Erasmus Darwin Father Quotations

The Reproductions of the living Ens From sires to sons, unknown to sex, commence... Unknown to sex the pregnant oyster swells, And coral-insects build their radiate shells... Birth after birth the line unchanging runs, And fathers live transmitted in their sons; Each passing year beholds the unvarying kinds, The same their manners, and the same their minds.

In fact, Darwin's own grandfather anticipated the central tenet of Lamarckism by some seven years: "All animals undergo perpetual transformations; which are in part produced by their own exertions... and many of these acquired forms or propensities are transmitted to their posterity."