<P> The inheritance of acquired characteristics is a hypothesis that physiological changes acquired over the life of an organism (such as the enlargement of a muscle through repeated use) may be transmitted to offspring . The hypothesis is often called Lamarckism, as it has misleadingly been equated with the evolutionary theory of the French naturalist Jean - Baptiste Lamarck (1744 - 1829). The idea was however already known to Hippocrates and Aristotle in ancient times, and was widely accepted by the eighteenth century . Lamarck has been used in biology schoolbooks as a mistaken forerunner of Charles Darwin, ignoring the fact that Darwin's theory of pangenesis was Lamarckian, implying the inheritance of acquired characteristics . </P> <P> The inheritance of acquired characteristics was proposed in ancient times by Hippocrates and Aristotle, and was commonly accepted near to Lamarck's time; Erasmus Darwin had described it in his Zoonomia, 1794 . The historian of science Conway Zirkle wrote that: </P> <P> Lamarck was neither the first nor the most distinguished biologist to believe in the inheritance of acquired characters . He merely endorsed a belief which had been generally accepted for at least 2,200 years before his time and used it to explain how evolution could have taken place . The inheritance of acquired characters had been accepted previously by Hippocrates, Aristotle, Galen, Roger Bacon, Jerome Cardan, Levinus Lemnius, John Ray, Michael Adanson, Jo. Fried . Blumenbach and Erasmus Darwin among others . </P>

Who proposed the theory of inheritance of acquired character