ABSTRACT
The ideas we hold about heredity are as old as humankind. This chapter explores the concept of heredity from paleolithic artefacts, ancient Greek philosophy through theories of development. This includes epigenesis, the egg and sperm race till German Natural Philosophy. The intellectual bases of the Brno societies were determined by German natural philosophy (Naturphilosophie). This branch of philosophy attempted to conceive nature as an interrelated whole in order to define its basic unifying theoretical structure and lay the foundation of the natural sciences. The impacts of Naturphilosophie can also be discerned in the thoughts and views of the members of the Brno societies. It is no wonder, since the huge library of members included the foundational works of German philosophy of nature, and they presumably read those papers. They strove to study nature, to explore its hidden connections what they called the innermost secrets of Nature.
