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Any doctor who has handled many maternity cases can call to mind
instances where every condition was present to perfection, for the
production of maternal impression, on the time-honored lines. None
occurred. Most mothers can, if they give the matter careful
consideration, duplicate this experience from their own. Why is it that
results are so rare?
That Darwin gave the true explanation of a great many of the alleged
cases is perfectly clear to us. When the child is born with any peculiar
characteristic, the mother hunts for some experience in the preceding
months that might explain it. If she succeeds in finding any experience
of her own at all resembling in its effects the effect which the infant
shows, she considers she has proved causation, has established a good
case of prenatal influence.
It is not causation; it is coincidence.
If the prospective mother plays or sings a great deal, with the idea of
giving her child a musical endowment, and the child actually turns out
to have musical talent, the mother at once recalls her yearning that
such might be the case; her assiduous practice which she hoped would be
of benefit to her child. She immediately decides that it did benefit
him, and she becomes a convinced witness to the belief in prenatal
culture.
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