To those who may ask: "But why should we give all this time, care and trouble to the young of the race--what is their claim upon us that demands so much of us in return for so little on their part?" the answer is plain. We should do this not alone because of the natural feeling of love for our own offspring which is innate in all normal human beings, but we should also do this because we owe a duty to the race in and which we are units--a duty which demands that we supply to the race the best material, and only the best, for its preservation, continuance, and betterment. The spirit of the age is pointing out the direction indicated by Eugenics and scientific Birth Control. And it is a spirit in which the best mental and spiritual powers of man are called into action. A new consciousness--the "race consciousness"--is awakening within the best of the race, and accompanying it is a new CONSCIENCE--a "race conscience"--is manifesting within us, and is giving the individual a sense of right and wrong toward future generations, just as his earlier-awakened social conscience has opened his eyes to his duties toward his neighbors. Man is beginning to feel that all men are his brothers, and that the future generations of men are in a sense his children. The new ideal of "Let us build posterity worthily" has begun to supplant the old narrow idea humorously expressed in the famous bull of Sir Boyce Roche, who said, "Why should we do anything for posterity--what has posterity ever done for us?" As Dr. Saleeby has well said: "If the struggle toward individual perfection be religious, so assuredly is the struggle, less egoistic indeed, toward racial perfection. * * * And they that shall be of us shall build up the old waste places; for we shall raise up the foundations of many generations." And in all this, also, we find ever present the distinctive note of modern thought, viz., "NOT MORE CHILDREN, BUT BETTER ONES; NOT MORE BIRTHS, BUT LESS DEATHS AND MORE SURVIVALS; NOT NUMERICAL BIRTH VALUES, BUT QUALITATIVE BIRTH VALUES AND NUMERICAL SURVIVAL VALUES." LESSON VII PRE-NATAL INFLUENCES The term "Pre-Natal" of course means "before birth," and Pre-Natal Influences are those influences exerted upon the child before its birth into the world. The students of Eugenics are vitally interested in the subject of Pre-Natal Influences, as they recognize that therein is to be found the secret of much which will work along the line of "better offspring," and general race-betterment. Pre-Natal Influences (as the term is used in the present consideration of the subject) may be considered as manifesting in three phases, as follows: (1) The influence of the physical, mental, and moral "family characteristics" of the parents, transmitted to the child along the lines of heredity.