What is “Anlage”?

Abstract

THE necessity of finding an adequate translation of this indispensable German expression becomes more, rather than less, pressing as time goes on. To be obliged, on every occasion, to write “Anlage” in inverted commas, is a standing testimony to the deficiency of our scientific nomenclature, and a constant offence to our æsthetic susceptibilities. It is true that there are other terms which have been spasmodically employed to convey the conception contained in “Anlage.” But these terms are either inadequate, unsightly or inaccurate. “Forecast” is inadequate, “fundament” is unsightly, while “rudiment” is inaccurate. I will not insist further upon the impropriety of the use of the words “forecast” and “fundament,” but will proceed to explain why, in my opinion, “rudiment” is an inaccurate rendering of “Anlage” It is not so much that an “Anlage” of an organ is not a “rudiment” of that organ, as that the rudiment of an organ is generally something different from its “Anlage.”