Inheritance of acquired characteristics

Origins

Zirkle noted that Hippocrates described pangenesis, the theory that what is inherited derives from the whole body of the parent, whereas Aristotle thought it impossible; but that all the same, Aristotle implicitly agreed to the inheritance of acquired characteristics, giving the example of the inheritance of a scar, or of blindness, though noting that children do not always resemble their parents. Zirkle recorded that Pliny the Elder thought much the same. Zirkle pointed out that stories involving the idea of inheritance of acquired characteristics appear numerous times in ancient mythology and the Bible and persisted through to Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories. The idea is mentioned in 18th century sources such as Diderot's D'Alembert's Dream. Erasmus Darwin's Zoonomia (c. 1795) suggested that warm-bloodedanimals develop from "one living filament... with the power of acquiring new parts" in response to stimuli, with each round of "improvements" being inherited by successive generations.