Every child resembles the first that knew his mother.
Can you explain, then, why it is that so often he does not resemble him?
Why he resembles a grandfather, an uncle, an aunt, a brother, a sister of one of the parents?
Why, in certain cities in the south of France, the inhabitants have preserved the Greek type, ascribed to the women, instead of that of their barbaric fathers?
Why negresses who conceive from a white, bring into the world a mulatto, oftenest with thick lips, a flat nose, and woolly hair?
Why many children resemble portraits which had attracted the attention of the mother?
Why, in fine, physiologists, impressed by numerous facts, have thought themselves justified in declaring woman the preserver of the type?
In the face of these undeniable facts, I ask you, yourself, what becomes of your theory?
It returns to the domain of chimeras.
Some think that woman possesses a plastic force, which makes her mould her fruit after the model which love, hate, or fear has impressed within her brain; so that the child thus becomes merely a sort of photograph of a cerebral image of the mother.