102 HISTORY OF 



her that bears it. With what a variety of defor- 

 mities, say they, would all mankind be marked, if 

 all the vain and capricious desires of the mother 

 were thus readily written upon the body of the 

 child ? Yet notwithstanding this plausible way of 

 reasoning, I cannot avoid giving some credit to 

 the variety of instances I have either read or seen 

 upon this subject. If it be a prejudice, it is as 

 old as the days of Aristotle, and to this day as 

 strongly believed by the generality of mankind as 

 ever. It does not admit of a reason j and indeed 

 I can give none even why the child should in any 

 respect resemble the father or the mother. The 

 fact we generally find to be so. But why it should 

 take the particular print of the father's features 

 in the womb, is as hard to conceive, as why it 

 should be affected by the mother's imagination. 

 We all know what a strong effect the imagination 

 has on those parts in particular, without being 

 able to assign a cause how this effect is produced ; 

 and why the imagination may not produce the 

 same effect in marking the child that it does in 

 forming it, I see no reason. Those persons whose 

 employment it is to rear up pigeons of different 

 colours, can breed them, as their expression is, to 

 a feather. In fact, by properly pairing them, they 

 can give what colour they will to any feather, in 

 any part of the body. Were we to reason upon 

 this fact, what could we say ? Might it not be as- 

 serted, that the egg being distinct from the body 

 of the female, cannot be influenced by it ? Might 

 it not be plausibly said, that there is no similitude 

 between any part of the egg and any particular 



