Comp

Anat.: Two important organs in the vertebrate embryo, serving the purpose of temporary kidneys, from which the true kidneys are developed, except in the Fishes. They consist of a series of blind appendages, secreting a fluid which is conveyed by a duct on each side into the allantois. In man the Wolffian bodies make their appearance toward the first month of embryonic life, decreas ing about the beginning of the third month, the true kidneys increasing in a corresponding ratio. Wolfian-theory or hypothesis, s . Historic criticism : A theory or hypothesis pub. lished by Fred rich August Wolf (1759-1824), the most distinguished German cla ical scholar of his time, in the Prolegomena to his second edition of Homer, sent forth in 1794 or 1795, to the effect that not merely were the Iliad and Ody ey composed by different poets, but that each of these compositions was put together from ballads preserved in the memory of itinerant minstrels or rhapsodists before writing was known in Greece, the poems taking their present form after writing was introduced in the sixth century B. C. Wolf's views attained to great celebrity, and an effort on the part of Heyne to claim priority in their discovery failed of effect. They not merely affected Homeric and other historic criticism permanently, but gave an impulse to the rationalistic treatment of Scripture which has not yet pa ed away. [CHORIZONTES.] Wolff-i-an-ism, Wolf-1-an-Ism, s. [English Wolffian (1), Wolfian ; -ism.]