This word is equally foolish and useless in an opposite direction. It constantly leads those who use it to suppose that the inherent characters of an individual are conterminous with his congenital characters or his characters at birth, and that thus any characters which he displays at a later age are acquired. All this comes of the absurdly delusive significance attached to the change of environment called birth, and may doubtless be traced historically to the remotest superstitions which imagined that a baby is not alive until it is born and breathes, or that the soul or breath or _pneuma_ or “vital principle” is breathed into it at the moment of birth. We know, however, that a man may display for the first time at the age of twenty or sixty a character which was as truly inherent in his constitution as his nose or his spinal column--perhaps a beard, perhaps a mental character, perhaps a disease, or what not. Now this was not congenital though it was inherent. But as long as the stupid[29] word “congenital” is used as it is, we shall fail to realise that inherent characters may display themselves in an individual at any time after birth as at any time before birth. Thus, to sum up, a character may be congenital or rather _pre-congenital_, yet not inherent but acquired: a character may be post-congenital, yet not acquired but inherent. Now the all-important question as regards heredity is not at what date in the history of an individual a character appears--as, for instance, before birth or after birth; but, whether that character is inherent and therefore transmissible and therefore a possible architect of the future of mankind; or merely an acquirement, with which--the racial poisons apart--heredity has no concern. It is suggested, then, that the word congenital be expunged from the vocabulary of science, or that, if it be retained, some meaning or other--any will do--be attached to it. If the word is to be retained, and if it be agreed to attach a meaning to it, probably “at birth” would be the most convenient. If this were agreed upon, then the phrase “congenital blindness,” now in common use, could be retained, as it would then accurately indicate the nature of the blindness in question, which is due almost invariably, if not invariably, to an infection acquired at the moment of birth.