254 



PRENATAL CULTURE. 



One Scientist* 

 Opinion* 



Academic 

 Nonsense* 



The True 



Scientist. 



if existing, belong to the realm of abnormal 

 nerve action, or of altered nutrition; not to 

 heredity." 



A distinguished scientist, who occupies the 

 chair of Heredity in one of America's greatest 

 Universities, recently delivered a lecture in Chi- 

 cago on "The Physical Basis of Heredity." At 

 the close of his lecture he invited questions, and 

 was asked for an explanation of maternal im- 

 pressions. The learned gentleman replied in sub- 

 stance that he did not believe it possible for a 

 mother in any way to affect the mentality of her 

 child by her own mental states during gestation, 

 there being no relation between them, save the 

 relation of nutrition. The interrogator, not quite 

 satisfied, then asked for an explanation of birth- 

 marks, to which he replied : "Oh, I do not believe 

 in such things. I think them purely a matter of 

 witchcraft and superstition." 



"Witchcraft and superstition !" How long will 

 intelligent men and women, with eyes to see and 

 minds to think, be dominated by such academic 

 nonsense, empiricism and learned stupidity! In 

 the entire audience that listened to the discussion 

 there was probably not an intelligent man or 

 woman who was not in possession of facts which 

 would contradict the professor and teach him a 

 lesson that his books and theories had failed to 

 teach. 



If a man is a true scientist, an honest truth- 

 seeker, he loves truth better than all else. He will 

 abandon his most cherished hypothesis in the pres- 

 ence of facts that flatly contradict it. If the mate- 

 rialistic theory of heredity will not admit of birth- 



