Fig. 1. Mendel’s annotation on the first page of the first chapter in his German translation of Origin of Species.

In Darwin’s original English, the entire sentence reads: “It seems pretty clear that organic beings must be exposed during several generations to the new conditions of life to cause any appreciable amount of variation; and that when the organisation has once begun to vary, it generally continues to vary for many generations”. Note the term “Lebens-Bedingungen”, corresponding to Darwin’s “conditions of life”.