Inheritance
in biology, transmission in generation by descent. Darwin considers the inheritance of every character to be the rule, and non-inheritance the anomaly. In law, a perpetual or continuing right to an estate invested in a person and his heirs. There are nine "canons of inheritance"; three may be quoted: (1) That inheritance shall, in the first place, descend to the issue of the last purchaser in infinitum; (2) That the male issue shall be admitted before the female; (3) That where two or more of the male sex are in equal degree of consanguinity to the purchaser, the eldest only shall inherit, but the females all together. ser,