Note 30 — Chapter VII · HEREDITY AND RACE-CULTURE
Reading edition
It might be supposed that the words “inherent” and “inherited” were allied etymologically. This is not so. “Inherit” is derived from “heir,” and this from a verb meaning “to take.” In natural inheritance the heir inherits what is inherent in the germ-cells which make him. Says Professor Thomson: “The organisation of the fertilised ovum is the inheritance”—and the heir, we may add.