Heredity
The offspring tends to resemble, sometimes with extraordinary closeness, the parents; this is heredity. This definition omits the cases of (1) alternation of generations, where the offspring resembles a more remote ancestor in the direct line, the alternation being in regular or irregular rhythm; (2) the production of neuters, like their equally neuter uncles and aunts but unlike their (fertile) parents. On the other hand there is almost always, amongst higher forms at any rate, a certain unlikeness as well as a likeness; this is variation. In these two sentences is summed up most of what is absolutely certain respecting these two subjects in spite of the enormous amount of attention which has been devoted to them and the voluminous literature consecrated to them. Some have conceived these two processes as at variance with one another, but this conception is false or at least wholly inadequate. Two methods are employed in studying the processes of heredity, the biometrical method, which seeks to work out the problem by mathematical means, and the method which follows the lines laid down by Abbot Mendel of Brunn, whose long-forgotten observations have led to many very profitable results and give greater hope of a real solution of the difficult questions involved in the subject of heredity than any others which have so far been made public. Particularly do they seem to throw light upon the much-discussed but most imperfectly explained matter known as reversion. Where a unicellular organism divides into two cells it is hard to say which is mother and which is daughter, but there is no difficulty in understanding why both of them closely resemble the cell from which both of them have been derived since both of them are that cell or part of it. This is heredity in its simplest terms. The matter becomes more complicated when the descendant is the offspring of a multicellular organism, even asexually, and infinitely more complicated when ordinary sexual reproduction comes into question. In the asexual case, however, if it could be shown that in the first division of an ovum a certain portion of the substance was set aside for future reproductive purposes, and that this was always the case, the condition would approximate to that of the unicellular organism above mentioned and the heredity would be explained by the fact that the offspring was actually a portion of the original ancestor. Similarly in sexual reproduction, though the matter is more complex, still the offspring would be the result of two ancestors whose reproductive substance had been handed down in the manner indicated above.
This is practically Weismann’s “germ-plasm theory”. He supposes that each individual consists of two portions, somato-plasm, making up the main portion of the body, and germ-plasm stored away in the sex-gland. This last he believes arises always from germ-plasm, that substance being set aside at the earliest stages of development and finally deposited in the sex-gland, when that organ becomes developed. It is obvious that this theory of a potentially immortal germ-plasm entails great difficulties when the question of variation and especially variation induced by environment, comes into consideration. Moreover, there is no available evidence in higher forms that there is any such setting aside of germinal substance at early stages of development, and all the facts of regeneration are against the theory, as has been pointed out by Hertwig, Weismann’s great opponent. If it be true, as it undoubtedly is, that a hydra, cut into several pieces can produce as many new individuals, and a begonia, by cuttings, propagate any number of new plants, it is difficult to see how it can be argued that all the reproductive substance is stored up in one only portion of the animal or plant. Weismann’s views, which have undoubtedly exerted great influence on biologists and at one time met with a very large amount of acceptance, have, it must be admitted, failed to meet a great deal of the criticism which has been directed against them, and do not at all hold the position which they occupied some years ago in scientific favour.
Another method of explaining heredity is that which presupposes that fragments from the different portions of the body become aggregated in the sex-cells and thus become the progenitors of the different portions of the offspring. Darwin’s theory of “pangenesis” and other similar explanations are of the character, and of them it may be said that they not only rest upon no demonstrable evidence but require so complicated a machinery as to become practically inconceivable. There remains the remarkable theory of “unconscious memory” put forward by Hering, and more recently by Semon and Francis Darwin, and developed in the writings of Samuel Butler. Psychological explanation seems destined to receive more attention in the future than it has in the past. Much doubt remains as to what portion of the cell is the bearer of the hereditary characteristics. Some years ago it was firmly held that these were borne by the nucleus, and further, by the chromosomes of the nucleus alone. Recent experiments have tended to make this theory, if not untenable, at least most doubtful, and it now seems that it may be the nucleus, the protoplasm, or the centrosome, or a combination of any or all of these, which may be held to occupy this position, if indeed it must be held that some definite part of the cell has to be indicated. The inheritance of acquired conditions is a point around which controversy rages and has raged for some time. It may at least be said that Weismann has proved, as far as such a matter can be proved, that mutilations are not inheritable and this may be said in spite of the still doubtful explanation of Brown-Séquard’s experiments in connexion with the production of epilepsy in guinea-pigs. Weismann denies the possibility of the inheritance of acquired characters and has invented a cumbrous and, many would say, fanciful explanation to account for variation otherwise. Haeckel, on the contrary, would rather, as he says, believe in the Mosaic theory of creation than doubt the inheritance of acquired conditions.
