The term applied to a law enunciated in the nineteenth century by a Moravian Monk, Gregor Mendel, now recognised as a pioneer of genetics. His experiments on plants led him to affirm that offspring are not intermediate in type between its parents, but that the type of one or other parent is predominant. Characteristics are classed as either dominant or recessive. The offspring of the first generation tend to inherit the dominant characteristics, whilst the recessive characteristics remain latent and appear in some of the offspring of the second generation. If individuals possessing recessive characters unite, recessive characters then become dominant characters in succeeding generations. (See GENETICS.)