342 NATURE AND LIFE. 



tirmously for several generations in some families. Taken 

 all together, these facts of transmission of the psychic fac- 

 ulties are not numerous. If they are so carefully noted, 

 and put forward so prominently, it seems to be because 

 they are not common, even apart from the remark that 

 there are several of them with which perhaps education 

 has had as much to do as ancestral influence. 



Several years ago there appeared a book under the title 

 " Phrenyogeny," in which is to be found, together with 

 many visionary or paradoxical propositions, one idea that 

 deserves attention, the more so because it points at a pecu- 

 liarity about which physiologists hitherto seem not to have 

 concerned themselves. The author of this book, Bernard 

 Moulin, attempts to prove in it that children are living 

 photographs of their parents as 'these are at the very in- 

 stant of conception : in his view parents transmit to children 

 those tastes and predispositions which were at that instant 

 exerting their most powerful effect, whether spontaneously 

 or of intention. The positive conclusions drawn by Moulin, 

 from his researches as to the art of procreating children of 

 the best kind, sometimes cause a smile, but the facts ad- 

 duced in support of them are curious. We mention some 

 of them. Nine months before the birth of Napoleon I., 

 Corsica was in a state of confusion. The famous Paoli, 

 at the head of an army of citizens formed by his exer- 

 tions, was striving to quench civil war and prevent a for- 

 eign invasion. Charles Buonaparte, his aide-de-camp and 

 secretary, exhibited admirable courage by his side. The 

 young officer had his wife with nim, Letitia Ramolino, Ro- 

 man in her beauty, and of vigorous and masculine character. 

 Napoleon was conceived under canvas, on the eve of a bat- 

 tle, two paces from the guns trained on the enemy. Robes- 

 pierre had his origin in the year 1758, that year which saw 

 the regicide Damiens broken on the wheel and quartered 

 in the Place de Greve, a year of war, famine, and disquiet. 



