SEX AND THE INDIVIDUAL 205 



effects of such poisons on the offspring cannot be 

 predicted with accuracy. It is sufficient to realize 

 that they each are able to depress the powers of the 

 new life, and thus to place the new human being at 

 a disadvantage in the struggle for existence. 



It was previously thought that these injuries 

 inflicted on the germ cells were examples of the trans- 

 mission of acquired character, and even Herbert 

 Spencer fell into this error. Nothing is now more 

 clear than that these are simply the direct effect of 

 poisons and have nothing to do with true heredity. 



Finally it is well to realize that the growing 

 embryo within the womb of the mother is subject to 

 similar damage from poisons or injurious bacteria 

 that enter the maternal blood. The germ cells of 

 both father and mother may have escaped all inju- 

 rious influences, only to fall a prey after impregna- 

 tion to poisons developed in the mother after preg- 

 nancy has set in. 



The practical inferences from these facts are very 

 simple. Neither parent is responsible for the hered- 

 itary qualities which belong to the germ plasma. 

 The maximal possibilities, physical, moral, and 

 mental, of the children are wholly determined by the 

 nature of the qualities of the germ cells that fuse to 

 begin the new life. By intelligent and conscientious 

 living the parents may hope to maintain in a high 

 state of nutrition the germ cells which they hold in 

 trust, and so to guard for their child the energies 

 inherent in the cells which make up its body. But 



