516 



The Journal of Heredity 



course of its development cannot be 

 chanj^ed in any definite way b\- an\- 

 act or attitude of his mother. 



It must also necessarily follow that 

 attempts to improve the race on a 

 large scale, by the general adoption of 

 pre-natal culture as an instrument of 

 eugenics, arc useless. 



Indeed, the logical implication of the 

 teaching is the reverse of eugenic. It 

 would give a woman reason to think 

 she might marry a man whose heredit\- 

 was rotten, and yet, by pre-natal cul ture 

 save her children from paying the 

 inevitable penalty of this weak heritage. 

 We have long shuddered over the future 

 of the girl who marries a man to reform 

 him; but think what it means to the 

 future of the race if a superior girl, 

 armed with corresjjondence school les- 

 sons in pre-natal culture, marries a 

 man to reform his children ! 



.MISSPENT ENERGY 



Those who practice this doctrine are 

 doomed to absolute disillusion. The 

 time they spend on pre-natal culture is 

 not cultivating the child; it is merely 

 cultivating a superstition. Not only 

 is their time thus spent wasted, but 

 worse, for they might have employed 

 it in ways that really would have 

 benefited the child — in open-air exercise, 

 for instance. 



For those who preach this doctrine, 

 with the Vjclief that they are aiding the 

 ]>ros])ective mother or furthering the 

 im]jrovement of the race, we must feel 

 s\Tnijathy and pity, as for all mis- 

 guided efforts at well-doing. 



Their only excuse for this divorce 

 from science is failure either to recognize 

 the facts involved, or to make correct 

 inferences from these facts. That the 

 latter ex];lanation a]:)plics in most cases, 

 we know because we find many jx-rsons 

 holding a belief in the reality of maternal 

 impressions, who are perfectly well 

 aware of the facts in the case. And 

 these facts, which they well know, 

 seem to me wholly to preclude any 

 deductions which will suj)iJort the 

 ]>elief that pre-natal culture is anything 

 l)etter than a sui)erstiti(Mi. To recajnt- 

 ulate, the facts are: 



(1) That there is, before birth, no 

 connection between m.other and child, 

 by which imjjrcssions on the mother's 

 mind or body could be transmitted to 

 the child's mind or body. 



(2) That in most cases the marks or 

 defects whose origin is attributed to 

 maternal impression, must necessarily 

 have been complete long before the 

 incident occurred which the mother, 

 after the child's birth, ascribes as the 

 cause. 



(3) That these phenomena usually 

 do not occur when they are, and by 

 hypothesis ought to be, expected. The 

 explanations arc found after the event, 

 and that is regarded as causation, which 

 is really coincidence. 



These facts, accompanied by the 

 application of rigorous logic, seem to me 

 to prevent anyone from accepting as 

 true the current belief in maternal 

 impressions. 



And yet, because it is logically im- 

 possible to prove a universal negative, 

 we cannot absolutely prove that such 

 a thing as a maternal impression never 

 hai)pencd and never can happen. Wc 

 can only appeal to each individual to 

 exercise his capacity for scientific 

 thought, with an open mind, and decide 

 for himself whether it is absurd to 

 believe that the strawberry mark on 

 the child's arm is due to his mother's 

 appetite for strawberries. 



But is it conceivable, we are often 

 asked, that such an idea would have 

 survived, widespread in the human 

 race, for so many thousands of years, 

 unless there were some basis of truth 

 under it? 



HOW THE IDEA AROSE 



Certainly there is a basis of truth 

 under it. The embryo derives its 

 entire nourishment from the mother; 

 and its development dei)ends whollx' on 

 its sui)ijly of nourishment. Anything 

 which aft'ects the sui)ply of nourishment 

 will aiTect the embryo in a general, not a 

 particular way. 



Now if the mother's mental and 

 physical condition be good, the supply 

 of nourishment to the embryo is likely 

 to be good, and development will Ijc 

 normal. 



