Prenatal Influences on Character

Abstract

THE popular belief that prenatal influences on the mother affect the offspring physically, producing moles and other birth-marks, and even malformations of a more or less serious character, is said to be entirely unsupported by any trustworthy facts, and is also rejected by physiologists on theoretical grounds. But I am not aware that the question of purely mental effects arising from prenatal mental influences on the mother has been separately studied. Our ignorance of the causes, or at least of the whole series of causes, that determine individual character is so great, that such transmission of mental influences will hardly be held to be impossible or even very improbable. It is one of those questions on which our minds should remain open, and on which we should be ready to receive and discuss whatever evidence is available; and should a primâ facie case be made out, seek for confirmation by some form of experiment or observation, which is perhaps less difficult than at first sight it may appear to be.