This matter has often been complicated by the question of inherited disease, which is a wholly different question and of which all that can here be said is that, where it is not a case of bacterial or toxic infection of the germ, it is not the disease which is inherited, but a certain character, or organ, or structure which renders its owner predisposed to the attacks of that disease, should he come in its way. As to the true inheritance of acquired conditions, however, there is, as above indicated, great difference of opinion, the Lamarckians and the so-called neo-Lamarckians holding that in this and in this alone, according to the straiter sect, we have the true explanation of variation and evolution, whilst the Weismannites take up a wholly opposite point of view. It must be admitted that the extremer views of Weismann as to the impossibility of the inheritance of acquired conditions are daily losing ground. The same may be said as to the theory of telegony. It is well known that breeders consider that if a valuable bitch has borne pups to an under-bred dog, she is ruined for breeding purposes, since she is liable at any time to throw ill-bred pups, even though the sire of later litters may be a highly-bred male. The same view is held by horse-breeders. And the condition, which supposes that the maternal organism is, so to speak, infected, by the male congress, is called telegony. The most important argument in its favour is that it is implicitly held by persons whose bread is earned by attention to the laws of inheritance, yet it must be owned that Professor Cossar Ewart’s careful experiments, at Penicuik, do not lend authority to the view, and it may perhaps turn out that the true explanation of this puzzling variety of heredity depends on some law of reversion, at present misunderstood, but which may be cleared up by further researches along Mendelian lines. (See MIND.)
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The subject is well summed up in THOMSON, Heredity (London 1908) written by one belonging to the Weismannite side See also WILSON, The Cell in Development and Inheritance (London and New York, 1896, 1900), the best book on the cellular question which involves so much in the matter of heredity; BATESON Mendel’s Principles of Heredity (London 1900); HUTTON The Lesson of Evolution (1907); BUTLER, Life and Habit (London 1878); IDEM, Unconscious Memory (London 1880); BROOKS, The Law of Heredity (Baltimore, 1891); RIBOT L’hérédité (Paris 1873; Eng. tr., London, 1875); MIVART in Dublin Review, CV (1889), pp.269-296; SPENCER, The Inadequacy of Natural Selection in Contemporary Review, LXIII (1893).
B.C.A. WINDLE Transcribed by Thomas J. Bress
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VIICopyright © 1910 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, June 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Heredity
HEREDITY, which may be defined as the hereditary transmission of qualities, or even acquirements, so far as it is a scientific theory, is not anticipated in Holy Scripture. That men are made of one (Act 17:26 RV [Note: Revised Version.] ) is a fact of experience, which, in common with all literature, the Bible assumes. The unsophisticated are content to argue from like to like, that is, by analogy. But the modern doctrine of heredity, rooted as it is in the science of biology, involves the recognition of a principle or law according to which characters are transmitted from parents to offspring. Of this there is no trace in the Bible. Theology is therefore not directly interested in the differences between Weismann and the older exponents of Evolution.
