342 NATURE AND LIFE. 
tinuously for several generations in some families. Taken 
all together, these facts of transmission of the psychic fac- 
ulties are not numerous. If they are so carefully noted, 
and put forward so, prominently, it seems to be because 
they are not common, even apart from the remark that 
there are several of them with which perhaps education 
has had as much to do as ancestral influence. 
Several years ago there appeared a book under the title 
“Phrenyogeny,” in which is to be found, together with 
many visionary or paradoxical propositions, ore idea that 
deserves attention, the more so because it points at a pecu- 
liarity about which physiologists hitherto seem not to have 
concerned themselves. The author of this book, Bernard 
Moulin, attempts to prove in it that children are living 
photographs of their parents as these are at the very in- 
stant of conception: in his view parents transmit to children 
those tastes and predispositions which were at that instant 
exerting their most powerful effect, whether spontaneously 
or of intention. The positive conclusions drawn by Moulin, 
from his researches as to the art of procreating children of 
the best kind, sometimes cause a smile, but the facts ad- 
duced in support of them are curious. We mention some 
of them. Nine months before the birth of Napoleon L, 
Corsica was in a state of confusion. The famous Paoli, 
at the head of an army of citizens formed by his exer- 
tions, was striving to quench civil war and prevent a for- 
eign invasion. Charles Buonaparte, his aide-de-camp and 
secretary, exhibited admirable courage by his side. The 
young officer had his wife with him, Letitia Ramolino, Ro- 
man in her beauty, and of vigorous and masculine character. 
Napoleon was conceived under canvas, on the eve of a bat- 
tle, two paces from the guns trained on the enemy. Robes- 
pierre had his origin in the year 1758, that year which saw 
the regicide Damiens broken on the wheel and quartered 
in the Place de Gréve, a year of war, famine, and disquiet. 
ee 
