162 TELEGONY 



his stock is still practised in modified form. A famous breeder 

 of cattle has assured me that to obtain a particular colour of calf 

 from a cow which persistently refused to produce what he wanted, 

 he followed the patriarch's prescription with success. He had 

 her covered blindfold ; after the sire had gone he brought to her 

 a heifer of the desired colour, and that was the first object she saw 

 when the bandages were removed ; she was left with the heifer 

 as a companion to occupy her mind, and the result in due time 

 was a calf of the desired colour. Nor was this an isolated case. 



What can one say the credibility of the witness being secure 

 except the unsatisfactory word " coincidence " ? One requires to 

 know in what direction, as regards colour, the sire was prepotent. 

 One requires to know how many failures are forgotten in pro- 

 portion to the successes remembered ? 



It is admitted that shock and distress and the like may have 

 prejudicial effects on the unborn offspring. It is stated that after 

 the Irish famine and after the siege of Paris there were many 

 children born with stigmata of various sorts, and these were 

 sometimes referred back to particular experiences instead of to 

 the general state of malnutrition and nervous exhaustion. But 

 to associate a particular structural defect with a particular 

 mental impression seems an untenable position. The modus 

 operandi is difficult to conceive of. Sometimes, indeed, the 

 maternal-impression theory is demonstrably untenable, when 

 the impression occurs late in pregnancy, for most of the great 

 events in development occur very early. We have also to re- 

 member the multitude of cases in which, in spite of very startling 

 maternal experiences, the offspring is quite normal. In com- 

 parison with this multitude of cases where nothing happens, the 

 number of really puzzling cases is very small, and may be 

 dismissed as coincidences. 



At the same time it is always unwise to speak of impossi- 

 bilities in regard to matters which are inadequately known and 

 imperfectly understood. That we cannot imagine the nature of a 