1. In the OT, which is the basis of the doctrine of the NT, there is no dogmatic purpose, and therefore no attempt to account for the fact that all flesh has corrupted his way upon the earth (Gen 6:12), and that there is none that doeth good (Psa 14:1). A perfectly consistent point of view is not to be expected. Not a philosophical people, the Hebrews start from the obvious fact of the unity of the race in the possession of common flesh and blood (Job 14:1; Job 15:14), the son being begotten after the image of the father (Gen 5:3; cf. Heb 2:14). This is more especially emphasized in the unity of the race of Abraham, that Israel after the flesh (1Co 10:18), whose were the fathers and the promises (Rom 9:4-5). But the Bible never commits itself to a theory of the generation or procreation of the spirit, which is apparently given by God to each individual (Gen 2:7; Gen 7:22, Job 33:4) constitutes the personality (life 2Sa 1:9, soul Num 5:6), and is withdrawn at death (Ecc 12:7). This is the source of Ezekiels emphasis on individual responsibility (Eze 18:4), a criticism of the proverb concerning sour grapes (v. 2), which was made to rest on an admitted principle of the Mosaic covenant, the visitation upon the children of the fathers sins (Exo 20:5). This principle involves corporate guilt; which, though sometimes reduced to a pardonable weakness inseparable from flesh (Psa 78:39; Psa 103:14, Job 10:9), and therefore suggestive of heredity, yet, as involving Divine wrath and punishment, cannot be regarded as a palliation of transgression (Exo 34:7, Psa 7:11, Rom 1:18). Sin in the OT is disobedience, a breach of personal relations, needing from God forgiveness (Exo 34:6-7, Isa 43:25); and cannot therefore be explained on the principle of hereditary transmission. Moreover, the unity of Israel is as much one of external status as of physical nature, of the inheritance of the firstborn no less than of community in flesh and blood (Exo 4:22; cf. Gen 25:23; Gen 27:35). Similarly Adam is represented as degraded to a lower status by his sin, as cast out of the garden and begetting children in banishment from Gods presence.
2. Such are the materials from which NT theology works out its doctrine of original sin, not a transmitted tendency or bias towards evil, but a submission to the power of the devil which may be predicated of the whole race. [See art. Sin.]
J. G. Simpson.
Fuente: Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible
Heredity
he-redi-ti:
1. Physiological Heredity
Heredity, in modern language, is the law by which living beings tend to repeat their characteristics, physiological and psychical, in their offspring, a law familiar in some form to even the most uncultured peoples. The references to it in the Bible are of various kinds.
Curiously enough, little mention is made of physiological heredity, even in so simple a form as the resemblance of a son to his father, but there are a few references, such as, e.g., those to giants with giants for sons (2Sa 21:18-22; 1Ch 20:4-8; compare Gen 6:4; Num 13:33; Deu 1:28, etc.). Moreover Deu 28:59-61 may contain a thought of hereditary diseases (compare 2Ki 5:27). On the psychical side the data are almost equally scanty. That a son and his father may differ entirely is taken for granted and mentioned repeatedly (especially in Ezek 18:5-20). Even in the case of the king, the frequent changes of dynasty prevented such a phrase as the seed royal (2Ki 11:1; Jer 41:1) from being taken very seriously. Yet, perhaps, the inheritance of mechanical dexterity is hinted at in Gen 4:20-22, if father means anything more than teacher. But, in any case, the fact that father could have this metaphorical sense, together with the corresponding use of son in such phrases as son of Belial (Jdg 19:22 the King James Version), son of wickedness (Psa 89:22), sons of the prophets (Amo 7:14 margin, etc.), son of the wise,… of ancient kings (Isa 19:11; this last phrase may be meant literally), shows that the inheritance of characteristics was a very familiar fact. See SON.
2. Hebrew Conception of Heredity
The question, however, is considerably complicated by the intense solidarity that the Hebrews ascribed to the family. The individual was felt to be only a link in the chain, his personality (very vaguely conceived) somehow continuing that of his ancestors and being continued in that of his descendants. After death the happiness (or even existence; see DEATH) of this shade in the other world depended on the preservation of a posterity in this. Hence, slaying the sons of a dead man was thought to affect him directly, and it would be a great mistake to suppose that an act such as that of 2Sa 21:1-9, etc., was simply to prevent a blood-feud. Nor was it at all in point that the children might repeat the qualities of the father, however much this may have been realized in other connections. Consequently, it is impossible to tell in many cases just how much of a modern heredity idea is present.
