The invisible ink: Darwin and the force of heredity

Abstract

In this paper we analyze the way in which Darwin interpreted some notions of the problem of inheritance. First we describe how he used various nineteenth century categories of inheritance: atavism, constitution, genealogy, prepotency and morbid tendency. Afterward, by identifying in his texts these categories it is shown that his investigation on the transformation of species was conceptually linked with the problem of inheritance but his interpretation differed with hereditarism, the dominant point of view from which the history of the research on inheritance has been written.