Teachers and Philanthropists

Farmstead No. 58

Johann Mendel is Born

Sisters and Other Relatives

The State of the Empire

A Day at Home With the Mendels

A Year of the Natural Cycle on Anton Mendel's Farm

A Year in a Village

The Birth of a Naturalist

A Momentous Decision

Inevitability and Serendipity: Part 1

Postscript: Mendel's Nationality

Chapter Four

Johann Mendel's Lehrjahre: The Second Decade

Lipn?k nad Bečvou

The Empire's Schools

The Pr?miant

Opava

Olomouc

Inevitability and Serendipity: Part 2

Chapter Five

The Third Decade: The Vow

The City on Two Rivers

The Augustinians

The Abbey of St. Thomas in Star? Brno

The Novice Gregor Mendel

Abbot Cyril Franz von Napp (1792 - 1867): Scholar, Diplomat, and Moravian Patriot

The St. Thomas Quartet and the Other Augustinians

Philosophy and Linguistics at the St. Thomas Abbey

Music at the St. Thomas Abbey

Natural Sciences at the St. Thomas Abbey

Plant and Animal Breeding in Moravia and at the St. Thomas Abbey

An Overgrown Path

The Road to Priesthood

The Troubled Shepherd of Souls

The Patient Mendel

Inevitability and Serendipity: Part 3

Chapter Six

Into the Fourth Decade: The Failed Professor