FOOTNOTES:
[21:A] Mr. Darwin accepted this view at first; but in a note to the second edition of his "Descent of Man" he says: "C. Staniland Wake argues strongly against the views held by these three writers on the former prevalence of almost promiscuous intercourse." See "Development of Kinship and Marriage." Redway, London. 1888.
[28:A] The Open Court Publishing Company, Chicago. 1892.
[39:A] It should be sixty-one.
[42:A] See Lorimer Fison, in "The Journal of the Anthropological Institute," May, 1895, page 361. The whole subject is exhaustively treated by C. Staniland Wake, in his "Development of Kinship and Marriage."
PRENATAL CULTURE.
In the last preceding chapter we have considered the subject of the improvement of the race, especially through the action of sexual selection, or, as it may be expressed, selective action in the pairing of individuals, whether brought about compulsorily by the controlling influence of the State or some other external authority, or by the actual choice of one or both of the individuals immediately concerned. We have now to deal with the subject of the influence over offspring of affections of the individual organisms from whose union such offspring is derived.
Jacob's Flocks.—The story of Jacob dealing with the flocks of Laban, given in Genesis xxx, is usually alluded to in corroboration of the belief that offspring may be physically affected before birth, by anything which strongly influences the imagination of the mother. Jacob is represented as making an agreement with Laban, his father-in-law, that Jacob should receive as his hire all the ringstreaked and spotted he-goats and all the black she-goats, and also those that were speckled and spotted. When this arrangement had been made, Laban sought to benefit by it by removing from the flock all the goats that answered to that description, and giving them into the care of his sons, leaving the rest of the flock in Jacob's charge. This was undoubtedly an attempt on the part of Laban to cheat his son-in-law out of his wages, but the latter was not to be so cheated, and he adopted a plan which gave him the pick of the flock, leaving the feeble goats to his less wily parent.
