vii] HEREDITY 9/ 



made, no evidence of telegony has been forthcoming. 

 The belief in it is almost certainly due to the habit 

 of generalising from individual instances ; whenever 

 a case occurs which appears to favour the belief, it is 

 adduced as proof, even though other causes may have 

 been operative, and matings in which no evidence for 

 it appears are passed over in silence. If it were 

 a genuine phenomenon, it is almost certain that 

 conclusive evidence for it would have been obtained 

 in the numerous breeding experiments recorded in 

 recent years. 



Another idea very widely held, but apparently 

 resting on no better evidence, is the belief in maternal 

 impressions, especially in the case of mankind. By 

 maternal impression is meant the influencing of the 

 child by events affecting the mother during pregnancy. 

 It is commonly believed that if a pregnant woman 

 is injured in any part, or even sees an injury to 

 another person so as to excite her imagination, the 

 corresponding part in the child may be abnormally 

 developed, or may bear some mark, caused, it is 

 supposed, by an impression conveyed from the 

 mother. More general still is the belief that the 

 temperament of the child is influenced by the mother's 

 mental condition during pregnancy. This latter belief 

 is scarcely susceptible of accurate investigation, but 

 the belief in bodily marks or malformations being 



D. 7 