The most important example is the conception of the position of the nations. These are traced back to single ancestors, and in various cases the qualities of the nation are explained by those of the ancestor (Gen 9:22-27; Gen 21:20, Gen 21:21; 49, etc.). The influences that determine national characteristics are evidently thought to be hereditary, and yet not all of them are hereditary in our sense; e.g. in Gen 27, the condition of the descendants of Jacob and Esau is conceived to have been fixed by the nature of the blessings (mistakenly) pronounced by Isaac. On the other hand, Ezra (Ezr 9:11, Ezr 9:12) thinks of the danger of intermarrying with the children of a degenerate people in an entirely modern style, but in Deu 23:3-6 the case is not so clear. There a curse pronounced on the nations for their active hostility is more in point than moral degeneracy (however much this may be spoken of elsewhere, Num 25:1-3, etc.), and it is on account of the curse that the taint takes ten generations to work itself out, while, in the case of Edomite or Egyptian blood, purity was attained in three. Hence, it is hard to tell just how Exo 20:5, Exo 20:6 was interpreted. The modern conception of the effect of heredity was surely present in part, but there must have been also ideas of the extension of the curse-bearing individuality that we should find hard to understand.
3. Abraham’s Children
The chiefest question is that of the Israelites. Primarily they are viewed as the descendants of Abraham, blessed because he was blessed (Gen 22:15-18, etc.). This was taken by many with the utmost literalness, and physical descent from Abraham was thought to be sufficient (especially Mat 3:9; Joh 8:31-44; Rom 9:6-13), or at least necessary (especially Ezr 2:59; Ezr 9:2; Neh 7:61), for salvation. Occasionally this descent is stated to give superior qualities in other regards (Est 6:13). But a distinction between natural inheritance of Abraham’s qualities and the blessing bestowed by God’s unbounded favor and decree on his descendants must have been thoroughly recognized, otherwise the practice of proselytizing would have been impossible.
4. Heredity and the New Testament
In the New Testament the doctrine of original sin, held already by a certain school among the Jews (2 Esdras 7:48), alone raises much question regarding heredity (compare 1Co 7:14). Otherwise the Old Testament concepts are simply reversed: where likeness of nature appears, there is (spiritual) descent (Rom 4:12; Gal 3:7, etc.). None the less, that the Israel after the flesh has a real spiritual privilege is stated explicitly (Rom 3:1, Rom 3:2; Rom 11:26; Rev 11:13). See BLESSING; CURSE; FAMILY; SALVATION; SIN; TRADITION.
Fuente: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Heredity
Gen 5:3; Exo 20:5-6; Exo 34:7; Num 14:18; Num 14:33; Job 14:4; Job 21:19; Psa 37:28; Psa 51:5; Psa 58:3; Isa 14:20-21; Isa 48:8; Isa 65:6-7; Jer 31:29-30; Jer 32:18; Eze 18:2; Eze 18:19-20; Mat 3:9; Joh 3:6-7; Joh 9:2; Rom 5:12; 1Co 15:22; Eph 2:3
Fuente: Nave’s Topical Bible
HEREDITY
(1) General References to
Exo 34:7; Lev 26:39; Psa 51:5; Psa 58:3; Isa 14:20; Jer 3:25
Lam 5:7; Eze 18:2
–SEE Sin (4), SIN
Parent’s Sins, HOME
Parental Influence, HOME
(2) Evil Influence of the Wicked Upon Posterity
Job 27:14; Psa 21:10; Psa 37:28; Isa 14:20; Isa 57:3; Mat 12:34
(3) Beneficent Influence of the Righteous
Psa 25:13; Psa 37:25; Psa 69:36; Psa 102:28; Psa 112:2; Pro 11:21; Pro 14:26; Pro 20:7
–SEE Children (9), HOME