Ponder this fact, see its bearing on the character and destiny of your child, of all children, and of the race, and see if its importance can be over-estimated. That it is a fact, in the science of Embryology and Fœtal Development, is not denied. Whatever _temporarily_ affects the maternal blood, must _permanently_ affect the organic conditions and constitutional tendencies, and of course the post-natal character and destiny, of the child. This is much insisted on by writers on the laws and function of reproduction. Thus Carpenter, in his “Principles of Human Physiology,” says: “That many of the organic functions are directly influenced by the nervous system, is a matter which does not admit of dispute,—sometimes in exciting, sometimes in checking, and sometimes in otherwise modifying them.”—(Sec. 946.) Whatever, then, affects the nervous system, affects the organic functions. That the nervous system is deeply affected by the kind and quality of our food and drink, and by mental impressions, cannot be doubted. Witness the influence of tea, alcohol, opium, tobacco, and various kinds of food, on the nerves, and also of anger, grief, revenge, fear, love, hate, &c. As Carpenter says, “The influence of particular conditions of the mind in exciting various secretions is a matter of daily experience.” He instances the increased secretion and flow of saliva by the idea of food, the secretion and flow of tears by joy, tenderness, or grief, and the influence of the love of offspring on the mammary secretions. “The sexual secretions,” he says, “are strongly influenced by the conditions of the mind;” instancing the effects of a “fitful temper,” “fits of anger,” “grief,” “anxiety of mind,” “fear,” “terror,” on the mammary secretions, and showing that these emotions often so poison the mother’s milk as permanently to affect the health, and sometimes destroy the life of the nursing child.—(Sec. 948.) Weigh well the following sentiments of Carpenter: “That the mental state of the mother can produce important alterations in her own blood, seems demonstrated by the considerations previously adduced in regard to its effects upon the process of nutrition and secretion, and that such alterations are _sufficient to determine modifications in the developmental processes of the embryo_, TO WHICH HER BLOOD FURNISHES THE MATERIAL, can scarcely admit a question, when we recollect what influence the presence or absence of particular substances has in modifying the growth of parts of the adult.” In regard to cases where children are marked before birth, he says: “The effect must be produced upon the maternal blood, and _transmitted through it to the fœtus_, since there is no nervous communication between the parent and offspring.”